the belly · preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct
came
יָצָ֣אya.Tza'
H3318
to go (causatively · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
ice
הַקָּ֑רַחha.Ka.rach
H7140
ice (as if bald · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
frost
וּכְפֹ֥רu.khe.For
H3713
properly · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct
heaven
שָׁ֝מַיִםSha.ma.yim
H8064
the sky (as aloft · noun, common masculine plural absolute
gendered
יְלָדֽוֹye.la.Do
H3205
to bear young · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 147:16-17 He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes.
Job 37:10 By the breath of God frost is given: and the breadth of the waters is straitened.
Job 6:16 Which are blackish by reason of the ice, and wherein the snow is hid:
Job 38:8 Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 38:25–end
Hitherto God had put such questions to Job as were proper to convince him of his ignorance and short-sightedness. Now he comes, in the same manner, to show his impotency and weakness. As it is but little that he knows, and therefore he ought not to arraign the divine counsels, so it is but little that he can do, and therefore he ought not to oppose the proceedings of Providence. Let him consider what great things God does, and try whether he can do the like, or whether he thinks himself an equal match for him.
I. God has thunder, and lightning, and rain, and frost, at command, but Job has not, and therefore let him not dare to compare himself with God, or to contend with him. Nothing is more…
Out of whose womb came the ice? - Ice is a solid, transparent, and brittle body, formed of water by means of cold. Some philosophers suppose that ice is only the re-establishment of water in its natural state; that the mere absence of fire is sufficient to account for this re-establishment; and that the fluidity of water is a real fusion, like that of metals exposed to the action of fire; and differing only in this, that a greater portion of fire is necessary to one than the other. Ice, therefore, is supposed to be the natural state of water; so that in its natural state water is solid, and becomes fluid only by the action of fire, as solid metallic bodies are brought into a state of fusion…
Out of whose womb came the ice?.... The parent of the rain and dew is the parent of the ice also, and he only; it is therefore called "his ice", his child, his offspring, Psalm 147:17. Here the Lord is represented as a mother, and so he is by Orpheus (b) called "metropator", or "mother-father";
and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? this is of God, and by his breath; see Job 37:10.
(b) Apud Clement. Stromat. l. 5. p. 608.
The Church Fathers
"From which breast did the ice leave? Must we take the word ice largely because of its solid consistency? then this sentence: "From which breast did the ice leave? Would be like this other: "who is the father of the rain? Does not the word breast mean what is secret? then it would be said that the ice came out of its bosom, as it is said that God delivered them to a reprobated meaning (3). Or rather, has not the ice come out of the bosom of the one who everywhere spreads the impiety which overflows in him, cools and hardens the hearts which no longer have the fervor of charity? And who knew him well, except He who said to the stubborn opponents of his Gospel, "Do you have the devil for your father?" "
Out of whose womb came the ice, and the frost from heaven, who hath gendered it? For what else do we understand by 'frost' or 'ice,' but the hearts of the Jews frozen and bound with the torpor of unbelief? Who formerly by the receiving of the Law, by the keeping of the commandments, by the ministry of sacrifice, by the mysteries of prophecy, were so kept within the bosom of grace, as if within the womb of the Creator. But because, on the coming of the Lord, being hard bound with the frost of unbelief, they lost the warmth of faith and charity, being cast forth from the secret bosom of grace, they came forth like ice from the womb of the Creator. And the frost from heaven, who hath gendered it? What else ought 'heaven' to be here understood to mean but the lofty life of the saints? To which heaven it is said, Give ear, O heaven, and I will speak. Of which abode it is elsewhere written, The soul of the just is the seat of wisdom. Because then God is wisdom, if the abode of God is heaven, and the soul of the just is the seat of wisdom, the soul of the just is certainly heaven. Abraham was heaven, Isaac was heaven, Jacob was heaven. But because the persecutors of the Lord, the high priests of the Jews, who were frozen with the torpor of unbelief, sprang from the race of those ancestors, the frost came, as it were, from heaven, because the frozen herd of unbelievers came forth from the lofty offspring of the saints. For when Caiaphas was born from Abraham, what else was it, but that ice came forth from heaven? Yet this frost the Lord says that He Himself genders, not because He Himself fashions the minds of the wicked to sin, but because He permitted the Jews, whom He Himself naturally created good, to go forth from Him, by a just judgment, frozen through their wickedness. For the Lord is the Author of nature, not of sin. He engendered therefore, by naturally creating, those whom He suffered, by patiently enduring, to remain in sin. [MYSTICAL INTERPRETATION] But by that which is said, Out of whose womb came the ice, and the frost from heaven, who hath gendered it? nothing prevents Satan being understood by the frost and ice. For he came forth as if ice from the womb of God, because the teacher of iniquity came forth, frozen with the torpor of sin, from the warmth of His mysteries. He was gendered as frost from heaven, because he was suffered to fall from the…
Dictionary and topics
Frost — (Heb. kerah, from its smoothness) Job 37:10 (R.V., “ice”); Gen. 31:40; Jer. 36:30; rendered “ice” in Job 6:16, 38:29; and “crystal” in Ezek. 1:22. “At the present day frost is entirely unknown in the…
Ice — Frequently mentioned (Job 6:16; 38:29; Ps. 147:17, etc.). (See CRYSTAL.)
Ice · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Water · Congealed by cold — Congealed by cold
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Keil & Delitzsch on Job 38:28-30
28 Hath the rain a father,
Or who begetteth the drops of dew?
29 Out of whose womb cometh the ice forth,
And who bringeth forth the hoar-frost of heaven?
30 The waters become hard like stone,
And the face of the deep is rolled together.
Rain and dew have no created father, ice and hoar-frost no created mother. The parallelism in both instances shows that מי הוליד asks after the one who begets, and מי ילדו the one who bears (vid., Hupfeld on Psa 2:7). בּטן is uterus, and meton. (at least in Arabic) progenies uteri; ex utero cujus is מבטן מי, in distinction from מאי־זה בטן, ex quo utero. אגלי־טל is excellently translated by the lxx, Codd. Vat. and Sin., βώλους (with Omega) δρόσου; Ges. and S…
The east wind blows off the desert to scorch crops (Gen 41:6, 23, 27; Jer 4:11; Jon 4:8) and dry up seas (Exod 14:21; Isa 11:15). It is an arid contrast to the torrents of rain that cause flooding. • Beneficial rain to satisfy the parched ground (Pss 104:10-11; 107:35; Isa 35:7; 58:11) stands in contrast to both scorching winds (Job 38:24) and flooding rains (38:25).
