Job37chapter 37

Job 37:1

“At this my heart trembled, and was moved from its place. Because, while fear strikes the mind, it estranges it from itself, the Latin translations sometimes call an ecstasy fear, as is said by the Psalmist, I said in my fear, I am cast out from the sight of Thine eyes; [Ps. 31, 22] Where, namely, it could have been called not fear, but a transport ['excessus']. But fear is in that place used for transport, because the mind is estranged from itself in fear, as it is a transport.”

Job 37:1

“At this also - That is, in view of the thunderstorm, for it is that which Elihu is describing. This description was commenced in Job 36:29, and is continued to Job 37:5, and should not have been separated by the division into chapters. Elihu sees a tempest rising. The clouds gather, the lightnings flash, the thunder rolls, and he is awed as with the conscious presence of God. There is nowhere to be found a more graphic and impressive description of a thunder-storm than this; compare Herder on Hebrew Poetry, vol. i., 85ff, by Marsh, Burlington, 18”

Job 37:2

“It will hear a hearing in the terror of His voice, and a sound going out of His mouth. It is the habit of Holy Scripture, that, when it informs us that any thing is heard with the hearing, it says that this hearing is heard. As Habakkuk says, O Lord, I have heard Thy hearing, and was afraid. [Hab. 3, 1] Whence it is said here also, It will hear a hearing in the terror of His voice. But we must observe that the voice of God is said to be heard, not in joy, but in terror.”

Job 37:2

“Hear attentively - “Hear with hearing.” The words seem to intimate that there was actually at that time a violent storm of thunder and lightning, and that the successive peals were now breaking over the house, and the lightning flashing before their eyes. The storm continued till Elihu had finished, and out of that storm the Almighty spoke. See the beginning of the succeeding chapter, Job 38 (note). The noise of his voice - The sudden clap. And the sound that goeth out - The peal or continued rattling, pounding, and thumping, to the end of the peal.”

Job 37:3

“He directeth it under the whole heaven,.... His voice of thunder, which rolls from one end of the heaven to the other: he charges the clouds with it, and directs both it and them where they shall go and discharge; what tree, house, or man, it shall strike; and where the rain shall fall when the clouds burst: yet Pliny (x) atheistically calls thunder and lightning chance matters.”

Job 37:3

“He directeth it under the whole heaven - It is under the control of God, and he directs it where he pleases. It is not confined to one spot, but seems to be complaining from every part of the heavens. And his lightning - Margin, as in Hebrew “light.” There can be no doubt that the lightning is intended. Unto the ends of the earth - Margin, as in Hebrew “wings.” The word wings is given to the earth from the idea of its being spread out or expanded like the wings of a bird; compare Job 38:13; Eze 7:”

Job 37:4

“After Him a sound will roar. He will thunder with the voice of His greatness. And He will not be enquired into, when His Voice hath been heard. For the Lord doubtless turns into sorrow the life of him whom He has filled with His illumination; and the more He suggests to the enlightened mind eternal punishments, the more cruelly does He weary it with sorrow for its past wickedness; and a man grieves at what he was, because he now begins to discern the good which he was not. He hates himself, as he remembers himself to have been.”

Job 37:4

“After it a voice roareth - After the flash has been seen, the peal is heard; and this will be more or fewer seconds after the peal, in proportion to the distance of the thunder cloud from the ear. Lightning traverses any space without any perceivable succession of time; nothing seems to be any obstacle to its progress.”

Job 37:4

“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).”

Job 37:5

“God will thunder marvellously with His voice. Who doeth great things and inscrutable. God thunders marvellously with His voice, because He penetrates our hearts incomprehensibly with His secret might. For while with its secret motions it overpowers us with fear, and fashions us in love, it proclaims in some silent manner how eagerly He is to be followed, and a violent impulse arises in the mind, though nothing sounds in the voice. And it sounds the more loudly within us, the more completely it deadens the ear of our heart to every outward sound.”

Job 37:5

“God thundereth marvelously - He thunders in a wonderful manner. The idea is, that the voice of his thunder is an amazing exhibition of his majesty and power. Great things doeth he, which we cannot comprehend - That is, not only in regard to the thunder and the tempest, but in other things. The description of the storm properly ends here, and in the subsequent verses Elihu proceeds to specify various other phenomena, which were wholly incomprehensible by man.”

Job 37:5

“The sublimity of the description lies in this, that God is everywhere in the storm, directing it whither He will [BARNES]. See Ps 29:1-11, where, as here, the "voice" of God is repeated with grand effect. The thunder in Arabia is sublimely terrible.”

Job 37:6

“Who ordereth the snow to descend on the earth, and the rains of the winter, and the showers of His strength. Because the Psalmist says, Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow; [Ps. 51, 7] what do we understand by snow in this place, but the hearts of the Saints made white by the light of righteousness? But waters are taken up, and congealed above, in order to become snow. But when this snow descends to the earth, it is changed again into liquid waters.”

Job 37:6

“For he saith to the snow, be thou on the earth,.... In the original it is, be thou earth: hence one of the Rabbins formed a notion, that the earth was created from snow under the throne of glory, which is justly censured by Maimonides (f); for there is a defect of the letter ב, as in 2Ch 34:30; as Aben Ezra observes; and therefore rightly supplied by us, on the earth. This is one of the great and incomprehensible things of God.”

Job 37:6

“Be--more forcible than "fall," as UMBREIT translates Ge 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 (So 2:11).”

Job 37:6

“Saying and doing are not two things with God, though they are with us. When he speaks the word the small rain distils and the great rain pours down as he pleases-- the winter-rain (so the LXX.), for in those countries, when the winter was past, the rain was over and gone, Cant. ii.”

Job 37:7

“Who sealeth the hand of all men, that every one may know his works. For men scorn to think of the sins they commit. But when they hear the power of heavenly severity, they discern this burden of misdeeds which weighs them down. For being roused by the words of preaching, they keep on the watch, in order to consider to what punishments the merit of their former doings is leading them.”

Job 37:7

“He sealeth up the hand of every man - That is, in the winter, when the snow is on the ground, when the streams are frozen, and when the labors of the husbandman cease. The idea of “sealing up the hand” is derived from the common purpose of a seal, to make fast, to close up, to secure (compare Job 9:7, note; Job 33:16, note), and the sense is, that the hands can no more be used in ordinary toil.”

Job 37:7

“When the Lord seals up a man's hand, he is unable to perform his labor. The Lord has an objective in this, namely, "that all men may know His work." When they cannot do their own work, they are intended to observe the works of God. This is a fact which I fear many of us have never noticed. When the ground is hardened into iron by the frost. When the land lies deep beneath the snow. When the ox rests in the stall and the servants warm their hands at the fire, then the farmer's hand is sealed up.”

Job 37:8

“Then the beasts go into dens - In the winter. This fact appears to have been early observed, that in the season of cold the wild animals withdrew into caves, and that many of them became torpid. This fact Elihu adverts to as an illustration of the wisdom and greatness of God. The proof of his superintending care was seen in the fact that they withdrew from the cold in which they would perish, and that provision is made for their continuance in life at a time when they cannot obtain the food by which they ordinarily subsist.”

Job 37:9

“A tempest will come forth from the inner parts, and cold from Arcturus. When Holy Scripture mentions the inner parts, in opposition to Arcturus, it designates the quarter of the South, opposite to the parts of the North.”

Job 37:9

“Out of the south - Margin, “chamber.” Jerome, “ab interioribus - from the interior,” or “inner places.” Septuagint, ἐκ ταυείων ek taueiōn - “from their chambers issue sorrows” - ὀωύνας othunas. The Hebrew word used here (חדר cheder) denotes properly “an apartment,” or “chamber,” especially an inner apartment, or a chamber in the interior of a house or tent: Gen 43:30; Jdg 16:9, Jdg 16:12. Hence, it means a bed-chamber, 2Sa 4:7, or a female apartment or harem, Son 1:4; Son 3:”

Job 37:10

“By the breath of God frost is given - The freezing of water, though it is generally allowed to be the effect of cold, and has been carefully examined by the most eminent philosophers, is still involved in much mystery; and is a very proper subject to be produced among the great things which God doeth, and which we cannot comprehend, Job 37:5. Water, when frozen, becomes solid, and increases considerably in bulk. The expansive power in freezing is so great, that, if water be confined in a gun-barrel, it will split the solid metal throughout its whole length.”

Job 37:11

“Also by watering - Very various interpretations have been given of this phrase. Herder renders it, “His brightness rendeth the clouds.” Umbreit, Und Heiterkeit vertreibt die Wolke - “and serenity or clearness drives away the clouds.” Prof. Lee, “For irrigation is the thick cloud stretched out.” Rosenmuller, “Splendor dispels the clouds.” Luther, “The thick clouds divide themselves that it may be clear.” Coverdale, “The clouds do their labor in giving moistness.” The Vulgate, “The grain desires the clouds,” and the Septuagint, “The cloud forms the chosen” - ἐκλεκτον eklekton.”

Job 37:11

“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.”

Job 37:12

“And it is turned round about by his counsels - The original is difficult: והוא מסבות מתהפך בתחבולתו vehu mesibboth mithhappech bethachbulothav; which has been thus paraphrased: And he - the sun, makes revolutions - causes the heavenly bodies to revolve round him, turning round himself - turning round his own axis, by his attachments - his attractive and repulsive influences, by which the heavenly bodies revolve round him, and by which, as if strongly tied to their center, בחבל bechebel, with a cable or rope, they are projected to their proper distances, and prevented from coming too near, or flying off too far.”

Job 37:12

“Turned - The clouds are carried about to this or that place. Not by chance (though nothing seems to be more casual than the motions of the clouds) but by his order and governance.”

Job 37:12

“Thus his will is done upon the face of the world in the earth, that is, among the children of men, to whom God has an eye in all these things, of whom it is said that he made them to dwell on the face of the earth, Acts xvii.”

Job 37:13

“Whether in one tribe, or in His own land, or in whatsoever place of His mercy He shall order them to be found. The one tribe of Judah is certainly meant, which is mentioned in Holy Scripture plainly and repeatedly above the rest. For it received a special gift above them all, in that it brought forth from itself the flesh of our Redeemer.”

Job 37:13

“He causeth it to come - That is, the rain, or the storm. It is entirely under the hand of God, like the lightning Job 36:30, and designed to accomplish his purposes of mercy and of justice. Whether for correction - Margin, as in Hebrew “a rod.” The rod is often used as an emblem of punishment. The idea is, that God, when he pleases, can send the rain upon the earth for the purpose of executing punishment.”

Job 37:13

“Literally, "He maketh it (the rain-cloud) find place," whether for correction, if (it be destined) for His land (that is, for the part inhabited by man, with whom God deals, as opposed to the parts uninhabited, on which rain is at other times appointed to fall, Job 38:26, 27) or for mercy. "If it be destined for His land" is a parenthetical supposition [MAURER].”