He seals up the hand of every man, that all men whom he made may know it.
Elihu's last speech moves from God's dealings with people to a storm in the sky, and now to winter: snow falls and work stops. Why would God halt human activity at all, and what should people see once their hands are idle?
Why God argues from weather
Elihu points to what people can see, not to written Scripture. One writer explains why:
William KellyThe chapter before turned our ears to the ways of God in providence. Those ways are clearly righteous and good, mighty as He is, and especially so in corrective blessing. Job 37 now turns our eyes to the wonderful works of God in the outside world... It is not the unseen, but the visible. Here we can see that we are in the early days of even God's people. They spelled out the vast letters of heaven and earth, which could be seen before the Scriptures were read.
The sealed hand
The picture is of a hand stopped mid-task. One writer describes winter closing in and checking everything a person planned to do.
Samuel RidoutAnd if the fall of snow covers the earth like a burial cloth, and the icy hand of winter is laid upon man, checking all his activities — it is His snow, His hand, to teach man His supreme power... How good then to humble ourselves under His mighty hand!
What man is meant to learn
The second half of the verse gives the reason for the interruption. God does not just stop the work. He stops it so that people measure His work against their own.
Leslie M. GrantWhatever man tries to do about it, God sends weather that seals the hand of every man. Then everyone will know His work as infinitely greater than theirs (v.7).
Translations of the second half differ. One rendering ties the knowledge to God's work:
William KellyHe seals up the hand of every man, so that all mortals may come to know His work.
The hand behind the weather
Elihu never speaks of an impersonal system. One writer warns against that way of thinking.
A. J. PollockIt is sad when we reduce everything to impersonal nature, as if these things simply must happen, with no connection to anything in particular. But these verses show that God is actively and intelligently behind what men call nature.
The same refusal shows up in human efforts to control the weather:
Leslie M. GrantMen have tried in many ways to control the weather. It is a foolish, useless effort, because they do not want to let God have His way.
Rain for three reasons
The sealed hand is not always discipline. A few verses later Elihu himself gives three reasons for the rain.
Leslie M. GrantHe causes the rain to fall for three express reasons — for correction, which man often needs; for His land, which needs rain if it is to bear fruit; or for mercy, at times when His creatures suffer from drought.
The lesson aimed at Job
Elihu is not lecturing on meteorology. He is holding a mirror up to the man in front of him, whose own activity had been sealed by loss and disease.
Samuel RidoutThe storm is upon them now, and Elihu trembles. He calls on Job to hear God's voice in it all. And surely we may believe he also calls him to hear that voice in the storm of sorrow that has fallen on him. Blow upon blow it has come: the sharp lightning stroke of affliction, the awful thunder of God's discipline. God has been doing wonderful things, things beyond our understanding — but it is God. "Be still, and know that I am God."
One writer sums up what Elihu is doing, and presses it further:
William KellyThat is, he shows the absolute sovereignty of God. And if that is true about natural things, is it not still more necessary in spiritual things?
Summary
- Sealed — God lays winter on the world and stops every person's hand. It is His snow and His hand doing it.
- Taught — the stop has a purpose. With your work halted, you measure His work against yours and find His far greater.
- Personal — this is not impersonal weather. God stands behind what people call nature.
- Varied — the same skies come for correction, for the land, or for mercy. A sealed hand is not always a punished one.
- Applied — God's sovereignty over natural things holds even more in spiritual things. Job's own storm was the lesson, and the answer was to be still and know that He is God.