ao:eng_webu
Job 26
1Then Job answered,
2“How have you helped him who is without power! How have you the arm that has no strength!
3How have you counseled him who has no wisdom, and plentifully declared sound knowledge!
4To whom have you uttered words? Whose spirit came out of you?
5“The departed spirits tremble, those beneath the waters and all that live in them.
6Sheol is naked before God, and Abaddon has no covering.
7He stretches out the north over empty space, and hangs the earth on nothing.
8He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not burst under them.
9He encloses the face of his , and spreads his cloud on it.
10He has described a boundary on the surface of the waters, and to the confines of light and darkness.
11The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his rebuke.
12He stirs up the sea with his power, and by his understanding he strikes through Rahab.
13By his Spirit the heavens are garnished. His hand has pierced the swift serpent.
14Behold, 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?”
Slow reading
Read Job 26 three times
Guided passes through short verse groups: read it whole, watch the words, then pray it back. Phrases to stop on along the way, with deeper explanation held back until you have read the verses yourself.
Ask about this chapter
Have a question about Job 26?
Ask anything about this chapter. Every answer names the verses it rests on and links straight to them, highlighted in the reader.
Study together
Questions on Job 26
Every comment is tied to a place in the text: a verse, a span of verses, or one section of the study. Ask what you do not understand, and answer others from Scripture.
Sign in to ask a question or answer one. Reading always stays open to everyone.
Questions this passage answers
Why does God allow suffering?
Scripture never gives one tidy reason for all suffering. It says that pain entered a good world through sin, that God is neither its author nor its prisoner, that he uses it without approving of it, and that he entered it himself in Christ rather than explaining it from a distance. The Bible answers the question with a person before it answers it with an argument.
Why does God seem silent?
God's apparent silence is felt by some of the most faithful people in Scripture, not only by the weak in faith. David, Job and Habakkuk all cried out into what felt like empty air. Scripture never rebukes them for asking. It records their words as prayer, answers them in its own time, and teaches that God's silence is never his absence.