Job 38:37
Who can declare the order of the heavens, or who can make the harmony of heaven to sleep?
Open Job 38:37 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Quis enarrabit cælorum rationem ? et concentum cæli quis dormire faciet ?
- Septuagint (Swete)
- τίς δὲ ὁ ἀριθμῶν νέφη σοφίᾳ, οὐρανὸν δὲ εἰς γῆν ἔκλινεν;
- Hebrew (WLC)
- מִֽי יְסַפֵּ֣ר שְׁחָקִ֣ים בְּחָכְמָ֑ה וְנִבְלֵ֥י שָׁ֝מַ֗יִם מִ֣י יַשְׁכִּֽיב
Haydock's commentary
Sleep. The ancients have celebrated this harmony. (Cic.[Cicero?] Somn. Scip.)
Septuagint, "Who numbereth the clouds in wisdom, or hath bent the sky down to the earth?" Protestants, "or who can stay the bottles of heaven?" (Haydock)
Canst thou cause it to rain, or to be fair? (Calmet) or make the celestial bodies (Haydock) rest from motion? (Worthington)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Cyril of Jerusalem On the Words, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and of All Things Visible and Invisible
9. Who is the father of the rain? And who hath begotten the drops of dew ? Who condensed the air into clouds, and bade them carry the waters of the rain, now bringing golden-tinted clouds from the north , now changing these into one uniform appearance, and again transforming them into manifold circles and other shapes? Who can number the clouds in wisdom ? Whereof in Job it saith, And He knoweth the separations of the clouds, and hath bent down the heaven to the earth : and, He who numbereth the clouds in wisdom : and, the cloud is not rent under Him . For so many measures of waters lie upon the clouds, yet they are not rent: but come down with all good order upon the earth. …