1 And YHWH answers Job out of the whirlwind and says: 2 “Who [is] this—darkening counsel, || By words without knowledge? 3 Now gird your loins as a man, || And I ask you, and you cause Me to know. 4 Where were you when I founded the earth? Declare, if you have known understanding. 5 Who placed its measures—if you know? Or who has stretched out a line on it? 6 On what have its sockets been sunk? Or who has cast its cornerstone— 7 In the singing together of [the] stars of morning, || When all [the] sons of God shout for joy? 8 And He shuts up the sea with doors, || In its coming forth, it goes out from the womb. 9 In My making a cloud its clothing, || And thick darkness its swaddling band, 10 And I measure My statute over it, || And place bar and doors, 11 And say, To here you come, and no more, || And a command is placed || On the pride of your billows. 12 Have you commanded morning since your days? Do you cause the dawn to know its place? 13 To take hold on the skirts of the earth, || And the wicked are shaken out of it, 14 It turns itself as clay of a seal || And they station themselves as clothed. 15 And their light is withheld from the wicked, || And the arm lifted up is broken. 16 Have you come to springs of the sea? And in searching the deep || Have you walked up and down? 17 Were the gates of death revealed to you? And do you see the gates of death-shade? 18 You have understanding, || Even to the broad places of earth! Declare—if you have known it all. 19 Where [is] this—the way light dwells? And darkness, where [is] this—its place? 20 That you take it to its boundary, || And that you understand the paths of its house. 21 You have known—for then you are born, || And the number of your days [are] many! 22 Have you come to the treasure of snow? Indeed, do you see the treasures of hail, 23 That I have kept back for a time of distress, || For a day of conflict and battle? 24 Where [is] this, the way light is apportioned? It scatters an east wind over the earth. 25 Who has divided a conduit for the flood? And a way for the lightning of the voices? 26 To cause [it] to rain on a land [with] no man, || A wilderness [with] no man in it. 27 To satisfy a desolate and ruined place, || And to cause to shoot up || The produce of the tender grass? 28 Does the rain have a father? Or who has begotten the drops of dew? 29 From whose belly came forth the ice? And the hoarfrost of the heavens, || Who has begotten it? 30 Waters are hidden as a stone, || And the face of the deep is captured. 31 Do you bind the chains of the Pleiades? Or do you open the cords of Orion? 32 Do you bring out the twelve signs in [their] season? And do you comfort the Great Bear over her sons? 33 Have you known the statutes of the heavens? Or do you appoint || Its dominion in the earth? 34 Do you lift up your voice to the cloud, || And abundance of water covers you? 35 Do you send out lightnings, and they go || And say to you, Behold us? 36 Who has put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who has given understanding to the covered part? 37 Who numbers the clouds by wisdom? And the bottles of the heavens, || Who causes to lie down, 38 In the hardening of dust into hardness, || And clods cleave together? 39 Do you hunt prey for a lion? And fulfill the desire of young lions? 40 When they bow down in dens—Abide in a thicket for a covert? 41 Who prepares for a raven his provision, || When his young ones cry to God? They wander without food.”
Job · Literal Standard Version
Job 38 Literal Standard Version
Audio: World English Bible (WEB), read by Winfred W. Henson · About the recordings
Cross references (40)
Related passages for each verse, from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge as collected and ranked by readers at OpenBible.info.
- 1 Job 40:6; 2 Kings 2:11; Job 37:1–2; Exodus 19:16–19; 1 Kings 19:11
- 2 Job 42:3; Job 35:16; 1 Timothy 1:7; Job 34:35; Job 27:11
- 3 Job 40:7; Jeremiah 1:17; Exodus 12:11; 1 Kings 18:46; 1 Peter 1:13
- 4 Psalm 104:5; Hebrews 1:10; Proverbs 30:4; Hebrews 1:2; Psalm 102:25
- 5 Isaiah 40:12; Job 11:9; Zechariah 2:1–2; Proverbs 8:27; Isaiah 40:22
- 6 Job 26:7; Psalm 104:5; Psalm 93:1; Isaiah 28:16; 2 Peter 3:5
- 7 Revelation 5:11; Job 1:6; Ezra 3:11–12; Revelation 22:16; Revelation 2:28
- 8 Genesis 1:9; Proverbs 8:29; Jeremiah 5:22; Psalm 104:8–9; Psalm 33:7
- 9 Genesis 1:2
- 10 Jeremiah 5:22; Psalm 104:9; Psalm 33:7; Job 26:10; Genesis 1:9–10
- 11 Psalm 89:9; Proverbs 8:29; Psalm 65:6–7; Luke 8:32–33; Mark 4:39–41
- 12 Psalm 74:16; Psalm 148:3–5; Genesis 1:5; Job 8:9; Psalm 136:7–8
- 13 Psalm 104:35; Job 37:3; Exodus 14:27; Psalm 104:21–22; Job 24:13–17
- 14 Psalm 104:6; Psalm 104:2
- 15 Psalm 10:15; Psalm 37:17; Job 18:5; Proverbs 4:19; Ezekiel 30:22
- 16 Proverbs 8:24; Psalm 77:19; Job 26:5–6; Jeremiah 51:36
- 17 Psalm 9:13; Psalm 107:18; Job 3:5; Job 12:22; Psalm 107:14
- 18 Revelation 20:9; Psalm 89:11–12; Jeremiah 31:37; Isaiah 40:28; Job 28:24
- 19 Ezekiel 32:8; Matthew 27:45; Isaiah 45:7; Genesis 1:3–4; Amos 4:13
- 20 Job 26:10; Genesis 10:19; Genesis 23:17
- 21 Job 15:7; Job 38:4; Job 38:12
- 22 Job 37:6; Psalm 135:7; Psalm 33:7; Job 6:16
- 23 Joshua 10:11; Isaiah 30:30; Revelation 16:21; Exodus 9:18; Job 36:13
- 24 Job 38:12–13; Jonah 4:8; Matthew 24:27
- 25 Job 28:26; Psalm 29:3–10; Job 36:27–28; Job 37:3–6
- 26 Jeremiah 14:22; Psalm 107:35; Hebrews 6:7–8; Isaiah 35:1–2; Isaiah 43:19–20
- 27 Psalm 107:35; Psalm 104:14
- 28 Jeremiah 14:22; Psalm 147:8; Jeremiah 10:13; Proverbs 3:20; Deuteronomy 33:13
- 29 Psalm 147:16–17; Job 37:10; Job 6:16; Job 38:8
- 30 Job 37:10
- 31 Amos 5:8; Job 9:9
- 32 Job 38:31; 2 Kings 23:5; Job 9:9
- 33 Jeremiah 31:35–36; Genesis 8:22; Psalm 148:6; Job 38:12–13; Jeremiah 33:25
- 34 Job 22:11; Zechariah 10:1; James 5:18; Job 36:27–28; 1 Samuel 12:18
- 35 Job 36:32; Job 37:3; 2 Kings 1:14; Revelation 11:5–6; Numbers 16:35
- 36 Job 32:8; Psalm 51:6; Proverbs 2:6; Ecclesiastes 2:26; James 1:5
- 37 Psalm 147:4; Genesis 9:15; Genesis 8:1; Genesis 15:5
- 39 Psalm 104:21; Job 4:10–11; Psalm 34:10; Psalm 145:15–16
- 40 Job 37:8; Numbers 24:9; Numbers 23:24; Genesis 49:9
- 41 Luke 12:24; Matthew 6:26; Psalm 147:9; Psalm 104:27–28
Cross references: OpenBible.info (CC BY), drawn mainly from the public-domain Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. · Sources & licences
What the Fathers said
Passages from the Church Fathers that expound or quote this chapter, verbatim from the public-domain Schaff edition (19th-century English translations).
How these were chosen
“Commentary” is the opening of a homily or exposition on this chapter (John Chrysostom’s homilies, Augustine’s tractates, sermons and expositions of the Psalms). “Quotes” are sentences where the edition’s own footnotes identify a quotation of a verse here, kept only when the wording matches the verse. Only works whose authorship is not in doubt are used. Psalms follow the Hebrew/English numbering (Augustine numbers them as the Septuagint does: his Psalm 50 is Psalm 51 here).
Who is the father of the rain? And who hath begotten the drops of dew?
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 7 (1894)
And yet, O talkative Dialectician, I will ask thee one small question, and answer thou me, as He saith to Job, Who through whirlwind and cloud giveth Divine admonitions. Are there many mansions in God's House, as thou hast heard, or only one?
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 7 (1894)
Put then a limit to your thought, so that your curiosity in investigating the incomprehensible may not incur the reproaches of Job, and you be not asked by him, "Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened?" If ever you hear in the Psalms, "I bear up the pillars of it;" see in these pillars the power which sustains it.
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 8 (1895)
… condensed the air into clouds, and bade them carry the waters of the rain, now bringing golden-tinted clouds from the north, now changing these into one uniform appearance, and again transforming them into manifold circles and other shapes? Who can number the clouds in wisdom?
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 7 (1894)
Whereof in Job it saith, And He knoweth the separations of the clouds, and hath bent down the heaven to the earth: and, He who numbereth the clouds in wisdom: and, the cloud is not rent under Him.
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 7 (1894)