Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 38:28 - 38:28
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
28 Hath the rain a father,
Or who begetteth the drops of dew?
29 Out of whose womb cometh the ice forth,
And who bringeth forth the hoar-frost of heaven?
30 The waters become hard like stone,
And the face of the deep is rolled together.
Rain and dew have no created father, ice and hoar-frost no created mother. The parallelism in both instances shows that מִי הֹולִיד asks after the one who begets, and מִי יְלָדֹו the one who bears (vid., Hupfeld on Psa 2:7). בֶּטֶן is uterus, and meton. (at least in Arabic) progenies uteri; ex utero cujus is מבטן מִי, in distinction from מֵאֵי־זֶה בטן, ex quo utero. אֶגְלֵי־טָל is excellently translated by the lxx, Codd. Vat. and Sin., βώλους (with Omega) δρόσου; Ges. and Schlottm. correct to βόλους, but βῶλος signifies not merely a clod, but also a lump and a ball. It is the particles of the dew holding together (lxx, Cod. Alex.: συνοχὰς καὶ βω. δρ.) in a globular form, from אָגַל, which does not belong to גָּלַל, but to Arab. 'jil, retinere, II colligere (whence agı̂l, standing water, ma'‛gal, a pool, pond); אֶגְלֵי is constr., like עֶגְלֵי from עֵגֶל. The waters “hide themselves,” by vanishing as fluid, therefore: freeze. The surface of the deep (lxx ἀσεβοῦς, for which Zwingli has in marg. ἀβύσσου) “takes hold of itself,” or presses together (comp. Arab. lekda, crowding, synon. hugûm, a striking against) by forming itself into a firm solid mass (continuum, Job 41:9, comp. Job 37:10). Moreover, the questions all refer not merely to the analysis of the visible origin of the phenomena, but to their final causes.