Introduction: Why Does Iyov Elaborate on the Laws of Nature?
In our chapter, Iyov continues his argument against his companions. Bildad had claimed that the Holy One, blessed is He, handed the world over to the system of celestial spheres and stars, and therefore one should not wonder at the success of the wicked. Iyov comes and demonstrates to him that there are entire laws of nature in the world completely unrelated to the celestial system and the motion of the spheres; rather, they are inherent forces that the Holy One, blessed is He, embedded within the elements. If so - Iyov argues - why does the Holy One, blessed is He, not punish the wicked specifically through these forces that are not subject to the celestial system, such as a deluge of water? From here onward, he unfurls a vast panorama of the secrets of Creation: the nature of water, the clouds, and the firmament.
"He Stretches the North over Chaos" - The Nature of Water at the Dawn of Creation
נֹטֶה צָפוֹן עַל תֹּהוּ, תֹּלֶה אֶרֶץ עַל בְּלִי מָה. - "He stretches the north over chaos; He suspends the earth upon nothing."
To understand the verse, the Malbim reminds us of the world's condition at its beginning. After all, the Holy One, blessed is He, said: "Let the waters be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear" - which implies that until that moment, water covered all dry land. And this is the natural state of the water element: just as the element of air surrounds the element of water, so the element of water naturally surrounds the element of earth. This was its original nature. The Holy One, blessed is He, intervened and altered the nature of water, and through this, the waters were gathered into one place and separated from the air. Initially, water and air were intermingled, and afterward the Holy One, blessed is He, separated them - yet even today a small amount of oxygen remains dissolved in the water, which fish utilize.
The Ramban explains that the phrase "tohu vavohu" (unformed and void) does not refer to what preceded the creation of the world, but to the very onset of Creation. And what was the onset of Creation? Primordial matter (hyle) - a fundamental substance created by the Holy One, blessed is He, from which He shaped and built everything. In the language of ancient philosophers and our Sages, this corresponds to the four elements, and everything seen in the world is merely those four elements in varying combinations. In the terminology of later thinkers, one might call this atoms: the basic building block is fundamentally consistent, but the configuration of how it bonds is what creates wood, iron, other metals, or enriched uranium. The word "hyle" is Greek, and the Ramban uses it because it was the accepted philosophical term of his era. To what may this be compared? To a person wanting to build a tower: a truck arrives and dumps a pile of concrete, gravel, and sand - this is the raw material, and from it rooms, floors, ceilings, courtyards, and fences will be made.
In that primordial state, water, earth, and air were mingled together, with water - by nature - resting over the earth. The Holy One, blessed is He, then imbued water with the capacity for evaporation, meaning a mechanism of separation between water and air, allowing them to part from one another after having been combined. Through this, air stood apart and water stood apart; water gathered into designated basins, leaving the rest to air. Furthermore, through the power of heat, the Holy One, blessed is He, enabled water and air to recombine - and this is evaporation. What does one breathe when the weather report states ninety percent humidity? Air combined with water. This moisture-laden air rises, and from it clouds are formed. Thus, through the power of light and the sun, air and water merge to form clouds, and as a consequence, rivers flow into the seas and dry land is revealed.
Had air not been separated from water, the entire world would have become endlessly filled with water - all humidity and all water. Without evaporation, rain would fall incessantly. The waters of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) can be drunk and evaporated, but regarding the oceans - were it not for evaporation, their waters would long ago have enveloped the entire world once more. In fact, today this is already beginning to happen: there are places and entire islands beginning to disappear, with photographs showing "here was an island, and now it is gone." What happened? Sea levels are rising due to melting polar ice caps and global warming, and extensive coastal strips have already been submerged.
Indeed, anyone traveling near the Kinneret sees abundant vegetation growing submerged in the water. How does vegetation grow inside water? The reality is that the Kinneret had receded significantly, allowing weeds and grass to sprout, and during a recent winter blessed with substantial rainfall, the waters rose and submerged all that vegetation. From the grasses visible beneath the water, one can discern where the shoreline once reached. And today, unfortunately, the situation is reverting, and the water level is dropping once more.
Now, this law governing the separation between air and water, the Malbim notes, has no connection to the celestial spheres at all. It is an independent mechanism created by the Holy One, blessed is He, through direct providence - divine individual providence (hashgachah pratit) - so that the world would not be flooded by the waters of the ocean. Therefore, Iyov argues: through this very power, the Holy One, blessed is He, can exact retribution from the wicked.
What Are the "North" and "Belimah" (Nothingness)?
The Malbim further explains, as noted earlier, that according to the ancient worldview, the northern side was uninhabited: the world was envisioned as having three walls, while the fourth wall - the northern side - was left open. And what was the "northern side" to them? The portion of the globe covered by the ocean. There, as it were, the Holy One, blessed is He, did not complete the enclosure, leaving it open; hence, conditions there resemble those at the time of Creation, when the entire world was covered with water. This is the meaning of "He stretches the north over chaos (tohu)": the north still extends as it did during the era of chaos, covered in water, whereas the remainder of the globe has already emerged from chaos, revealing dry land.
And as a consequence of this, He "hangs the earth upon nothingness" (toleh eretz al belimah). When the Holy One, blessed be He, gathered the portion of water and concentrated it in the oceans, the dry land was left suspended, with water beneath the ground - "To Him Who spreads out the earth over the waters." As it were, He hangs it upon restraint (belimah), upon a law that restrains and holds back the waters, preventing them from covering the earth. The Holy One, blessed be He, restrained the waters down below. And this continues onward to the verse "He drew a boundary upon the face of the waters" - the law that the Holy One, blessed be He, decreed regarding the expansion of water: that it should not remain down here, but rather expand through heat and the air entering it, rising up to the clouds, and thereby be restrained from inundating the world.
"He binds up water in His thick clouds" - The Gathering of Water in the Clouds
צֹרֵר מַיִם בְּעָבָיו, וְלֹא נִבְקַע עָנָן תַּחְתָּם. - He binds up water in His thick clouds, and the cloud does not burst beneath them.
That very same law binds up the water in the clouds. After the vapor rises through expansion and the sun warming it, it reaches the region of the clouds, and there it is bundled in the clouds - suspended in the cloud, and the cloud does not burst beneath it, but instead stores the water within itself.
"He covers the face of the Throne" - The Cloud as a Partition
מְאַחֵז פְּנֵי כִסֵּה, פַּרְשֵׁז עָלָיו עֲנָנוֹ. - He holds back the face of His throne, spreading His cloud over it.
This law, as it were, covers the surface of the Throne, referring to the heavens - "The heavens are My throne," "Hashem established His throne in the heavens" - where, as it were, the Holy One, blessed be He, sits upon the Throne governing the world. The water in the expanse stands between the earth and the heavens; these are the clouds, and above them there is no breath and no oxygen. It is like a ceiling and a coating separating the heavens and the earth. And this is "spreading His cloud over it": the cloud acts as a curtain spread out to divide between the heavens and the earth.
"To the boundary of light with darkness" - How High the Vapor Rises
חֹק חָג עַל פְּנֵי מָיִם, עַד תַּכְלִית אוֹר עִם חֹשֶׁךְ. - He carved a boundary upon the face of the waters, to the boundary of light with darkness.
"Chag" is related to mechugah (a compass) - the Holy One, blessed be He, encircled and engraved this law. All of this refers to everything we have discussed: that He suspended the earth upon restraint, and placed the water in the clouds, all measured as with a compass over the surface of the waters, so that the water would rise and evaporate and not fall as endless rain that would flood the entire surface of the earth. And how high does it rise? "To the boundary of light with darkness."
To understand this, let us ask: when you see the sky, what are you actually seeing? Seemingly, it makes no sense to say "I see the sky," for the sky is air, and can one see air? Here inside a room you see nothing, so why is it that when you step outside, you suddenly see a sky? Rather, the sky becomes visible through the rays of the sun striking the earth and bouncing back up to the region of cold and clouds - sagrir denoting a cold place - and from there upward, darkness begins. There, that reflective quality which illuminates the sky no longer exists, because the sun's rays do not reach that far, and a reality of darkness begins.
And in that cold region, which the rays of light no longer reach, there the Holy One, blessed be He, placed a law and a natural order that the water rising as vapor should ascend only up to this boundary and no further - to the place where light and darkness meet, the point where the rays of light rising from the earth cease and the darkness of space begins. That is as far as the water in the clouds reaches.
"The Pillars of Heaven Tremble" - A Law Not Subject to the Constellations
עַמּוּדֵי שָׁמַיִם יְרוֹפָפוּ, וְיִתְמְהוּ מִגַּעֲרָתוֹ. - The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astounded at His rebuke.
This law has no connection to the heavenly spheres and constellations of which Bildad spoke. It belongs to the nature of the elements; it is not bound to the celestial order and does not depend on astral influence. And what are the "pillars of heaven"? This is merely a metaphor; it does not mean that Iyov believed the heavens have literal pillars - just as there were those who believed that the world rests on elephants, and when their backs itch an earthquake occurs, which was the myth in the ancient world. Rather, the perspective is as if the heavens lean upon the earth by pillars, and these pillars are the connection between heaven and earth: the influence that the spheres, stars, and celestial systems exert here on earth.
Iyov comes and says: This law - the rising and evaporation of water - is unaffected by those pillars of heaven, neither by the planetary spheres, nor by the stars, nor by the constellations. On the contrary, the pillars of heaven tremble and are astounded at His rebuke: the nature of water possesses an intrinsic power, as if it were capable of crying out, throwing the celestial systems and stars into terror, because it is not subordinate to them. And if it is not subordinate to them, Iyov asks, why does the Holy One, blessed be He, not use it to punish the wicked?
"By His Power He Calmed the Sea" - Crushing Rahav
בְּכֹחוֹ רָגַע הַיָּם, וּבִתְבוּנָתוֹ מָחַץ רָהַב. - By His power He stilled the sea, and by His understanding He struck down Rahav.
That very natural law governing water is what "stills" the sea; for were it not so, the waters would rise higher and higher, flooding the entire earth. Because the Holy One, blessed be He, instilled within water the nature to separate from air, and for the sun to evaporate it so that it rises, joins with the air, and forms clouds - because of this, the sea remains calm; otherwise, all of us would be living inside water today.
"And by His understanding He struck down Rahav": Initially, water covered the earth, and the waters that covered the earth are called "Rahav" on account of their vastness. Chazal tell us that the Holy One, blessed be He, said to the ministering angel of the sea: "Open your mouth and swallow all the primordial waters" - but he refused, so the Holy One, blessed be He, struck him down and killed him. Who is "the sea"? The ministering angel of the sea. The metaphor comes to teach that according to the initial nature of Creation, the sea covered the entire earth, and the angel of the sea did not want to swallow the primordial waters, for water spread across the entire globe with air mixed within it - until the Holy One, blessed be He, came and changed the nature of water, separating the air from it by having the water evaporate and rise into clouds.
Through this, the waters became like something dead. For until then, the waters had been continuously swelling and expanding, leaving everything around them humid; but once the Holy One, blessed be He, extracted the air from them, they became inert, submerged in the sea, neither rising nor expanding. This, explains the Malbim, is the metaphorical meaning behind Chazal's statement that the Holy One, blessed be He, killed Rahav, the angel of the sea: He extracted from it the power of the air and oxygen within it, separating it, and through this it became like a corpse. The sea is now still, lying in its place, no longer rising and expanding as it did initially, because the Holy One, blessed be He, transformed its nature.
"By His Breath the Heavens Were Cleared" - Dispersing the Clouds and Slaying the Fleeing Serpent
בְּרוּחוֹ שָׁמַיִם שִׁפְרָה, חֹלְלָה יָדוֹ נָחָשׁ בָּרִחַ. - By His breath the heavens were cleared; His hand pierced the fleeing serpent.
And at times, explains the Malbim, the Holy One, blessed be He, cleanses the heavens of vapors through that very same law of atmospheric expansion. When the sun is strong, its heat dissipates the vapor, and the clouds evaporate and disperse. This is the meaning of "By His breath the heavens were cleared" - He beautifies and clears the heavens of their clouds, as the wind enters them, evaporates them, turns them back into thin air, and disperses them.
"His hand pierced the fleeing serpent" (nachash bari'ach) - and what does the serpent represent in this allegory? These are the clouds, which encircle the heavens and the earth like a coiling serpent, and are called a "bar" (bari'ach) because they lock over the earth like a bolt. To understand this poetic imagery better, the Malbim notes that it is drawn from an ancient parable: in Greek, Persian, and other ancient mythologies, people believed that a serpent had an ongoing feud with the sun, and whenever it overpowered the sun, an eclipse occurred. Therefore, you often see depictions of a dragon battling the sun. In their worldview, a serpent and a sea monster were one and the same; and the monster was the crocodile, which was sacred to them, and they attributed to it a celestial power fighting against the power known as the sun. The verse comes and proclaims that the Holy One, blessed be He, pierces that fleeing serpent and vanquishes it: this natural law clears away the clouds that obscure the sun, sends forth a wind to scatter them, and thereby allows the sun to shine.
"Behold, these are the edges of His ways" - and this is only a fraction
הֶן אֵלֶּה קְצוֹת דְּרָכָיו, וּמַה שֵּׁמֶץ דָּבָר נִשְׁמַע בּוֹ, וְרַעַם גְּבוּרוֹתָיו מִי יִתְבּוֹנָן. - "Behold, these are the edges of His ways, and what a mere whisper is heard of Him; but the thunder of His mighty deeds, who can comprehend?"
All that I have described concerning this law of nature governing the heavens and the waters - says Iyov - is merely the outskirts of His ways, a mere whisper, just a small fraction of the transformations wrought in nature through this law. All the more so, "the thunder of His mighty deeds, who can comprehend": the mighty wonders that the Blessed One performs through thunder, and through the expansion of air within the clouds from which lightning and thunder emerge - into this I have not even entered, and this goes far beyond the examples I presented to you.
The Conclusion of the Argument
In summarizing his argument, Iyov says: I have shown you the edges of His ways, a mere whisper, while the thunder of His mighty deeds - who can comprehend? And I showed you all this to prove that there are elements in nature that are not subject to the celestial order, where the Holy One, blessed be He, acts through direct Divine Providence independent of the celestial spheres. If so - why does the Holy One, blessed be He, not use them to punish the wicked? You claim that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not punish the wicked because He surrendered the world to the celestial order, and the constellations decreed goodness and abundance upon him. If that is so, let Him bring evil upon him according to his wickedness through those very elements that are not subordinate to the celestial order: let the ocean rise and drown him, or let the subterranean depths surge as in the days of Noach!
Perforce, you are compelled to arrive at the conclusion I stated: that everything was handed over to the celestial order, absolutely everything, and as it were, the Holy One, blessed be He, does not exercise providence at all - and from that you will understand why I suffer. But according to your words, that He watches over some things and not over others, water is the very sort of thing that, by your reasoning, is subject to His direct providence; why, then, does He not punish the wicked through it?
Summary:
In this chapter, Iyov lays out the order of Creation: the original nature of the waters that covered the earth, the alteration of their nature through evaporation and separation from the air, the ascent of the vapors to the boundary between light and darkness, their gathering into clouds, their dispersal by the wind, and the containment of the sea in its place. All of these are intrinsic laws that the Holy One, blessed be He, embedded into the elements, independent of the celestial spheres and the constellations. In them, clear individual Divine Providence is revealed - for were it not so, the entire world would be flooded with water. From this, Iyov constructs his challenge: if there are forces in the world that are not governed by the celestial order, why does the Holy One, blessed be He, not punish the wicked through them? And finally, he reminds us that all of this is merely "the edges of His ways" and "a mere whisper," whereas the thunder of His mighty deeds - who can comprehend?