Job — Chapter 26

Respondens autem Job dixit Cujus adjutor

On Job's ironic response to Baldad: "How have you helped him who has no power! How have you saved the arm that has no strength! How have you counseled him who has no wisdom?" Corderius explains this as irony directed at Baldad's pretension: by magnifying God's power and terror at such length, Baldad appears to be defending a Deity who needs no defending. On v. 3: "To whom have you given counsel? Is it not to him who has no wisdom?" — Corderius notes with Gregory (Moral. XVII.12): "to help the weak is charity; to want to help the powerful is the pride of vainglory." Boldly trying to defend God is characteristic of those who serve not truth but their own faction. On v. 4: "With whose help have you uttered words, and whose breath has come out from you?" — Corderius suggests Job is pointing to the emptiness of mere human rhetoric when applied to divine mysteries. On vv. 5-14: Job goes on to describe divine power more profoundly than Baldad — the giants groan under the waters, the underworld is naked before God, the north is stretched over void, the earth hangs over nothing, God wraps up the waters in his clouds, trembles the pillars of heaven — all concluding with v. 14: "Lo, these are but the outskirts of his ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of him!"

Ecce gigantes gemunt sub aquis

On the underworld and its subjection to God: "The dead tremble under the waters and their inhabitants. Sheol is naked before God, and Abaddon has no covering." Corderius treats the underworld as the most extreme of God's domains: even in the realm of death and darkness, divine omniscience and omnipotence hold absolute sway. The "giants under the waters" (rephaim, shades of the mighty dead) are read as the shades of the mighty dead who dwell in the waters of the underworld. Corderius notes that in ancient cosmography, the underworld was sometimes imagined as beneath the cosmic waters. Allegorically: "Sheol is naked before God" means that no soul in the afterlife can hide anything from divine judgment; the scrutiny that was veiled in this life is total and unobstructed in the next. He cites Chrysostom on the consolation this provides: the injustices of this life will be perfectly rectified in the life to come; divine justice that seems incomplete here will be perfectly complete there.

Ecce gigantes gemunt sub aquis

On the cosmic dimensions of divine power: Corderius develops the second half of Job's speech in ch. 26 as a systematic hymn to omnipotence: God's power extends to the underworld (v. 5-6), to cosmological space (the north stretched over void, the earth suspended over nothing, vv. 7-9), to the meteorological realm (binding water in clouds, veiling the throne, setting bounds to light and darkness, vv. 8-10), and to the mythological realm of chaos (smiting the sea, wounding the fleeing serpent, vv. 12-13). Corderius notes that this is the most poetically magnificent speech in the dialogue section, and interprets "the serpent tortuosus" (v. 13: "by his wind the heavens were made fair; his hand pierced the fleeing serpent") as the satanic chaos-figure that God has overcome — connecting it to Genesis 3:15, Isaiah 27:1, and the final vision of Leviathan in chs. 40-41. The serpent/dragon that God "pierced" in the cosmic creation-battle is the same adversary who has tormented Job, and whose ultimate defeat is certain.

Qui extendit aquilonem super vacuum

On God's cosmic power: "He stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing... He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness. The pillars of heaven tremble and are astounded at his rebuke." Corderius provides a cosmological commentary. On "he hangs the earth on nothing" (v. 7): this verse, remarkable in its apparent anticipation of the modern heliocentric and gravitational understanding of the earth's suspension in space, is treated by Corderius with wonder. He cites the Fathers: the earth hangs on the divine word alone, without visible support, as a demonstration that all being depends on divine sustaining power. On v. 14: "Lo, these are but the outskirts of his ways; and how small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power — who can understand?" — Corderius reads this as a masterpiece of rhetorical anticlimax: all the wonders of creation, even in their cosmic scale, are merely the fringes of the divine garment; the inner reality of God infinitely exceeds the most spectacular of his works.