Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?
Parallel translations
- WEB Who determined its measures, if you know? Or who stretched the line on it?
- BSB Who fixed its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched a measuring line across it?
- NKJV Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?
- NASB Who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the measuring line over it?
- NLT Who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line?
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
Who measured the earth and stretched the surveyor's line across it? Certainly not Job. Creation was God's design alone.
Overview
Using the imagery of an architect or builder, God asks who set the earth's dimensions. The question implies meticulous, intentional design rather than accident. It reminds Job that the ordered world he lives in flows from a wisdom infinitely beyond his own.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Isa 40:12Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
- Job 11:9The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea.
- Zech 2:1–2I lifted up mine eyes again, and looked, and behold a man with a measuring line in his hand.
- Job 28:25To make the weight for the winds; and he weigheth the waters by measure.
- Ps 78:55He cast out the heathen also before them, and divided them an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.
- Isa 34:11But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness.
- Isa 40:22It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:
- Prov 8:27When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:
- 2 Cor 10:16To preach the gospel in the regions beyond you, and not to boast in another man’s line of things made ready to our hand.
- Ps 19:4Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
- Prov 8:29When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth:
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 38:5 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.