Bible Commentary

Job 38:36

Job 38:36

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public Domain

Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? Some refer this to human wisdom, and understand the Almighty as asking—Who has put man's wisdom into his inward parts? literally, into his kidneys, or as our idiom would express it, "into his heart."

But there is great difficulty in supposing a sudden transition from clouds and lightning in , to the human understanding in , with a return to clouds and rain in .

Hence many of the best critics understand of the purpose and intelligence that may be regarded as existing in the clouds and rain and lightning themselves, which are God's ministers, and run to and fro at his command, and execute his pleasure.

(So Schultens, Rosenmuller, Professor Lee, and Professer Stanley Leathes.) To obtain this result, we must translate the word טוּחוֹת By "tempest" or "thunder-belts," and the word שׂכוי, in the next clause, by "storm n or something similar (see the Revised Version, where "dark clouds" is suggested as an alternative for "inward parts'" and "meteor" as an alternative for "heart").

The whole passage will then run thus: Who hath put wisdom in the thunderbolts? or who hath given understanding to the tempest?

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