Job 38:29

Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

38:25-41 Hitherto God had put questions to Job to show him his ignorance; now God shows his weakness. As it is but little that he knows, he ought not to arraign the Divine counsels; it is but little he can do, therefore he ought not to oppose the ways of Providence. See the all-sufficiency of the Divine Providence; it has wherewithal to satisfy the desire of every living thing. And he that takes care of the young ravens, certainly will not be wanting to his people. This being but one instance of the Divine compassion out of many, gives us occasion to think how much good our God does, every day, beyond what we are aware of. Every view we take of his infinite perfections, should remind us of his right to our love, the evil of sinning against him, and our need of his mercy and salvation.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Out of whose womb came the ice? - That is, who has caused or produced it? The idea is, that it was not by any human agency, or in any known way by which living beings were propagated.

And the hoary frost of heaven - Which seems to fall from heaven. The sense is, that it is caused wholly by God; see the notes at Job 37:10.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

29. Job 37:10.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

What man either can produce them, or doth fully understand where or how they are engendered? For philosophers speak of these things only by guess, and the reasons which some assign for them are confuted by others; and so they will confute one another to the end of the world, and prove nothing solidly but their own ignorance and the reasonableness of these questions.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Out of whose womb came the ice?.... The parent of the rain and dew is the parent of the ice also, and he only; it is therefore called "his ice", his child, his offspring, Psalm 147:17. Here the Lord is represented as a mother, and so he is by Orpheus (b) called "metropator", or "mother-father";

and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? this is of God, and by his breath; see Job 37:10.

(b) Apud Clement. Stromat. l. 5. p. 608.

Geneva Study Bible

Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it?

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

29. who hath gendered it] Rather, brought it forth, or borne it (Isaiah 49:21), as the parallelism of the first clause requires.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 29. - Out of whose womb came the ice? Modern scientists admit that the process by which a liquid is metamorphosed into a solid transcends their utmost power of thought. They know nothing more than the fact that at the temperature of 32° Fahr. water, and at other temperatures other liquids, are solidified (see an article by Professor Tyndall on the generation of a snowflake in the Contemporary Review of 1880). It is thus not only creation itself, but the transformations of created things, that transcend the scientific intellect and are inexplicable. And the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? This is the same question as that of the previous clause, expressed in different words Job 38:29

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

28 Hath the rain a father,

Or who begetteth the drops of dew?

29 Out of whose womb cometh the ice forth,

And who bringeth forth the hoar-frost of heaven?

30 The waters become hard like stone,

And the face of the deep is rolled together.

Rain and dew have no created father, ice and hoar-frost no created mother. The parallelism in both instances shows that מי הוליד asks after the one who begets, and מי ילדו the one who bears (vid., Hupfeld on Psalm 2:7). בּטן is uterus, and meton. (at least in Arabic) progenies uteri; ex utero cujus is מבטן מי, in distinction from מאי־זה בטן, ex quo utero. אגלי־טל is excellently translated by the lxx, Codd. Vat. and Sin., βώλους (with Omega) δρόσου; Ges. and Schlottm. correct to βόλους, but βῶλος signifies not merely a clod, but also a lump and a ball. It is the particles of the dew holding together (lxx, Cod. Alex.: συνοχὰς καὶ βω. δρ.) in a globular form, from אגל, which does not belong to גּלל, but to Arab. 'jil, retinere, II colligere (whence agı̂l, standing water, ma'‛gal, a pool, pond); אגלי is constr., like עגלי from עגל. The waters "hide themselves," by vanishing as fluid, therefore: freeze. The surface of the deep (lxx ἀσεβοῦς, for which Zwingli has in marg. ἀβύσσου) "takes hold of itself," or presses together (comp. Arab. lekda, crowding, synon. hugûm, a striking against) by forming itself into a firm solid mass (continuum, Job 41:9, comp. Job 37:10). Moreover, the questions all refer not merely to the analysis of the visible origin of the phenomena, but to their final causes.