Job 38:8 - Exposition

Or who shut up the sea with doors? From the earth a transition is made to the sea, as the second great wonder in creation (comp. Genesis 1:9 , Genesis 1:10 ; Exodus 20:11 ; Psalms 104:24 , Psalms 104:25 ). God's might is especially shown in his power to control and confine the sea, which rages so terribly and seems so utterly uncontrollable. God has blocked it in "with doors"— i.e. with "bounds that it cannot pass, neither turn again to cover the earth" ( Psalms 145:9 ). Sometimes the barrier is one of lofty and solid rock, which seems well suited to confine and restrain; but sometimes it is no more than a thin streak of sliver sand or a bank of loose, shifting pebbles. Yet, in both eases alike, the restraint suffices. "The sand is placed for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it" ( Jeremiah 5:22 ); the beach of shifting pebbles remains as firm as the rock itself, and never recedes or advances more than a few feet. When it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb ; i.e. at its birth, when it was first formed, by the gathering together of the waters into one place (see Genesis 1:9 ).