147:8 He covers 1 the sky with clouds,
provides the earth with rain,
and causes grass to grow on the hillsides. 2
38:25 Who carves out a channel for the heavy rains,
and a path for the rumble of thunder,
38:26 to cause it to rain on an uninhabited land, 5
a desert where there are no human beings, 6
38:27 to satisfy a devastated and desolate land,
and to cause it to sprout with vegetation? 7
38:28 Does the rain have a father,
or who has fathered the drops of the dew?
38:37 Who by wisdom can count the clouds,
and who can tip over 8 the water jars of heaven,
10:13 When his voice thunders, 9 the heavenly ocean roars.
He makes the clouds rise from the far-off horizons. 10
He makes the lightning flash out in the midst of the rain.
He unleashes the wind from the places where he stores it. 11
14:22 Do any of the worthless idols 12 of the nations cause rain to fall?
Do the skies themselves send showers?
Is it not you, O Lord our God, who does this? 13
So we put our hopes in you 14
because you alone do all this.”
1 tn Heb “the one who covers.”
2 tn Heb “hills.”
3 tn Heb “which you are crossing over there to possess it.”
4 tn Heb “rain of heaven.”
5 tn Heb “on a land, no man.”
6 tn Heb “a desert, no man in it.”
7 tn Heb “to cause to sprout a source of vegetation.” The word מֹצָא (motsa’) is rendered “mine” in Job 28:1. The suggestion with the least changes is Wright’s: צָמֵא (tsame’, “thirsty”). But others choose מִצִּיָּה (mitsiyyah, “from the steppe”).
8 tn The word actually means “to cause to lie down.”
9 tn Heb “At the voice of his giving.” The idiom “to give the voice” is often used for thunder (cf. BDB 679 s.v. נָתַן Qal.1.x).
10 tn Heb “from the ends of the earth.”
11 tn Heb “he brings out the winds from his storehouses.”
12 tn The word הֶבֶל (hevel), often translated “vanities”, is a common pejorative epithet for idols or false gods. See already in 8:19 and 10:8.
13 tn Heb “Is it not you, O
14 tn The rhetorical negatives are balanced by a rhetorical positive.
15 tn Grk “be sons of your Father in heaven.” Here, however, the focus is not on attaining a relationship (becoming a child of God) but rather on being the kind of person who shares the characteristics of God himself (a frequent meaning of the Semitic idiom “son of”). See L&N 58.26.
16 tn The participle ἀγαθουργῶν (agaqourgwn) is regarded as indicating means here, parallel to the following participles διδούς (didou") and ἐμπιπλῶν (empiplwn). This is the easiest way to understand the Greek structure. Semantically, the first participle is a general statement, followed by two participles giving specific examples of doing good.
17 tn Or “from the sky” (the same Greek word means both “heaven” and “sky”).
18 tn Grk “satisfying [filling] your hearts with food and joy.” This is an idiomatic expression; it strikes the English reader as strange to speak of “filling one’s heart with food.” Thus the additional direct object “you” has been supplied, separating the two expressions somewhat: “satisfying you with food and your hearts with joy.”
19 sn God’s general sovereignty and gracious care in the creation are the way Paul introduces the theme of the goodness of God. He was trying to establish monotheism here. It is an OT theme (Gen 8:22; Ps 4:7; 145:15-16; 147:8-9; Isa 25:6; Jer 5:24) which also appears in the NT (Luke 12:22-34).