By his power he stilled the sea; by his understanding he shattered Rahab.
Bildad has just described God's greatness and man's smallness. Job answers with a far wider survey, from the depths under the sea to the heavens, and verse 12 sits in the middle of it: what does it mean that God "stilled" the sea, and who is Rahab?
Job answering his friends
The verse belongs to a reply, not a lecture. Job pays his friends an ironic compliment, then outdoes their own speech on their own subject.
William KellyAnd what do we hear Job saying in reply in Job 26? First he pays an ironic compliment to the speech just delivered, praising its power and wisdom as if it settled the question under debate. Then, despite all his misery, he sets out the power of God far more fully and far more vividly than they do. He adds to it the solemn things of the unseen world.
The sea under His hand
Readers have taken the first half of the verse in more than one way. Some translate the verb "divides," others "stills." One writer insists the picture is not the parting of the Red Sea at all.
J. N. DarbyCompare Jeremiah 31:35 and Job 26:12. "Dividing the sea" is not the Red Sea, but raising it into tumultuous waves.
An older translation reads, "He stirs up the sea by His power," which matches that reading. Others keep "stilled," and see God's calm mastery over the one force no one else can tame.
William KellyThen Job glances at the waters beneath, and at the horizon, where darkness meets light. But God's rebuke makes the mightiest of earth's pillars, towering on high, tremble and wonder. The restless sea grows still when He pleases, and His knowledge strikes down the proud foe.
That last phrase reaches the second half of the verse. The enemy falls to God's knowledge, not to force alone.
Rahab, the proud one
Rahab here is not a person. It is a name of contempt, and Scripture gives it to the nation that once held Israel as slaves.
F. B. HoleThe Lord Jesus has always been the Executor of the purposes of God. He acted in the mighty scenes of creation. It was He who cut Rahab in pieces and dried up the sea, when God brought the people out under Moses from the land where they were slaves. Rahab is a name meaning "Arrogance," given to Egypt in contempt.
Read that way, the two halves of the verse stand together: the restless waters and the arrogant power, both broken by the same hand when God brought Israel out of Egypt.
The enemy behind the enemy
The next verse speaks of God's hand piercing a serpent. Some read the two lines together, and see something larger than Egypt behind the picture.
Samuel RidoutA clear meaning of the verb here translated "form" is "wound, or pierce." This agrees with Isaiah 27:1, where the thought blends these two verses, 12 and 13. So the connection would suggest the overthrow of the enemy. That enemy is Satan, the embodiment of pride, "the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan" (Revelation 20:2). In its spiritual meaning this would agree with Bildad's words, "He makes peace in His high places."
Only the edge of His ways
Job does not end this survey boasting about how much he knows. Two verses later he calls it all the mere outskirts of God's ways.
F. B. HoleHe was aware that what people knew in his day was only a part of God's ways. His comment was, "What a whisper of a word do we hear of Him!" Let this moving cry of Job sink into all our hearts. He had only a "whisper of a word" about God. Israel knew something of "the thunder of His power," when God gave the law at Sinai through Moses. We have the high privilege of knowing and enjoying the "grace and truth" that came by Jesus Christ. We also have the privilege of walking in "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6).
Summary
- Power — the sea pictures what no one can control. God stills it or stirs it at will, and writers differ over which the word means.
- Understanding — the proud enemy falls to God's knowledge, not to brute strength alone. Might and wisdom strike in one blow.
- Rahab — the name means arrogance. Scripture gives it to Egypt, the power that enslaved Israel and that God cut in pieces at the sea.
- Pride — the next verse pierces a serpent. Read together, the crushing of the proud one points beyond Egypt to Satan, the embodiment of pride.
- Whisper — Job calls all this only the fringe of God's ways. God gives those who now know grace and truth in the face of Jesus Christ far more than a whisper.