Introduction: From Thunder to the Wonders of Creation
Chapter 37 is the direct continuation of the conclusion of the previous chapter. Elihu ben Berachel the Buzite began by describing thunder, and from there he expands to the entire system of nature: vapors, rain, snow, ice, and storms. All of this vivid description is not merely a science lesson for its own sake, but rather one comprehensive argument: if man cannot fully comprehend even the most overt and tangible phenomena in nature, how could he dare to scrutinize and draw conclusions regarding Hashem's hidden providence - matters of reward and punishment, and why the righteous suffer while the wicked prosper?
If Thunder Makes You Tremble - How Much More Should You Tremble Before the Voice of the Holy One, Blessed Be He
אַף־לְזֹאת יֶחֱרַד לִבִּי וְיִתַּר מִמְּקוֹמוֹ׃ - At this too my heart trembles, and leaps out of its place.
Thunder is merely a natural sound: clouds colliding. In relation to the Holy One, Blessed be He, it is nothing more than a faint whisper, a quiet sound. Yet when a person hears thunder, he is startled and alarmed; children burst into tears, and there are terrifying claps of thunder that shake the entire house as though artillery had struck nearby. Elihu says: If your heart trembles and leaps from its place at such a minor thing, how can you not tremble before the voice of Hashem, may He be blessed? If we tremble at things within our grasp, how much more so must we stand in awe before matters that are far beyond your comprehension - heights of wisdom vastly exceeding anything your intellect can grasp.
שִׁמְעוּ שָׁמוֹעַ בְּרֹגֶז קֹלוֹ וְהֶגֶה מִפִּיו יֵצֵא׃ - Listen attentively to the roar of His voice, and the mutter that emanates from His mouth.
The ancients likened thunder to the wrath of Hashem, as though it were indignation from on High. Yet relative to Heaven, it is merely "a mutter that emanates from His mouth" - a quiet, subtle sound. And yet, it is so terrifying that a person's heart leaps from its place.
תַּחַת־כׇּל־הַשָּׁמַיִם יִשְׁרֵהוּ וְאוֹרוֹ עַל־כַּנְפוֹת הָאָרֶץ׃ - He directs it beneath the entire heavens, and His light reaches the ends of the earth.
Yishrehu relates to looking - as in shuru u're'u ("gaze and see"). Thunder and lightning are seen and heard beneath the entire heavens, across kilometers and vast distances. "And His light" refers to the lightning, extending from the heavens to the ends of the earth.
Lightning and Thunder: Which Comes First?
אַחֲרָיו יִשְׁאַג־קוֹל יַרְעֵם בְּקוֹל גְּאוֹנוֹ וְלֹא יְעַקְּבֵם כִּי־יִשָּׁמַע קוֹלוֹ׃ - After it a voice roars, He thunders with His majestic voice; and He does not hold them back when His voice is heard.
Following the flash of lightning, the voice roars - thunder, reverberating ever louder with majestic power. In reality, however, thunder and lightning are produced simultaneously. Why, then, do we see the lightning and only hear the thunder a second or two later? Because the speed of sound is far slower than the speed of light. Light is perceived instantaneously, while sound reaches us with a delay. This is the meaning of "and He does not hold them back" - the thunder itself is not delayed at all; "when His voice is heard," it is emitted immediately. It is only our human sensory perception that is limited, making it appear to us as though the lightning occurred first.
יַרְעֵם אֵל בְּקוֹלוֹ נִפְלָאוֹת עֹשֶׂה גְדֹלוֹת וְלֹא נֵדָע׃ - God thunders wondrously with His voice; He does great things, and we cannot know.
Here he concludes what he began with: If your heart trembles from thunder, which is a natural sound, and you cannot grasp even the most basic fact - that thunder and lightning emerge as one and only our order of perception is reversed (and in their time they had no knowledge of the speed of sound and the speed of light) - how much more so when Hashem thunders with His voice, a voice of wonders, a voice beyond nature! The word nifla (wondrous) shares the root of being separated and set apart, as in "Do not inquire into what is wondrous (hidden) from you," and "Such knowledge is too wondrous for me, too lofty" - something set apart from me and beyond my grasp. If so, how can you expect to probe the hidden secrets of Hashem and matters that transcend physical reality? "He does great things, and we cannot know" - for even what you see with your own eyes you do not fully understand, so how could you understand things you cannot see at all?
Snow and Ice: The Very Same Cold
כִּי לַשֶּׁלֶג יֹאמַר הֱוֵא־אָרֶץ וְגֶשֶׁם מָטָר וְגֶשֶׁם מִטְרוֹת עֻזּוֹ׃ - For He says to the snow, "Be upon the earth," and to the shower of rain, and to the downpours of His mighty rain.
After describing the rain and the thunder that accompanies it, Elihu returns to discussing the vapors addressed at the end of the previous chapter, their natural laws, and the order of their governance. In the summer, vapors spread through the air and there is high humidity without rain; once winter arrives and the heat dissipates, the droplets coalesce and rain falls. And that very same factor that turned the vapor into rain - the cold - is what continues and transforms them into snow: if you increase the cold, that very same rain will become snow. According to the Malbim, the verse reads as if it were written: At the time when Hashem says to the earth and to all forms of rain and downpour in the air, "Become snow," they all transform and become snow, until everything upon the earth freezes and becomes like snow.
בְּיַד־כׇּל־אָדָם יַחְתּוֹם לָדַעַת כׇּל־אַנְשֵׁי מַעֲשֵׂהוּ׃ - He seals the hand of every person, that all men may know His deed.
When such conditions begin, every person seals and closes his hand: the grain he gathered and collected during the summer he locks in storehouses, not leaving it outside. Similarly, "that all men of his work may know" - he sits down and settles accounts with all his laborers, determining how much each one is owed, so that every worker receives what is due to him.
וַתָּבוֹא חַיָּה בְמוֹ־אָרֶב וּבִמְעוֹנֹתֶיהָ תִשְׁכֹּן׃ - Then the beast enters an ambush, and abides in its dens.
With the arrival of the cold and snow, even the animals cease their activity in the field. There are two kinds: there are beasts that retreat into caves and dense forests to lie in wait for smaller prey - "enters an ambush"; and there are those that enter not to ambush, but to enter deep hibernation, with the food they prepared during the summer laid out before them, such as the bear and the snake. Regarding them it says, "and abides in its dens," dwelling in its habitat safe from the impending winter.
מִן־הַחֶדֶר תָּבוֹא סוּפָה וּמִמְּזָרִים קָרָה׃ - Out of the chamber comes the storm, and cold from the scattering winds.
"Out of the chamber" - from the southern chambers, from the south, for from there come the great storms and tempests. "And from the scattering winds (mizarim)" - these are the winds that disperse the clouds, from the language of winnowing or scattering (zeriyah), as in "You shall scatter them like chaff" and "they were not pressed out (zoru), nor bound up." This is also the origin of the Lashon HaKodesh term for healing or remedy, mazor, because the physician would scatter medicinal powders over the wound. Here too, from the northern wind that scatters and disperses the clouds comes the cold.
"By the Breath of God Ice Is Given" - The Wonder of Water
מִנִּשְׁמַת־אֵל יִתֶּן־קָרַח וְרֹחַב מַיִם בְּמוּצָק׃ - By the breath of God ice is given, and the broad expanse of water becomes solid.
Through the blowing of a powerful wind, everything turns to ice, and what was until now a broad expanse of water - seas, lakes, and rivers - becomes solid and frozen.
Some later commentators (though this is not the Malbim's interpretation) saw here an allusion to a tremendous wonder that the Holy One, blessed be He, wrought in nature. Every substance in creation, when it solidifies and becomes solid, becomes denser and therefore heavier: solid iron is heavier than molten iron, and so with everything else. There is only one substance in creation that as a solid is lighter than as a liquid - water.
Imagine what would happen if water behaved like all other substances. The sea freezes from the top down: a thin layer of ice that grows thicker, while the fish live underneath it (and that is how an Eskimo breaks the ice and lowers a fishing line). But if ice were heavier than water, the top layer would freeze and sink, freeze and sink, and within a few short months - especially at the poles - the entire sea would become a single block of ice. First of all, all marine life would perish; and secondly, it would never thaw, for there is not enough sunlight to melt kilometers of ice. All the rivers and seas would become a frozen mass that never melts.
What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He altered the nature of water, so that when it freezes it expands and becomes lighter. If someone places a glass bottle filled with water into the freezer, the bottle shatters because the water expands. And it expands so that it takes in air, so that it can float, and so that life remains in the ocean even when it freezes over. This is "By the breath of God ice is given" - not only does the mighty wind cool the water, but the Holy One, blessed be He, so to speak, infuses breath and oxygen into the ice; "and the broad expanse of water becomes solid" - the water expands and gains breadth as it turns solid.
The Cloud, the Light, and the Cycles
אַף־בְּרִי יַטְרִיחַ עָב יָפִיץ עֲנַן אוֹרוֹ׃ - Also with clarity He burdens the thick cloud; the cloud scatters its light.
"Beri" is from the root bar, pure, clear, and distinct - this refers to white snow. It rests as a burden and weight upon the cloud, which can no longer carry it. "The cloud scatters its light" - the cloud scatters and brings it down below. And why did Scripture call it "its light", which connotes raindrops and rain, rather than snow? Here the verse is precise: clouds do not drop snow, but rain, and only while falling through the air does it crystallize and turn into snow. Therefore, it opens with "beri" - the pure whiteness that burdens the thick cloud - and concludes with "its light" - for it initially falls as rain and only afterward becomes snow.
וְהוּא מְסִבּוֹת מִתְהַפֵּךְ בְּתַחְבּוּלֹתָו לְפׇעֳלָם כֹּל אֲשֶׁר יְצַוֵּם עַל־פְּנֵי תֵבֵל אָרְצָה׃ - And it turns in circuits by His strategies for their work, whatever He commands them upon the face of the earth.
The Holy One, blessed be He, brings this about in a circuit: heat evaporates the sea, the vapor rises and forms droplets, the droplets gather into clouds, and the clouds pour them out again as water - a continuous, perpetual cycle. "By His strategies" - these are heat and cold: heat causes evaporation, cold condenses and brings down rain, and Hashem alternates between them so that rain may fall.
Notice the profound wisdom here. In the ordinary course of nature, the Holy One, blessed be He, does not judge the wicked or reward the righteous through the sun or the moon, for their operation is fixed, and anything with a fixed course cannot be altered according to man's spiritual state. Rain, however, was designed by Hashem to be dynamic and subject to variation: if people are worthy, rain falls; if they are not worthy, "He will shut up the heavens so that there will be no rain." Yet everything remains within the realm of nature, for who determines how much heat will evaporate the water and when, how much cold will condense it, and whether it will fall here or the wind will carry the clouds elsewhere? This is "It turns in circuits by His strategies for their work, whatever He commands them" - events shift from time to time according to Hashem's will, in order to guide the lower world according to their deeds.
אִם־לְשֵׁבֶט אִם־לְאַרְצוֹ אִם־לְחֶסֶד יַמְצִאֵהוּ׃ - Whether for a rod, or for His land, or for lovingkindness, He brings it forth.
Divine providence divides into two extremes and a middle path. "Whether for a rod" - to chastise His creatures through the attribute of judgment, from the expression of a ruler's rod or a chastising rod. "Or for kindness" - to bestow abundant goodness and rains of blessing. "Or for His land" - a middle path, according to the natural course of the land and the world, the attribute of Tiferet situated between Chesed and Gevurah or Din, which is contraction (tzimtzum), and then the Holy One, blessed be He, gives in measured restraint. And when it is for a rod - either He withholds the rain, or He causes the rain to create floods such that it would have been better had it not fallen at all, like that entire city that began floating in water. All of this unfolds through the immense wisdom that Hashem embedded in the nature of clouds, in evaporation, and in the heating of water.
"Stand and Contemplate" - If You Do Not Understand Nature
הַאֲזִינָה זֹּאת אִיּוֹב עֲמֹד וְהִתְבּוֹנֵן נִפְלְאוֹת אֵל׃ - Give ear to this, Iyov; stand and contemplate the wonders of God.
After expounding at length on the wonders found in rain, thunder, and snow, and the wisdom embedded in them, Elihu tells him: First listen, and then stand and contemplate. Contemplate these phenomena that are seemingly laws of nature, constantly visible before your eyes and open to your investigation. And if you succeed in understanding what is revealed to you, then go and investigate what is beyond you. But if you do not even understand how nature itself operates, which every person sees with their own eyes - why would you investigate hidden matters: Hashem's providence, foreknowledge and free will, the wicked who prosper and the righteous who suffer? In natural matters you have at least the beginning of perception; in sublime and concealed realms, you see nothing at all.
הֲתֵדַע בְּשׂוּם־אֱלוֹהַּ עֲלֵיהֶם וְהֹפִיעַ אוֹר עֲנָנוֹ׃ - Do you know when God lays His charge upon them, and causes the light of His cloud to shine?
Do you truly know and understand how Hashem established the laws of rain, how the light of His cloud shines, how rain emerges from the cloud, and how the cloud gathers the droplets into itself through heat? Even these visible matters you do not fully comprehend.
הֲתֵדַע עַל־מִפְלְשֵׂי־עָב מִפְלְאוֹת תְּמִים דֵּעִים׃ - Do you know the balancing of the clouds, the wondrous works of Him Who is perfect in knowledge?
And if you do not understand physical matters, how can you know what lies above the clouds, in the higher strata beyond them - where the "wondrous works of Him Who is perfect in knowledge" reside, those things beyond human reach that only the Master of perfect understanding, whose knowledge is whole and complete, can grasp? If you do not understand the clouds, how much less can you comprehend what lies above them!
אֲשֶׁר־בְּגָדֶיךָ חַמִּים בְּהַשְׁקִט אֶרֶץ מִדָּרוֹם׃ - You whose garments are warm, when He quiets the earth by the south wind?
This is a parable: when Hashem stills all the winds and causes only a southern wind to blow, which is a dry and scorching wind, your garments feel sweltering upon you and you cannot bear the heat.
תַּרְקִיעַ עִמּוֹ לִשְׁחָקִים חֲזָקִים כִּרְאִי מוּצָק׃ - Can you spread out the skies with Him, strong as a molten mirror?
And if you cannot endure even a light warm wind, how do you expect to soar and ascend with Him to the height of the skies, which are far above the heavens, and debate there with the Holy One, blessed be He? There they are "strong as a molten mirror" - like a solid, polished mirror that, when light shines upon it, does not absorb the light but immediately reflects it back with tremendous force, like the mirrors of the women that flashed back rays of light. This is an analogy for sublime, overwhelming perceptions: who can stand in a realm of fiery sparks and comprehend there the mind of Hashem, may He be blessed?
Why, Despite Everything, One Must Not Remain Silent
הוֹדִיעֵנוּ מַה־נֹּאמַר לוֹ לֹא־נַעֲרֹךְ מִפְּנֵי־חֹשֶׁךְ׃ - Teach us what we shall say to Him; we cannot arrange [our words] because of darkness.
Here Elihu concludes the debate. After showing that it is improper to draw conclusions regarding Hashem's governance and Divine matters that transcend nature, he asks: What can we say to Him about this very debate? Seemingly, it would have been appropriate to say, "we cannot arrange [our words] because of darkness" - that we should not engage in a debate at all concerning Divine providence, omniscience, free will, reward, and punishment, because of the darkness shrouding these matters. These are exalted and sublime concepts, far beyond our ability to comprehend.
הַיְסֻפַּר־לוֹ כִּי אֲדַבֵּר אִם־אָמַר אִישׁ כִּי יְבֻלָּע׃ - Shall it be told to Him that I speak? If a man spoke, would he wish to be swallowed up?
Yet Elihu asks: Is it fitting that I say before the Holy One, Blessed be He: "Master of the Universe, I will not engage in debate with Iyov on this matter, because these are lofty subjects in which we have no illumination"? It is not right to say so. Why? "If a man said that he would be swallowed up" - for when someone comes along and claims that there is no Divine providence, that there is no reward and punishment, that Hashem has abandoned the world to natural constellations, and that the wicked prosper while the righteous suffer, he is breaking through to ascend against Hashem with words of heresy. When the wicked seeks to deny faith because of this, it is no time to remain silent. Truly, on its own merits it would have been proper to keep silent due to the darkness; but when providence is obscured and concealed from the eyes of humanity, one must answer him, gird his loins like a warrior, and prove that the Holy One, Blessed be He, oversees all. For if I remain silent, every heretic will come and assert whatever he pleases, saying: "See? He had no answer."
וְעַתָּה לֹא־רָאוּ אוֹר בָּהִיר הוּא בַּשְּׁחָקִים וְרוּחַ עָבְרָה וַתְּטַהֲרֵם׃ - And now people do not see the light that is bright in the skies, but a wind passed and cleared them away.
Iyov's three friends stopped arguing, as if to say: "These are not clear matters; it is darkness, and we have no grasp of it." Elihu says of them: There is light here; they simply "did not see the light." The knowledge that the Holy One, Blessed be He, exercises providence is "bright in the skies" - no cloud obscures it, and anyone who contemplates it can perceive and recognize it. "A wind passed and cleared them away" - the wind represents the very clarification that Elihu provides. Just as a wind drives away the clouds, revealing a clear light to all, so too, once the matter is clarified, the entire overcast of uncertainty is dispelled. Neither high clouds nor low clouds remain, and anyone who looks closely sees the revealed providence of Hashem.
"Out of the North [Concealment] Gold Comes" - Why Divine Governance Is Concealed
מִצָּפוֹן זָהָב יֶאֱתֶה עַל־אֱלוֹהַּ נוֹרָא הוֹד׃ - Out of the north [concealment] gold comes; upon God is awesome majesty.
Here Elihu explains what that clarified light truly is. Hashem's governance regarding providence, reward, and punishment is hidden and concealed - tzafun - and precisely because of this, "gold comes forth," producing pure, precious gold. For if the Holy One, Blessed be He, exercised open providence, granting immediate reward for every good deed and immediate retribution for every evil act, what wicked person would ever do evil, and who would not be righteous? But then we would not be servants of Hashem; we would be robots: one would pray because he was paid, another would act virtuously for personal gain, and all human beings would be serving themselves rather than serving God. Therefore, specifically mitzafon - from the very fact that Hashem concealed (hitztpin) the ways of His governance and does not immediately punish the wicked or reward the righteous - "gold comes forth." A person seeks and yearns for closeness to Hashem like one searching for gold hidden deep in the earth, and for this he merits an immense reward.
"Upon God is awesome majesty" - because His governance is concealed and beyond our grasp, there is room for free choice, reward, and punishment, and in this very reality the majesty of Hashem is revealed. That man cannot fathom the depth of His wisdom is His majesty, His glory, and His splendor. As Rav Saadiah Gaon famously said, "Had I known Him, I would be Him" - the very fact that I cannot know Him is part of the majesty of His grandeur.
שַׁדַּי לֹא־מְצָאנֻהוּ שַׂגִּיא־כֹחַ וּמִשְׁפָּט וְרֹב־צְדָקָה לֹא יְעַנֶּה׃ - The Almighty, we cannot find Him; He is exalted in power, yet in justice and abundant righteousness He does not oppress.
The very fact that we cannot find Him, that we cannot grasp the Holy One, Blessed is He, and do not understand the ways of His providence - is itself the proof that He is "exalted in power," that no one can fathom His essence. The more something can be grasped by the intellect, the lower its dimension; and the more exalted and deep it is, the higher its dimension. The less you understand of Godliness - this in itself demonstrates the unfathomable depth, as it were, of the Creator, blessed be He.
"In justice and abundant righteousness He will not oppress" - Iyov cries out: Master of the Universe, answer me, explain to me the ways of Your providence! Yet the very fact that Hashem does not answer is a sign that His governance is filled with justice and righteousness. What is the difference between them? Justice (*mishpat*) is according to human deeds; righteousness (*tzedakah*) looks beyond human deeds entirely, as the Holy One, Blessed is He, in His righteousness and compassion, acts with him in kindness. If divine providence were purely justice - we would understand; if it were purely righteousness and kindness - we would understand. But when justice is meted out to one and kindness to another, and it would seem more fitting the other way around - confusion arises. And Hashem does not answer, nor does He explain to us that this person received justice due to a debt he must pay, while that person received kindness due to a merit he possesses. He does not sit to explain the ways of His governance to us.
"Therefore Men Fear Him" - The Awe Born of Concealment
לָכֵן יְרֵאוּהוּ אֲנָשִׁים לֹא־יִרְאֶה כׇּל־חַכְמֵי־לֵב׃ - Therefore men fear Him; none of the wise of heart can perceive Him.
From this very aspect, man stands in awe of Him: because "none of the wise of heart can perceive Him" - not one of them grasps the providence of the Holy One, Blessed is He, even as a drop in the ocean. For if I were righteous and knew that only good was due to me, I would have no fear at all. But when I know that even my righteousness is no guarantee, that a righteous person might be judged like the wicked, and a wicked person might enjoy every good in this world - this itself generates awe, for I do not know how Hashem will judge me. When the rules are obvious and predictable, there is no anxiety; when they are hidden, there is awe lest all my righteousness be of no avail.
And so we find with Yaakov Avinu: even though he received an explicit promise, "And I will protect you wherever you go" and "I will not forsake you," nevertheless "Yaakov was greatly afraid and distressed" - for who knows? Perhaps something changed; perhaps sin crept in. Reality is neither clear nor fixed, and from this stems awe - the constant vigilance lest one do or alter something that brings judgment upon him.
This is the meaning of "none of the wise of heart can perceive Him": from the sublime wisdom hidden within Hashem's providence, room is created for free choice, for reward and punishment, and for the awe of His majesty (*yirat haromemut*). For if I know that the Holy One, Blessed is He, may bring adversity in place of apparent good, or favor in place of adversity, then when I choose to serve Him - it is completely free choice. One cannot say that I chose to serve Him because He will bestow good upon me, for there is no such worldly guarantee; nor can one say that someone refrains from abandoning Him out of fear of immediate punishment, for there is no guarantee that one who abandons Him will suffer adversity in this world. The very fact that divine governance is not rigid and predictable, and that reward and punishment are not openly revealed here - is what allows room for free choice. And this is the immense wisdom of the Holy One, Blessed is He, Who ordered the world in an enigmatic way so that man would have the opportunity to elevate himself in his divine service and fear Him, thereby earning an eternal, perfect reward in the World of Truth.
In summary:
In this chapter, Elihu constructs a unified theme: thunder, lightning, rain, snow, ice, and storms - all are wonders that man sees with his own eyes yet cannot plumb their depths, to the point that even the order of lightning and thunder eludes him. And if this is so in the visible realm, how can he investigate the hidden realm? Yet, when a person comes to deny divine providence, one must not remain silent "because of darkness," but rather clarify and demonstrate, like the wind that clears the skies and reveals that the bright light was there all along. And the pinnacle of this realization: "Out of the north comes golden radiance" - it is precisely the concealment of reward and punishment that makes the service of Hashem authentic, giving birth to free choice and awe of His majesty, through which the splendor of the Creator is revealed - "Had I known Him, I would be Him."