Job 37:10

10. By the breath of God See note on Job 4:9. Frost is given The preceding verse has spoken of the whirlwind of the south, and the mysterious mezarim that “scatter” the clouds, and prepare the way for “the cold,” ( קרה ,) the wintry king of nature. But these stormy messengers do not so much speak of God as the silent frost, ( קרח ,) whose beneficent mission is accomplished amid the general silence of nature. “Frost,” says Dr. Clarke, “is God’s universal plough, by which he cultivates the whole earth.” “The waves of cold,” of which science speaks, that in solemn silence sweep across continents, Elihu sublimely attributes to the breath of God.

Is straitened Compare Job 38:30. Hitzig acutely remarks, that “it is not the mass of waters that is spoken of, but their breadth.” The straitening of the waters does not necessarily refer, therefore, to the freezing of them over, but rather to their restriction, or narrowing, by reason of the ice along each side or bank, and, therefore, has nothing to do with the scientific fact that water expands in the act of congealing. The citation Umbreit makes from an Arabic poet will illustrate another possible rendering of במוצק , “firmly bound,” (thus T. Lewis,) instead of “ straitened:” “The floods are fettered in bonds of iron.”