Job 38:10

And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors,

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(10) And brake up for it my decreed place.—Rather, And prescribed for it my decree: that is to say, determined the boundaries of its abode. When we bear in mind the vast forces and unstable nature of the sea, it seems a marvel that it acknowledges any limits, and is held in restraint by them.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

38:4-11 For the humbling of Job, God here shows him his ignorance, even concerning the earth and the sea. As we cannot find fault with God's work, so we need not fear concerning it. The works of his providence, as well as the work of creation, never can be broken; and the work of redemption is no less firm, of which Christ himself is both the Foundation and the Corner-stone. The church stands as firm as the earth.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And brake up for it my decreed place - Margin, "established my decree upon it." So Herder, "I fixed my decrees upon it." Luther renders it, "Da ich ihm den Lauf brach mit meinem Damm" - "then I broke its course with my barrier." Umbreit renders it, "I measured out to it my limits;" that is, the limits or bounds which I judged to be proper. So the Vulgate, "Circumdedi illud terminis meis" - "I surrounded it with my limits," or with such limits as I chose to affix. The Septuagint renders it, "I placed boundaries to it." Coverdale, "I gave it my commandment." This is undoubtedly the sense which: the connection demands; and the idea in the common version, that God had broken up his fixed plans in order to accommodate the new-born ocean, is not in accordance with the parallelism. The Hebrew word (שׁבר shâbar) indeed commonly means "to break, to break in pieces." But, according to Gesenius, and as the place here demands, it may have the sense of measuring off, defining, appointing, "from the idea of breaking into portions;" and then the sense will be, "I measured for it (the sea) my appointed bound."

This meaning of the word is, however, more probably derived from the Arabic, where the word שׁבר shâbar means to measure with the span (Castell), and hence, the idea here of measuring out the limits of the ocean. The sense is, that God measured out or determined the limits of the sea. The idea of breaking up a limit or boundary which had been before fixed, it is believed, is not in the text. The word rendered "my decreed place" (חקי chuqiy) refers commonly to a law, statute, or ordinance, meaning originally anything that was "engraved" (חקק châqaq) and then, because laws were engraved on tablets of brass or stone, any statute or decree. Hence, it means anything prescribed or appointed, and hence, a "bound," or "limit;" see the notes at Job 26:10; compare Proverbs 8:29, "When he gave to the sea his decree (חקו chuqô) that the waters should not pass his commandment." The idea in the passage before us is, that God fixed the limits of the ocean by his own purpose or pleasure.

And set bars - Doors were formerly fastened, as they are often now, by cross-bars; and the idea here is, that God had inclosed the ocean, and so fastened the doors from where, it would issue out, that it could not pass.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

10. brake up for—that is, appointed it. Shores are generally broken and abrupt cliffs. The Greek for "shore" means "a broken place." I broke off or measured off for it my limit, that is, the limit which I thought fit (Job 26:10).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Brake up for it my decreed place, i.e. made those valleys, or channels, and hollow places in the earth, which might serve for a cradle to receive and hold this great and goodly infant when it came out of the womb. See Genesis 1:9,10 Psa 33:7. Or, ordained or established my decree upon or concerning it. Set bars and doors, i.e. fixed its bounds as strongly as if they were fortified with bars and doors.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And brake up for it my decreed place,.... Or, as Mr. Broughton translates it, "and brake the earth for it by my decree": made a vast chasm in the earth to hold the waters of the sea, which was provided as a sort of cradle to put this swaddled infant in; God cleaved the earth, raised the hills and sank the valleys, which became as channels to convey the waters that ran off the earth to their appointed place, which beautifully expressed in Psalm 104:7; and refers there, as here, to the work of creation on the second day, Genesis 1:9 (h);

and set bars and doors; to keep it in its decreed appointed place, that the waters might not go over the earth; these are the shores, as the Targum, the cliffs and rocks upon them, the boundaries of the sea; to which may be added, and what is amazing, the sand upon the seashore is such a boundary to it that it cannot pass, Jeremiah 5:22; but these would be insufficient was it not for the power and will of God, next expressed.

(h) Or determined, that is, appointed for it its convenient, proper, and fixed place; so David de Pomis, Lexic. fol. 203. 1.

Geneva Study Bible

And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors,

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

10. brake up for it my decreed place] Rather, and brake for it my bound, i. e. set it my appointed boundary. The expression “brake” may refer to the deep and abrupt precipices which mark the coast line in many places.

The figures in these verses are very splendid. First, the ocean is represented as an infant giant, breaking forth from the womb. (It is not necessary perhaps to ask whether the interior of the earth be thought of as the “womb” of the ocean, or whether “womb” merely belongs to the figure of the ocean’s birth.) Then the infant ocean was swathed in clouds and thick clouds were its swaddling bands. Finally the new-born monster must be tamed by almighty power, and an impassable bound set to its proud fury.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 10. - And brake up for it my decreed place; rather, as in the margin, and established my decree upon it; or, as in the Revised Version, and prescribed for it my decree. The decree itself is given in ver. 11. And set bars and doors (see above, ver. 8, where the imagery of "doors" has been already introduced). As Professor Lee observes, "The term דְּלָתַיִם contains a metaphor taken from the large folding-doors of a city, which are usually set up for the purpose of stepping the progress of an invading enemy, and are hence supplied with bolts and bars" ('Book of Job,' p. 490). Representations of such folding-doors are common in the Assyrian sculptures; and in one instance the doors themselves, or, to speak more exactly, their outer bronze easing, has been recovered (see a paper in the 'Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology,' on the Bronze Gates discovered by Mr. Rassam at Balawat, vol. 7. pp. 85-115). These gates were twenty-two feet high and six feet broad each. Job 38:10

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

8 And who shut up the sea with doors,

When it broke through, issued from the womb,

9 When I put clouds round it as a garment,

And thick mist as its swaddling clothes,

10 And I broke for it my bound,

And set bars and doors,

11 And said: Hitherto come, and no further,

And here be thy proud waves stayed!?

The state of תהו ובהו was the first half, and the state of תהום the second half of the primeval condition of the forming earth. The question does not, however, refer to the תהום, in which the waters of the sky and the waters of the earth were as yet not separated, but, passing over this intermediate condition of the forming earth, to the sea, the waters of which God shut up as by means of a door and bolt, when, first enshrouded in thick mist (which has remained from that time one of its natural peculiarities), and again and again manifesting its individuality, it broke forth (גּיח of the foetus, as Psalm 22:10) from the bowels of the, as yet, chaotic earth. That the sea, in spite of the flatness of its banks, does not flow over the land, is a work of omnipotence which broke over it, i.e., restraining it, a fixed bound (חק as Job 26:10; Proverbs 8:29; Jeremiah 5:22, equals גּבוּל, Psalm 104:9), viz., the steep and rugged walls of the basin of the sea, and which thereby established a firm barrier behind which it should be kept. Instead of וּפה, Joshua 18:8, Job 38:11 has the Chethib וּפא. חק is to be understood with ישׁית, and "one set" is equivalent to the passive (Ges. 137*): let a bound be set (comp. שׁת, Hosea 6:11, which is used directly so) against the proud rising of thy waves.