Job 36:28

Which the clouds do drop and distil upon man abundantly.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

36:24-33 Elihu endeavours to fill Job with high thought of God, and so to persuade him into cheerful submission to his providence. Man may see God's works, and is capable of discerning his hand in them, which the beasts are not, therefore they ought to give him the glory. But while the worker of iniquity ought to tremble, the true believer should rejoice. Children should hear with pleasure their Father's voice, even when he speaks in terror to his enemies. There is no light but there may be a cloud to intercept it. The light of the favour of God, the light of his countenance, the most blessed light of all, even that light has many a cloud. The clouds of our sins cause the Lord to his face, and hinder the light of his loving-kindness from shining on our souls.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Upon man abundantly - That is, upon many people. The clouds having received the ascending vapor, retain it, and pour it down copiously for the use of man. The arrangement, to the eye even of one who did not understand the scientific principles by which it is done, is beautiful and wonderful; the beauty and wonder are increased when the laws by which it is accomplished are understood. Elihu does not attempt to explain the mode by which this is done. The fact was probably all that was then understood, and that was sufficient for his purpose. The Septuagint has given a translation of this verse which cannot be well accounted for, and which is certainly very unlike the original. It is, "But when the clouds east a shade over the dumb creation, he impresseth a care on beasts, and they know the order for retiring to rest - κοίτης τάξιν koitēs taxin. At all these things is not their understanding confounded? And is not thy heart starting from thy body?"

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

28. abundantly—literally, "upon many men."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

In such plenty as the necessities of the earth require; which also is a wonderful work of God.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Which the clouds do drop and distil upon man abundantly. Not upon the persons of men, which they take care as much as possible to shun and avoid, but upon the fields of men, and so for the profit and advantage of men; and this denotes both the gentle manner in which the clouds let down rain, and the liberal profusion of them; they let it down both in an easy and plentiful manner, and upon an abundance of men, or upon an abundance of fields and lands belonging to men; though sometimes rain falls upon the wilderness, where no man is, Job 38:26. The Targum is,

"at the prayer of a son of a great man,''

or at the prayer of a man that has great interest with God; that is famous for his faith and piety, as Elijah was, to whom perhaps the Targumist may have respect. The rain is an emblem of the word of God, the Gospel of Christ, which drops and distils on the souls of men like rain, and refreshes them, and makes them fruitful; and is dispensed by the ministers of it, who are compared to clouds, according to the measure of the gift of grace received by them, and that freely and fully as they have received it.

Geneva Study Bible

Which the clouds do drop and distil upon man abundantly.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

28. upon man abundantly] This is possible, but the more natural meaning is as above, the reference being to the universal reach of the rain, and its fall on all mankind.

29–37:5. The marvel of the thunder-storm.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 28. - Which the clouds do drop and distil upon man abundantly. All is done for man, for his benefit and advantage. Job 36:28

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

26 Behold, God is exalted-we know Him not entirely;

The number of His years, it is unsearchable.

27 For He draweth down the drops of water,

They distil as rain in connection with its mist,

28 Which the clouds do drop,

Distil upon the multitude of men.

29 Who can altogether understand the spreadings of the clouds,

The crash of His tabernacle?

The Waw of the quasi-conclusion in Job 36:26 corresponds to the Waw of the train of thought in Job 36:26 (Ges. 145, 2). מספּר שׁניו is, as the subject-notion, conceived as a nominative (vid., on Job 4:6), not as in similar quasi-antecedent clauses, e.g., Job 23:12, as an acc. of relation. שׂגּיא here and Job 37:23 occurs otherwise only in Old Testament Chaldee. In what follows Elihu describes the wondrous origin of rain. "If Job had only come," says a Midrash (Jalkut, 518), "to explain to us the matter of the race of the deluge (vid., especially Job 22:15-18), it had been sufficient; and if Elihu had only come to explain to us the matter of the origin of rain (מעשׂה ירידת גשׁמים), it had been enough." In Gesenius' Handwrterbuch, Job 36:27 is translated: when He has drawn up the drops of water to Himself, then, etc. But it is יגרע, not גּרע; and גּרע neither in Hebr. nor in Arab. signifies attrahere in sublime (Rosenm.), but only attrahere (root גר) and detrahere; the latter signification is the prevailing one in Hebr. (Job 15:8; Job 36:7). With כּי the transcendent exaltation of the Being who survives all changes of creation is shown by an example: He draws away (draws off, as it were) the water-drops, viz., from the waters that are confined above on the circle of the sky, which pass over us as mist and cloud (vid., Genesis, S. 107); and these water-drops distil down (זקק, to ooze, distil, here not in a transitive but an intransitive signification, since the water-drops are the rain itself) as rain, לאדו, with its mist, i.e., since a mist produced by it (Genesis 2:6) fills the expanse (רקיע), the downfall of which is just this rain, which, as Job 36:28 says, the clouds (called שׁחקים on account of its thin strata of air, in distinction from the next mist-circle) cause to flow gently down upon the multitude of men, i.e., far and wide over the mass of men who inhabit the district visited by the rain; both verbs are used transitively here, both נזל as Isaiah 45:8, and רעף, as evidently Proverbs 3:20. אף אם, Job 36:29, commences an intensive question: moreover, could one understand equals could one completely understand; which certainly, according to the sense, is equivalent to: how much less (אף כּי). אם is, however, the interrogative an, and אף אם corresponds to האף in the first member of the double question, Job 34:17; Job 40:8. מפרשׂי are not the burstings, from פּרשׂ equals פּרס, frangere, findere, but spreadings, as Ezekiel 27:7 shows, from פּרשׂ, expandere, Psalm 105:39, comp. supra on Job 36:9. It is the growth of the storm-clouds, which collect often from a beginning "small as a man's hand" (1 Kings 18:44), that is intended; majestic omnipotence conceals itself behind these as in a סכּה (Psalm 18:12) woven out of thick branches; and the rolling thunder is here called the crash (תּשׁאות, as Job 39:7, is formed from שׁוא, to rumble, whence also שׁואה, if it is not after the form גּולה, migration, exile, from שׁאה morf ,, vid., on Job 30:3) of this pavilion of clouds in which the Thunderer works.