Job 26:5

Dead things. Heb. repha’im, a term applied (1) to an ancient race of giants (Gen. 14:5; 15:20; Deut. 3:11; Joshua 17:15), (2) to a valley outside Jerusalem (Joshua 15:8; 18:16; 2 Sam. 5:18, 22; 23:13; 1 Chron. 11:15; 14:9; Isa. 17:5), and (3) to the dead (Ps. 88:10; Prov. 2:18; 9:18; 21:16; Isa. 14:9; 26:14, 19). The derivation of the word is uncertain, and how the word could refer at once to a race of people and to the dead is not definitely known. Perhaps the repha’im that designates a race is derived from a different root than the repha’im that designates the dead. Some have connected the two ideas by observing that as a race the repha’im have become extinct and powerless. Its proud representatives he prostrate in she’ol. The memory of them has become vague and shadowy. Hence they become a fit symbol of the dead.

Others derive the meaning “dead” from the root raphah, which means “to sink,” “to relax.” The dead are considered to be sunken and powerless ones.

That the repha’im were a race of giants is implied in Deut. 2:11, 20; 3:11, 13. The idea of stature is probably derived, not from a root meaning inherent in the word itself, but from the context.

The context of Job 26:5 seems to infer that the dead are intended. Bildad has emphasized the sovereignty of God in the heavens. Job is adding that God’s power extends to the dwellers in she’ol (see v. 6).

Are formed. Literally, “are made to tremble,” from the root chil, “to tremble,” “to writhe.” In figure the dead are represented as conscious (see Isa. 14:9, 10), though not actually so (Ps. 146:4; Eccl. 9:5, 6).