Job 26:10

He hath compassed. The complete clause reads literally, “The decree of a circle upon the face of the waters.” The Syriac and Targums read, “He inscribed a circle upon the face of the waters.” The reference seems to be to the form of the horizon, which appears as a circle and seems to be marked out with a compass.

Day and night. The line reads literally, “unto the end of [boundary between] light and darkness,” that is, the horizon.

“Then stayed the fervid wheels, and in his hand

He took the golden compasses, prepared

In God’s eternal store, to circumscribe

This universe, and all created things:

One foot he centred, and the other turned

Round through the vast profundity obscure;

And said, ‘Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds,

This be thy just circumference, O world!”’

— Milton, Paradise Lost, Book VII.