Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 38:8
Or [who] shut up the sea with doors, when it broke forth, [as if] it had issued out of the womb?
8. as if it had issued ] Rather, and issued out of the womb.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
8 10. The sea.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Or who shut up the sea with doors – This refers also to the act of the creation, and to the fact that God fixed limits to the raging of the ocean. The word doors is used here rather to denote gates, such as are made to shut up water in a dam. The Hebrew word properly refers, in the dual form which is used here delethiym), to double doors, or to folding doors, and is also applied to the gates of a city; Deu 3:5; 1Sa 23:7; Isa 45:1. The idea is, that the floods were bursting forth from the abyss or the center of the earth, and were checked by placing gates or doors which restrained them. Whether this is designed to be a poetic or a real description of what took place at the creation, it is not easy to determine. Nothing forbids the idea that something like this may have occurred when the waters in the earth were pouring forth tumultuously, and when they were restrained by obstructions placed there by the hand of God, as if he had made gates through which they could pass only when he should open them. This supposition also would accord well with the account of the flood in Gen 7:11, where it is said that the fountains of the great deep were broken up, as if those flood-gates had been opened, or the obstructions which God had placed there had been suffered to be broken through, and the waters of their own accord flowed over the world. We know as yet too little of the interior of the earth, to ascertain whether this is to be understood as a literal description of what actually occurred.
When it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb – All the images here are taken from child-birth. The ocean is represented as being born, and then as invested with clouds and darkness as its covering and its swaddling-bands. The image is a bold one, and I do not know that it is any where else applied to the formation of the ocean.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 8. Who shut up the sea with doors] Who gathered the waters together into one place, and fixed the sea its limits, so that it cannot overpass them to inundate the earth?
When it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?] This is a very fine metaphor. The sea is represented as a newly born infant issuing from the womb of the void and formless chaos; and the delicate circumstance of the liquor amnii, which bursts out previously to the birth of the foetus, alluded to. The allusion to the birth of a child is carried on in the next verse.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Who was it, thou or I, that did set bounds to the vast and raging ocean, and shut it up as it were with doors within its proper place and storehouse, that it might not overflow the earth; which without Gods powerful restraint it would do? See Psa 33:7; 104:9. This sense seems most proper, and to be confirmed by the following verses.
When it brake forth, or, after it had broken forth, to wit, from the womb or bowels of the earth, within which the waters were for the most part contained, Gen 1:2; compare 2Pe 3:5; and out of which they were by Gods command brought forth into the proper place or channel which God had appointed for them.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
8. doorsfloodgates; thesewhen opened caused the flood (Ge8:2); or else, the shores.
wombof chaos. Thebowels of the earth. Image from childbirth (Job 38:8;Job 38:9; Eze 32:2;Mic 4:10). Ocean at its birth waswrapped in clouds as its swaddling bands.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Or [who] shut up the sea with doors,…. From the earth the transition is to the sea, according to the order of the creation; and this refers not to the state and case of the sea as at the flood, of which some interpret it, but as at its first creation; and it is throughout this account represented as an infant, and here first as in embryo, shut up in the bowels of the earth, where it was when first created with it, as an infant shut up in its mother’s womb, and with the doors of it; see Job 3:10; the bowels of the earth being the storehouses where God first laid up the deep waters, Ps 33:7; and when the chaos, the misshapen earth, was like a woman big with child;
when it brake forth out of the abyss, as the Targum, with force and violence, as Pharez broke out of his mother’s womb; for which reason he had his name given, which signifies a breach, Ge 38:29; so it follows,
[as if] it had issued out of the womb; as a child out of its mother’s womb; so the sea burst forth and issued out of the bowels of the earth, and covered it all around, as in Ps 104:6; and now it was that the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, before they were drained off the earth; this was the first open visible production of the sea, and nay be called the birth of it; see Ge 1:2. Something like this the Heathen philosopher Archelaus had a notion of, who says g, the sea was shut up in hollow places, and was as it were strained through the earth.
g Laert. Vit. Philosoph. l. 2. p. 99.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
8 And who shut up the sea with doors,
When it broke through, issued from the womb,
9 When I put clouds round it as a garment,
And thick mist as its swaddling clothes,
10 And I broke for it my bound,
And set bars and doors,
11 And said: Hitherto come, and no further,
And here be thy proud waves stayed!?
The state of was the first half, and the state of the second half of the primeval condition of the forming earth. The question does not, however, refer to the , in which the waters of the sky and the waters of the earth were as yet not separated, but, passing over this intermediate condition of the forming earth, to the sea, the waters of which God shut up as by means of a door and bolt, when, first enshrouded in thick mist (which has remained from that time one of its natural peculiarities), and again and again manifesting its individuality, it broke forth ( of the foetus, as Psa 22:10) from the bowels of the, as yet, chaotic earth. That the sea, in spite of the flatness of its banks, does not flow over the land, is a work of omnipotence which broke over it, i.e., restraining it, a fixed bound ( as Job 26:10; Pro 8:29; Jer 5:22, = , Psa 104:9), viz., the steep and rugged walls of the basin of the sea, and which thereby established a firm barrier behind which it should be kept. Instead of , Jos 18:8, Job 38:11 has the Chethib . is to be understood with , and “one set” is equivalent to the passive (Ges. 137*): let a bound be set (comp. , Hos 6:11, which is used directly so) against the proud rising of thy waves.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
b. Job may, perhaps, tell who separated the sea from the womb of primeval chaos, and restrained its violence and rage within doors and bars, and made it docile and pliant as an infant in the hands of God, and subjected it to the dominion of eternal law, Job 38:8-11.
8. As if it had issued When it issued, or burst forth. The figure is one of incomparable grandeur. At the command of God the sea comes forth from the chaos in which, as in a womb, it had lain concealed. The same verb, , “burst forth,” is used in Psa 22:9 of the issuing of the fetus from the womb.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 38:8. When it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb When it burst forth as an infant, that cometh out of the womb. Heath.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Job 38:8 Or [who] shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, [as if] it had issued out of the womb?
Ver. 8. Or who shut up the sea with doors ] i.e. With bounds and banks. The sea God shut up in the hollow parts of the earth, as in a great house, that the dry land, naturally overwhelmed thereby, might appear, and become fit, both to bear grain, grass, plants, &c., and to yield a habitation for men and beasts. Piscator thinks it is a metaphor from flood gates at mill ponds.
When it brake forth as if it had issued out of the womb?
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Job 38:8-11
Job 38:8-11
THE GOVERNMENT AND CONTROL OF THE SEA
“Or who shut up the sea with doors,
When it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb;
When I made clouds the garment thereof,
And thick darkness a swaddling band for it,
And marked out for it my bound,
And set bars and doors,
And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further;
And here shalt thy proud waves be staid?”
E.M. Zerr:
Job 38:8-11. The clouds cover the sea and it is completely shrouded in darkness, all without the actions of man. Hitherto refers to the bounds of the sea. Man can build partial bounds in the form of dikes or levees, but even they are often demolished by the relentless power of the waves. Who, then, has held the sea in its bounds as we know them through all the years; it was not man.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
who: Job 38:10, Gen 1:9, Psa 33:7, Psa 104:9, Pro 8:29, Jer 5:22
out: Job 38:29
Reciprocal: Gen 7:11 – all Exo 14:29 – walked 1Ki 17:4 – I have commanded Job 11:10 – shut up Job 26:10 – compassed Job 36:30 – and Job 38:28 – Hath the Psa 24:2 – and Psa 29:10 – sitteth Psa 65:7 – noise Psa 89:9 – General Psa 107:24 – his wonders Psa 146:6 – the sea Pro 3:20 – the depths Mat 8:26 – and rebuked Luk 8:25 – being
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 38:8-10. Who shut up the sea with doors? Who was it that set bounds to the vast and raging ocean, and shut it up, as it were, with doors within its proper place, that it might not overflow the earth? When it brake forth, &c. From the womb or bowels of the earth, within which the waters were for the most part contained, and out of which they were by Gods command brought forth into the channel which God had appointed for them. When I made the cloud the garment thereof When I covered it with vapours and clouds which rise out of the sea, and hover above it, and cover it like a garment. And thick darkness Black and dark clouds; a swaddling-band for it Having compared the sea to a new-born infant, he continues the metaphor, and makes the clouds as swaddling-bands, to keep it within its bounds; though indeed neither clouds, nor air, nor sands, nor shores, can bound the sea, but God alone. And brake up for it my decreed place Made those hollow places in the earth, which might serve for a cradle to receive and hold this great and goodly infant when it came out of the womb. And set bars and doors Fixed its bounds as strongly as if they were fortified with bars and doors.