Job 37:17

17. How אשׁר . Some of the best critics link the three verses (16-18) in one continuous thought, and read Thou whose garments are warm, etc. Shall he who suffers from heat which he does not understand exalt himself to a joint makership of the vault of the skies? The Authorized Version is quite as satisfactory, with which Hitzig agrees. The oppressive, murky sultriness which immediately precedes the outburst of a heavy thunder-storm may have suggested the thought to Elihu.

When he quieteth the earth Or, according to some, “when the earth is quiet” or sultry. The experience of Dr. Thomson ( Land and Book, 2:312) furnishes a fit illustration: “The sirocco to-day is of the quiet kind.… Pale lightnings played through the air like forked tongues of burnished steel, but there was no thunder and no wind. The heat, however, became intolerable, and I escaped from the burning highway into a dark vaulted room at the lower Bethhoron.… This sensation of dry, hot clothes is only experienced during the siroccos, and on such a day, too, one understands the other effects mentioned by the prophet, (Isaiah 25:5,) bringing down the noise, and quieting the earth. There is no living thing abroad to make a noise.… No one has energy enough to make a noise, and the very air is too weak and languid to stir the pendant leaves of the tall poplars.” Compare Isaiah 18:4.