Albert Barnes Commentary Job 11:9

"The measure thereof is longer than the earth, And broader than the sea." — Job 11:9 (ASV)

The measure thereof is longer than the earth – This refers to the measure of the knowledge of God. The extent of the earth would have been one of the longest measures known to the ancients. Yet it is now impossible to determine what ideas were associated, in the time of Job, with the extent of the earth – and it is not necessary to know this to understand this expression.

It is virtually certain that the prevailing ideas were very limited, and that only a small part of the earth was then known. The general belief seems to have been that it was a vast plain surrounded by water – but how it was supported, and what its limits were, were evidently matters unknown to them. The earliest knowledge we have of geography, as understood by the Arabs, represents the earth as completely encompassed by an ocean, like a zone. This was usually characterized as a “Sea of Darkness,” a name usually given to the Atlantic, while the Northern Sea was given the name of “The Sea of Pitchy Darkness.” Edrisi imagined the land to be floating in the sea, with only part of it appearing above, like an egg in a basin of water.

If these views prevailed as late as the tenth and eleventh centuries of the Christian era, it is reasonable to conclude that the views of the figure and size of the earth must have been extremely limited in the time of Job. For ancient views on geography, see the notes at Job 26:7-10, and the maps there; also Murray’s Encyclopaedia of Geography, Book I, and Eschenberg’s Manual of Classical Literature, by Prof. Fiske, Part I.

And broader than the sea – It is now completely impossible to determine what idea they had of the breadth of the sea, which was supposed to surround the earth. Probably there were no ideas on the subject that could be regarded as settled and definite. The ancients had no means of determining this, and they perhaps supposed that the ocean extended to an unlimited extent – or, perhaps, to the far distant place where the sky and the water appeared to meet.

In any case, it was an illustration then, as it is now, of a vast distance, and is not inappropriately used here to denote the impossibility of fully understanding God. This illustration would have been far more striking then than it is now. We have crossed the ocean, and we do not deem it an impracticable thing to explore the remotest seas. But not so the ancients. They kept close to the shore. They seldom ventured out of sight of land. The enterprise of exploring and crossing the vast ocean, which they supposed encompassed the globe, was regarded by them as completely impracticable – and they correctly supposed it was equally impracticable to find out God.