Also can [any] understand the spreadings of the clouds, [or] the noise of his tabernacle?
Ver. 29. Also can any understand the spreading of the clouds] That is, the skill that God showeth in spreading forth the clouds to that large extent, and muffling the whole heavens with them, so that nature finds herself buried in darkness? Some render it, the divisions or differences of the clouds; illic enim fiunt miracula magna (Vatab.); for some clouds are empty, and answer not expectation (worthless and vain boasters are compared to such, Proverbs 25:14; Jdg 1:12), some yield rain and drop fatness. Some, again, send forth hail, snow, frost, storm, thunder, lightnings, &c. (R. Levi). These are wonders in nature, far beyond human apprehension. The clouds God maketh one while as some airy seas, to hold water; another while as some airy furnaces, whence he scattereth the sudden fires into all parts of the earth, astonishing the world with the fearful noise of that eruption. Out of the midst of water he fetcheth fire, and hard stones out of the midst of thin vapours. Haec sunt sane admiranda et tremenda, saith Mercer. These are wonderful things, and no less dreadful. Is it not strange that of one and the same equal matter, viz. the vapours exhaled from the earth or water, various and different meteors should he engendered?
Or the noise of his tabernacle?] i.e. The swinging showers, or rustling winds, or rattling thunder claps, one in the neck of another, out of the clouds, called here God's tabernacle; in quo velut abditus, tot rerum miracula creat, wherein he sits in secret and unseen, creating many strange meteors to send down upon the earth; whereof the profoundest philosopher of them all can give no certain and undoubted reason.