Bible Strands
Job 38:30
when the waters become hard as stone and the surface of the deep is frozen?
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Yahweh addresses Job from the whirlwind, posing a rhetorical question about meteorological phenomena. This query follows a description of ice emerging from heaven and immediately precedes an inquiry about binding the Pleiades.
The words — The verb יִתְחַבּוּ (yitḥabbāʾû) literally means “they become hard,” describing the solidification of water. The noun phrase פְּנֵי תְהוֹם (pĕnê tĕhōm) translates directly as “the surface of the deep.”
The thread — The same hydrological event appears in Job 37:10, which attributes the freezing of watery expanses to the breath of God. This parallel establishes a consistent biblical motif linking divine speech to the formation of ice.
Why it lands — The text asserts that waters solidify and the deep freezes without human intervention. It requires the reader to acknowledge that natural processes operate independently of human control or understanding.
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
The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.
Cross-references
- Job 37:10 By the breath of God the ice is formed and the watery expanses are frozen.