Job 12:15
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
Behold, he withholds the waters, and they dry up: also he sends them out, and they overturn the earth.
American King James Version (AKJV)
Behold, he withholds the waters, and they dry up: also he sends them out, and they overturn the earth.
American Standard Version (ASV)
Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up; Again, he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth.
Basic English Translation (BBE)
Truly, he keeps back the waters and they are dry; he sends them out and the earth is overturned.
Webster's Revision
Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: also he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth.
World English Bible
Behold, he withholds the waters, and they dry up. Again, he sends them out, and they overturn the earth.
English Revised Version (ERV)
Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up; again, he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth.
Clarke's Job 12:15 Bible Commentary
He withholdeth the waters - This is, I think, an allusion to the third day's work of the creation, Genesis 1:9 : And God said, Let the waters be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear. Thus the earth was drained, and the waters collected into seas, and bound to their particular places.
Also he sendeth them out - Here is also an allusion to the flood, for when he broke up the fountains of the great deep, then the earth was overturned.
Barnes's Job 12:15 Bible Commentary
He withholdeth the waters - From the clouds and springs. He has control over the rains and the fountains; and when these are withheld, rivers and lakes become dry. The Syriac renders this, - "if he rebuke the waters," supposing that there might perhaps be an allusion to the drying up of the Red Sea, or the formation of a passage for the Israelites. But it is remarkable that in the argument here there is no allusion to any historical fact, not to the flood, or to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, or to the passage through the Red Sea, though these occurrences would have furnished so appropriate illustrations of the points under discussion. Is it to be inferred that Job had never heard of any of those events? Or may it have been that the lessons which they were adapted to teach had been actually embodied in the proverbs which he was using, and furnished well-known illustrations or the basis of such apothegms?
He sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth - Such inundations may have occurred in the swollen torrents of Arabia, and indeed are so common everywhere as to furnish a striking illustration of the power and sovereign agency of God.
Wesley's Job 12:15 Bible Commentary
12:15 The waters - Which are reserved its the clouds, that they may not fall upon the earth. They - The waters upon the earth, springs, and brooks, and rivers. As at the time of the general deluge, to which here is a manifest allusion.