Job 26:5

Second division AN INCOMPARABLE DESCRIPTION OF THE DIVINE MAJESTY AND GLORY, Job 26:5-14.

Strophe a Not only are the heavenly hosts pacified by the majestic presence of the Lord as Bildad had shown, (Job 25:1,) but the shades of the under world tremble at the outgoings of the divine power; a power also displayed in upholding the world, Job 26:5-7.

5. With his characteristic abruptness Job launches into his subject, in medias res. Job first portrays the glory of God as felt in sheol, the world of the dead. The verse should be read, The dead tremble beneath the waters, and the inhabitants thereof.

Dead things הרפאים , The Rephaim. This word, primarily used of a race of giants, (Genesis 14:5; Genesis 15:20,) was in the course of time applied to the dead, (Psalms 88:10; Isaiah 14:9; Isaiah 14:19; Isaiah 26:14; Proverbs 2:18; Proverbs 9:18; Proverbs 21:16,) to whom the imagination attributed a towering form. Vitringa thinks that the word originally denoted the shades of the departed, and was transferred to denote men of gigantic bulk, and so finally became an appellation of both. (Com. on Isaiah, 1, 433.) The word is cognate with the Arabic rafaa, “to soften,” and signifies “the weak,” “the relaxed,” (Delitzsch,) or “the shadowy,” (Furst,) corresponding to the Greek οι καμοντες , “the wearied,” also “the relaxed,” an epithet of the dead. The best modern Hebraists accordingly ascribe to the Rephaim here spoken of the classic meaning of Manes, (“the Shades”) i.e., beings consciously alive. This word also occurs in the Phoenician inscription of Sargon.

Are formed יחוללו , substantially the same word, in Habakkuk 3:10 is rendered trembled, which is its meaning here, according to Hahn, Zockler, Hitzig, etc. Compare James 2:19. Whether the word be derived from hhoul or hhalal, it carries with it, the idea of suffering, a fact which leads Delitzsch, Dillmann, etc., to translate “are put to pain.” This passage is of moment not only in that it indicates and confirms Job’s belief in the consciousness of the dead, but also that some of them those gigantic in wickedness, ( Rephaim) trembled, or, as others say, “writhed” (T. Lewis) beneath the display of God’s power.

Under the waters The terrors of sheol were heightened by the popular notion not only that it was subterranean, but that it extended beneath the sea, with its many monsters. The strange horror of death by water which possessed the ancient mind, (see note of Servius on the AEneid, 1:93,) possibly taking its rise in the awfulness of the deluge, may account for the association in the popular mind of the abode of a portion of the dead with the great deep. “That even these dwellers in the under world, although otherwise without feeling or motion, and at such an immeasurable distance from God’s dwelling-place, should be touched and terrified by the workings of the divine agency this is a much stronger evidence of God’s greatness than aught that Bildad had alleged.” Hirtzel.