Scripture: Job 26:7; Job 9:6; Job 38:4–6; Psalm 104:5; 1 Samuel 2:8
Job 26:7 says God "stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing". A popular claim says this shows the Bible knew the Earth floats unsupported in space.
The Hebrew is striking: beli-mah, literally "without anything", found only here in the Bible. Read on its own, it fits an Earth suspended in space. But the same book uses the opposite picture: God "shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble" (Job 9:6) and laid its foundations, sank its bases and set its cornerstone (Job 38:4–6), as do Psalm 104:5 and 1 Samuel 2:8. Job 26 itself goes on to describe a circle drawn on the face of the waters and "the pillars of heaven" trembling (26:10–11). Other ancient thinkers also asked what holds the Earth up: Thales thought it floated on water, and Anaximander (6th century BCE) taught that it hangs unsupported at the center of everything.
