He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not split open under them.
Job is answering Bildad, who had just spoken about God's greatness. Job answers with a bigger picture of that greatness, and in this verse he points up to the clouds — vast weights of water that ought to burst, and do not.
Job outdoes Bildad
Job takes Bildad's own subject — God's greatness — and carries it past anything Bildad had said.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinBut let me, Bildad, tell you something about the greatness of God before which your words pale into nothing. And so he utters a description of God's greatness which is indeed greater than Bildad's.
Clouds as containers
The first half of the verse treats a cloud as a container.
Samuel RidoutJob moves from the starry heavens to the skies closer to the earth. He describes the clouds in language that is both beautiful poetry and accurate science: they are the containers for the waters above the earth. It is God who gathers the vapours of the sky and condenses them into the thick clouds. If these waters poured down on the earth unchecked, the result would be a destructive flood. He binds these waters in the clouds, and sends them down in gentle showers according to His will, and as the thirsty earth needs.
The cloud that does not tear
The second half of the verse is the wonder: the container holds. Anyone who has stood under a downpour knows the weight a sky can carry.
Leslie M. GrantHere is God's amazing power seen also in His drawing up waters and binding them in clouds (v.8). Clouds hold tremendous amounts of water, yet they are not broken by it — until, of course, the time comes for God to release the water as rain on the earth. In recent times we have heard of as much as three feet of rain coming down as a deluge on the earth in one day! How that rain was held up in the clouds until the time of its release is an astounding miracle.
Small rain and great rain alike
God governs the measure as well as the storage. A drizzle and a cloudburst answer to the same hand.
William Kelly"He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not split open under them" — that is, whether it is the little rain or the great rain, all is under God's control… These are only the fringes of His ways, and it is only the whisper that we hear now.
That last line is Job's own verdict on the whole speech. Everything he has described — the depths, the hanging earth, the loaded clouds — is only the outer edge of what God is. Job was conscious that what was known in his day was only a part of His ways, and his comment was, "What a whisper of a word do we hear of Him!"
The weight overhead and the weight within
Job was speaking about clouds while living under one. Commentators see the same restraint at work in his suffering.
Samuel RidoutAnd how good He is! If He opened the windows of heaven all at once, a flood would sweep all life away. Instead, He makes the drops of rain small, and they fall as refreshment "upon the place beneath." His afflictions work the same way. The suffering and the grief are, after all, only blessings in disguise for faith.
Summary
- Held. God draws up the waters and binds them in thick clouds — the cloud is the vessel, and the vessel does not tear until He chooses.
- Measured. Unrestrained water would be a destructive flood; instead it comes as gentle showers, as the thirsty earth needs.
- Governed. Little rain or great rain, the whole range is under God's control, not chance.
- Merciful. If heaven opened all at once, a flood would sweep life away; instead the drops fall small — and for faith, His afflictions come the same measured way.
- Partial. All of this is only the fringe of His ways. What we hear of God now is only a whisper.