Job says God "hangs the earth on nothing" (26:7). Is he describing how the world is made?

The chapter doesn't say how Job meant it, and these notes don't turn it into a claim about science. What the text shows is that Scripture speaks of the earth and sky in more than one picture. Here Job says, "He stretches out the north over empty space, and hangs the earth on nothing" (26:7). In the same chapter he says, "The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his rebuke" (26:11), and in chapter 9 he said of God, "He shakes the earth out of its place. Its pillars tremble" (9:6); pillars is the same Hebrew word in both. The LORD later asks Job, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" (38:4). What these verses share is the one who holds it all: in 26:7 it is God who stretches out the north and hangs the earth.