Job 9:7
Read Job 9:7 Using Other Translations
What does Job 9:7 mean?
Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not
Either he could do it if he would, by a word speaking, as he
ordered it to stand still in the times of Joshua, ( Joshua 10:13
) , and caused the shadow to return ten degrees it had gone back
in the dial of Ahaz, in the times of Hezekiah, ( 2 Kings
20:11 ) ( Isaiah 38:8 ) ; or else
the sense is, it rises not at any other time and place but when
and where he commands it; or he commands it not to rise in the
same place at one time of the year as at another, and it rises
not; or this may be understood of eclipses, or of its being
covered with clouds in tempestuous weather for a considerable
time together, when it seems as if it was not risen: some think
this respects the three days' darkness in Egypt, when the
Israelites were there, ( Exodus 10:22
) , which was a little before, or about the time of Job; or
rather it refers to the general flood, in the times of Noah, when
it rained forty days and forty nights, ( Genesis 7:12
) , during which time the sun appeared not, and so seemed as if
it was not risen; see ( Amos 8:9 ) ; Herodotus
F2 relates, from the memoirs of the
Egyptians, that the sun rose four times out of its usual course;
twice it rose where it now sets, and twice it set where it now
rises:
and sealeth up the stars:
either by the light of the sun in the daytime, which hides them
that they are not visible, or by dark clouds and tempestuous
weather in the night; such a season as that was in which the
Apostle Paul and the mariners with him were, when neither sun nor
stars appeared for many days, ( Acts 27:20 ) , and so
the Targum paraphrases it, and
``sealeth up the stars with clouds;''this may also refer to the time of the flood, during the rain of forty days and nights, ( Genesis 7:4-12 ) ; or to the annual motion of the sun through the ecliptic, which makes the point of the sun's rising and setting vary, and is the reason why some stars appear in summer and are sealed up in winter, and others that are seen in winter are not visible in summer; and so Cocceius interprets it.
F2 Euterpe, sive, l. 2. c. 149.
