Job 37:11
in Job 37He loads the clouds with moisture; He scatters His lightning through them.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Yea, he ladeth the thick cloud with moisture; He spreadeth abroad the cloud of his lightning:
KJV
Also by watering he wearieth the thick cloud: he scattereth his bright cloud:
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This verse in Job 37
Commentary
10 notes on this verseA commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
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.
This site's exposition
He says to the snow
on Job 37:6-13
Snow, rain, ice and wind come under one command: “He says to the snow”, and “By the breath of God the ice is formed”. Gill reads “He seals up the hand of every man” as winter halting labor by God's decree, “so that all men may know His work”.
This site's exposition
He loads the clouds with moisture
John Wesley pictures the clouds loaded with moisture until they are weary, pouring it out over the earth. Matthew Henry sees them pour out rain until they can pour no more. The clouds spend all they carry.
The record, by era
The Medieval Church2 voices
He relates these effects to the usefulness for men saying, "The clouds desire grain," as if to say: The clouds are ordered to grain as an end for which they are useful. Each thing desires its own proper end, and accordingly he says the clouds …
A commentator
Gregory the DialogistMorals on the Book of Job, Book XXVII · Written before 604.
proposed
The corn desireth clouds. And the clouds scatter their light. For what are all the Elect, but the corn of God, to be treasured up in the heavenly garners? Which now bear with the chaff in the threshing of the floor; because in this purification of Holy Church, they endure the contrary habits of the reprobate, till the inward Husbandman separates them with His fan of judgment, and taking His Elect, as grains now cleaned, into the heavenly habitations, consigns the chaff to eternal fires.
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
), that is, they spend themselves, and are exhausted by the rain into which they melt and are dissolved, pouring out water till they are weary and can pour out no more.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens
They spend themselves and are exhausted watering the earth, until they are weary. Wearieth - Them with much water, and making them to go long journeys to water remote parts, and at last to empty themselves there: all which things make men weary; and therefore are here said to make the clouds weary by a common figure.
Also by watering he wearieth the thick cloud,....
2 more voices on this verse
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
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.
By watering he wearieth the thick cloud - Perhaps it would be better to say, The brightness ברי beri, dissipates the cloud; or, if we follow our version, By watering the earth he wearieth, wearieth out or emptieth, the thick cloud - causes it to pour down all its contents upon the earth, that they may cause it to bring forth and bud. The Vulgate understood it differently: Frumentum desiderat nubes, et nubes spargunt lumen suum. “The grain desireth the clouds; and the clouds scatter abroad their light.”
How the passage was read
What the Jewish commentators add
Aph Beri The name of the angel who is appointed over the clouds, and he scatters the Omnipresent’s rain cloud.
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 5 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.
The words behind it
7 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| אַף־ | ʾaf- | also | H637 → | 134 times |
| בְּ֭רִי | beri | with moisture | H7377 → | |
| יַטְרִ֣יחַ | yatriach | he burdens | H2959 → | |
| עָ֑ב | ʾav | [the] dark cloud[s] | H5645 → | 31 times |
| יָ֝פִ֗יץ | yafitz | he scatters | H6327 → | 67 times |
| עֲנַ֣ן | ʾanan | [the] cloud of | H6051 → | 87 times |
| אוֹרֽוֹ׃ | ʾoro | light his | H216 → | 121 times |
אַף־also
ʾaf-H637 →134 times
בְּ֭רִיwith moisture
beriH7377 →
יַטְרִ֣יחַhe burdens
yatriachH2959 →
עָ֑ב[the] dark cloud[s]
ʾavH5645 →31 times
יָ֝פִ֗יץhe scatters
yafitzH6327 →67 times
עֲנַ֣ן[the] cloud of
ʾananH6051 →87 times
אוֹרֽוֹ׃light his
ʾoroH216 →121 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Matthew 17:5While Peter was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him!”
it leads to
- Matthew 3:17
And a voice from heaven said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!”
- Matthew 12:18
“Here is My Servant, whom I have chosen, My beloved, in whom My soul delights. I will put My Spirit on Him, and He will proclaim justice to the nations.
- Mark 9:7
Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is My beloved Son. Listen to Him!”
- Deuteronomy 18:15
The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You must listen to him.
- Hebrews 2:1–3
We must pay closer attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.
- Matthew 3:17
Through
Isaiah 18:4For this is what the LORD has told me: “I will quietly look on from My dwelling place, like shimmering heat in the sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
it leads to
- Hosea 5:15
Then I will return to My place until they admit their guilt and seek My face; in their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.”
- Isaiah 26:21
For behold, the LORD is coming out of His dwelling to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth will reveal her bloodshed and will no longer conceal her slain.
- Isaiah 18:7
At that time gifts will be brought to the LORD of Hosts—from a people tall and smooth-skinned, from a people widely feared, from a powerful nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by…
- Hosea 5:15
About Job
This page draws on 10 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Job; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book XXVII; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Job.