The Syriac and Arabic: "Behold, the giants are slain, and are drawn out of the water." None of these appear to give any sense by which the true meaning can be determined.
There is probably here an allusion to the destruction of the earth by the general deluge. Moses, speaking concerning the state of the earth before the flood, says, [Gen 6:4], "There were giants נפלים nephilim, in the earth in those days." Now it is likely that Job means the same by רפאים rephaim as Moses does by the nephilim; and that both refer to the antediluvians, who were all, for their exceeding great iniquities, overwhelmed by the waters of the deluge. Can those mighty men and their neighbors, all the sinners who have been gathered to them since, be rejected from under the waters, by which they were judicially overwhelmed?
Mr. Good thinks the shades of the heroes of former times, the gigantic spectres, the mighty or enormous dead, are meant.
I greatly question whether sea-monsters be not intended, such as porpoises, sharks, narwals, grampuses, and whales. We know, however that an opinion anciently prevailed, that the Titans, a race of men of enormous stature, rebelled against the gods, and endeavored to scale heaven by placing one mountain on the top of another; and that they and their structure were cast down by the thunder of the deities, and buried under the earth and sea; and that their struggles to arise produce the earthquakes which occur in certain countries. Now although this opinion is supported by the most respectable antiquity among the heathens, it is not to be supposed that in the word of God there can be any countenance given to an opinion at once as absurd as it is monstrous. (But still the poet may use the language of the common people). I must therefore either refer the passage here to the antediluvians, or to the vast sea-monsters mentioned above.
Verse 6
Hell is naked before him - Sheol, the place of the dead, or of separate spirits, is always in his view. And there is no covering to Abaddon - the place of the destroyer, where destruction reigns, and where those dwell who are eternally separated from God. The ancients thought that hell or Tartarus was a vast space in the center, or at the very bottom of the earth. So Virgil, Aen. lib. vi., ver. 577: - - Tum Tartarus ipse
Bis patet in praeceps tantum, tenditque sub umbras,
Quantus ad aethereum coeli suspectus Olympum
Hic genus antiquum terrae, Titania pubes,
Fulmine dejecti, fundo volvuntur in imo. "Full twice as deep the dungeon of the fiends,
The huge Tartarean gloomy gulf, descends
Below these regions, as these regions lie
From the bright realms of yon ethereal sky.
Here roar the Titan race, th' enormous birth;
The ancient offspring of the teeming earth.
Pierced by the burning bolts of old they fell,
And still roll bellowing in the depths of hell."
Pitt.
And some have supposed that there is an allusion to this opinion in the above passage, as well as in several others in the Old Testament; but it is not likely that the sacred writers would countenance an opinion that certainly has nothing in fact or philosophy to support it. Yet still a poet may avail himself of popular opinions.
Verse 7
He stretcheth out the north over the empty place - על תהו al tohu, to the hollow waste. The same word as is used, [Gen 1:2], The earth was without form, תהו tohu. The north must here mean the north pole, or northern hemisphere; and perhaps what is here stated may refer to the opinion that the earth was a vast extended plain, and the heavens poised upon it, resting on this plain all round the horizon. Of the south the inhabitants of Idumea knew nothing; nor could they have any notion of inhabitants in that hemisphere.
Hangeth the earth upon nothing - The Chaldee says: "He lays the earth upon the waters, nothing sustaining it."
Verse 8
He bindeth up the waters - Drives the aqueous particles together, which were raised by evaporation, so that, being condensed, they form clouds which float in the atmosphere, till, meeting with strong currents of wind, or by the agency of the electric fluid, they are farther condensed; and then, becoming too heavy to be sustained in the air, fall down in the form of rain, when, in this poetic language, the cloud is rent under them.
Verse 9
He holdeth back the face of his throne - Though all these are most elegant effects of an omniscient and almighty power, yet the great Agent is not personally discoverable; he dwelleth in light unapproachable, and in mercy hides himself from the view of his creatures. The words, however may refer to those obscurations of the face of heaven, and the hiding of the body of the sun, when the atmosphere is laden with dense vapours, and the rain begins to be poured down on the earth.
Verse 10
He hath compassed the waters with bounds - Perhaps this refers merely to the circle of the horizon, the line that terminates light and commences darkness, called here עד תכלית אור עם חשך ad tachlith or im chosech, "until the completion of light with darkness." Or, if we take תכלית tachlith here to be the same with תכלת techeleth, [Exo 25:4], and elsewhere, which we translate blue, it may mean that sombre sky-blue appearance of the horizon at the time of twilight, i.e., between light and darkness; the line where the one is terminating and the other commencing. Or, He so circumscribes the waters, retaining them in their own place, that they shall not be able to overflow the earth until day and night, that is, time itself, come to an end.
Verse 11
The pillars of heaven tremble - This is probably a poetical description either of thunder, or of an earthquake: - "He shakes creation with his nod;
Earth, sea, and heaven, confess him God."
But there may be an allusion to the high mountains, which were anciently esteemed by the common people as the pillars on which the heavens rested; and when these were shaken with earthquakes, it might be said the pillars of heaven tremble. Mount Atlas was supposed to be one of those pillars, and this gave rise to the fable of Atlas being a man who bore the heavens on his shoulders. The Greek and Roman poets frequently use this image. Thus Silius Italicus, lib. i., ver. 202: -
Atlas subducto tracturus vertice coelum:
Sidera nubiferum fulcit caput, aethereasque
Erigit aeternum compages ardua cervix:
Canet barba gelu, frontemque immanibus umbris
Pinea silva premit; vastant cava tempora venti
Nimbosoque ruunt spumantia flumina rictu. "Atlas' broad shoulders prop th' incumbent skies:
Around his cloud-girt head the stars arise.
His towering neck supports th' ethereal way;
And o'er his brow black woods their gloom display.
Hoar is his beard; winds round his temples roar;
And from his jaws the rushing torrents pour."
J. B. C.