Fathers

Job 38

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Then Yahweh answered Job out of the whirlwind, “Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man, for I will question you, then you answer me! “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if you have understanding. Who determined its measures, if you know? Or who stretched the line on it? What were its foundations fastened on? Or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? “Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it broke out of the womb, when I made clouds its garment, and wrapped it in thick darkness, marked out for it my bound, set bars and doors, and said, ‘You may come here, but no further. Your proud waves shall be stopped here?’ “Have you commanded the morning in your days, and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, and shake the wicked out of it? It is changed as clay under the seal, and presented as a garment. From the wicked, their light is withheld. The high arm is broken. “Have you entered into the springs of the sea? Or have you walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the gates of the shadow of death? Have you comprehended the earth in its width? Declare, if you know it all. “What is the way to the dwelling of light? As for darkness, where is its place, that you should take it to its bound, that you should discern the paths to its house? Surely you know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great! Have you entered the treasuries of the snow, or have you seen the treasures of the hail, which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war? By what way is the lightning distributed, or the east wind scattered on the earth? Who has cut a channel for the flood water, or the path for the thunder storm, to cause it to rain on a land where there is no man, on the wilderness, in which there is no man, to satisfy the waste and desolate ground, to cause the tender grass to grow? Does the rain have a father? Or who fathers the drops of dew? Whose womb did the ice come out of? Who has given birth to the gray frost of the sky? The waters become hard like stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen. “Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loosen the cords of Orion? Can you lead the constellations out in their season? Or can you guide the Bear with her cubs? Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you establish its dominion over the earth? “Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, That abundance of waters may cover you? Can you send out lightnings, that they may go? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are?’ Who has put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who has given understanding to the mind? Who can count the clouds by wisdom? Or who can pour out the containers of the sky, when the dust runs into a mass, and the clods of earth stick together? “Can you hunt the prey for the lioness, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, when they crouch in their dens, and lie in wait in the thicket? Who provides for the raven his prey, when his young ones cry to God, and wander for lack of food?

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What the Fathers say

Job 38:25

Western Saints

Gregory the Dialogist

Who hath given a course for the most violent shower, and a way for the sounding thunder? If, as we said before, that persecution in the regions of Judaea is designated by the name of divided heat, because this very fierceness of persecution kept not from their office of preaching, through any fear, the holy preachers, who were assisted by the gift from on high, He fitly subjoins; Who hath given a course for the most violent showers? As if He were saying, Except Myself. …

Morals on the Book of Job, Book XXIX ↗

Thomas Aquinas

Next he proceeds to certain aspects of the winds in the air, by which the rainstorm is caused when rain is driven on. So he says, "Who gave the course of the very violent rainstorm?" For the violent course of the rainstorm is caused by the strong impulse of the winds which divine power produces. Likewise, when clouds are set in motion from the winds, this causes thunderclaps, and that is why such a sound is not heard in one place, like the sound of some passing body, and so he says, "and the way of sound to thunder?"

Commentary on Job ↗