Job 26 · a question people ask
From 26:5 Job stops saying you and speaks of God's power, as Bildad did in 25:2-3. Who is speaking in 26:5-14?
By the book's headings, Job. The heading is "Then Job answered" (26:1), and the next is "Job again took up his parable, and said" (27:1); nothing between them names another speaker, and the WEB closes the quotation only after "But the thunder of his power who can understand?" (26:14). What changes at 26:5 is whom the words are about: in 26:2-4 Job says you to one person, and from 26:5 he speaks of God and of what God does. Some of these verses are close to Job's own words in chapter 9: "He alone stretches out the heavens" (9:8) sits beside "He stretches out the north over empty space" (26:7), and "The helpers of Rahab stoop under him" (9:13) beside "he strikes through Rahab" (26:12). Readers take these verses in more than one way. These notes keep to the book's headings, which give every verse to Job, and don't decide.
The verses
“Then Job answered,”
“Job again took up his parable, and said,”
“Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways. How small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?””
““How have you helped him who is without power! How have you saved the arm that has no strength! How have you counseled him who has no wisdom, and plentifully declared sound knowledge! To whom have you uttered words? Whose spirit came out of you? “The departed spirits tremble, those beneath the waters and all that live in them.”