Job 37:2

Hear, O hear, the roar of His voice, and the rumbling that goes forth out of His mouth.

The storm is upon them now, and Elihu trembles. He calls Job to hear God's voice in it all — and we may well believe he calls him to hear God's voice in the storm of sorrow that has fallen on him too. It has come blow upon blow: the sharp lightning stroke of affliction, the awful thunder of God's chastening. God has been doing marvellous things, things beyond our understanding, but it is God.

In Psalm 29 we discern the voice of the Lord in the mighty peals of thunder that follow the lightning's flash, and in the damage the thunderstorm leaves behind. Then we read, "and in His temple does everyone speak of His glory" (verse 9, older translation). Only those who know the presence of the Lord can understand how His glory is to be seen in all His works. The awesome thunderings are indeed God's voice to men, calling them to listen to Him. But if we are to understand God's will, and to discern His glory, we must know what it is to be found in the secret of His presence.

The heavens are arched overhead like a tent of endless space, glorious by day and by night. The draped clouds, the greatness of the mountains, the beauty of forest, field and sea — what do these tell to one who does not hear the Voice? The idol-worshipper makes his image, or bows to sun and moon. The scientist sweeps the heavens with his telescope, and searches the hidden depths of earth with his microscope. He talks with learning and interest about "laws of nature," about "principles of physics and of chemistry," about gravitation, cohesion and affinity. But unless he has heard the Voice of Jehovah, he knows Him no more than the poor deluded idol-worshipper bowing low before his hideous idol.

The chapter before turned our ears to the ways of God in providence. His ways are clearly righteous and good, mighty as He is, and especially so in corrective blessing, where men do not rebel to their own shame and ruin. Job 37 now turns our eyes to the wondrous works of God in the outward world… Here we can understand that we are in the infant days of even God's saints, when they spelled out the vast letters of heaven and earth seen before the Scriptures were read… For that very reason, because Christ was not here, the outward world shows God's majesty, faithfulness, and gracious power in all that surrounded man.

Here before Job's eyes was an object lesson about the spiritual storm he had been through. He had no power to stop the storm, yet God would allow it only for a time. He knows how to make the storm a calm (Ps. 107:29), as the Lord Jesus did when fear tore at His disciples (Mark 4:38-39).