Job
Job 26
1Then Job answered,
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4 commentators · 32 notes on this chapter
Matthew Henry2
Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.
Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.
One would not have thought that Job, when he was in so much pain and misery, could banter his friend as he does here and make himself merry with the impertinency of his discourse. Bildad thought that he had made a fine speech, that the matter was so weighty…
The truth received a great deal of light from the dispute between Job and his friends concerning those points about which they differed; but now they are upon a subject in which they were all agreed, the infinite glory and power of God. How does truth…
John Gill14
The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.
Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.
But Job answered,.... In a very sharp and biting manner; one would wonder that a man in such circumstances should have so much keenness of spirit, and deal in so much irony, and be master of so much satire, and be able to laugh at his antagonist in the manner…
How hast thou helped him that is without power?.... This verse and Job 26:3 either are to be understood of God, as many do, by reading the words, "who hast thou helped? God" (r)? a fine advocate for him thou art, representing him as if he was without power…
How hast thou counselled him that hath no wisdom?.... A man deprived of wisdom has need of counsel, and it should be given him; and he does well both to ask and take it; and be it so, as if Job should say, that I am the foolish and unwise creature you take me…
Keil & Delitzsch4
The technical one, and Old Testament only. Expect Hebrew grammar, textual argument, and direct engagement with nineteenth-century critical scholarship — closer to a scholarly apparatus than a devotional read. Where a modern critic claims a text is late or composite, this is where the conservative counter-argument was made.
Why this voice is here: Old Testament only, and heavy going — but the place to look when someone asserts a passage cannot mean what it appears to.
5 - The shades are put to pain Deep under the waters and their inhabitants. 6 Shel is naked before him, And the abyss hath no covering. 7 He stretched the northern sky over the emptiness; He hung the earth upon nothing. Bildad has extolled God's majestic…
8 He bindeth up the waters in His clouds, Without the clouds being rent under their burden. 9 He enshroudeth the face of His throne, Spreading His clouds upon it. 10 He compasseth the face of the waters with bounds, To the boundary between light and darkness…
11 The pillars of heaven tremble And are astonished at His threatening. 12 By His power He rouseth up the sea, And by His understanding He breaketh Rahab in pieces. 13 By His breath the heavens become cheerful; His hand hath formed the fugitive dragon. The…
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown12
The concise option. Three authors split the canon, so the voice shifts between sections. Expect brief, sober, conservative notes that resolve difficulties rather than dwelling on them — useful for orientation, thinner than Gill or Clarke where a passage is genuinely contested.
Why this voice is here: The quickest way to see what the mainstream Reformed reading of a passage is. Start here, then go to Gill or Clarke when it matters.
plentifully . . . the thing as it is--rather, "abundantly--wisdom." Bildad had made great pretensions to abundant wisdom. How has he shown it?
For whose instruction were thy words meant? If for me I know the subject (God's omnipotence) better than my instructor; Job 26:5-14 is a sample of Job's knowledge of it. whose spirit--not that of God (Job 32:8); nay, rather, the borrowed sentiment of Eliphaz…
As before in the ninth and twelfth chapters, Job had shown himself not inferior to the friends' inability to describe God's greatness, so now he describes it as manifested in hell (the world of the dead), Job 26:5-6; on earth, Job 26:7; in the sky, Job…
World English Bible — Public domain