By the breath of God ice is given, And the broad waters are frozen.
Parallel translations
- WEB By the breath of God, ice is given, and the width of the waters is frozen.
- KJV By the breath of God frost is given: and the breadth of the waters is straitened.
- BSB By the breath of God the ice is formed and the watery expanses are frozen.
- NASB “From the breath of God ice is made, And the expanse of the waters is frozen.
- NLT God’s breath sends the ice, freezing wide expanses of water.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
By the breath of God ice is formed and the broad waters are frozen. Even ice is the work of God's powerful breath.
Overview
Elihu attributes the formation of ice and the freezing of wide waters to the very breath of God. The image of God's breath conveys His effortless yet mighty power over nature (Ps. 147:17). This points to the God whose breath gives and orders all things, the Creator and Sustainer whose power is fully and personally revealed in Jesus Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 3
- Job 38:29–30Out of whose womb came the ice? The gray frost of the sky, who has given birth to it?
- Ps 147:16–18He gives snow like wool, and scatters frost like ashes.
- Ps 78:47He destroyed their vines with hail, their sycamore fig trees with frost.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 37:10 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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