Job 36:32 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

With clouds; with thick and black clouds spread over the whole heavens, as it is in times of great thunders and lightnings. Heb. With hands; either the clouds are so called for their resemblance to hands, 1 Kings 18:4,1, as being hollow and spread abroad; or the meaning is, that God covereth the light as it were by the hollow of his hand, as a man sometimes covers the light of a candle. The light; either the lightning, or rather the sun, which is fitly called light, Job 31:26 Psalms 136:7, as being the fountain of light. Commandeth it not to shine; or, giveth a charge concerning it, to wit, that it shall be covered; or, forbiddeth it, as this Hebrew word, joined with this proposition, usually signifies, as Genesis 2:17, Genesis 28:6 1 Kings 2:43, 1 Kings 11:11, and elsewhere, i.e. hindereth it, as it were by an express command or prohibition, from its usual and proper work, to wit, from shining. That cometh betwixt; which God interposeth as a veil between the sun and earth; by which he doth, as it were, deliver his command or prohibition to the sun, that he should not shine.