“Remember to extol his work!
Men have sung to his work.
All people have looked on it.
Everyone watches it from far away.
Surely God is great!
We do not know him.
The number of his years is unsearchable.
He draws up the drops of water.
He distils his mist in rain.
The skies pour down rain.
Rain drops upon mortals abundantly.
Can anyone understand the spreading of the clouds?
Can anyone understand the thundering of his pavilion?
See!
He scatters his lightning around him.
He covers the roots of the sea.
For by these he judges peoples.
He gives food in abundance.
He covers his hands with the lightning.
He commands it to strike the mark.
Its crashing tells about him.
He is jealous with anger against iniquity.”
Elihu wanted Job to understand and extol the power of God over the climate we live in. Interesting enough I began working on this the day that Pope Francis I issued his encyclical on the climate “Laudato Si.” Yet here, Elihu in his hymn clearly sees God as the controller of the climate. God controls the rain, so that quite often we pray to God for more or less rain. This is especially true in strong farming communities. They also pray for good harvests from the land. We have seen both drought and over flooding this year in the USA. God has control over thunder and lightning as well as the seas. God is jealous and angry against the wicked. Perhaps we do not pray to God enough about the climate. Just as we have moved from the poetic flat world concept of sunrise and sunset to the earth moving around the sun, so too we might see climate as not the poetic unique concern of God alone, but see the impact of human actions on the climate also.
Eugene Finnegan Bible Project 