and in the passage where God asks:

`Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth?' (tehom 38:16).

Think of Moses reading the words of Job 38:4-11:

`Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ... when the morning stars sang together, and all the

sons of God shouted for joy? or Who shut up the sea with doors ... thick darkness a swaddlingband for it, and

brake up for it My decreed place, and set bars and doors, and said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and

here shall thy proud waves be stayed?'.

That which is revealed in the early verses of Genesis 1 is here clearly implied. In the thirtieth verse of the same

chapter in Job we meet with the expression `the face of the deep' which is found in Genesis 1:2, and nowhere else

except in the similar context of Proverbs 8:27, which in a peculiar manner is retrospective about the book of Job.

Elihu knew that a `firmament' had been `stretched out' as indicated in Genesis 1:6-8, using the very verb raka which

gives us the word translated `firmament' and which is translated in the margin of the A.V. `expansion' and in the

R.V. margin `expanse'.

`Hast thou with Him spread out the sky?' (Job 37:18).

The words of Elihu and his reference to the sky as a `molten mirror' while correctly recorded in the book of Job,

must not be taken as a revelation from God, as to the actual texture of the `firmament'. Elihu is using keen irony in

`Thou together with Him, spreadest out the sky! You can then be able to give us lessons in the way we should

address ourselves to Him'. Here in this book, which antedates the book of Genesis by several generations, the fact

of creation revealed in Genesis 1:6-8 was so familiar to Elihu that he uses it in ironical argument with Job. The

prophet Isaiah mentions this same fact a number of times:

`I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even My hands, have stretched out the heavens' (Isa. 45:12).

Job himself, quite independently of Elihu knew this fact, and in replying to Bildad the Shuhite speaks of Him

`Which alone spreadeth out the heavens' (Job 9:8).

We have already seen that Job anticipates several of the statements in the book of Genesis concerning creation

and we now continue this comparison that we may appreciate its full force. Not only does Job make a casual

reference to the creation of man, affirming that God is his `Maker', but he uses expressions that indicate that he was

aware of the process of man's creation as revealed in Genesis 2:7, where we read of Adam that God `breathed into

his nostrils the breath of life'. In Genesis 2:7 the `breath of life' is the translation of the Hebrew word Neshamah.

This word occurs twenty-four times in the Old Testament, seven of these references refer to God, the rest to man

(see The Berean Expositor, Vol. 19, pp. 65-69), which we cannot reprint here. Our present purpose is not so much

to prove the meaning of Neshamah as to show that whatever it meant in Genesis 2:7, Job appears to have known

about it. `All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils' (27:3), is an allusion to the

creation of man. Even more explicit is the passage in 33:4, `The spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the

Almighty hath given me life'.

Not only did Job know that the word implied something more than mere animal life, but Elihu uses it again in

32:8, where he speaks of `inspiration' and `understanding' also.

Moreover Job and his friends appear to have been in possession of the truth of creation as subsequently recorded

in Genesis 1 and 2, and the fall of man was also known to them, for Job introduces it, not in order to teach a

doctrine, but by referring to it as a well-known fact which illustrates his point. `If', said Job, `I covered my

transgressions as Adam' (31:33), it is not without point to note that Job uses the same word `cover' that is found in

Genesis 9:23, where, like Adam, `covering nakedness' is in view. Further, Job appears to have known that Adam's

transgression brought a curse upon the earth, as recorded in Genesis 3:18, `Thorns also and thistles shall it bring