The Bible Says
Job 38:16-18 Meaning

In Job 38:16-18, the Lord continues challenging Job’s presumption that God needed his perspective by proposing questions about His creation. When He says, Have you entered into the springs of the sea Or walked in the recesses of the deep? (v. 16), He confronts Job with the vast expanses beneath the ocean surface, places no human being had discovered or fully understood in the ancient world. Even in the modern world, the more that is learned of the deepest regions of the seas the more mysteries it reveals.

The phrase springs of the sea might refer to hidden waters that feed the seas from below. The aquifers that underlay the earth are vast and unable to be fully known to humans. But they are familiar and fully known to God. No human can walk in the recesses of the deep, the depths of the oceans. But God can. This again contrasts the exceedingly limited view of humans with God’s omniscience.

By now it would seem that Job would have gotten the point. However, God will continue this for a full seventy-one verses before “taking a breath” and asking Job for his response. That this perspective is needed by Job, the most righteous man on the earth, the man God bragged on, tells us that this is a difficult thing for humans to grasp. Therefore, God continues to drive home the point.

The next divine question follows: Have the gates of death been revealed to you, Or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? (v. 17). Here, God addresses the boundary between mortal life and the realm of the dead, a realm of great mystery. By referring to these gates, the Lord emphasizes His dominion over life and death. God established the pathway from life to death. It is a path all will travel, but none can know before their time. But God knows. He is Lord not only of all that is in this dimension, but also of the spiritual domain.

The phrase of deep darkness translates the Hebrew word “salmavet.” It is the same word translated “of the shadow of death” in Psalm 23:

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death [‘salmavet’] I will fear no evil, for you are with me; Your rod and Your staff comfort me.”
(Psalm 23:4)

The Lord continues with: Have you understood the expanse of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this. (v. 18). God asks Job if he has traversed the entire earth and come to know its dimensions. In the ancient world, human mobility was a fraction of what it is today. Yet, although modern man can travel and measure the earth’s dimensions, our greatly increased understanding still magnifies how little we know of what can be known.