Job 26:5-6

God's presence and power in the underworld. Job 26:5 reads according to the pointing,

The Shades tremble

Underneath the waters and their inhabitants.

The "Shades" (Heb. Refáim, the flaccid) are the departed persons, whose place of concourse is Sheol. Comp. Isaiah 14:9, where "the dead" are the shades, so Isaiah 26:14 (the deceased). This abode of deceased persons lies deep down under the waters of the sea and all the inhabitants of these waters, for the sea belongs to the upper world. Yet the power of God is felt even at this immeasurable distance from His abode on high. Bildad had referred to the power of God as "making peace" on high; Job points to what is a more wonderful illustration of His power, it pervades the underworld, and the dead tremble under its influence. Whether the statement is general, or whether perhaps there may not be allusion to great convulsions in nature, shaking the earth, and rousing up out of their lethargy even the drowsy, nerveless, shades with terror, may be doubtful.