Job 9:6

Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

9:1-13 In this answer Job declared that he did not doubt the justice of God, when he denied himself to be a hypocrite; for how should man be just with God? Before him he pleaded guilty of sins more than could be counted; and if God should contend with him in judgment, he could not justify one out of a thousand, of all the thoughts, words, and actions of his life; therefore he deserved worse than all his present sufferings. When Job mentions the wisdom and power of God, he forgets his complaints. We are unfit to judge of God's proceedings, because we know not what he does, or what he designs. God acts with power which no creature can resist. Those who think they have strength enough to help others, will not be able to help themselves against it.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Which shaketh the earth out of her place - This evidently refers to violent convulsions of nature, as if the earth were to be taken away. Objects on the earth's surface become displaced, and convulsion seems to seize the world. The Septuagint renders this, "who shaketh that which is under the heavens from its foundations" - ἐκ Θεμελίων ek themeliōn. The change in the Hebrew would be very slight to authorize this rendering.

And the pillars thereof tremble - In this place the earth is represented as sustained like a building by pillars or columns. Whether this is a mere poetic representation, or whether it describes the actual belief of the speaker in regard to the structure of the earth, it is not easy to determine. I am inclined to think it is the former, because in another place where he is speaking of the earth, he presents his views in another form, and more in acoordance with the truth (see the notes at Job 26:7): and because here the illustration is evidently taken from the obvious and perceived effects of an earthquake. It would convulse and agitate the pillars of the most substantial edifice, and so it seemed to shake the earth, as if its very supports would fall.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6. The earth is regarded, poetically, as resting on pillars, which tremble in an earthquake (Ps 75:3; Isa 24:20). The literal truth as to the earth is given (Job 26:7).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The earth, i.e. great portions of it, by earthquakes, or by removing islands, which sometimes hath been done.

The pillars thereof, i.e. the strength or the strongest parts of it, the mountains, yea, the deep and inward parts of it, which, like pillars, supported those parts which appear to our view, and yet have been discovered and overturned by earthquakes.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Which shaketh the earth out of her place,.... Can do it, and will do it at the last day, when it shall be utterly broken down, clean dissolved, and reel to and fro like a drunkard, and be removed as a cottage, and which John in a vision saw flee away from the presence of him that sat upon the throne, Isaiah 24:19; for this cannot be understood of earthquakes in common, which are only partial, and do not remove the earth out of its place, only shake some parts of it; and this may also refer to the time of the flood, when the earth received some change and alteration in its situation, as Mr. Burnet in his Theory of the Earth observes; and the Apostle Peter suggests something of this kind, when he distinguishes the present earth from the former, which he says stood out of the water and in it, but the present earth not so, but is reserved for fire, 2 Peter 3:5,

and the pillars thereof tremble; the centre or lower parts of it, see Psalm 75:3.

Geneva Study Bible

Which {c} shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble.

(c) He declares the infirmity of man, by the mighty and incomprehensible power that is in God, showing what he could do if he would set forth his power.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. The reference is probably to earthquakes. The earth is conceived as a structure supported on pillars, ch. Job 38:6; Psalm 75:3. The conception was poetical; if the pillars were supposed anything actual, they were probably the roots of the great mountains which extended downwards and bore up the earth, as the part of them above the earth supported the heavens.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - Which shaketh the earth out of her place. This is a still more startling figure of speech; but comp. Psalm 46:2; Psalm 68:16; Psalm 114:4, 6. And the pillars thereof tremble. The earth is conceived of, poetically, as a huge edifice, supported on pillars (comp. Psalm 75:3), which in an earthquake are shaken, and impart their motion to the entire building. Rosenmuller's quotation of Seneca, 'Nat. Quaest.,' 6:20 - "Fortasse ex aliqua parle terra veluti columnis quibusdam et pills sustinetur, quibus vitiatis et recedentibus tremit pondus impositum" - is apposite. Job 9:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

5 Who removeth mountains without their knowing,

That He hath overturned them in His wrath;

6 Who causeth the earth to shake out of its place,

And its pillars to tremble;

7 Who commandeth the sun, and it riseth not,

And sealeth up the stars.

ידעוּ ולא (Job 9:5) may also be translated: without one's perceiving it or knowing why; but it is more natural to take the mountains as the subject. אשׁר, quod, that (not "as," Ewald, 333, a), after ידע, as Ezekiel 20:26; Ecclesiastes 8:12. Even the lofty mountains are quite unconscious of the change which He effects on them in a moment. Before they are aware that it is being done, it is over, as the praet. implies; the destructive power of His anger is irresistible, and effects its purpose suddenly. He causes the earth to start up from its place (comp. Isaiah 13:13) which it occupies in space (Job 26:7); and by being thus set in motion by Him, its pillars tremble, i.e., its internal foundations (Psalm 104:5), which are removed from human perception (Job 38:6). It is not the highest mountains, which are rather called the pillars, as it were the supports, of heaven (Job 26:11), that are meant. By the same almighty will He disposes of the sun and stars. The sun is here called חרס (as in Judges 14:18 חרסה with unaccented ah, and as Isaiah 19:18 ‛Ir ha-Heres is a play upon החרס עיר, Ἡλιούπολις), perhaps from the same root as חרוּץ, one of the poetical names of gold. At His command the sun rises not, and He seals up the stars, i.e., conceals them behind thick clouds, so that the day becomes dark, and the night is not made bright. One may with Schultens think of the Flood, or with Warburton of the Egyptian darkness, and the standing still of the sun at the word of Joshua; but these are only single historical instances of a fact here affirmed as a universal experience of the divine power.