Job 9

Job 9:1-35 . REPLY OF JOB TO BILDAD.

2. I know it is so of a truth--that God does not "pervert justice" ( Job 8:3 ). But (even though I be sure of being in the right) how can a mere man assert his right--(be just) with God. The Gospel answers ( Romans 3:26 ).

3. If he--God
will contend with him--literally, "deign to enter into judgment."
he cannot answer, &c.--He (man) would not dare, even if he had a thousand answers in readiness to one question of God's, to utter one of them, from awe of His Majesty.

4. wise in heart--in understanding!--and mighty in power! God confounds the ablest arguer by His wisdom, and the mightiest by His power.
hardened himself--or his neck ( Proverbs 29:1 ); that is, defied God. To prosper, one must fall in with God's arrangements of providence and grace.

5. and they know not--Hebrew for "suddenly, unexpectedly, before they are aware of it" ( Psalms 35:8 ); "at unawares"; Hebrew, which "he knoweth not of" ( Joel 2:14 , Proverbs 5:6 ).

6. The earth is regarded, poetically, as resting on pillars, which tremble in an earthquake ( Psalms 75:3 , Isaiah 24:20 ). The literal truth as to the earth is given ( Job 26:7 ).

7. The sun, at His command, does not rise; namely, in an eclipse, or the darkness that accompanies earthquakes ( Job 9:6 ).
sealeth up the stars--that is, totally covers as one would seal up a room, that its contents may not be seen.

8. spreadeth out--( Isaiah 40:22 , Psalms 104:2 ). But throughout it is not so much God's creating, as His governing, power over nature that is set forth. A storm seems a struggle between Nature and her Lord! Better, therefore, "Who boweth the heavens alone," without help of any other. God descends from the bowed-down heaven to the earth ( Psalms 18:9 ). The storm, wherein the clouds descend, suggests this image. In the descent of the vault of heaven, God has come down from His high throne and walks majestically over the mountain waves (Hebrew, "heights"), as a conqueror taming their violence. So "tread upon" ( Deuteronomy 33:29 , Amos 4:13 , Matthew 14:26 ). The Egyptian hieroglyphic for impossibility is a man walking on waves.

9. maketh--rather, from the Arabic, "covereth up." This accords better with the context, which describes His boundless power as controller rather than as creator [UMBREIT].
Arcturus--the great bear, which always revolves about the pole, and never sets. The Chaldeans and Arabs, early named the stars and grouped them in constellations; often travelling and tending flocks by night, they would naturally do so, especially as the rise and setting of some stars mark the distinction of seasons. BRINKLEY, presuming the stars here mentioned to be those of Taurus and Scorpio, and that these were the cardinal constellations of spring and autumn in Job's time, calculates, by the precession of equinoxes, the time of Job to be eight hundred eighteen years after the deluge, and one hundred eighty-four before Abraham.
Orion--Hebrew, "the fool"; in Job 38:31 he appears fettered with "bands." The old legend represented this star as a hero, who presumptuously rebelled against God, and was therefore a fool, and was chained in the sky as a punishment; for its rising is at the stormy period of the year. He is Nimrod (the exceedingly impious rebel) among the Assyrians; Orion among the Greeks. Sabaism (worship of the heavenly hosts) and hero-worship were blended in his person. He first subverted the patriarchal order of society by substituting a chieftainship based on conquest ( Genesis 10:9 Genesis 10:10 ).
Pleiades--literally, "the heap of stars"; Arabic, "knot of stars." The various names of this constellation in the East express the close union of the stars in it ( Amos 5:8 ).
chambers of the south--the unseen regions of the southern hemisphere, with its own set of stars, as distinguished from those just mentioned of the northern. The true structure of the earth is here implied.