Księga Hioba 26:7

Biblia Tysiąclecia

Rozciągnął północy nad miejscem próżnem, a ziemię zawiesił na niczem.

Parallel Translations

Biblia Brzeska (1563)
Rościągnął północy nad miejscem próżnem, a zawiesił ziemię ni na czym.

Biblia Gdańska (1632)
Rozciągnął północy nad miejscem próżnem, a ziemię zawiesił na niczem.

Nowe Przymierze Zaremba
On rozciąga północne niebo nad pustką i ziemię zawiesza nad nicością.

Nowa Biblia Gdańska (2012)
Rozciąga północ nadpustką , ziemię zawiesza nanicości.

Uwspółcześniona Biblia Gdańska
Rozciągnął północ nad pustym miejscem i ziemię zawiesił na niczym.

Biblia Warszawska
Rozpościera północ nad pustką, a ziemię zawiesza nad nicością.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Job 9:8, Genesis 1:1, Genesis 1:2, Psalms 24:2, Psalms 104:2-5, Proverbs 8:23-27, Isaiah 40:22, Isaiah 40:26, Isaiah 42:5

Reciprocal: Genesis 1:6 - Let there Genesis 1:9 - General Job 38:6 - Whereupon Psalms 78:69 - earth Psalms 89:12 - north Psalms 104:5 - Who laid the foundations of the earth Psalms 136:6 - General Isaiah 44:24 - I am Jeremiah 10:12 - stretched Zechariah 12:1 - which

Gill's Notes on the Bible

He stretcheth out the north over the empty place,.... The northern hemisphere, which is the chief and best known, at least it was in the time of Job, when the southern hemisphere might not be known at all; though, if our version of Job 9:9 is right, Job seems to have had knowledge of it. Scheuchzer u thinks the thick air farthest north is meant, which expands itself everywhere, and is of great use to the whole earth. But if the northern hemisphere is meant, as a learned man w expresses it, it

"was not only principal as to Job's respect, and the position of Arabia, but because this hemisphere is absolutely so indeed, it is principal to the whole; for as the heavens and the earth are divided by the middle line, the northern half hath a strange share of excellency; we have more earth, more men, more stars, more day (the same also Sephorno, a Jewish commentator on the place, observes); and, which is more than all this, the north pole is more magnetic than the south:''

though the whole celestial sphere may be intended, the principal being put for the whole; even that whole expansion, or firmament of heaven, which has its name from being stretched out like a curtain, or canopy, over the earth; which was done when the earth was "tohu", empty of inhabitants, both men and beasts, and was without form and void, and had no beauty in it, or anything growing on it; see Genesis 1:2;

[and] hangeth the earth upon nothing; as a ball in the air x, poised with its own weight y, or kept in this form and manner by the centre of gravity, and so some Jewish writers z interpret "nothing" of the centre of the earth, and which is nothing but "ens rationis", a figment and imagination of the mind; or rather the earth is held together, and in the position it is, by its own magnetic virtue, it being a loadstone itself; and as the above learned writer observes,

"the globe consisteth by a magnetic dependency, from which the parts cannot possibly start aside; but which, howsoever thus strongly seated on its centre and poles, is yet said to hang upon nothing; because the Creator in the beginning thus placed it within the "tohu", as it now also hangeth in the air; which itself also is nothing as to any regard of base or sustentation.''

In short, what the foundations are on which it is laid, or the pillars by which it is sustained, cannot be said, except the mighty power and providence of God. The word used seems to come from a root, which in the Syriac and Chaldee languages signifies to "bind [and] restrain"; and may design the expanse or atmosphere, so called from its binding and compressing nature, על, "in" or "within" which the earth is hung; see Psalms 32:9.

u Physic. Sacr. vol. 4. p. 724. w Gregory's Notes and Observations, &c. c. 12. p. 55. x "Terra pilae similis nullo fulcimine nixa", Ovid. Fast. 6. y "Circumfuso pendebat in aere tellus, ponderibus librata suis----", Ovid. Metamorph. l. 1. Fab. 1. z Ben Gersom & Bar Tzemach in loc.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

He stretcheth out the north - This whole passage is particularly interesting as giving a view of the cosmology which prevailed in those early times. Indeed, as has been already remarked, this poem, apart from every other consideration, is of great value for disclosing to us the prevailing views on the subject of astronomy, geography, and many of the arts, at a much earlier period than we have an account of them elsewhere. The word north here denotes the heavens as they appear to revolve around the pole, and which seem to be stretched out as a curtain. The heavens are often represented as a veil, an expanse, a curtain, or a tent; see Isaiah 34:4, note; Isaiah 40:22, note.

Over the empty place - על־תהוּ ‛al-tôhû, “Upon emptiness, or nothing.” That is, without anything to support it. The word used here (תהוּ tôhû) is one of those employed Genesis 1:2, “And the earth was wlthout form and void.” But it seems here to mean emptiness, nothing. The north is stretched out and sustained by the mere power of God.

And hangeth the earth upon nothing. - It has nothing to support it. So Milton:

“And earth self-balaneed from her center hung.”

There is no certain evidence here that Job was acquainted with the globular form of the earth, and with its diurnal and annual revolutions. But it is clear that he regarded it as not resting on any foundation or support; as lying on the vacant air, and kept there by the power of God. The Chaldee paraphrasist, in order to explain this, as that Paraphrase often does, adds the word waters. “He hangeth the earth מיא עלוי upon the waters, with no one to sustain it.” The sentiment here expressed by Job was probably the common opinion of his time. It occurs also in Lucretius:

Terraque ut in media mundi regionne quieseat

Evallescere paullatim, et decrescere, pondus

Convenit; atque aliam naturam subter habere,

Et ineunte aevo conjunctam atque uniter aptam

Partibus aeriis mundi, quibus insita vivit

Propterea, non est oneri, neque deprimit auras;

Ut sua quoique homini nullo sunt pondere membra,

Nec caput est oneri collo, nec denique totum

Corporus in pedibus pondus sentimus inesse.

v. 535.

In this passage the sense is, that the earth is self-sustained; that it is no burden, or that no one part is burdensome to another - as in man the limbs are not burdensome, the head is not heavy, nor the whole frame burdensome to the feet. So, again, Lucretius says, ii. 602:

Hanc, veteres Grajum docti cecinere poetae,

Aeris in spatio magnam pendere -

Tellurem, neque posse in terra sistere terram.

- “In ether poised she hangs,

Unpropt by earth beneath.”

So Ovid says:

Ponderibus librata suis.

Self-poised and self balanced.

And again, Fastor, vi. 269:

Terra pilae similis, nullo fulcimine nixa,

Aere subjecto tam grave pendet onus.

From passages like this occurring occasionally in the Classical writers, it is evident that the true figure of the earth had early engaged the attention of people, and that occasionally the truth on this subject was before their minds, though it was neither worked into a system nor sustained then by suffient evidence to make it an article of established belief The description here given is appropriate now; and had Job understood all that is now known of astronomy, his language would have been appropriate to express just conceptions of the greatness and majesty of God. It is proof of amazing power and greatness that he has thus “hung” the earth, the planets, the vast sun himself, upon nothing, and that by his own power he sustains and governs all.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Job 26:7. He stretcheth out the north over the empty place — על תהו al tohu, to the hollow waste. The same word as is used, Genesis 1:2, The earth was without form, תהו tohu. The north must here mean the north pole, or northern hemisphere; and perhaps what is here stated may refer to the opinion that the earth was a vast extended plain, and the heavens poised upon it, resting on this plain all round the horizon. Of the south the inhabitants of Idumea knew nothing; nor could they have any notion of inhabitants in that hemisphere.

Hangeth the earth upon nothing. — The Chaldee says: "He lays the earth upon the waters, nothing sustaining it."