Job 37
CHAPTER 37
1. At this--when I hear the thundering of the Divine Majesty. Perhaps the storm already had begun, out of which God was to address Job ( Job 38:1 ).
2. Hear attentively--the thunder (noise), &c., and then you will feel that there is good reason to tremble.
sound--muttering of the thunder.
3. directeth it--however zigzag the lightning's course; or, rather, it applies to the pealing roll of the thunder. God's all-embracing power.
ends--literally, "wings," "skirts," the habitable earth being often compared to an extended garment ( Job 38:13 , Isaiah 11:12 ).
4. The thunderclap follows at an interval after the flash.
stay them--He will not hold back the lightnings ( Job 37:3 ), when the thunder is heard [MAURER]. Rather, take "them" as the usual concomitants of thunder, namely, rain and hail [UMBREIT] ( Job 40:9 ).
5. ( Job 36:26 , Psalms 65:6 , 139:14 ). The sublimity of the description lies in this, that God is everywhere in the storm, directing it whither He will [BARNES]. See Psalms 29:1-11 , where, as here, the "voice" of God is repeated with grand effect. The thunder in Arabia is sublimely terrible.
6. Be--more forcible than "fall," as UMBREIT translates Genesis 1:3 .
to the small rain, &c.--He saith, Be on the earth. The shower increasing from "small" to "great," is expressed by the plural "showers" (Margin), following the singular "shower." Winter rain ( Solomon 2:11 ).
7. In winter God stops man's out-of-doors activity.
sealeth--closeth up ( Job 9:7 ). Man's "hands" are then tied up.
his work--in antithesis to man's own work ("hand") which at other times engages men so as to make them liable to forget their dependence on God. UMBREIT more literally translates, That all men whom He has made (literally, "of His making") may be brought to acknowledgment."
8. remain--rest in their lairs. It is beautifully ordered that during the cold, when they could not obtain food, many lie torpid, a state wherein they need no food. The desolation of the fields, at God's bidding, is poetically graphic.
9. south--literally, "chambers"; connected with the south ( Job 9:9 ). The whirlwinds are poetically regarded as pent up by God in His southern chambers, whence He sends them forth (so Job 38:22 , Psalms 135:7 ). As to the southern whirlwinds (see Isaiah 21:1 , Zechariah 9:14 ), they drive before them burning sands; chiefly from February to May.
the north--literally, "scattering"; the north wind scatters the clouds.
10. the breath of God--poetically, for the ice-producing north wind.
frost--rather, "ice."
straitened--physically accurate; frost compresses or contracts the expanded liquid into a congealed mass ( Job 38:29 Job 38:30 , Psalms 147:17 Psalms 147:18 ).
11-13. How the thunderclouds are dispersed, or else employed by God, either for correction or mercy.
by watering--by loading it with water.
wearieth--burdeneth it, so that it falls in rain; thus "wearieth" answers to the parallel "scattereth" (compare, a clear sky resulting alike from both.
bright cloud--literally, "cloud of his light," that is, of His lightning. UMBREIT for "watering," &c., translates; "Brightness drives away the clouds, His light scattereth the thick clouds"; the parallelism is thus good, but the Hebrew hardly sanctions it.
12. it--the cloud of lightning.
counsels--guidance ( Psalms 148:8 ); literally, "steering"; the clouds obey God's guidance, as the ship does the helmsman. So the neither is haphazard in its movements.
they--the clouds, implied in the collective singular "it."
face of the world, &c.--in the face of the earth's circle.