(11) He wearieth the thick cloud.--Also He ladeth the thick cloud with moisture, maketh it to be charged with rain. "He scattereth the cloud of His lightning," that is, which containeth His lightning. Others render, "Yea, the bright sun weareth out (disperseth) the thick cloud; it scattereth the cloud that holds His lightning. And it (the cloud) is turned round about by His counsels, that they may do His purpose, even all which He commandeth them, upon the face of the habitable world." Whether for correction, or for His land generally, or whether He causeth the rain to come as a special mercy:--these are the various purposes for which God reserves His showers.

Verse 11. - Also by watering he wearieth the thick cloud; rather, also with moisture he ladeth the thick cloud. Elihu returns from his description of the winter season to the more ordinary condition of things. Rain is the chief necessity of Eastern countries; and God is ever providing it, causing moisture to be drawn up from earth and sea, and safely lodged in the clouds, whence it descends, as needed, and as commanded by God, upon the fields and plains that man cultivates. He scattereth his bright cloud. Most commentators see a reference to lightning here; and it is possible, no doubt, that such a reference is intended. "His bright cloud" - literally, "the cloud of his light" - may mean "the cloud in which his lightning is stored." But perhaps no more is meant than that God spreads abroad over the earth the clouds on which his sunlight rests. The genial showers of spring fall generally from clouds that are, in part at any rate, steeped in the sun's rays.

37:1-13 The changes of the weather are the subject of a great deal of our thoughts and common talk; but how seldom do we think and speak of these things, as Elihu, with a regard to God, the director of them! We must notice the glory of God, not only in the thunder and lightning, but in the more common and less awful changes of the weather; as the snow and rain. Nature directs all creatures to shelter themselves from a storm; and shall man only be unprovided with a refuge? Oh that men would listen to the voice of God, who in many ways warns them to flee from the wrath to come; and invites them to accept his salvation, and to be happy. The ill opinion which men entertain of the Divine direction, peculiarly appears in their murmurs about the weather, though the whole result of the year proves the folly of their complaints. Believers should avoid this; no days are bad as God makes them, though we make many bad by our sins.Also by watering he wearieth the thick cloud,.... By filling it with a multitude of water, it is as it were loaded and made weary with it; and especially by sending it about thus loaded from place to place before discharged, when it becomes as a weary traveller; and then by letting down the water in it, whereby it spends itself like one that is weary; an emblem of ministers that spend and are spent for the good of men: some render it by serenity or fair weather, and so Mr. Broughton,

"by clearness he wearieth the thick vapours;''

by causing a clear sky he dispels them;

he scattereth his bright cloud; thin light clouds that have nothing in them, and are soon dispersed and come to nothing, and are seen no more; all emblem of such as are clouds without water, Jde 1:12; see Zechariah 11:17; or "he scatters the cloud by his light" (s); by the sun, which dispels clouds and makes a clear sky; an emblem of the blotting out and forgiveness of sins, and of restoring the manifestations of divine love, and the joys of salvation; see Isaiah 44:22.

(s) "dispellit nubem luce sua", Munster.