when he made a decree for the rain and a way for the lightning of the thunder,
This line sits inside a chapter asking one question: where can wisdom be found? Job answers by pointing to the God who fixes a rule for the rain and a path for the lightning.
Rain and lightning under law
The verse describes weather as legislation. Rain falls by rule — where, when, and how much — and lightning travels a set path. (The writer quotes a translation that reads "law" for the decree and "thunderbolt" for the lightning.)
Leslie M. Grant"He made a law for the rain" (v.26) — a law fixing how and when God releases it, and exactly where. Man has no power at all to change that law. Nor does man understand why God holds back the rain at certain times and places. Nor does he understand why God sends too much rain at times and places of His own choosing. All of it follows the laws of nature that God has set up. "A path for the thunderbolt" shows that thunder is not random, but always under wise supervision. All of this declares God's wisdom (v.27). He prepared wisdom, He searched it out, and left no part of how it works without His fullest consideration.
The wind weighed, the waters measured
The rain and the lightning follow two earlier measurements in the chapter: the weight of the wind and the measure of the waters. One of them took man thousands of years to catch up with.
William KellyIt was many hundreds, yes, some thousands of years after Job's day when man discovered that the atmosphere had weight. It never entered the thinking of the philosophers of that time; they knew nothing about it. "He weighs the waters by measure," so that no matter what comes, the sea is never too full.
An old book ahead of the laboratory
Rain and lightning stand together in this one line. That pairing matches how rain actually forms.
A. J. PollockHow accurate these ancient Scriptures are about science. They speak of vapours gathered from the ends of the earth — a worldwide area. They speak of the tendency of those vapours to rise. They speak of electrical discharge, which turns the vapour into many waters in the heavens. It is indeed most striking! People have often said that the Scriptures were not given to teach science; but when they do touch on science, they make no mistakes.
Nothing too vast, nothing too fine
The list of weather is not there to teach meteorology. Size does not stretch God's attention thin, and detail does not scatter it. The hand that set these rules also laid down a moral rule, and told man about it.
William KellyThe universe does not distract Him in the least. He looks to the ends of the earth. He sees not only in but under the whole heaven. Nothing is too fine or too vast for His view and rule. He gave the winds their weight — a remarkable thought and word for these days. He measured out the waters. He controlled the rain and the lightning. And He still laid down the foundation of all righteousness, and He did this for man on earth, whom He favoured, to hear.
What digging will never turn up
The chapter opens with mining. Men dig to places no animal or bird has ever reached, and still come up empty on the one thing worth having.
F. B. HoleThey dig down, they divert the underground stream, they cut paths where the strongest beasts and the sharpest-eyed birds have never walked. But in all this searching they never find wisdom... Men may discover much, and since Job's day they have discovered a great deal more, but wisdom eludes them.
The one sentence God gave to man
Two verses later the search ends with one short answer. It is not a fact about weather but a state of heart.
Leslie M. GrantThe only reason that wisdom eludes people is that "there is no fear of God before their eyes," so that they have no heart to depart from evil. The fear of the Lord is not terror, but a wholesome reverence that gives Him the place of supreme honour.
The same two marks appear at the very start of a changed life.
William KellyAnd that is exactly what a person feels when he is converted. He sees how he has been in almost all evil, and he departs from it. The fear of the Lord and departing from evil are what stay, even when souls are not taken up with their evil and talking about it.
Summary
- Law, not luck. God releases rain by decree, and thunder runs a supervised path; no part of the storm is loose or accidental.
- Law you cannot edit. Man has no power to change that decree, and no explanation for why drought falls here and flood there.
- Law observed late. Scripture named the weight of the wind. It linked electrical discharge to rainfall. Man measured neither until thousands of years later.
- Law that is moral too. The God who weighs the wind and measures the waters also laid down the foundation of all righteousness. He said it out loud for man to hear.
- Law that ends in reverence. Mining shafts reach what no bird has seen and still miss wisdom. It comes only to the person who gives God the place of supreme honour and turns from evil.