just with God. Even Job, the most righteous man in all the world, according to God Himself (Job 1:8; 2:3), knew that he came short of God's standard (Romans 3:23), and therefore needed some means beyond himself to be “justified with God.”

removeth the mountains. Job is here rehearsing some of the terrible effects of the great Flood. The pre-Flood mountains had been eroded away by the mighty waters, and deposited as sediments in the pre-Flood seas. These later were uplifted to form the post-Flood mountains, thus in effect “overturning them.” Many of the sediments so deposited, in the process of uplift, were still further deformed—tilted, faulted and folded—before they could harden into solid rock.

shaketh the earth. When “all the fountains of the great deep were broken up” at the beginning of the Flood (Genesis 7:11), great earth movements followed, continued throughout the year of the Flood, and continue even today in recurrent earthquakes all over the world.

riseth not. The pre-Flood “waters above the firmament” (Genesis 1:7), originally in the form of a vast blanket of transparent water vapor and small ice crystals, were condensed into thick clouds of liquid water, which blotted out the light of the sun and stars for the first time in history. This continued for five months (Genesis 7:24-8:3), until the waters had all poured down on the earth to produce the Flood.

spreadeth out the heavens. This is the first of at least eleven references in the Bible to God “spreading” or “stretching” out the heavens. All of these make it plain that this was the direct result of the word of God, not the result of a primeval explosion of an infinitesimal universe, as the Big Bang theorists believe. These passages may suggest the expanding universe or, more likely, simply the infinite extension of space.

maketh Arcturus. God not only created and named the stars (e.g., Isaiah 40:26), but also the constellations (also see Job 38:31-33). This fact surely relates to the fact that God created the stars as “signs” (not in the astrological sense but in the evangelical sense), as repositories in the skies of God's primeval promises of the coming Savior and restoration of the fallen creation.

chambers of the south. The word usually suggests a distinct room, so probably here refers to the many majestic constellations in the southern sky, opposite to the region containing the bright constellation Orion and the nearby Pleiades (see also Job 38:31). Near the latter is also the group of stars known as the Great Bear, or sometimes as the Ploughman. This group is actually what is meant by Arcturus.

the proud helpers. The word “proud” here is Rahab, which seems in Isaiah 51:9 (see note) to refer to Satan, the old “dragon.” Also see note on Psalms 89:10. One other reference to Rahab, in Psalm 87:4, is believed by many to refer to Egypt.

If I justify myself. Job again acknowledges his own need of justification before God; he knows he, like all men, is innately a sinner.

daysman. The word “daysman” means “umpire” or “judge” or even better, “mediator.” Job fervently desired to argue his case, as it were, before God, but he realized that “He is not a man, as I am,” so there was no way that “we should come together in judgment.” How could there be a mediator between God and a man, unless that mediator could somehow be both God and man?