Job 38:10

10 I (en)compassed it with my terms, and I setted a bar, and doors; (I surrounded it with borders, and I set its doors and bars in place;)

Job 38:10 Meaning and Commentary

Job 38:10

And brake up for it my decreed [place]
Or, as Mr. Broughton translates it, "and brake the earth for it by my decree": made a vast chasm in the earth to hold the waters of the sea, which was provided as a sort of cradle to put this swaddled infant in; God cleaved the earth, raised the hills and sank the valleys, which became as channels to convey the waters that ran off the earth to their appointed place, which beautifully expressed in ( Psalms 104:7 Psalms 104:8 ) ; and refers there, as here, to the work of creation on the second day, ( Genesis 1:9 Genesis 1:10 ) ^F8;

and set bars and doors;
to keep it in its decreed appointed place, that the waters might not go over the earth; these are the shores, as the Targum, the cliffs and rocks upon them, the boundaries of the sea; to which may be added, and what is amazing, the sand upon the seashore is such a boundary to it that it cannot pass, ( Jeremiah 5:22 ) ; but these would be insufficient was it not for the power and will of God, next expressed.

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FOOTNOTES:

F8 Or determined, that is, appointed for it its convenient, proper, and fixed place; so David de Pomis, Lexic. fol. 203. 1.

Job 38:10 In-Context

8 Who closed together the sea with doors, when it brake out coming forth as of the womb? (Who altogether enclosed the sea with doors, when it broke out as if coming forth from the womb?)

9 When I setted a cloud the covering thereof, and I wrapped it with darkness, as with (the) ?clothes of young childhood.

10 I (en)compassed it with my terms, and I setted a bar, and doors; (I surrounded it with borders, and I set its doors and bars in place;)

11 and I said, Hitherto thou shalt come, and thou shalt not go further; and here thou shalt break together thy swelling waves. (and I said, Thou shalt come hitherto, and thou shalt go no further; and here thou shalt altogether break thy swelling waves.)

12 Whether after thy birth thou commandedest to the beginning of the day, and showedest to the morrowtide his place? (and hast shown, or told, the morning its place?)