Job 36:24

THE GLORIES OF GOD'S CONTROL OF HIS CREATION

"Remember that thou magnify his work,

Whereof men have sung.

All men have looked thereon;

Man beholdeth it afar off.

Behold, God is great, and we know him not;

The number of his years is unsearchable.

For he draweth up the drops of water,

Which distill in rain from his vapor,

Which the skies pour down

And drop upon man abundantly.

Yea, can any understand the spreadings of the clouds,

The thunderings of his pavilion?

Behold he spreadeth his light around him;

And he covereth the bottom of the sea.

For by these he judgeth the peoples;

He giveth food in abundance.

He covereth his hands with the lightning,

And giveth it a charge that it strike the mark.

The noise thereof telleth concerning him,

The cattle also concerning the storm that cometh up."

"Elihu here takes up again his theme of the greatness of God, calling the phenomena of nature to witness God's might."[17] Rawlinson commented that, "It must be allowed that this passage is eloquent."[18]

This whole dissertation on the wonders of God's control of nature, etc., "Is relevant to Elihu's speech, only because he believes that it is God's creative power that gives him the right to be the moral judge of the world."[19]

"The noise thereof telleth concerning him" (Job 36:33). This says that God's greatness is attested by the thunder; and supporting Rawlinson's idea that an approaching thunderstorm prompted these lines, we have the following statement in Job 36:33b.

"And the cattle concerning the storm that cometh up" (Job 36:33b). The imagery that comes to mind here is that of the movement of cattle toward shelter or protection from an approaching storm.

However, the exact meaning of the verse here, like several others in this chapter, is by no means certain. "This verse is notoriously difficult. Half a century ago, Peake noted that there have been more than thirty renditions of the verse."[20] In the judgment of this writer, our version, the ASV, is superior to any others that we have seen. Although, "The word storm is supplied here,"[21] it fits perfectly; because of, "The ancient observation that cattle seem to have a presentiment of an approaching storm."[22]