Passage

Job 38.35

Book: Job · NASB95

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

33. Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens? Canst thou establish the dominion thereof in the earth? 34. Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, That abundance of waters may cover thee?

35. Canst thou send forth lightnings, that they may go, And say unto thee, Here we are?

Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who hath given understanding to the mind? 37. Who can number the clouds by wisdom? Or who can pour out the bottles of heaven, (Job 38:33-37, ASV)

WEB

33. Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you establish its dominion over the earth? 34. “Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, That abundance of waters may cover you?

35. Can you send out lightnings, that they may go? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are?’

Who has put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who has given understanding to the mind? 37. Who can count the clouds by wisdom? Or who can pour out the bottles of the sky, (Job 38:33-37, WEB)

KJV

33. Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? 34. Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee?

35. Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are? ^{Here: Heb. Behold us?}

Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart? 37. Who can number the clouds in wisdom? or who can stay the bottles of heaven, ^{stay: Heb. cause to lie down} (Job 38:33-37, KJV)

YLT

33. Hast thou known the statutes of heaven? Or dost thou appoint Its dominion in the earth? 34. Dost thou lift up to the cloud thy voice, And abundance of water doth cover thee?

35. Dost thou send out lightnings, and they go And say unto thee, 'Behold us?'

Who hath put in the inward parts wisdom? Or who hath given To the covered part understanding? 37. Who doth number the clouds by wisdom? And the bottles of the heavens, Who doth cause to lie down, (Job 38:33-37, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: YHWH, answering Job out of the whirlwind (Job 38:1)
Audience: Job, with his three friends and Elihu present after their arguments have run out
Location: the land of Uz (Job 1:1), unlocated in the text and traditionally placed east or southeast of Israel
Time period: patriarchal in setting, with the date of composition disputed across a wide range

Theological reading

"Canst thou send forth lightnings, that they may go, And say unto thee, Here we are?" The question belongs to the run of weather challenges in God's first speech (38:22-38): snow and hail, light and the east wind, rain on the wilderness, ice, the constellations, the clouds. Like every question in the chapter it expects the answer no. God had told Job at the outset, "I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me" (38:3), and Job cannot declare.

Lightning as a servant. The verse pictures the lightnings (Strong's H1300 in the KJV) as servants who are sent, go, and report back for their next order. "Here we are" is, in the KJV margin, literally "Behold us." The prophet answers God the same way in Isaiah 6:8: "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I; send me," where the KJV margin again gives "behold me." The KJV tags the same two verbs in both verses, "send" (H7971) and "go" (H3212). Lightning stands before God the way a called prophet does, ready for a commission.

The point is command. Elihu had just said of God, "He sendeth it forth under the whole heaven, And his lightning unto the ends of the earth" (37:3). Now God asks whether Job can do what Elihu described. The lightning answers to God's voice and not to Job's. The psalms use the same picture: "Who maketh winds his messengers; Flames of fire his ministers" (Psalm 104:4), and "Fire and hail, snow and vapor; Stormy wind, fulfilling his word" (Psalm 148:8). Creation obeys. Job, who has demanded that God answer him, is being shown who sends and who is sent.

What the verse does not claim. The verse is sometimes read as foreseeing electrical or telegraph signals, since the lightning "goes" and "says." That is a resonance worth noticing, not a prediction. The text personifies lightning answering a summons, and its subject is obedience to God. See Bible Anticipates Science for how the codex grades this and similar readings.

Job's reply, when it comes, is the answer the whole speech has been drawing out: "Behold, I am of small account; What shall I answer thee? I lay my hand upon my mouth" (40:4).

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word.

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Quoted in

Concepts:

Bible Anticipates Science

Notes

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Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.