He covers his hands with the lightning and commands it to strike the mark.
Elihu's last speech turns from how God deals with people to how He works in the sky. Here the storm itself is the picture: lightning held in God's hands and sent where He wants it. So is any flash in Job's world random, or is every one aimed?
Lightning in God's hands
God takes the lightning up in His own hands. One writer says what that rules out:
Leslie M. Grant"He covers His hands with the lightning" (v.32). The sharp, burning flashes of lightning are not unexplained events. They are the work of the hands of God. Man cannot copy this, and cannot command the lightning where it should strike. God does this, for lightning does not just happen to strike where it does.
The aim of the second line
Older English translations read the second line another way. Commentators here prefer a reading where God aims the bolt, and one of them says so plainly:
Samuel RidoutFrom His hand He sends food for the needy and judgment for the proud. The light of His presence strikes down to the very depths of the sea. Both His powerful hands throw the bolt like a dart that is sure of its aim. That, rather than the translation in our own version, seems to be the meaning of verse 32.
Another writer reads the image the same way. He also hears a message in the thunder that follows:
William KellyNothing is more vivid than this picture of God covering His hands with light, while He commands it where to strike, or sends it against the enemy. The noise of the storm tells of Him, a store of wrath against wrongdoing. Others understand the line to mean that even the cattle tell of the coming storm.
Judgment and food from one hand
The line just before this verse says God judges the peoples and gives food in plenty. Both come from one hand:
Leslie M. Grant"The depths of the sea" (v.30) speak of what man cannot fathom, yet God covers this. He controls all that is in the seas, which stands for the nations (Rev.17:15). By His perfect wisdom He judges the peoples — that is, all nations. At the same time He gives food in abundance (v.31). Yet men are proud and self-sufficient, and give Him no credit for the amazing supply of food He provides for them.
A live storm as Job's lesson
Elihu may not have been describing weather from memory. The sky seems to have been darkening over the men as he spoke:
Leslie M. GrantIt seems likely that as Elihu was speaking, the clouds began to drop their load of rain on the earth, pouring "abundantly on men" (v.28). The clouds clearly caught his attention. Who understands why they spread out as they do? (v.29). And why did thunder come with them, as it so often does in a rainstorm? Was God not giving Job a fitting object lesson at that very moment?
If so, the aimed bolt overhead matched the aimed blows in Job's life:
Samuel RidoutThe storm is on them now, and Elihu trembles. He calls Job to hear God's voice in it all — and, we may well believe, also to hear His voice in the storm of sorrow that has fallen on him. It has come blow after blow: the sharp lightning stroke of affliction, the terrible thunder of God's discipline.
From the small to the great
Elihu points first to the rain. He is using an older translation, which reads "he makes small the drops of water":
William Kelly"For he makes small the drops of water." Elihu shows God's power by pointing to things we can see. And if that is true of something as small as the rain, how much more of something as great as the soul of man — the soul of man, which came from the very breath of God Himself?
Summary
- Hands — God covers His hands with the lightning. It is His work, not an unexplained event, and no one can copy it.
- Aim — those hands do more than hold the bolt. They charge it where to strike, like a dart sure of its target.
- Reach — the same hand that aims judgment at nations also pours out food in abundance. People take the food and give Him no credit.
- Voice — the thunder that follows the flash announces Him, a stored-up wrath against wrongdoing.
- Lesson — if God measures every drop of rain, He is at least as careful with a human soul. Elihu calls Job to hear that same voice in the storm that fell on his own life.