Job 26
26
SONG 9
8,6,8,6
tune: St. Gregory, 104.
Job 26:6, to the end.
6-14 Who can resist th’ Almighty arm
that made the starry sky?
Or who elude the certain glance
of God’s all‐seeing eye?
2 From him no cov’ring vails our crimes;
hell opens to his sight;
And all Destruction’s secret snares
lie full disclos’d in light.
3 Firm on the boundless void of space
he pois’d the steady pole,
And in the circle of his clouds
bade secret waters roll.
4 While nature’s universal frame
its Maker’s pow’r reveals,
His throne, remote from mortal eyes,
an awful cloud conceals.
5 From where the rising day ascends,
to where it sets in night,
He compasses the floods with bounds,
and checks their threat’ning might.
6 The pillars that support the sky
tremble at his rebuke;
Through all its caverns quakes the earth,
as though its centre shook.
7 He brings the waters from their beds,
although no tempest blows,
And smites the kingdom of the proud
without the hand of foes.
8 With bright inhabitants above
he fills the heav’nly land,
And all the crooked serpent’s breed
dismay’d before him stand.
9 Few of his works can we survey;
these few our skill transcend:
But the full thunder of his pow’r
what heart can comprehend?
First published by the Church of Scotland in 1781.