Dost thou know when God disposed them, and caused the light of his cloud to shine?
Ver. 15. Dost thou know when God disposed them] viz. Those wondrous works of God in the air especially; those varieties of meteors, the generation and motions whereof the greatest philosophers cannot perfectly find out by their natural causes, neither do they well agree among themselves concerning those causes. For Anaximander holdeth one thing, Metrodorus another, Anaxagoras a third, Aristotle a fourth; let those that have a mind to it read their janglings and disputes in Plutarch, De placitis philosophorum. Now if no man (though never so wise) can understand the wondrous works of God in these common things of nature, how can he comprehend his hidden works, hoc est, crucem? saith Brentius.
And caused the light of his cloud to shine?] Or, That he may cause the light of his cloud to shine. Hereby he meaneth lightnings, issuing out of the moist and cold cloud, say some; the rainbow, say others, that wonderful work of God (feigned therefore by the heathens to be the daughter of Thaumantias, or of wonderment), which is full of wonders, witness the beautiful shape thereof and various colours, with their several significations, as some conceive (Plato); the several prognostics; viz. of rain in the morning, of fair weather in the evening, as Scaliger concludeth; the form of it, a bow, which yet never shooteth any man unless it be with astonishment and love, &c. God puts his bow in his hand (saith Ambrose on Gen 9:13), not his arrow, but his bow, and the string of the bow is to us ward. The Jews conceit that the name Jehovah is written on the rainbow, and therefore they no sooner see it, but they hide their eyes, confess their sins, that deserve a second deluge, celebrate God's great goodness to mankind, &c. Some by the light of God's cloud here understand the sunshine through the clouds, causing it to clear up. Now who can certainly foretell rain or fair weather? Some learned men have spent much time and pains in astronomy to get skill in prognosticating, but could do little good of it; when they foretell a fair day it commonly raineth, and the contrary. The countryman's prognostics, the shepherd's calendar, hold better, for the most part, than the predictions of these artisans.