Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like him?
Ver. 9. Hast thou an arm like God?] That thou shouldest wrestle a fall with him, and hope to overmatch him? "Thou hast a mighty arm," saith David: "strong is thy hand, and high is thy right hand," Psalms 89:13. It spans the heavens, and holds the earth in the hollow of it. The weight of it broke the angels' backs; and the terror of it may be seen in all those writs of execution recorded in the Scriptures. Oh, it is a fearful thing, saith the apostle, to fall into the (punishing) hands of the living God! Hebrews 10:31
Or canst thou thunder with a voice like him?] Of Pericles, the orator, it is said, that when he declaimed, Intonabat., fulgurabat, totam Graeciam commiscebat, &c., he thundered, he lightened, he mingled all Greece together (Cicero). And Livy, speaking of a certain Roman commander, saith, Haec cum intonuisset iracundus, &c., These things, when he had thundered out angrily, and with a courage, the people departed of their own accord. Alexander the Great, being once vexed at his soldiers for mutining and tumultuating, thunder-struck them with these words, Facessite hine ocyus, neminem teneo; liberate occulos meos ingratissimi milites, Get you quickly out of my presence, and be packing hence, ye ungrateful soldiers. And Severus, the emperor, in like sort dealt with his unruly army, Discedite Quirites, said he, et incertum an Quirites. These were terrible hard words, and very resolutely uttered: but what is any or all of this to the voice of God's thunder, whereof see before? Knowest thou not, O Job, that thine arm is an arm of flesh? and thy voice so small and low that a fly would not be frighted at it?