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Job 38:28
Verse
Summary
Commentary
- Adam Clarke
- Keil-Delitzsch
- Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
- John Gill
Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
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?
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
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 מי הוליד asks after the one who begets, and מי ילדו the one who bears (vid., Hupfeld on Psa 2:7). בּטן is uterus, and meton. (at least in Arabic) progenies uteri; ex utero cujus is מבטן מי, in distinction from מאי־זה בטן, ex quo utero. אגלי־טל 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 אגל, which does not belong to גּלל, but to Arab. 'jil, retinere, II colligere (whence agı̂l, standing water, ma'‛gal, a pool, pond); אגלי is constr., like עגלי from עגל. 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.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
Can any visible origin of rain and dew be assigned by man? Dew is moisture, which was suspended in the air, but becomes condensed on reaching the--in the night--lower temperature of objects on the earth.
John Gill Bible Commentary
The waters are hid as with a stone,.... The surface of the waters by frost become as hard as a stone, and will bear great burdens, and admit of carriages to pass over them (c) where ships went before; so that the waters under them are hid and quite out of sight: an emblem of the hard heart of man, which can only be thawed by the power and grace of God, by the south wind of the Spirit blowing, and the "sun of righteousness" rising on it; and the face of the deep is frozen; or bound together by the frost, as the Targum; it is taken, laid hold on, and kept together, as the word signifies, so that it cannot flow. Historians speak of seas being frozen up, as some parts of the Scythian sea, reported by Mela (d), and the Cimmerian Bosphorus, by Herodotus (e), and the northern seas by Olaus Magnus (f); as that men might travel over them on foot or on horseback, from one country to another; and Strabo relates (g), that where a sea fight has been in the summer time, armies and hosts have met and fought in the winter. In Muscovy the ice is to six and ten feet deep (h); in the year 401 the Euxine sea (i) was frozen over for the space of twenty days; and in the year 763 the seas at Constantinople were frozen one hundred miles from the shore, so thick as to bear the heaviest carriages (k). (c) "Nunc hospita plaustris", &c. Virg. Georgic. l. 3. v. 362. (d) De Situ Orbis, l. 3. c. 5. (e) Melpomene, sive, l. 4. c. 20. Vid. Macrob. Saturnal. l. 7. c. 12. (f) De Ritu Gent. Septent. l. 1. c. 13. (g) Geograph. l. 7. p. 211. Vid. Alex. ab Alex. Genial. Dier. l. 1. c. 22. (h) Scheuchzer. Phys. Sacr. vol 4. p. 810. (i) Universal History, vol. 16. p. 489. (k) Universal History, vol. 17. p. 45.
Job 38:28
The LORD Challenges Job
27to satisfy the parched wasteland and make it sprout with tender grass? 28Does the rain have a father? Who has begotten the drops of dew? 29From whose womb does the ice emerge? Who gives birth to the frost from heaven,
- Scripture
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- Commentary
- Adam Clarke
- Keil-Delitzsch
- Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
- John Gill
Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
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?
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
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 מי הוליד asks after the one who begets, and מי ילדו the one who bears (vid., Hupfeld on Psa 2:7). בּטן is uterus, and meton. (at least in Arabic) progenies uteri; ex utero cujus is מבטן מי, in distinction from מאי־זה בטן, ex quo utero. אגלי־טל 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 אגל, which does not belong to גּלל, but to Arab. 'jil, retinere, II colligere (whence agı̂l, standing water, ma'‛gal, a pool, pond); אגלי is constr., like עגלי from עגל. 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.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
Can any visible origin of rain and dew be assigned by man? Dew is moisture, which was suspended in the air, but becomes condensed on reaching the--in the night--lower temperature of objects on the earth.
John Gill Bible Commentary
The waters are hid as with a stone,.... The surface of the waters by frost become as hard as a stone, and will bear great burdens, and admit of carriages to pass over them (c) where ships went before; so that the waters under them are hid and quite out of sight: an emblem of the hard heart of man, which can only be thawed by the power and grace of God, by the south wind of the Spirit blowing, and the "sun of righteousness" rising on it; and the face of the deep is frozen; or bound together by the frost, as the Targum; it is taken, laid hold on, and kept together, as the word signifies, so that it cannot flow. Historians speak of seas being frozen up, as some parts of the Scythian sea, reported by Mela (d), and the Cimmerian Bosphorus, by Herodotus (e), and the northern seas by Olaus Magnus (f); as that men might travel over them on foot or on horseback, from one country to another; and Strabo relates (g), that where a sea fight has been in the summer time, armies and hosts have met and fought in the winter. In Muscovy the ice is to six and ten feet deep (h); in the year 401 the Euxine sea (i) was frozen over for the space of twenty days; and in the year 763 the seas at Constantinople were frozen one hundred miles from the shore, so thick as to bear the heaviest carriages (k). (c) "Nunc hospita plaustris", &c. Virg. Georgic. l. 3. v. 362. (d) De Situ Orbis, l. 3. c. 5. (e) Melpomene, sive, l. 4. c. 20. Vid. Macrob. Saturnal. l. 7. c. 12. (f) De Ritu Gent. Septent. l. 1. c. 13. (g) Geograph. l. 7. p. 211. Vid. Alex. ab Alex. Genial. Dier. l. 1. c. 22. (h) Scheuchzer. Phys. Sacr. vol 4. p. 810. (i) Universal History, vol. 16. p. 489. (k) Universal History, vol. 17. p. 45.