Bible Strands
Job 12:15
If He holds back the waters, they dry up, and if He releases them, they overwhelm the land.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Job speaks to his companions during his trial to demonstrate that God exercises absolute control over both nature and human affairs. He uses the natural order to ground his argument about divine sovereignty in the midst of his suffering.
The words — The Hebrew יַעְצֹר (ya'.Tzor) means "he holds back," standing in direct contrast to וִֽ֝ישַׁלְּחֵ֗ם (vi.shal.le.Chem), which literally translates to "and he lets them loose." These paired verbs capture the mechanical precision of divine action over the waters.
The thread — This theme of God's authority over waters runs through 1 Kings 17:1, where Elijah announces a divinely imposed drought, and Amos 5:8, which depicts God summoning the sea's waters. The biblical tradition consistently links hydrological events to direct divine agency rather than natural chance.
Why it lands — The text states that God's restraint or release of waters directly determines whether land dries or floods, demanding recognition of His unmediated power over creation. It asks the reader to acknowledge that natural cycles operate under sovereign command, not autonomous force.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: also he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth.
Cross-references
- 1 Kings 17:1 Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was among the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As surely as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there will be neither dew nor rain in these years except at my word!”
- 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 is His name—
- Genesis 6:13 Then God said to Noah, “The end of all living creatures has come before Me, because through them the earth is full of violence. Now behold, I will destroy both them and the earth.
- 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.
- Genesis 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
- 1 Kings 8:35 When the skies are shut and there is no rain because Your people have sinned against You, and they pray toward this place and confess Your name, and they turn from their sins because You have afflicted them,
- Job 12:10 The life of every living thing is in His hand, as well as the breath of all mankind.
- Psalms 104:7 At Your rebuke the waters fled; at the sound of Your thunder they hurried away—
- 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 done all these things.
- Nahum 1:4 He rebukes the sea and dries it up; He makes all the rivers run dry. Bashan and Carmel wither, and the flower of Lebanon wilts.