The Pulpit Commentary on Job 9:8

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

Which alone spreadeth out the heavens (comp. Psalms 104:2; Isaiah 40:22). The heavens are regarded as spread out over the whole earth, like a curtain or awning over a tent, everywhere overshadowing and promoting it.

This "stretching" or "spreading out" is felt to be one of the mightiest and most marvellous of the Creater's works, and is constantly put forward in Scripture as a special evidence of his omnipotence (see, besides the pasages above quoted, Isaiah 42:5; Isaiah 44:24; Isaiah 45:12; It.

13; Jeremiah 10:12). It adds to the marvellousness that God did it all "alone," or "by himself" (comp. Isaiah 44:24). And treadeth upon the waves of the sea; literally, the heights of the sea; i.e. the waves, which run mountains-high.

God plants his feet upon these, to crush them in their proud might (comp. Psalms 93:5).

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