Job 37:8

remain--rest in their lairs. It is beautifully ordered that during the cold, when they could not obtain food, many lie torpid, a state wherein they need no food. The desolation of the fields, at God's bidding, is poetically graphic.

The changes and extremities of the weather, wet or dry, hot or cold, are the subject of a great deal of our common talk and observation; but how seldom do we think and speak of these things, as Elihu does here, with an awful regard to God the director of them, who shows his power and serves the purposes of his providence by them! We must take notice of the glory of God, not only in the thunder and lightning, but in the more common revolutions of the weather, which are not so terrible and which make less noise. As,
I. In the snow and rain, Job 37:6. Thunder and lightning happen usually in the summer, but here he takes notice of the winter-weather. Then he saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth; he commissions it, he commands it, he appoints it, where it shall light and how long it shall lie. He speaks, and it is done: as in the creation of the world, Let there be light, so in the works of common providence, Snow, be thou on the earth. 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 Septuagint), for in those countries, when the winter was past, the rain was over and gone, Sol 2:11. The distinction in the Hebrew between the small rain and the great rain is this, that the former is called a shower of rain, the latter of rains, many showers in one; but all are the showers of his strength: the power of God is to be observed as much in the small rain that soaks into the earth as in the great rain that batters on the house-top and washes away all before it. Note, The providence of God is to be acknowledged, both by husbandmen in the fields and travellers upon the road, in every shower of rain, whether it does them a kindness of a diskindness. It is sin and folly to contend with God's providence in the weather; if he send the snow or rain, can we hinder them? Or shall we be angry at them? It is as absurd to quarrel with any other disposal of Providence concerning ourselves or ours. The effect of the extremity of the winter-weather is that it obliges both men and beasts to retire, making it uncomfortable and unsafe for them to go abroad. 1. Men retire to their houses from their labours in the field, and keep within doors (Job 37:7): He seals up the hand of every man. In frost and snow, husbandmen cannot follow their business, nor some tradesmen, nor travellers, when the weather is extreme. The plough is laid by, the shipping laid up, nothing is to be done, nothing to be got, that men, being taken off from their own work, may know his work, and contemplate that, and give him the glory of that, and, by the consideration of that work of his in the weather which seals up their hands, be led to celebrate his other great and marvellous works. Note, When we are, upon any account, disabled from following our worldly business, and taken off from it, we should spend our time rather in the exercises of piety and devotion (in acquainting ourselves with the works of God and praising him in them) than in foolish idle sports and recreations. When our hands are sealed up our hearts should be thus opened, and the less we have at any time to do in the world the more we should thereby be driven to our Bibles and our knees. 2. The beasts also retire to their dens and remain in their close places, Job 37:8. It is meant of the wild beasts, which, being wild, must seek a shelter for themselves, to which by instinct they are directed, while the tame beasts, which are serviceable to man, are housed and protected by his care, as Exo 9:20. The ass has no den but his master's crib, and thither he goes, not only to be safe and warm, but to be fed. Nature directs all creatures to shelter themselves from a storm; and shall man alone be unprovided with an ark?
II. In the winds, which blow from different quarters and produce different effects (Job 37:9): Out of the hidden place (so it may be read) comes the whirlwind; it turns round, and so it is hard to say from which point it comes but it comes from the secret chamber, as the word signifies, which I am not so willing to understand of the south, because he says here (Job 37:17) that the wind out of the south is so far from being a whirlwind that it is a warming, quieting, wind. But at this time, perhaps, Elihu saw a whirlwind-cloud coming out of the south and making towards them, out of which the Lord spoke soon after, Job 38:1. Or, if turbulent winds which bring showers come out of the south, cold and drying blasts come out of the north to scatter the vapours and clear the air of them.
III. In the frost, Job 37:10. See the cause of it: It is given by the breath of God, that is, by the word of his power and the command of his will; or, as some understand it, by the wind, which is the breath of God, as the thunder is his voice; it is caused by the cold freezing wind out of the north. See the effect of it: The breadth of the waters is straitened, that is, the waters that had spread themselves, and flowed with liberty, are congealed, benumbed, arrested, bound up in crystal fetters. This is such an instance of the power of God as, if it were not common, would be next to a miracle.
IV. In the clouds, the womb where all these watery meteors are conceived, of which he had spoken, Job 36:28. Three sorts of clouds he here speaks of: - 1. Close, black, thick clouds, pregnant with showers; and these with watering he wearies (Job 37:11), 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. See what pains, as I may say, the creatures, even those above us, take to serve man: the clouds water the earth till they are weary; they spend and are spent for our benefit, which shames and condemns us for the little good we do in our places, though it would be to our own advantage, for he that watereth shall be watered also himself. 2. Bright thin clouds, clouds without water; and these he scattereth; they are dispersed of themselves, and not dissolved into rain, but what becomes of them we know not. The bright cloud, in the evening, when the sky is red, is scattered, and proves an earnest of a fair day, Mat 16:2. 3. Flying clouds, which do not dissolve, as the thick cloud, into a close rain, but are carried upon the wings of the wind from place to place, dropping showers as they go; and these are said to be turned round about by his counsels, Job 37:12. The common people say that the rain is determined by the planets, which is as bad divinity as it is philosophy, for it is guided and governed by the counsel of God, which extends even to those things that seem most casual and minute, that they may do whatsoever he commands them; for the stormy winds, and the clouds that are driven by them, fulfil his word; and by this means he causes it to rain upon one city and not upon another, Amo 4:7, Amo 4:8. 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, Act 17:26. The inferior creatures, being incapable of doing moral actions, are incapable of receiving rewards and punishments: but, among the children of men, God causes the rain to come, either for the correction of his land or for a mercy to it, Job 37:13. (1.) Rain sometimes turns into a judgment. It is a scourge to a sinful land; as once it was for the destruction of the whole world, so it is now often for the correction or discipline of some parts of it, by hindering seedness and harvest, raising the waters, and damaging the fruits. Some have said that our nation has received much more prejudice by the excess of rain than by the want of it. (2.) At other times it is a blessing. It is for his land, that this may be made fruitful; and, besides that which is just necessary, he gives for mercy, to fatten it and make it more fruitful. See what a necessary dependence we have upon God, when the very same thing, according to the proportion in which it is given, may be either a great judgment or a great mercy, and without God we cannot have either a shower or a fair gleam.

He sealeth up the hand of every man - After all that has been said, and much of it most learnedly, on this verse, I think that the act of freezing is probably intended; that when the earth is bound up by intense frost, the hand, יד yad, labor, of every man is sealed up; he can do no more labor in the field, till the south wind blow, by which a thaw takes place. While the earth is in this state of rigidity, the beasts go into their dens, and remain in their places, Job 37:8, some of them sleeping out the winter in a state of torpor, and others of them feeding on the stores which they had collected in autumn. However, the passage may mean no more than by the severity of the rains beasts are drawn to their covers; and man is obliged to intermit all his labors. The mighty rains are past. Who would have thought that on this verse, as its Scriptural foundation, the doctrine of chiromancy is built! God has so marked the hand of every man by the lines thereon exhibited, that they tell all the good or bad fortune they shall have during life; and he has done this that all men, by a judicious examination of their hands, may know his work! On this John Taisnier, a famous mathematician, lawyer, musician, and poet laureate of Cologne, has written a large folio volume, with more hands in it than fell to the lot of Briareus: - printed at Cologne, 1683.

Then the beasts go into dens,.... When snow and rains are on the earth in great abundance, then the wild beasts of the field, not being able to prowl about, betake themselves to dens; where they lie in wait, lurking for any prey that may pass by, from whence they spring and seize it;

and remain in their places; until the snow and rains are finished. As for other beasts, Olaus Magnus (m) observes, that when such large snows fall, that trees are covered with them, and the tender branches bend under the weight of them, they will come and abide under them, as in shady places, in great security, sheltered from the cold wind. The former may put us in mind of great personages, comparable to beasts of prey for their savageness and cruelty, who, when the day of God's wrath and vengeance is come, will flee to rocks and mountains, dens and caverns, there to hide themselves from it; Revelation 6:15.

(m) Ut supra. (De Ritu Gent. Septentr. l. 19. c. 15.)

Then, in great rains or deep snows, the beasts go into dens for shelter and comfort.

6 For He saith to the snow: Fall towards the earth,
And to the rain-shower
And the showers of His mighty rain.
7 He putteth a seal on the hand of every man,
That all men may come to a knowledge of His creative work.
8 The wild beast creepeth into a hiding-place,
And in its resting-place it remaineth.
9 Out of the remote part cometh the whirlwind,
And cold from the cloud-sweepers.
10 From the breath of God cometh ice,
And the breadth of the waters is straitened.
Like אבי, Job 34:36, and פּשׁ, Job 35:15, הוא, Job 37:6 (is falsely translated "be earthwards" by lxx, Targ., and Syr.), also belongs to the most striking Arabisms of the Elihu section: it signifies delabere (Jer. ut descendat), a signification which the Arab. hawâ does not gain from the radical signification placed first in Gesenius-Dietrich's Handwrterbuch, to breathe, blow, but from the radical signification, to gape, yawn, by means of the development of the meaning which also decides in favour of the primary notion of the Hebr. הוּה, according to which, what was said on Job 6:2; Job 30:13 is to be corrected.
(Note: Arab. hawâ is originally χαίνειν, to gape, yawn, hiare, e.g., hawat et-ta‛natu, the stab gapes (imperf. tahwı̂, inf. huwı̂jun), "when it opens its mouth" - the Turkish Kamus adds, to complete the picture: like a tulip. Thence next hâwijatun, χαίνουσα χαῖνον, i.e., χᾶσμα = hûwatun, uhwı̂jatun, huwâatun, mahwâtun, a cleft, yawning deep, chasm, abyss, βάραθρον, vorago; hawı̂jatun and hauhâtun (a reduplicated form), especially a very deep pit or well. But these same words, hâwijatun, hûwatun, uhwı̂jatun, mahwâtun, also signify, like the usual Arab. hawa'â'un, the χάσμα between heaven and earth, i.e., the wide, empty space, the same as 'gauwun. The wider significations, or rather applications and references of hawâ: air set in motion, a current of air, wind, weather, are all secondary, and related to that primary signification as samâ, rain-clouds, rain, grass produced by the rain, to the prim. signification height, heaven, vid., Mehren, Rhetorik d. Araber, S. 107, Z. 14ff. This hawâ, however, also signifies in general: a broad, empty space, and by transferring the notion of "empty" to mind and heart, as the reduplicated forms hûhatun and hauhâtun: devoid of understanding and devoid of courage, e.g., Koran xiv. 44: wa-af'i-datuhum hawâun, where Bedhw first explains hawâ directly by chalâ, emptiness, empty space, i.e., as he adds, châlijetun ‛an el-fahm, as one says of one without mind and courage qalbuhu hawâun. Thence also hauwun, emptiness, a hole, i.e., in a wall or roof, a dormar-window (kauwe, kûwe), but also with the genit. of a person or thing: their hole, i.e., the space left empty by them, the side not taken up by them, e.g., qa‛ada fi hauwihi, he set himself beside him. From the signification to be empty then comes (1) hawat el-mar'atu, i.e., vacua fuit mulier = orba oiberis, as χήρα, vidua, properly empty, French vide; (2) hawâ er-ragulu, i.e., vacuus, inanis factus est vir = exanimatus (comp. Arab. frg, he became empty, euphemistic for he died).
From this variously applied primary signification is developed the generally known and usual Arab. hawâ, loose and free, without being held or holding to anything one's self, to pass away, fly, swing, etc., libere ferri, labi, in general in every direction, as the wind, or what is driven hither and thither by the wind, especially however from above downwards, labi, delabi, cadere, deorsum ruere. From this point, like many similar, the word first passes into the signification of sound (as certainly also שׁאה, שא): as anything falling has a full noise, and so on, δουπεῖν, rumorem, fragorem edere (fragor from frangi), hence hawat udhnuhu jawı̂jan of a singing in the ears.
Finally, the mental Arab. hawan (perf. hawija, imperf. jahwâ with the acc.), animo ad or in aliquid ferri, is attached to the notion of passing and falling through space (though by no means to hiare, or the supposed meaning "to breathe, blow"). It is used both emotionally of desire, lust, appetites, passions, and strong love, and intellectually of free opinions or assertions springing from mere self-willed preference, caprices of the understanding. - Fl.)
The ל of לשּׁלג influences Job 37:6 also. The Hebr. name for rain, גּשׁם (cogn. with Chald. גשׁם, Arab. gism, a body), denotes the rain collectively. The expression Job 37:6 is exceeded in Job 37:6, where מטרות does not signify rain-drops (Ew.), but, like the Arab. amtr, rain-showers. The wonders of nature during the rough season (חרף, סתיו, Sol 2:11), between the autumnal and vernal equinoxes, are meant; the rains after the autumnal equinox (the early rain), which begin the season, and the rains before the vernal equinox (the late rain, Zac 10:1), which close it, with the falls of snow between, which frequently produce great desolation, especially the proper winter with its frosty winds and heavy showers, when the business of the husbandmen as of the nomads is brought to a stand-still, and every one retreats to his house or seeks a sheltering corner.
This is the meaning of Job 37:7 : He sealeth up (חתם בּ as Job 33:16) the hand of all men that they cannot, viz., on account of the cold out of doors, be opened for work, that all people of His work (i.e., thanking Him for their origin as His handiwork, Job 34:19) may come to the perception (of Him who doeth all things). The expression is remarkable, and by the insertion of a m may be as easily cleared up as Job 33:17 : לדעת כּל־אנשׁים מעשׂהוּ, in order that each and every one may acknowledge His work; after which even Jer. translates: ut noverint singuli opera sua. The conjecture אנשׁים עשׂהוּ (Schultens junior, Reiske, Hirz.) is inferior to the former (Olsh.) by its awkward synecdoche num. The fut. consec. in Job 37:8 continues the description of what happens in consequence of the cold rainy season; the expression calls to mind Psa 104:22, as Job 34:14. does Psa 104:29. The winter is also the time of the stormy and raw winds. In Job 37:9 Elihu means the storms which come across from the great wide desert, Job 1:19, therefore the south (Isa 21:1; Zac 9:14), or rather south-east winds (Hos 13:15), increasing in violence to storms. החדר (properly the surrounded, enclosed space, never the storehouse, - so that Psa 135:7 should be compared, - but adytum, penetrale, as Arab. chidr, e.g., in Vita Timuri ii. 904: after the removal of the superincumbent earth, they drew away sitr chidrihâ, the curtain of its innermost part, i.e., uncovered its lowest depth) is here the innermost part of the south (south-east), - comp. Job 9:9 חדרי תימן, and Job 23:9 יעטף ימין (so far as יעטף there signifies si operiat se), - especially of the great desert lying to the south (south-east), according to which ארץ חדרך, Zac 9:1, is translated by the Targ. דרומא ארעא. In opposition to the south-east wind, מזרים, Job 37:9, seems to mean the north winds; in and of itself, however, the word signifies the scattering or driving, as also in the Koran the winds are called the scatterers, dhârijât, Sur. li. 1.
(Note: This dhârijât is also differently explained; but the first explanation in Beidhwi (ii. 183, Fleischer's edition) is, "the winds which scatter (blow away) the dust and other things.")
In מזרים, Reiske, without any ground for it, traces the Arab. mirzam (a name of two stars, from which north wind, rain, and cold are derived); the Targ. also has one of the constellations in view: מכּוּת מזרים (from the window, i.e., the window of the vault of heaven, of the mezarim); Aq., Theod. ἀπὸ μαζούρ (= מזרות, Job 38:32); lxx ἀπὸ δὲ τῶν ἀκρωτηρίων, we know not wherefore. Concerning מנּשׁמת־אל (with causal מן) with reference to the wind, vid., on Job 4:15. יתּן, it gives, i.e., comes to light, is used as in Gen 38:28; Pro 13:10. The idea of מוּצק (not fusum from יצק, but coarctatum from צוּק) cannot be doubtful in connection with the antithesis of רחב, comp. Job 36:16, the idea is like Job 38:30 (comp. Mutenebbi: "the flood is bound by bands of ice"); the בּ of בּמוּצק is, as Job 36:32, the Beth essentiae, used far more extensively in Hebr. than in Arab. as an exponent of the predicate: the breadth of the water is (becomes) straitened (forcibly drawn together).