Skip to content

Job 26

Job: Who Can Understand God’s Majesty?

¹ Then Job answered:

² “How you have helped the powerless and saved the arm that is feeble!

³ How you have counseled the unwise and provided fully sound insight!

⁴ To whom have you uttered these words? And whose spirit spoke through you?

⁵ The dead tremble— those beneath the waters and those who dwell in them.

⁶ Sheol is naked before God, and Abaddon 1 has no covering.

⁷ He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth upon nothing.

⁸ He wraps up the waters in His clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their own weight.

⁹ He covers the face of the full moon,2 spreading over it His cloud.

¹⁰ He has inscribed a horizon on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness.

¹¹ The foundations of heaven quake, astounded at His rebuke.

¹² By His power He stirred 3 the sea; by His understanding He shattered Rahab.

¹³ By His breath the skies were cleared; His hand pierced the fleeing serpent.4

¹⁴ Indeed, these are but the fringes of His ways; how faint is the whisper we hear of Him! Who then can understand the thunder of His power?”


  1. 26:6 Abaddon means Destruction. ↩︎

  2. 26:9 Or of His throne ↩︎

  3. 26:12 Or stilled ↩︎

  4. 26:13 Hebrew nachash; translated in most cases as snake ↩︎