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Job 12:15

in Job 12

If He holds back the waters, they dry up, and if He releases them, they overwhelm the land.

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾

ASV

Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up; Again, he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth.

KJV

Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: also he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth.

This verse in Job 12

Commentary

10 notes on this verse
He withholdeth the waters - From the clouds and springs. He has control over the rains and the fountains; and when these are withheld, rivers and lakes become dry. The Syriac renders this, - “if he rebuke the waters,” supposing that there might perhaps be an allusion to the drying up of the Red Sea, or the formation of a passage for the Israelites.

This site's exposition

What He tears down cannot be rebuilt

on Job 12:14-16

"What He tears down cannot be rebuilt" opens a survey of providence at work by unmaking what stands. Verse 15 pairs drought and flood as two faces of one governing hand. At verse 16, "The deceived and the deceiver are His" extends God's rule over deception itself.

This site's exposition

If He holds back the waters, they dry up

Job shows the power of God in drought and flood. Matthew Henry reads both as judgments on the land, when the waters are held back and when they overwhelm. Clarke hears an echo of Genesis 1:9, when God gathered the waters and the dry land appeared.

The record, by era

The Medieval Church2 voices

A commentator

Thomas Aquinas

Commentary on Job · Written before 1274.

proposed

Then he shows how men can experience divine power in natural things, especially in rains and droughts. So he says, "If he will withhold the rain," so that it does not fall, "everything will dry up," which grows on the earth. "If he will send …

A commentator

Gregory the Dialogist

Morals on the Book of Job, Book XI · Written before 604.

proposed

If He withholdeth the waters, all things are dried up. If He sendeth them out, they will overturn the earth.

The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices

A commentator

John Wesley

1703–1791

Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)

The waters - Which are reserved its the clouds, that they may not fall upon the earth. They - The waters upon the earth, springs, and brooks, and rivers. As at the time of the general deluge, to which here is a manifest allusion.

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

Great droughts are sometimes great judgments: He withholds the waters, and they dry up; if the heaven be as brass, the earth is as iron; if the rain be denied, fountains dry up and their streams are wanted, fields are parched and their fruits are wanted, Amos iv. Great wet is sometimes a great judgment.

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

proposed

I am not inferior to you: yea, who knoweth not such things as these? 4 I am as one mocked of his neighbour, who calleth upon God, and he answereth him: the just upright man is laughed to scorn. 5 He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease.

quarantine:scripture (2026-07-29) — verbatim-scripture

2 more voices on this verse

The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice

Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up,....

The Nineteenth Century1 voice

A commentator

Adam Clarke

1762–1832

Commentary on the Bible · Written before 1832.

proposed

He withholdeth the waters - This is, I think, an allusion to the third day’s work of the creation, Gen 1:9: And God said, Let the waters be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear. Thus the earth was drained, and the waters collected into seas, and bound to their particular places. Also he sendeth them out - Here is also an allusion to the flood, for when he broke up the fountains of the great deep, then the earth was overturned.

The words behind it

7 Hebrew words

Every Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

  • הֵ֤ןthere!

    henH2005 →316 times

  • יַעְצֹ֣רhe holds back

    ya'tzorH6113 →47 times

  • בַּמַּ֣יִם<in> the waters

    bamayimH4325 →581 times

  • וְיִבָ֑שׁוּso they may be dry

    veyivashuH3001 →59 times

  • וִֽ֝ישַׁלְּחֵ֗םand he lets loose them

    vishalechemH7971 →845 times

  • וְיַ֖הַפְכוּand they may devastate

    veyahafkhuH2015 →94 times

  • אָֽרֶץ׃[the] earth

    ʾaretzH776 →2504 times

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

The walk

8 stops

Each card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.

  • Through

    1 Kings 17:1

    Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was among the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As surely as the LORD lives—the God of Israel before whom I stand—there will be neither dew nor rain in…

    it leads to

    • Luke 4:25–26

      But I tell you truthfully that there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and great famine swept over all…

    • James 5:17

      Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.

    • Luke 1:17

      And he will go on before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to…

  • Through

    Amos 5:8

    He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns darkness into dawn and darkens day into night, who summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the face of the earth—the LORD…

    it leads to

    • Amos 4:13

      For behold, He who forms the mountains, who creates the wind and reveals His thoughts to man, who turns the dawn to darkness and strides on the heights of the earth—the LORD, the God…

    • Job 9:9

      He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion, of the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.

  • Through

    Jeremiah 14:22

    Can the worthless idols of the nations bring rain? Do the skies alone send showers? Is this not by You, O LORD our God? So we put our hope in You, for You have…

    it leads to

    • Joel 2:23

      Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God, for He has given you the autumn rains for your vindication. He sends you showers, both autumn and spring rains, as…

    • Jeremiah 5:24

      They have not said in their hearts, ‘Let us fear the LORD our God, who gives the rains, both autumn and spring, in season, who keeps for us the appointed weeks of harvest.’

  • Through

    Genesis 6:17

    And behold, I will bring floodwaters upon the earth to destroy every creature under the heavens that has the breath of life. Everything on the earth will perish.

    it leads to

    • 2 Peter 2:5

      if He did not spare the ancient world when He brought the flood on its ungodly people, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, among the eight;

About Job

Job Hears of His Misfortunes, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.
Job Hears of His Misfortunes, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.

This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Book of Job; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book XI; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Job.