Bible Strands
Job 26:10
He has inscribed a horizon on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Job addresses his audience about God’s sovereign control over creation, placing this statement between a description of God veiling the moon with clouds and a declaration that heaven’s foundations quake at His rebuke.
The words — The Hebrew verb חָג (chag) means "he has drawn a circle," and חֹק (chok) denotes "a limit." Together with פְּנֵי מַיִם (pe.nei mayim, "the surface of the waters"), the text states that God inscribed a fixed horizon on the waters at the boundary between light and darkness.
The thread — This imagery of God setting a boundary for the sea appears in Proverbs 8:29, Job 38:8, and Jeremiah 5:22. Each passage records the same theme of divine restriction placed upon chaotic waters to maintain creation’s order.
Why it lands — The text states that God established a fixed limit on the waters, separating light from darkness. A reader must recognize that creation’s stability depends entirely on God’s deliberate boundary-setting rather than natural law or chance.
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
He hath compassed the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an end.
Cross-references
- Proverbs 8:29 when He set a boundary for the sea, so that the waters would not surpass His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth.
- Job 38:8 Who enclosed the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,
- Jeremiah 5:22 Do you not fear Me?” declares the LORD. “Do you not tremble before Me, the One who set the sand as the boundary for the sea, an enduring barrier it cannot cross? The waves surge, but they cannot prevail. They roar but cannot cross it.
- Psalms 33:7 He piles up the waters of the sea; He puts the depths into storehouses.
- Genesis 8:22 As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall never cease.”
- Psalms 104:6 You covered it with the deep like a garment; the waters stood above the mountains.
- Isaiah 54:9 “For to Me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. So I have sworn that I will not be angry with you or rebuke you.