can you, like Him, spread out the skies to reflect the heat like a mirror of bronze?
Parallel translations
- WEB Can you, with him, spread out the sky, which is strong as a cast metal mirror?
- KJV Hast thou with him spread out the sky, which is strong, and as a molten looking glass?
- NKJV With Him, have you spread out the skies, Strong as a cast metal mirror?
- NASB “Can you, with Him, spread out the skies, Strong as a cast metal mirror?
- NLT he makes the skies reflect the heat like a bronze mirror. Can you do that?
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
Job is challenged whether he can spread out the sky as God does, firm as a polished bronze mirror. He plainly cannot.
Overview
Elihu compares the vault of heaven to a hard, cast-metal mirror, stable and enduring. The question exposes the absurdity of a creature claiming to share in such creative power. This anticipates God's opening challenge in 38:4 about who laid the earth's foundations.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Isa 44:24Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer who formed you from the womb: “I am the LORD, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who by Myself spread out the earth,
- Ps 104:2He wraps Himself in light as with a garment; He stretches out the heavens like a tent,
- Isa 40:22He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth; its dwellers are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
- Exod 38:8Next he made the bronze basin and its stand from the mirrors of the women who served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.
- Gen 1:6–8And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters, to separate the waters from the waters.”
- Ps 148:4–6Praise Him, O highest heavens, and you waters above the skies.
- Job 9:8–9He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea.
- Isa 40:12Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or marked off the heavens with the span of his hand? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on a scale and the hills with a balance?
- Prov 8:27I was there when He established the heavens, when He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep,
- Ps 150:1Hallelujah! Praise God in His sanctuary. Praise Him in His mighty heavens.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 37:18 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.