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Journey of a Passage

Job 38:4–7

Where were you when I laid the foundations?

"When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." The library's Greek reads "when the stars were made, all my angels praised me with a loud voice."

Same letters, different readings: the consonants agree, but ancient readers vocalized or interpreted them differently

The family tree

Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.

✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

  • Same line, through lost copies
  • Translation
Hebrew
  1. Original JobPoem often dated 6th–4th century BC (debated)
  2. Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from Original Job
Aramaic
    Greek and its daughters
    1. Greek Job, filled-out text (library: Giguet's French)Printed Septuagint; translated 1872Translated from the Greek text as filled out after Origen
    Latin
    1. Jerome's Vulgatec. AD 390s, from HebrewTranslated from Hebrew texts of Jerome's day
    English
    1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

    Every witness, in order

    1. Poem often dated 6th–4th century BC (debated)

      Original Job

      – No copy survives

      No original survives. Small Hebrew fragments of Job are known from Qumran (2Q15, 4Q99–101).

    2. c. AD 390s, from Hebrew

      Jerome's Vulgate

      ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from Hebrew texts of Jerome's day

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).

      Ubi eras quando ponebam fundamenta terræ? indica mihi, si habes intelligentiam. Quis posuit mensuras ejus, si nosti? vel quis tetendit super eam lineam? Super quo bases illius solidatæ sunt? aut quis demisit lapidem angularem ejus, cum me laudarent simul astra matutina, et jubilarent omnes filii Dei?

    3. AD 1008

      Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

      ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from Original Job

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

      אֵיפֹ֣ה הָ֭יִיתָ בְּיָסְדִי־אָ֑רֶץ הַ֝גֵּ֗ד אִם־יָדַ֥עְתָּ בִינָֽה׃ מִי־שָׂ֣ם מְ֭מַדֶּיהָ כִּ֣י תֵדָ֑ע א֤וֹ מִֽי־נָטָ֖ה עָלֶ֣יהָ קָּֽו׃ עַל־מָ֭ה אֲדָנֶ֣יהָ הָטְבָּ֑עוּ א֥וֹ מִֽי־יָ֝רָ֗ה אֶ֣בֶן פִּנָּתָֽהּ׃ בְּרָן־יַ֭חַד כּ֣וֹכְבֵי בֹ֑קֶר וַ֝יָּרִ֗יעוּ כָּל־בְּנֵ֥י אֱלֹהִֽים׃

    4. 1611

      King James Bible

      ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

      Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

    5. Printed Septuagint; translated 1872

      Greek Job, filled-out text (library: Giguet's French)

      ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from the Greek text as filled out after Origen

      How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

      Où étais-tu, quand j’ai créé la terre? Répondsmoi, si tu as la science. Qui en a réglé les dimensions, le sais-tu? Qui a promené sur elle le cordeau? Comment a-t-on attaché ses anneaux? Qui en pose la pierre angulaire? Lorsque les astres ont paru, et qu’à grande voix me louaient tous mes anges,

      Greek via Giguet's French (filled-out printed text); not checked against Ziegler's critical edition.

    What changed, and why

    The sons of God are the divine council of 1:6; the Greek again calls them angels. God answers Job with creation, not with the heavenly scene of the prologue.

    What the evidence shows

    • Independently documented38:7 pairs morning stars and sons of God.
    • Independently documentedThe Greek reads "all my angels."

    Sources

      Related lessons

      • Where Wast Thou? →"Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind." God does not explain the heavenly test. He asks questions: where was Job when the earth was founded and the morning stars sang? Who shut in the sea with doors? Has Job commanded the dawn, walked in the depths, seen the gates of death? Where do light and darkness live? Who made the storehouses of snow and hail, the channels for rain on land where no one lives? Can Job bind the Pleiades or loose Orion, hunt prey for the lion, feed the raven's young?