# God's boundary for the sea becomes a boundary for the nose

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH07.P022](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH07.P022/#char=573,639): "Thus far, and no farther; and here shall thy proud point be stayed"

The joke adapts God's address to the sea in Job 38:11. In the King James Version, the command ends with "and here shall thy proud waves be stayed"; Chesterton substitutes the nose's proud point for the sea's proud waves and modernizes the opening. This is a recognizable biblical adaptation rather than an exact quotation. The inspected witness is Project Gutenberg's KJV transcription, not a facsimile of the translation's first edition of 1611. [Job 38:1–11](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10/10-h/10-h.htm).

In Job, the speaker has laid the earth's foundations, measured it, and shut the sea behind doors: the boundary belongs to a larger picture of ordered creation. Chesterton transfers that cosmic act of limitation to the absurdly small business of facial proportion. The transfer matters to the argument: unlimited increase is not automatically improvement, and a desirable whole requires a limit on a particular part. His human speakers comically borrow the Creator's voice to declare what kind of nose they want. Job supplies the language and imagery of bounded order; it does not itself supply Chesterton's inference about evolution or aesthetic judgment.

## Sources

- [The King James Version of the Bible, Project Gutenberg eBook 10](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10), Job 38:1–11, especially 38:11; KJV translation first published 1611, inspected Gutenberg transcription updated 2024

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