Job 37:18-24

18 Can you, like him, spread out the skies, hard as a molten mirror?
19 Teach us what we shall say to him; we cannot draw up our case because of darkness.
20 Shall it be told him that I would speak? Did a man ever wish that he would be swallowed up?
21 "And now men cannot look on the light when it is bright in the skies, when the wind has passed and cleared them.
22 Out of the north comes golden splendor; God is clothed with terrible majesty.
23 The Almighty--we cannot find him; he is great in power and justice, and abundant righteousness he will not violate.
24 Therefore men fear him; he does not regard any who are wise in their own conceit."

Job 37:18-24 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.

Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.