The waters become hard like stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.
Job demanded a hearing with God. God answers out of the whirlwind with questions, not explanations. Here He asks about water that turns solid and a sea whose surface locks shut. The question is not "how does ice form?" but "who does this, and were you there?"
Water turned to stone
One writer links the rain, the frost and the hardening of water to one will behind them all:
Leslie M. Grant"Has the rain a father? Or who has begotten the drops of dew?" (v.28). Where and when the rain falls may look completely random to us, but it depends only on the will of our God and Father, who never makes a mistake. In the same way, He always sends frost in perfect wisdom for every occasion (v.29). Only one thing explains how water can harden like stone: God's law in sending the cold (v.30). Who truly understands this?
Ice has a parent
The previous verse asks whose womb the ice came from. One writer takes that picture seriously and traces the cold back to its source:
L. A. StasselHow can we explain ice coming from a womb? A womb is a warm place. Each of us was formed in one! Can ice come from such a place? And how is ice formed? Ice contains much less energy than liquid water. As energy leaves, things get colder. Water freezes at 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit). But we must remember where that energy came from before it could leave. It came from the sun. God sent it to us. He sends it and He prepared the way for it to leave. All is in His control. All is for the display of His love and care for us. The ice has come from His "womb"!
Not nature but a Person
We usually file the freezing of the deep under weather. One writer names what we lose when we speak only of impersonal forces:
A. J. PollockIt is sad when we reduce everything to an impersonal nature, as if these things simply had to happen, with no reference to anything in particular. But these verses show that God is at work behind what people call nature, and He works with full intelligence.
Why God asks about ice at all
Job had set himself up as judge of God's ways. God does not begin by explaining suffering. He begins by showing Job how little he knows of the smallest works of creation:
William KellyThe first thing God does is to overwhelm the man who dared to sit in judgment on His moral ways. He makes him feel his complete ignorance and helplessness in the smallest works of divine power, even in creation.
The limits of science
It is tempting to think these questions are now closed, since we can explain freezing. One writer meets that head on:
Samuel RidoutAnd yet modern science must not claim it can answer where Job could not. Outward knowledge has advanced, and great laws and principles of nature have been discovered. But can the scientist of today give truer and more satisfying answers to these questions of God than Job could long ago? … What is the key to all these questions? It is God, the true knowledge of Himself. Knowing Him, we know the Author and Source of all knowledge. Leave Him out, and all of science is a blank wall, with the truth still hidden beyond it.
From the frozen deep to trust
The same writer presses further. Ice and frost are not just things God does:
These things are not just acts; they are, so to speak, the offspring of God's love and care. Rain and dew, ice and frost are all the children of the great and good God.
Can we doubt Him? Shall we misjudge Him? Our unbelief and discontent testify against us, just as Job's complaints did against him.
Summary
- Cold comes from Him. Water hardens like stone only because God sends the cold — and even then, who truly understands it?
- Cold has a father. The ice comes from His "womb": He sent the energy in, He prepared the way for it to leave, and all of it displays His love and care.
- Cold is not a machine. It is sad to reduce this to impersonal nature. God Himself works, with full intelligence, behind what people call nature.
- Cold silences the critic. God overwhelms the man who sat in judgment on His moral ways. He shows him his own ignorance in the smallest works of creation.
- Cold invites trust. Rain, dew, ice and frost are children of the great and good God. So doubt and discontent, like Job's complaints, testify against us.