Texts in Conversation
Job 9:8 describes a divine figure who stretches out the heavens and walks on the sea, evoking ancient Near Eastern themes of rule over cosmic forces. The Greek Septuagint translation intensifies this and emphasizes the act of walking on water, which eventually influenced the narratives in the gospels.
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Job 9:8
Hebrew Bible
5 He who removes mountains suddenly, who overturns them in his anger, 6 he who shakes the earth out of its place so that its pillars tremble, 7 he who commands the sun, and it does not shine and seals up the stars, 8 he alone spreads out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea. 9 He makes the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, and the constellations of the southern sky; 10 he does great and unsearchable things, and wonderful things without number.
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
LXX Job 9:8
Septuagint
5 It is he who wears down mountains—they do not know it— who overturns them in anger, 6 who shakes the earth under heaven off its foundation, and its pillars quake, 7 who speaks to the sun and it does not rise— concerning the stars, he seals them up; concerning his messengers, he thought them a bit crooked— 8 who stretched out the heavens alone, and walks about upon the sea as upon the ground, 9 who made Pleiades and Hesperus and Bear and the chambers of the south winds, 10 who does great and inscrutable things, both glorious and extraordinary, which cannot be numbered.
Date: 1st Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... There is, however, at least one Old Testament passage that paints a picture prefiguring Mark’s sea-walking story: a doxological passage in Job, portraying God as sovereign over all creation, acclaims him as the one “who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea” (Job 9:8). In its original context, this text was probably meant as another reference to God’s subduing the primordial watery chaos; but the LXX offers a rendering of Job 9:8 that may be of considerable importance for understanding Mark 6:45-52 ... If Mark had Job 9 in mind, it would help to explain another notoriously
puzzling feature of the water-walking tale. In Mark’s telling of the story, when Jesus comes walking on the sea, the narrator comments cryptically, “He intended to pass them by” ... If we recognize the allusion to Job 9, however, we may glimpse a far more illuminating reading. Thus, in Job 9 the image of God’s walking on the sea is linked with a confession of God’s mysterious transcendence of human comprehension ..."
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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