The verse in Job plainly states "hang on nothing" in describing the earth. None of the other verses using "hang" are in reference to the earth. You are using your belief to nullify God's Word in Job.
Terra Firma: David Wardlaw Scott
Before leaving this subject of the Circumference, there is one other passage in the Authorised Version of the Bible to which I would like to refer, as it has been made a pretext for believing the
theory of the Earth whirling round the Sun.
It is as follows
Job 26:7." He stretcheth out- the North over The empty place, and hangeth the Earth upon nothing "
The Hebrew is —
neteh tsephoon ol tehoo tehleh arets ol belimeh,
The proper translation of which is:
"He spreadeth out the North over the desolate' place (the abyss of waters), and supporteth the Earth upon fastenings."
I am much surprised that not only the translators of the Authorized and Revised Versions, but such a distinguished scholar as the late Dr. Robert Young, could have made such a strange mistake, as to say that God
" hangeth the Earth upon nothing," which is neither a proper rendering nor common sense ; besides which it distinctly contradicts the Word of God which, in so many other places, declares that the Earth rests upon Foundations. There must be a support for any thing that hangs, and our Modem Astronomers were not long in taking advantage of the above miss translation by saying that, as it was impossible for such a heavy mass as the Earth to stand by itself, the passage must mean that it whirls round the Sun by the force of Gravitation.
But a little examination of two words in the original will soon put matters straight, Shakespeare says,"The Earth hath bubbles, as the water hath,"and the theory of the world rushing around the sun impelled by the hypothetic law of gravitation, is one of the biggest that ever required
pricking
The Hebrew word teleh means to hang, suspend, or support by actual contact. thus, to give a few instances/examples
Genesis 40:19 Within three days Pharaoh will lift off your head from you and hang you on a tree; and the birds will eat your flesh from you.”
Psalms 137:2 We hung our harps Upon the willows in the midst of it.
Ezekiel 15:3 Is wood taken from it to make any object? Or can men make a peg from it to hang any vessel on?
but belimeh wrongly translated "nothing" is the crucial word. Our translators appear to have derived it from the noun blee, signifying consumption or desolation, and the pronoun meh, who which what, but the meaning "nothing" drawn from these words, seems to be very far fetched. Hebrew is a very ancient language, to all probability the most ancient of any, and this being the only place in the Bible where the word belimeh occurs, it is, of course, difficult to test the meaning. I have myself, however, not the slightest doubt, that Parkhurst is right in deriving the noun belimeh from the verb belem, to confine, restrain, or hold in, so used in
Psalm 32:9 Do not be like the horse or like the mule, Which have no understanding, Which must be harnessed (belem) with bit and bridle, Else they will not come near you.
and that belimeh simply means "fastenings," or "supports," and this interpretation exactly agrees with what JEHOVAH asked Job a little farther on in
Job 38:6 To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone,
But while I consider Parkhurst to be correct as to the rendering of the word belimeh, I believe him to be wrong as to the strange application of it which he makes, when he says — "What can this mean but the columns of light and spirit, between which the Earth is suspended (comp. 1Sam 2: 8), and which, like the two reins of a bridle, hold (if I may be allowed the expression) the mighty steed
within its circular course."*
That Paxkhurst, from the "Record of his Life," was an excellent man, there is every reason to believe, and that he was a profound scholar we know, but he was a Hutchinsonian, and held peculiar views as to the Earth's movements by means of conflicting ethers, which he drags in on every possible occasion. I cannot here enter into his theory, which I consider to be quite untenable, but would refer any who might wish to examine it to an able work by Mr. J. A. Macdonald, " The Principia and the Bible ; a Critique and an Argument." f Bagster's " Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon " also gives the meaning of the verb belem, " to bind, to bridle," and I am informed, on reliable authority, that Breslau also derives belimeh from belem to fasten, but I have not his Lexicon at hand to verify the fact myself.
It is, therefore, evident from the above examination, that the real meaning of belimeh in Job 26:6 is that God supports the Earth upon fastenings, or, in other words, upon "foundations," the truth of which will be fully confirmed in the following Section, in which it will be seen that the Earth is not only stretched out upon the waters which have an impassable circumference, but that it has Immovable Foundations, therefore it cannot be a planet.
