Job 38:1 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Then the Lord answered Job No sooner had Elihu uttered the words last mentioned, but there was a sensible token of the presence of that dreadful majesty of God among them, spoken of Job 38:22, and Jehovah began to debate the matter with Job, as he had desired; out of the whirlwind Out of a dark and thick cloud, from which he sent a terrible and tempestuous wind, as the harbinger of his presence. The LXX. render the clause, δια λαιλαπος και νεφων, perturbinem et nubes, by a tempest and clouds. It is true, the Chaldee paraphrast, by the addition of a word, has given a very different exposition of this text, thus: Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind of grief; taking the word סערה, segnarah, rendered whirlwind, not in a literal, but in a metaphorical sense: as if the meaning were only this: that amidst the tumult of Job's sorrows, God suggested to him the following thoughts, to bring him to a sense of his condition. The matter is viewed in nearly the same light by a late writer in a periodical work, styled The Classical Journal, who contends that this Hebrew word properly means trouble, and may be rendered whirlwind only when it is applied to the elements, denoting the troubled state of the atmosphere; but when it has reference to man, it can have no such signification. In answer to this it must be observed, that many passages occur in the Old Testament, in which the word evidently means, and is rightly translated, whirlwind, or tempest, as that writer himself acknowledges; but probably not one can be found, at least he has not produced one, in which, as a noun, it means merely trouble, nor can it with propriety be so translated here, on account of the preposition מן, min, which properly means a, ab, de, e, ex, from, or out of, and not because of, as he proposes rendering it: for surely it would be improper to read the passage, “The Lord answered Job out of his trouble, &c.” Accordingly the generality of expositors agree to understand it of a sensible and miraculous interposition of the Deity appearing in a cloud, the symbol of his presence, not to dispute, but absolutely to decide the controversy. God appeared and spoke to him in this manner, says Poole, 1st. Because this was his usual method of manifesting himself in those times, and declaring his will, as we see Exodus 19:13; Num 9:15; 1 Kings 19:11; Ezekiel 1:4; Ezekiel 2 d, To awaken Job and his friends to a more serious and reverent attention to his words; 3d, To testify his displeasure both against Job and them; and, lastly, that all of them might be more deeply and thoroughly humbled, and prepared to receive and retain the instructions which God was about to give them. “There arose,” says Bishop Patrick, “an unusual cloud, after the manner of God's appearing in those days, and a voice came out of it, as loud as a tempest, which called to Job.” “Nothing can be conceived more awful than this appearance of Jehovah; nothing more sublime than the manner in which this speech is introduced. Thunders, lightnings, and a whirlwind announce his approach: all creation trembles at his presence: at the blaze of his all-piercing eye every disguise falls off; the stateliness of human pride, the vanity of human knowledge, sink into their original nothing. The man of understanding, the men of age and experience; he who desired nothing more than to argue the point with God; he that would maintain his ways to his face; confounded and struck dumb at his presence, is ready to drop into dissolution, and repents in dust and ashes.” See Heath.