Job 37:18

Firmament & the heavens

Job (Wisdom Literature, Old Testament) · Wisdom poetry / speech of Elihu

Verse & chapter context

World English Bible (verified corpus)

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What the passage explicitly says

Can you, with him, spread out the sky, which is strong as a molten/cast metal mirror?

What requires interpretation

The verse uses simile ('as … a molten mirror'). Whether Elihu presumes a hard dome or is speaking figuratively is interpretation.

Flat-circle interpretation

A solid, beaten-out firmament — a metal-hard dome overhead, akin to the raqia of Genesis 1.

Globe-compatible interpretation

Simile: the sky is described as strong or reflective, not literally metallic. The comparison is to a mirror's surface polish, not the sky's material.

Original-language study

שָׁמַיִם
shamayim · H8064
Hebrew

Heavens; sky. Dual/plural form; the visible expanse above.

Brown–Driver–Briggs (BibleHub reprint)
רָקִיעַ
raqia · H7549
Hebrew

Firmament; expanse; something beaten out or spread thin.

Brown–Driver–Briggs (BibleHub reprint)

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Questions for further study

  • How does Elihu's speech relate to God's later answer?
  • How does this pair with the raqia of Genesis 1:6–8?
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Personal notes

Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain) — Heavens Declare verified corpus. Every verse on this page is rendered from the verified corpus already ingested into Heavens Declare — not from the discovery article.

Verse discovery: BibleStudyTools — Bible Verses About Flat Earth Secondary topical-index reference used only to seed the verse list. Not the source of Scripture text or lexical claims. Retrieved 2026-07-26.