Job 26
The full text of Job 26 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Hebrew. Free to read.
1 Then Job answered and said:
2 How you have helped the powerless!
How you have saved the arm with no strength!
3 How you have counseled the one with no wisdom!
How abundantly you have made known true understanding!
4 With whose help have you uttered words,
and whose breath has come out from you?
5 The shades tremble beneath the waters
and all who dwell in them.
6 Sheol is naked before God,
and Abaddon has no covering.
7 He stretches out the north over the void
and hangs the earth on nothing.
8 He binds up the water in his thick clouds,
and the cloud is not split under them.
9 He covers the face of the full moon
and spreads over it his cloud.
10 He has inscribed a boundary on the face of the waters,
at the boundary between light and darkness.
11 The pillars of heaven tremble
and are astounded at his rebuke.
12 By his power he stilled the sea;
by his understanding he shattered Rahab.
13 By his breath the heavens were cleared;
his hand pierced the fleeing serpent.
14 Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways;
how small a whisper do we hear of him!
Who can understand the thunder of his power?
Translation notes (6)
- Job 26:5a 'Shades' renders Rephaim, 'shades' (רְפָאִים), a term that in Hebrew poetry denotes the collective dead in the underworld (see Psalm 88:10; Proverbs 9:18; Isaiah 14:9), distinct from its use for an ancient giant clan. The Septuagint has gigantes, 'giants' (γίγαντες).
- Job 26:6a Abaddon (אֲבַדּוֹן), 'destruction', derives from the verb avad, 'to perish', and names the realm of the dead in parallel with Sheol, as also in Proverbs 15:11 and Psalm 88:11. Revelation 9:11 later personifies Abaddon as the angel of the abyss, rendered in Greek as Apollyon, 'destroyer'. The point here is that even the deepest hidden realm lies exposed to God.
- Job 26:7a Tohu, 'void' (תֹהוּ), echoes Genesis 1:2; belimah, 'nothingness' (בְּלִימָה), is a hapax in the Masoretic Text from beli 'without' + mah 'anything', yielding 'on nothing.' Tsafon, 'north' (צָפוֹן), may denote the northern sky. The imagery reflects ancient cosmology; the Septuagint similarly has 'upon nothing' (epi oudeni).
- Job 26:9a The Hebrew verb 'achaz (אָחַז), 'to grasp', can imply restraining or covering in this context, rather than a literal action upon the moon itself. The meaning of the verb's subject in this verse is debated.
- Job 26:12a Rahav (רהב), literally 'proud one', names a mythic sea monster elsewhere paired with the dragon and the divided sea (Psalm 89:10; Isaiah 51:9), not the woman of Jericho, whose name is spelled differently in Hebrew. The verse echoes ancient Near Eastern imagery of a creator god subduing the chaotic deep, here wholly subordinated to God's power and understanding.
- Job 26:13a The phrase nachash bariach, 'fleeing serpent', recurs in Isaiah 27:1, where it describes Leviathan. A close parallel appears in Ugaritic literature, where the sea monster Litan is called the fleeing serpent, suggesting Job draws on ancient Near Eastern imagery of God's victory over chaos, paired here with Rahab in the preceding verse.
About this translation
The Trinity Bible Version (TBV) is a new translation of the Bible prepared by Trinity Bible — rendered from the original Hebrew and faithful to the earliest and most reliable manuscripts. Finished in 2026, it is the most modern English Bible translation you can read today, and it is available only through Trinity Bible. All 66 books, including Job, are free to read on this site.
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