Job 37:15-24

15 Do you know how God controls the clouds and makes his lightning flash?

16 Do you know how the clouds hang in the sky? Do you know the miracles of God, who knows everything?

17 You suffer in your clothes when the land is silenced by the hot, south wind.

18 You cannot stretch out the sky like God and make it look as hard as polished bronze.

19 Tell us what we should say to him; we cannot get our arguments ready because we do not have enough understanding.

20 Should God be told that I want to speak? Would a person ask to be swallowed up?

21 No one can look at the sun when it is bright in the sky after the wind has blown all the clouds away.

22 God comes out of the north in golden light, in overwhelming greatness.

23 The Almighty is too high for us to reach. He has great strength; he is always right and never punishes unfairly.

24 That is why people honor him; he does not respect those who say they are wise."

Job 37:15-24 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 37

Elihu in this chapter proceeds to show the greatness of God as it appears in other of his works of nature, which greatly affected him, and to an attention to which he exhorts others, Job 37:1,2; particularly thunder and lightning, the direction, extent, and order of which he observes, Job 37:3,4; and then suggests that besides these there are other great things done by him, incomprehensible and unknown in various respects; as the snow, and rain, lesser and greater, which come on the earth at his command, and have such effect on men as to seal up their hands, and on the beasts of the field as to cause them to retire to their dens, and there remain, Job 37:5-8; and then he goes on to take notice of wind, and frost, and the clouds, and dispersion of them; their use and ends, whether in judgment or mercy, Job 37:9-13; and then calls on Job to consider these wondrous works of God, and remark how ignorant men are of the disposition of clouds for the rainbow; of the balancing of them; of the heat and quietness that come by the south wind, and of the firmness of the sky, Job 37:14-21; and from all this he concludes the terrible majesty, unsearchable nature of God, the excellency of his power and justice; and that men therefore should and do fear him, who is no respecter of persons, Job 37:21-23.