The Lord can speak His “Shalom!” to the storm. Or, as the storm rages, He can speak peace to us!
Elihu isn’t finished with the cloud motif. He’s portrayed the clouds as the paradoxical agents of God, sometimes bringing life-supporting rain, sometimes wreaking havoc. Now in Job 37:1-13, instead of speaking of the God who rules the clouds, he metaphorically speaks of God as a cloud! Just considering it, he writes, “At this also my heart trembles, and leaps from its place” (v 1). Elihu senses God approaching—and He is!—like the gathering storm. Often the first indication of the storm is hearing heaven’s drum roll: “Hear attentively the thunder of His voice, and the rumbling that comes from His mouth” (v 2). But Elihu isn’t only personifying God’s omnipotence in the raw power of the storm; he also points to His omnipresence. When God’s storms roll in, there’s nowhere to hide. “He sends it forth under the whole heaven, His lightning to the ends of the earth” (v 3). And God is also omniscient, mysterious, inscrutable. “He does great things which we cannot comprehend” (v 5). God, like the cloud, is a giver, and “He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth’; likewise to the gentle rain and the heavy rain” (v 6). Some animals hibernate when the snow comes (v 8), but men, who must work year-round, have their hands sealed, or limited, dependent on the rain and snow (v 7). God uses freezing to store water for the hot summers (vv 9-11), and He, not the weatherman, controls the cloud patterns as “they swirl about…that they may do whatever He commands them” (v 12). God has three purposes for the weather, says Elihu, “whether for correction, or for His land, or for mercy” (v 13). He cares for the planet and for the people. Like the soil, often we are soothed by gentle showers—but sometimes we need His lightning bolts!