Job 38:22-30

Verse 22

The treasures of the snow - The places where snow is formed, and the cause of that formation. See on Job 37:6 (note).

Treasures of the hail - It is more easy to account for the formation of snow than of hail. Hail, however, is generally supposed to be drops of rain frozen in their passage through cold regions of the air; and the hail is always in proportion to the size of the raindrop from which it was formed. But this meteor does not appear to be formed from a single drop of water, as it is found to be composed of many small spherules frozen together, the center sometimes soft like snow, and at other times formed of a hard nucleus, which in some cases has been of a brown color, capable of ignition and explosion. In the description given of snow, Job 37:6, it has been stated that both snow and hail owe their formation to electricity; the hail being formed in the higher regions of the air, where the cold is intense, and the electric matter abundant. By this agency it is supposed that a great number of aqueous particles are brought together and frozen, and in their descent collect other particles, so that the density of the substance of the hailstone grows less and less from the center, this being formed first in the higher regions, and the surface being collected in the lower. This theory is not in all cases supported by fact, as in some instances the center has been found soft and snow-like, when the surface has been hard. Hail is the only meteor of this kind, from which no apparent good is derived. Rain and dew invigorate and give life to the whole vegetable world; frost, by expanding the water contained in the earth, pulverizes and renders the soil fertile; snow covers and defends vegetables from being destroyed by too severe a frost; but hail does none of these. It not only does no good, but often much harm - always some. It has a chilling, blasting effect in spring and summer, and cuts the tender plants so as to injure or totally destroy them. In short, the treasures of hail are not well known; and its use in the creation has not yet been ascertained. But frost is God's universal plough, by which he cultivates the whole earth. Verse 23

Reserved against the time of trouble - לעת צר leeth tsar, "to the season of strictness," i.e., the season when the earth is constringed or bound by the frost.

Against the day of battle and war? - Hailstones being often employed as instruments of God's displeasure against his enemies, and the enemies of his people. There is probably an allusion here to the plague of hail sent on the Egyptians. See Exo 9:23 (note), and the notes there, for more particulars concerning hailstones, remarkable showers of them, etc. There may be also a reference to Jos 10:10-11 (note), where a destructive shower of what are called hailstones fell upon the Canaanitish kings who fought against Israel. See the note there also. Verse 24

By what way is the light parted - Who can accurately describe the cause and operation of a thunder cloud, the cause, nature, and mode of operation of the lightning itself? Is it a simple element or compound substance? What is its velocity? and why not conductible by every kind of substance, as it is known to exist in all, and, indeed, to be diffused through every portion of nature? How is it parted? How does it take its zigzag form? this is the curious, indescribable, and unknown parting. Are all the causes of positive and negative electricity found out? What are its particles, and how do they cohere, and in what order are they propagated? Much has been said on all these points, and how little of that much satisfactorily!

Scattereth the east wind upon the earth? - קדים kadim, the eastern storm, euroclydon, or levanter. Verse 25

Divided a water-course - The original תעלה tealah, from עלה alah, to ascend, may signify rather a cloud, or clouds in general, where the waters are stored up. I cannot see how the overflowings or torrents of water can be said to ascend any other way than by evaporation; and it is by this Divine contrivance that the earth is not only irrigated, but even dried; and by this means too much moisture is not permitted to lie upon the ground, which would not only be injurious to vegetation, but even destroy it. But query, may not a waterspout be intended?

A way for the lightning of thunder - "A path for the bolt of thunder." God is represented as directing the course even of the lightning; he launches the bolt, and makes the path in which it is to run. To grasp, manage, and dart the thunderbolt or lightning, was a work which heathenism gave to Jupiter, its supreme god. None of the inferior deities were capable of this. But who can thunder with a voice like the Almighty? He is The Thunderer. Verse 26

To cause it to rain on the earth - It is well known that rain falls copiously in thunder-storms. The flash is first seen, the clap is next heard, and last the rain descends. The lightning travels all lengths in no perceivable succession of time. Sound is propagated at the rate of 1142 feet in a second. Rain travels still more slowly, and will be seen sooner or later according to the weight of the drops, and the distance of the cloud from the place of the spectator. Now the flash, the clap, and the rain, take place all in the same moment, but are discernible by us in the succession already mentioned, and for the reasons given above; and more at large in the note on Job 36:29, etc. But how are these things formed? The lightning is represented as coming immediately from the hand of God. The clap is the effect of the lightning, which causes a vacuum in that part of the atmosphere through which it passes; the air rushing in to restore the equilibrium may cause much of the noise that is heard in the clap. An easy experiment on the airpump illustrates this: Take a glass receiver open at both ends, over one end tie a piece of sheep's bladder wet, and let it stand till thoroughly dry. Then place the open end on the plate of the airpump, and exhaust the air slowly from under it. The bladder soon becomes concave, owing to the pressure of the atmospheric air on it, the supporting air in the receiver being partly thrown out. Carry on the exhaustion, and the air presses at the rate of fifteen pounds on every square inch; see on Job 28:28 (note). The fibres of the bladder, being no longer capable of bearing the pressure of the atmospheric column upon the receiver, are torn to pieces, with a noise equal to the report of a musket, which is occasioned by the air rushing in to restore the equilibrium. Imagine a rapid succession of such experiments, and you have the peal of thunder, the rupture of the first bladder being the clap. But the explosion of the gases (oxygen and hydrogen) of which water is composed will also account for the noise. See below. But how does the thunder cause rain? By the most accurate and incontestable experiments it is proved that water is a composition of two elastic airs or gases as they are called, oxygen and hydrogen. In 100 parts of water there are 88 1/4 of oxygen, and 11 3/4 of hydrogen. Pass a succession of electric sparks through water by means of a proper apparatus, and the two gases are produced in the proportions mentioned above. To decompose water by galvanism: - Take a narrow glass tube three or four inches long; fit each end with a cork penetrated by a piece of slender iron wire, and fill the tube with water. Let the ends of the two wires within the tube be distant from each other about three quarters of an inch, and let one be made to communicate with the top, the other with the bottom of a galvanic pile in action. On making this communication, bubbles of air will be formed, and ascend to the top of the tube, the water decreasing as it is decomposed. The oxygen and hydrogen formed by this experiment may be recomposed into the same weight of water. Take any quantity of the oxygen and hydrogen gases in the proportions already mentioned; ignite them by the electric spark, and they produce a quantity of water equal in weight to the gases employed. Thus, then, we can convert water into air, and reconvert this air into water; and the proportions hold as above. I have repeatedly seen this done, and assisted in doing it, but cannot, in this place, describe every thing in detail. Now to the purpose of this note: the rain descending after the flash and the peal. The electric spark or matter of lightning, passing through the atmosphere, ignites and decomposes the oxygen and hydrogen, which explode, and the water which was formed of these two falls down in the form of rain. The explosion of the gases, as well as the rushing in of the circumambient air to restore the equilibrium, will account for the clap and peal: as the decomposition and ignition of them will account for the water or rain which is the attendant of a thunder storm. Thus by the lightning of thunder God causes it to rain on the earth. How marvellous and instructive are his ways! Verse 27

To satisfy the desolate and waste - The thunder cloud not only explodes over inhabited countries, that the air may be purified and the rain sent down to fertilize the earth, but it is conducted over deserts where there is no human inhabitant; and this to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth: for there are beasts, fowls, and insects, that inhabit the desert and the wilderness, and must be nourished by the productions of the ground. Every tribe of animals was made by the hand of God, and even the lowest of them is supported by his kind providence. Verse 28

Hath the rain a father? - Or, Who is the father of the rain? We have seen above one part of the apparatus by which God produces it; other causes have been mentioned on Job 36:27, etc.

The drops of dew? - אגלי egley, the sphericles, the small round drops or globules. Dew is a dense moist vapor, found on the earth in spring and summer mornings, in the form of a mizzling rain. Dr. Hutton defines it, "a thin, light, insensible mist or rain, descending with a slow motion, and falling while the sun is below the horizon. It appears to differ from rain as less from more. Its origin and matter are doubtless from the vapours and exhalations that rise from the earth and water." Various experiments have been instituted to ascertain whether dew arises from the earth, or descends from the atmosphere; and those pro and con have alternately preponderated. The question is not yet decided; and we cannot yet tell any more than Job which hath begotten the drops of dew, the atmosphere or the earth. Is it water deposited from the atmosphere, when the surface of the ground is colder than the air? Verse 29

Out of whose womb came the ice? - Ice is a solid, transparent, and brittle body, formed of water by means of cold. Some philosophers suppose that ice is only the re-establishment of water in its natural state; that the mere absence of fire is sufficient to account for this re-establishment; and that the fluidity of water is a real fusion, like that of metals exposed to the action of fire; and differing only in this, that a greater portion of fire is necessary to one than the other. Ice, therefore, is supposed to be the natural state of water; so that in its natural state water is solid, and becomes fluid only by the action of fire, as solid metallic bodies are brought into a state of fusion by the same means. Ice is lighter than water, its specific gravity being to that of water as eight to nine. This rarefaction of ice is supposed to be owing to the air-bubbles produced in water by freezing, and which, being considerably larger in proportion to the water frozen, render the body so much specifically lighter; hence ice always floats on water. The air-bubbles, during their production, acquire a great expansive power, so as to burst the containing vessels, be they ever so strong. See examples in the note on Job 37:10 (note).

The hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? - Hoar-frost is the congelation of dew, in frosty mornings, on the grass. It consists of an assemblage of little crystals of ice, which are of various figures, according to the different disposition of the vapours when met and condensed by the cold. Its production is owing to some laws with which we are not yet acquainted. Of this subject, after the lapse and experience of between two and three thousand years, we know about as much as Job did. And the question, What hath engendered the hoar-frost of heaven! is, to this hour, nearly as inexplicable to us as it was to him! Is it enough to say that hoar-frost is water deposited from the atmosphere at a low temperature, so as to produce congelation? Verse 30

The waters are hid as with a stone - Here is a reference to freezing in the winter, as we may learn from some of the constellations mentioned below, which arise above our horizon, in the winter months. The word יתחבאו yithchabbau is understood by the versions in general as implying hardening or congelation; and we know in some intense frosts the ice becomes as hard as a stone; and even the face of the deep - the very seas themselves, not only in the polar circles, but even in northern countries, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, and parts of Germany, are really frozen, and locked up from all the purposes of navigation for several months in winter.