Isaiah 48:13

48:13 Yes, my hand founded the earth;

my right hand spread out the sky.

I summon them;

they stand together.

Job 11:7-9

11:7 “Can you discover ¹  the essence ²  of God?

Can you find out ³ 

the perfection of the Almighty? ⁴ 

11:8 It is higher ⁵  than the heavens – what can you do?

It is deeper than Sheol ⁶  – what can you know?

11:9 Its measure is longer than the earth,

and broader than the sea.

Job 38:4-11

God’s questions to Job

38:4 “Where were you

when I laid the foundation ⁷  of the earth?

Tell me, ⁸  if you possess understanding!

38:5 Who set its measurements – if ⁹  you know –

or who stretched a measuring line across it?

38:6 On what ¹⁰  were its bases ¹¹  set,

or who laid its cornerstone –

38:7 when the morning stars ¹²  sang ¹³  in chorus, ¹⁴ 

and all the sons of God ¹⁵  shouted for joy?

38:8 “Who shut up ¹⁶  the sea with doors

when it burst forth, ¹⁷  coming out of the womb,

38:9 when I made ¹⁸  the storm clouds its garment,

and thick darkness its swaddling band, ¹⁹ 

38:10 when I prescribed ²⁰  its limits,

and set ²¹  in place its bolts and doors,

38:11 when I said, ‘To here you may come ²² 

and no farther, ²³ 

here your proud waves will be confined’? ²⁴ 

Psalms 102:25-26

102:25 In earlier times you established the earth;

the skies are your handiwork.

102:26 They will perish,

but you will endure. ²⁵ 

They will wear out like a garment;

like clothes you will remove them and they will disappear. ²⁶ 

Psalms 104:2-3

104:2 He covers himself with light as if it were a garment.

He stretches out the skies like a tent curtain,

104:3 and lays the beams of the upper rooms of his palace on the rain clouds. ²⁷ 

He makes the clouds his chariot,

and travels along on the wings of the wind. ²⁸ 

Proverbs 8:26-28

8:26 before he made the earth and its fields, ²⁹ 

or the beginning ³⁰  of the dust of the world.

8:27 When he established the heavens, I was there;

when he marked out the horizon ³¹  over the face of the deep,

8:28 when he established the clouds above,

when the fountains of the deep grew strong, ³² 

Proverbs 30:4

30:4 Who has ascended into heaven, and then descended? ³³ 

Who has gathered up the winds in his fists? ³⁴ 

Who has bound up the waters in his cloak? ³⁵ 

Who has established all the ends of the earth? ³⁶ 

What is his name, and what is his son’s name? ³⁷  – if you know!

Hebrews 1:10-12

1:10 And,

“You founded the earth in the beginning, Lord, ³⁸ 

and the heavens are the works of your hands.

1:11 They will perish, but you continue.

And they will all grow old like a garment,

1:12 and like a robe you will fold them up

and like a garment ³⁹  they will be changed,

but you are the same and your years will never run out.” ⁴⁰ 

Revelation 20:11

The Great White Throne

20:11 Then ⁴¹  I saw a large ⁴²  white throne and the one who was seated on it; the earth and the heaven ⁴³  fled ⁴⁴  from his presence, and no place was found for them.

[11:7]  ¹ tn The verb is מָצָא (matsa’, “to find; to discover”). Here it should be given the nuance of potential imperfect. And, in the rhetorical question it is affirming that Job cannot find out the essence of God.

[11:7]  ² tn The word means “search; investigation”; but it here means what is discovered in the search (so a metonymy of cause for the effect).

[11:7]  ³ tn The same verb is now found in the second half of the verse, with a slightly different sense – “attain, reach.” A. R. Ceresko notes this as an example of antanaclasis (repetition of a word with a lightly different sense – “find/attain”). See “The Function of Antanaclasis in Hebrew Poetry,” CBQ 44 (1982): 560-61.

[11:7]  ⁴ tn The abstract תַּכְלִית (takhlit) from כָּלָה (kalah, “to be complete; to be perfect”) may mean the end or limit of something, perhaps to perfection. So the NIV has “can you probe the limits of the Almighty?” The LXX has: “have you come to the end of that which the Almighty has made?”

[11:8]  ¹ tn The Hebrew says “heights of heaven, what can you do?” A. B. Davidson suggested this was an exclamation and should be left that way. But most commentators will repoint גָּבְהֵי שָׁמַיִם (govhe shamayim, “heights of heaven”) to גְּבֹהָה מִשָּׁמַיִם (gÿvohah mishamayim, “higher than the heavens”) to match the parallel expression. The LXX may have rearranged the text: “heaven is high.”

[11:8]  ² tn Or “deeper than hell.” The word “Sheol” always poses problems for translation. Here because it is the opposite of heaven in this merism, “hell” would be a legitimate translation. It refers to the realm of the dead – the grave and beyond. The language is excessive; but the point is that God’s wisdom is immeasurable – and Job is powerless before it.

[38:4]  ¹ tn The construction is the infinitive construct in a temporal clause, using the preposition and the subjective genitive suffix.

[38:4]  ² tn The verb is the imperative; it has no object “me” in the text.

[38:5]  ¹ tn The particle כּ (ki) is taken here for a conditional clause, “if you know” (see GKC 498 §159.dd). Others take it as “surely” with a biting irony.

[38:6]  ¹ tn For the interrogative serving as a genitive, see GKC 442 §136.b.

[38:6]  ² sn The world was conceived of as having bases and pillars, but these poetic descriptions should not be pressed too far (e.g., see Ps 24:2, which may be worded as much for its polemics against Canaanite mythology as anything).

[38:7]  ¹ sn The expression “morning stars” (Heb “stars of the morning”) is here placed in parallelism to the angels, “the sons of God.” It may refer to the angels under the imagery of the stars, or, as some prefer, it may poetically include all creation. There is a parallel also with the foundation of the temple which was accompanied by song (see Ezra 3:10,11). But then the account of the building of the original tabernacle was designed to mirror creation (see M. Fishbane, Biblical Text and Texture).

[38:7]  ² tn The construction, an adverbial clause of time, uses רָנָן (ranan), which is often a ringing cry, an exultation. The parallelism with “shout for joy” shows this to be enthusiastic acclamation. The infinitive is then continued in the next colon with the vav (ו) consecutive preterite.

[38:7]  ³ tn Heb “together.” This is Dhorme’s suggestion for expressing how they sang together.

[38:7]  ⁴ tn See Job 1:6.

[38:8]  ¹ tn The MT has “and he shut up.” The Vulgate has “Who?” and so many commentaries and editions adopt this reading, if not from the Vulgate, then from the sense of the sequence in the text itself.

[38:8]  ² tn The line uses two expressions, first the temporal clause with גִּיחַ (giakh, “when it burst forth”) and then the finite verb יֵצֵא (yetse’, “go out”) to mark the concomitance of the two actions.

[38:9]  ¹ tn The temporal clause here uses the infinitive from שִׂים (sim, “to place; to put; to make”). It underscores the sovereign placing of things.

[38:9]  ² tn This noun is found only here. The verb is in Ezek 16:4, and a related noun is in Ezek 30:21.

[38:10]  ¹ tc The MT has “and I broke,” which cannot mean “set, prescribed” or the like. The LXX and the Vulgate have such a meaning, suggesting a verb עֲשִׁית (’ashiyt, “plan, prescribe”). A. Guillaume finds an Arabic word with a meaning “measured it by span by my decree.” Would God give himself a decree? R. Gordis simply argues that the basic meaning “break” develops the connotation of “decide, determine” (2 Sam 5:24; Job 14:3; Dan 11:36).

[38:10]  ² tn Dhorme suggested reversing the two verbs, making this the first, and then “shatter” for the second colon.

[38:11]  ¹ tn The imperfect verb receives the permission nuance here.

[38:11]  ² tn The text has תֹסִיף (tosif, “and you may not add”), which is often used idiomatically (as in verbal hendiadys constructions).

[38:11]  ³ tn The MT literally says, “here he will put on the pride of your waves.” The verb has no expressed subject and so is made a passive voice. But there has to be some object for the verb “put,” such as “limit” or “boundary”; the translations “confined; halted; stopped” all serve to paraphrase such an idea. The LXX has “broken” at this point, suggesting the verse might have been confused – but “breaking the pride” of the waves would mean controlling them. Some commentators have followed this, exchanging the verb in v. 11 with this one.

[102:26]  ¹ tn Heb “stand.”

[102:26]  ² tn The Hebrew verb חָלַף (khalaf) occurs twice in this line, once in the Hiphil (“you will remove them”) and once in the Qal (“they will disappear”). The repetition draws attention to the statement.

[104:3]  ¹ tn Heb “one who lays the beams on water [in] his upper rooms.” The “water” mentioned here corresponds to the “waters above” mentioned in Gen 1:7. For a discussion of the picture envisioned by the psalmist, see L. I. J. Stadelmann, The Hebrew Conception of the World, 44-45.

[104:3]  ² sn Verse 3 may depict the Lord riding a cherub, which is in turn propelled by the wind current. Another option is that the wind is personified as a cherub. See Ps 18:10 and the discussion of ancient Near Eastern parallels to the imagery in M. Weinfeld, “‘Rider of the Clouds’ and ‘Gatherer of the Clouds’,” JANESCU 5 (1973): 422-24.

[8:26]  ¹ tn Heb “open places.”

[8:26]  ² tn Here רֹאשׁ (ro’sh) means “beginning” with reference to time (BDB 911 s.v. 4.b).

[8:27]  ¹ sn The infinitive construct בְּחוּקוֹ (bÿkhuqo, “to cut; to engrave; to mark”) and the noun חוּג (khug, “horizon; circle”) form a paronomasia in the line.

[8:28]  ¹ tn To form a better parallel some commentators read this infinitive בַּעֲזוֹז (ba’azoz), “when [they] grew strong,” as a Piel causative, “when he made firm, fixed fast” (cf. NIV “fixed securely”; NLT “established”). But the following verse (“should not pass over”) implies the meaning “grew strong” here.

[30:4]  ¹ sn To make his point Agur includes five questions. These, like Job 38–41, or Proverbs 8:24-29, focus on the divine acts to show that it is absurd for a mere mortal to think that he can explain God’s work or compare himself to God. These questions display mankind’s limitations and God’s incomparable nature. The first question could be open to include humans, but may refer to God alone (as the other questions do).

[30:4]  ² sn The questions are filled with anthropomorphic language. The questioner is asking what humans have ever done this, but the meaning is that only God has done this. “Gathering the wind in his fists” is a way of expressing absolute sovereign control over the forces of nature.

[30:4]  ³ sn The question is comparing the clouds of the heavens to garments (e.g., Job 26:8). T. T. Perowne writes, “Men bind up water in skins or bottles; God binds up the rain-floods in the thin, gauzy texture of the changing clouds, which yet by his power does not rend under its burden of waters.”

[30:4]  ⁴ sn The ends of the earth is an expression often used in scripture as a metonymy of subject referring to the people who live in the ends of the earth, the far off and remote lands and islands. While that is possible here as well, this may simply be a synecdoche saying that God created the whole world, even the most remote and distant places.

[30:4]  ⁵ sn The reference to “son” in this passage has prompted many suggestions down through the years: It was identified as Israel in the Jewish Midrashim, the Logos or demiurge by some of the philosophers and allegorical writers, as simple poetic parallelism without a separate identity by some critical scholars, and as Jesus by Christian commentators. Parallels with Ugaritic are interesting, because Baal is referred to as a son; but that is bound up within the pantheon where there was a father god. Some of the Jewish commentators exhibit a strange logic in expressing what Christians would say is only their blindness to the full revelation: There is little cogency in this being a reference to Jesus because if there had been such a person at any time in the past he would have left some tradition about it through his descendants (J. H. Greenstone, Proverbs, 317). But Judaism has taught from the earliest times that Messiah was preexistent (especially in view of Micah 5 and Daniel 7); and the claims of Jesus in the Gospels bear this out. It seems best to say that there is a hint here of the nature of the Messiah as Son, a hint that will later be revealed in full through the incarnation.

[1:10]  ¹ sn You founded the earth…your years will never run out. In its original setting Ps 102:25-27 refers to the work of God in creation, but here in Hebrews 1:10-12 the writer employs it in reference to Christ, the Lord, making a strong argument for the essential deity of the Son.

[1:12]  ¹ tc The words “like a garment” (ὡς ἱμάτιον, Jw" Jimation) are found in excellent and early mss (Ì⁴⁶ א A B D* 1739) though absent in a majority of witnesses (D¹ Ψ 0243 0278 33 1881 Ï lat sy bo). Although it is possible that longer reading was produced by overzealous scribes who wanted to underscore the frailty of creation, it is much more likely that the shorter reading was produced by scribes who wanted to conform the wording to that of Ps 102:26 (101:27 LXX), which here lacks the second “like a garment.” Both external and internal considerations decidedly favor the longer reading, and point to the author of Hebrews as the one underscoring the difference between the Son and creation.

[1:12]  ² sn A quotation from Ps 102:25-27.

[20:11]  ¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence within the narrative.

[20:11]  ² tn Traditionally, “great,” but μέγας (megas) here refers to size rather than importance.

[20:11]  ³ tn Or “and the sky.” The same Greek word means both “heaven” and “sky,” and context usually determines which is meant. In this apocalyptic scene, however, it is difficult to be sure what referent to assign the term.

[20:11]  ⁴ tn Or “vanished.”