Job 38:9
in Job 38when I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its blanket,
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
When I made clouds the garment thereof, And thick darkness a swaddling-band for it,
KJV
When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddlingband for it,
⋯
This verse in Job 38
Commentary
9 notes on this verseA commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
When I made the cloud the garment thereof - Referring to the garment in which the new-born infant is wrapped up. This image is one of great beauty. It is that of the vast ocean just coming into being, with a cloud resting upon it and covering it. Thick darkness envelopes it, and it is swathed in mists; compare Gen 1:2,” And darkness was upon the face of the deep.” The time here referred to is that before the light of the sun arose upon the earth, before the dry land appeared, and before annuals and people had been formed.
This site's exposition
Who enclosed the sea behind doors
on Job 38:8-11
“Who enclosed the sea behind doors” pictures the ocean born like a child that “burst forth from the womb”. The words “You may come this far, but no farther” set the shoreline as a standing order. Henry reads the image as a restraint God keeps where creatures cannot see it.
This site's exposition
made the clouds its garment
Albert Barnes places the scene before the sun first rose and sets it beside Genesis 1:2, with darkness over the face of the deep. Matthew Henry takes the thick darkness as far shores hidden from one another. Clarke compares the cloud to a newborn's first cloth.
The record, by era
The Medieval Church3 voices
The sea is like a baby who gets out after being fashioned in the womb and is wrapped in clothes of wool. After bringing it into existence from nothing, God gathers the sea together from the place where it was and delimits, shuts and encircles …
Second, a newborn child is dressed, and expressing this he says, "when he laid out the clouds as its clothing." For since the clouds are born from vapors released from water, clouds are much more numerous in maritime places. Third, a child who is born …
A commentator
Gregory the DialogistMorals on the Book of Job, Book XXVIII · Written before 604.
proposed
When I was making a cloud the garment thereof, and was covering it with darkness as with swaddling clothes. ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION The raging sea is covered with a 'cloud,' because the cruelty of persecutors is covered with the veil of their own folly. For it is unable to behold the clear light of truth, from the interposed darkness of their unbelief; and through the desert of its own blindness, it knows not what it is doing by the impulse of cruelty.
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
When I made the cloud the garment thereof,....
The cloud is made the garment thereof, with which it is covered, and thick darkness (that is, shores vastly remote and distant from one another and quite in the dark one to another) is a swaddling-band for it.
1 more voice on this verse
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
When I make the cloud the garment - Alluding to the cloth in which the new-born infant is first received. The cloud was the same to the newly raised vapor, as the above recipient to the new-born child. And thick darkness a swaddlingband for it - Here is also an allusion to the first dressings of the new-born child: it is swathed in order to support the body, too tender to bear even careful handling without some medium between the hand of the nurse and the flesh of the child. “The image,” says Mr. Good, “is exquisitely maintained: the new-born ocean is represented as issuing from the womb of chaos; and its dress is that of the new-born infant.” There is here an allusion also to the creation, as described in Gen 1:1, Gen 1:2. Darkness is there said to be on the face of the Deep. Here it is said, the thick darkness was a swaddlingband for the new-born Sea.
How the passage was read
What the Jewish commentators add
On the verses either side of this one
and broke I made breaks in it [the sea] all around to keep it back within them, and they are its boundary, which it shall not pass, as in (Joshua:5), “and they pursued them until the quarries (השברים)” which are the ditches around the city.
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 5 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.
The words behind it
5 Hebrew wordsEvery 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.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| בְּשׂוּמִ֣י | besumi | when made I | H7760 → | 584 times |
| עָנָ֣ן | ʾanan | cloud[s] | H6051 → | 87 times |
| לְבֻשׁ֑וֹ | levusho | clothing its | H3830 → | 33 times |
| וַ֝עֲרָפֶ֗ל | vaarafel | and thick darkness | H6205 → | |
| חֲתֻלָּתֽוֹ׃ | chatulato | swaddling-band its | H2854 → |
בְּשׂוּמִ֣יwhen made I
besumiH7760 →584 times
עָנָ֣ןcloud[s]
ʾananH6051 →87 times
לְבֻשׁ֑וֹclothing its
levushoH3830 →33 times
וַ֝עֲרָפֶ֗לand thick darkness
vaarafelH6205 →
חֲתֻלָּתֽוֹ׃swaddling-band its
chatulatoH2854 →
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
5 stopsEach 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
Genesis 1:2Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
it leads to
- Jeremiah 4:23
I looked at the earth, and it was formless and void; I looked to the heavens, and they had no light.
- Psalms 104:30
When You send Your Spirit, they are created, and You renew the face of the earth.
- Isaiah 45:18
For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens—He is God; He formed the earth and fashioned it; He established it; He did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be…
- Psalms 33:6
By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and all the stars by the breath of His mouth.
- Job 26:7
He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth upon nothing.
- Jeremiah 4:23
Where this verse is studied
On this page
Studies10
About Job
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Job; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book XXVIII; Ishodad of Merv, COMMENTARY ON JOB 38:8; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Job.