Texts in Conversation
Job 37 describes the sky spread out like solid metal, using language based on metalworking to describe the heavens as a solid, hammered surface like a dome. Similar language is used in Genesis 1, where God creates the firmament to separate the waters, suggesting it was also thought of as a solid barrier.
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Genesis 1:7
Hebrew Bible
6 God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate water from water.” 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. It was so. 8 God called the expanse “sky.” There was evening, and there was morning, a second day.
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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Job 37:18
Hebrew Bible
16 Do you know about the balancing of the clouds, that wondrous activity of him who is perfect in knowledge? 17 You, whose garments are hot when the earth is still because of the south wind, 18 will you, with him, spread out the sky, solid as a mirror of molten metal? 19 Tell us what we should say to him. We cannot prepare a case because of the darkness. 20 Should he be informed that I want to speak? If a man speaks, surely he will be swallowed up!
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... the word raqia in Genesis 1:6–7, often translated “firmament,” stands in parallelism with “the heavens” in Psalm 19:1. In Psalm 150:1 the same word is parallel to “his holy place” and in apposition to “his strong place.” From these comparisons, the firmament is located in the heavens, and it is the site of divine enthronement in the heavens. The root appears in a verbal form in Job 37:18: “Can you, like him [God], spread out the skies, hard as a molten mirror?” (see Isaiah 44:24 for the same root in another creation allusion). The translation of the verb translated “to spread out” in this context is rendered to “stretch out” in NJPS. The D-stem of the verb is taken to refer to beating or hammering out metal plates (Exodus 39:3, Numbers 17:4, Isaiah 40:19). The context of Job 37:18 likewise suggests the activity of metal work, perhaps with the specific sense of the word as “molten,” translated as “cast metal” in NJPS. This root (yṣq) denotes pouring casting liquid metal in casts. The verb applies to the pouring of molten metals for the materials of the tabernacle conducted by the craftsman Bezalel (Exodus 25:12 and 37:3) and for furniture made by Kothar in the Baal Cycle ..."
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