A35538:1155
An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth, fortieth, forty-first, and forty-second,…
An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth, fortieth, forty-first, and forty-second, being the five last, chapters of the book of Job being the substance of fifty-two lectures or meditations / by Joseph Caryl ...
London: printed by M. and S. Simmons, 1666
Title page typeset from the transcription.
AN EXPOSITION WITH Practical Observations UPON The Thirty-eighth, T… › Chapter 38 › Verse 34-38
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The Margin of our Bibles gives us the former part of the verse in a very different translation, thus, When the dust is turned into mire. The earth hath had its fill, if not too much rain, when the dust is turned into mire? And when 'tis so, who but God stayeth the bottles of heaven from pouring down overmuch?
But I shall only open the reading in the Text, of which there are two interpretations.
First, Some expound it of staying the rain when there is most need of rain, or when the earth wants it most, or in a time of drought: For then the earth groweth hard like a molten-pillar, and the clods thereof cleaving one to another make clefts in the body of the earth. In a time of great drought, the earth at once cleaves asunder, and runs closet together, as it were to succour it self. Who stayeth the bottles of heaven, when the earth is chapt and gapes for rain to soften and cool it? Surely man doth it not, nor can he be said to do it (unless meritoriously) It is God alone who efficiently stays the clouds from rain in a time of drought, or when the necessities of the earth call aloud for it. Taking the words in this sense.