37:15 Do you know how God commands them, 1
how he makes lightning flash in his storm cloud? 2
37:16 Do you know about the balancing 3 of the clouds,
that wondrous activity of him who is perfect in knowledge?
37:17 You, whose garments are hot
when the earth is still because of the south wind,
1 tn The verb is בְּשׂוּם (bÿsum, from שִׂים [sim, “set”]), so the idea is how God lays [or sets] [a command] for them. The suffix is proleptic, to be clarified in the second colon.
2 tn Dhorme reads this “and how his stormcloud makes lightning to flash forth?”
3 tn As indicated by HALOT 618 s.v. מִפְלָשׂ, the concept of “balancing” probably refers to “floating” or “suspension” (cf. NIV’s “how the clouds hang poised” and J. E. Hartley, Job [NICOT], 481-82, n. 2).