Bible Strands
Job 38:9
when I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its blanket,
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God addresses Job in a rhetorical discourse, immediately following His statement about enclosing the sea behind doors.
The words — The Hebrew verb שׂוּם (suM) means "to make" or "to place," applied here to עָנָן ('aNan, "clouds") and עֲרָפֶל ('araFel, "thick darkness"). The text explicitly describes these elements as the sea's garment and swaddling-band.
The thread — This depiction of darkness covering the waters parallels the primordial state described in Genesis 1:2. Both passages use the same imagery of darkness resting over the deep before divine ordering.
Why it lands — The verse states that God clothed the chaotic waters in clouds and darkness, establishing His prior control over natural forces. It requires the reader to acknowledge that the mysteries Job questions are already bound by divine action.
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
When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddlingband for it,
Cross-references
- Genesis 1:2 Now 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.