Job 38:37

And then the rain clouds, the lightnings and their control. What questions these are. They cover every department of what man calls "natural sciences." That includes geology, meteorology, geography, oceanography, astronomy and more. Job had not a single answer to these questions, and if he had spoken his words would have been folly. And we live 3000 years or more later. We boast of our progress and of our scientific discoveries of the great laws of nature. Yet we still cannot answer these questions in a satisfactory way. All the boasting of science about getting at the secrets of creation is nothing but foam. One breath of the Almighty, and man's speculations, apart from Him and His Word, are scattered to the winds. But what is the aim of the Lord in putting these questions? To show that God is greater than man and to humble man, to bring Job to the needed true knowledge of himself and to deliver him from the pride of his heart.

If man does have any wisdom at all, who has put it in his mind? Is he to have the credit for this? Or does he manufacture his own understanding? If one thinks he is wise, let him number the clouds! They are always changing and on the move, and often amazing in their magnificence. So we are wise to observe and marvel at the display they present, rather than to try to number them. May such lessons deeply impress us.

Who regulates the clouds by wisdom, / Or who inclines the pitchers of heaven, / When the dust is poured into hardness, / And the clods are compacted together?

Passing from the starry heavens to the sky nearer the earth, Job describes the clouds in beautiful and scientifically accurate language. They are the containing vessels for the waters above the earth. It is God who gathers the vapours of the sky and condenses them into the thick clouds. If these waters fell upon the earth without restraint, the result would be a destructive flood. So He binds these waters in the clouds. He sends them down in gentle showers, as He wills and as the thirsty earth needs.

He does not stop at showing man's littleness by what is vast. He also takes up what we might think are small things by comparison. He has gone over the immense heavens and the uncontrollable sea, and then the treasures of the snow and the hail, of the lightning and the waters. He notices various heavenly bodies in detail. But towards the end of the chapter He comes down to the little things of nature, where man is just as much at a loss. So it matters little whether we gaze at the greatest works of God or look into the least. Everywhere we meet what is completely beyond man's reach... What could better expose the futility of man's accusing God? Job had even claimed to judge the moral depths of God. But he could not face what God is in the least part of His universe, and he had not the slightest adequate idea of it.

The LORD closes this part of His address with fresh questions about the clouds, storms, and rain. Can Job bring down rain, or speak to the lightning flash? Does he have that understanding heart which knows the reason for the clouds, whether of rain or of grief? Is it a heart that can bring the refreshing showers upon the dusty earth? What food for reverent meditation we have in all this.