Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if thou knowest it all.
Parallel translations
- WEB Have you comprehended the earth in its width? Declare, if you know it all.
- BSB Have you surveyed the extent of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this.
- NKJV Have you comprehended the breadth of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this.
- NASB “Have you understood the expanse of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this.
- NLT Do you realize the extent of the earth? Tell me about it if you know!
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
Has Job grasped the full breadth of the earth? If he knows it all, let him say so. The question silences any claim to comprehensive knowledge.
Overview
The LORD challenges Job to declare whether he truly comprehends the whole earth. The sarcasm exposes the impossibility of such mastery. It reinforces the central lesson that only God sees and understands creation in its entirety.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Ps 89:11–12The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine: as for the world and the fulness thereof, thou hast founded them.
- Jer 31:37Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD.
- Rev 20:9And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
- Ps 74:17Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter.
- Job 28:24For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven;
- Isa 40:28Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
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 38:18 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.