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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 37:11 - 37:11
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
11 Also He loadeth the clouds with water,
He spreadeth far and wide the cloud of His light,
12 And these turn themselves round about,
Directed by Him, that they execute
All that He hath commanded them
Over the wide earth.
13 Whether for a scourge, or for the good of His earth,
Or for mercy, He causeth it to discharge itself.
With אַף extending the description, Elihu, in the presence of the storm that is in the sky, continually returns to this one marvel of nature. The old versions connect בְּרִי partly with בַּר, electus (lxx, Syr., Theod.) or frumentum (Symm., Jer.), partly with בָּרָה = בָּרַר in the signification puritas, serenitas (Targ.); but בְּרִי is, as Schultens has already perceived, the Hebr.-Arabic רִי, Arab. rı̂yun, rı̂j-un (from רוה = riwj), abundant irrigation, with בְּ; and יַטְרִיחַ does not signify, according to the Arab. atraha, “to hurl down,” so that what is spoken of would be the bursting of the clouds (Stick.),
(Note: This “atraha” is, moreover, a pure invention of our ordinary Arabic lexicons instead of ittaraha (VIII form): (1) to throw one's self, (2) to throw anything from one's self, with an acc. of the thing. - Fl.)
but, according to טֹרַח, a burden (comp. Arab. taraha ala, to load), “to burden;” with fluidity (Ew., Hirz., Hahn, Schlottm.), better: fulness of water, He burdens the clouds (comp. rawij-un as a designation of cloud as the place of rain). עֲנַן אֹורֹו, His cloud of light, is that that is charged with lightning, and הֵפִיץ has here its Hebr.-Arab. radical signification effundere, diffundere, with a preponderance of the idea not of scattering, but of spreading out wide (Arab. faid, abundance). וְהוּא, Job 37:12, refers to the cloud pregnant with lightning; this turns round about (מְסִבֹּות, adv. as מֵסַב, round about, 1Ki 6:29) seeking a place, where it shall unburden itself by virtue of His (God's) direction or disposing (תַחְבּוּלֹת, a word belonging to the book of Proverbs; lxx, Cod. Vat. and Alex., untranslated: εν θεεβουλαθωθ, Cod. Sinait. still more monstrous), in order that they (the clouds full of lightning) may accomplish everything that He commands them over the surface of the earth; אָֽרְצָה as Job 34:13, and the combination תֵּבֵל אָֽרְצָה as Pro 8:31, comp. אֶרֶץ וְתֵבֵל, Psa 90:2. The reference of the pronominal suff. to men is as inadmissible here as in Job 37:4. In Job 37:13 two אִם have certainly, as Job 34:29, two וְ, the correlative signification sive ... sive (Arab. in ... wa-in), in a third, as appears, a conditional, but which? According to Ew., Hirz., Hahn, Schlottm., and others, the middle one: if it (the rod) belongs to His land, i.e., if it has deserved it. But even the possessive suff. of לְאַרְצֹו shows that the לְ is to be taken as dat. commodi: be it for a rod, be it for the good of His land; which is then followed by a conditional verbal clause: in case He mercifully causes it (the storm) to come, i.e., causes this His land to be overtaken by it (הִמְצִיא here with the acc., the thing coming, whereas in Job 34:11 of the thing to be overtaken). The accentuation, indeed, appears to assume a threefold sive: whether He causeth it to discharge itself upon man for punishment, man for mercy, or His earth for good with reference to man. Then Elihu would think of the uninhabited steppe in connection with אִם לְאַרְצֹו. Since a conditional אִם by the side of two correlatives is hazardous, we decide finally with the lxx, Targ., and all the old versions, in favour of the same rendering of the threefold אִם, especially since it corresponds to the circumstances of the case.