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Wednesday, April 30th, 2025
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Contemporary English Version

Job 38:26

on empty deserts where no one lives?

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Blessing;   God;   Meteorology and Celestial Phenomena;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Herbs, &C;  

Dictionaries:

- Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Miracles;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - God;   Mystery;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Desert;   Job, the Book of;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Knowledge;   Nature;   World;  

Encyclopedias:

- The Jewish Encyclopedia - Wilderness;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
to bring rain on an uninhabited land,on a desert with no human life,
Hebrew Names Version
To cause it to rain on a land where no man is; On the wilderness, in which there is no man;
King James Version
To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man;
English Standard Version
to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man,
New Century Version
Who waters the land where no one lives, the desert that has no one in it?
New English Translation
to cause it to rain on an uninhabited land, a desert where there are no human beings,
Amplified Bible
To bring rain on the uninhabited land, And on the desert where no man lives,
New American Standard Bible
To bring rain on a land without people, On a desert without a person in it,
World English Bible
To cause it to rain on a land where no man is; On the wilderness, in which there is no man;
Geneva Bible (1587)
To cause it to raine on the earth where no man is, and in the wildernes where there is no man?
Legacy Standard Bible
To bring rain on a land without people,On a desert without a man in it,
Berean Standard Bible
to bring rain on a barren land, on a desert where no man lives,
Complete Jewish Bible
causing it to rain where no one is, in a desert without anyone there,
Darby Translation
To cause it to rain on the earth, where no one is; on the wilderness wherein there is not a man;
Easy-to-Read Version
Who makes it rain even in desert places where no one lives?
George Lamsa Translation
Who causes it to rain on a land where no man is, in the wilderness where there is no inhabitant,
Good News Translation
Who makes rain fall where no one lives?
Lexham English Bible
to bring rain on a land where no one lives, a desert where no humans live,
Literal Translation
to make it rain on the earth where no man is , a wilderness and no man in it;
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
yt it watereth & moystureth ye drye & baren grounde:
American Standard Version
To cause it to rain on a land where no man is; On the wilderness, wherein there is no man;
Bible in Basic English
Causing rain to come on a land where no man is living, on the waste land which has no people;
JPS Old Testament (1917)
To cause it to rain on a land where no man is, on the wilderness, wherein there is no man;
King James Version (1611)
To cause it to raine on the earth, where no man is: on the wildernesse wherein there is no man?
Bishop's Bible (1568)
To cause it to rayne on the earth where no man is, and in the wildernesse where none inhabiteth?
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
to rain upon the land where there is no man, the wilderness, where there is not a man in it; so as to feed the untrodden and uninhabited land,
English Revised Version
To cause it to rain on a land where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man;
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
and weie of the thundur sownynge? That it schulde reyne on the erthe with out man in desert, where noon of deedli men dwellith?
Update Bible Version
To cause it to rain on a land where there is not a man; On the wilderness, wherein there is not man;
Webster's Bible Translation
To cause it to rain on the earth, [where] no man [is]; [on] the wilderness in which [there is] no man;
New King James Version
To cause it to rain on a land where there is no one, A wilderness in which there is no man;
New Living Translation
Who makes the rain fall on barren land, in a desert where no one lives?
New Life Bible
Who brings rain on the land without people, on a desert without a man in it,
New Revised Standard
to bring rain on a land where no one lives, on the desert, which is empty of human life,
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
To give rain over the no-man's land, the desert, where no son of earth is;
Douay-Rheims Bible
That it should rain on the earth without man in the wilderness, where no mortal dwelleth:
Revised Standard Version
to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man;
Young's Literal Translation
To cause [it] to rain on a land -- no man, A wilderness -- no man in it.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
To bring rain on a land without people, On a desert without a man in it,

Contextual Overview

25 Who carves out a path for thunderstorms? Who sends torrents of rain 26 on empty deserts where no one lives? 27 Rain that changes barren land to meadows green with grass. 28 Who is the father of the dew and of the rain? 29 Who gives birth to the sleet and the frost 30 that fall in winter, when streams and lakes freeze solid as a rock? 31 Can you arrange stars in groups such as Orion and the Pleiades? 32 Do you control the stars or set in place the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper? 33 Do you know the laws that govern the heavens, and can you make them rule the earth? 34 Can you order the clouds to send a downpour,

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

To cause: It is well known that rain falls copiously in thunder storms. The flash is first seen, the clap is next heard, and last the rain descends; though in fact they all take place at the same time. The lightning traverses all space in no perceivable succession of time. Sound is propagated at the rate of 1,142 feet in a second. Rain travels still more slowly, and will be seen sooner or later according to the weight of the drops, and the distance of the cloud. Now as water is composed of two elastic airs or gases, called oxygen and hydrogen, in the proportion of 88+ of the former and 11, 3/4 of the latter in 100 parts, the electric spark, or matter of lightning, passing through the atmosphere, ignites and decomposes those gases, which explode; and the water falls down in the form of rain. This explosion, as well as the rushing in of the circumambient air to restore the equilibrium, will account for the clap and peal; and thus by the lightning of thunder God causes it to rain on the earth.

on the wilderness: Psalms 104:10-14, Psalms 107:35, Psalms 147:8, Psalms 147:9, Isaiah 35:1, Isaiah 35:2, Isaiah 41:18, Isaiah 41:19, Isaiah 43:19, Isaiah 43:20, Jeremiah 14:22, Hebrews 6:7, Hebrews 6:8

Reciprocal: Genesis 2:5 - had not Job 5:10 - fields Job 36:31 - he giveth Job 37:13 - for his Psalms 65:12 - drop Psalms 135:7 - he maketh lightnings Proverbs 3:20 - the clouds Acts 14:17 - and gave

Cross-References

Genesis 4:1
Adam and Eve had a son. Then Eve said, "I'll name him Cain because I got him with the help of the Lord ."
Genesis 37:33
Jacob knew it was Joseph's coat and said, "It's my son's coat! Joseph has been torn to pieces and eaten by some wild animal."
Genesis 38:2
While there he met the daughter of Shua, a Canaanite man. Judah married her,
Genesis 38:3
and they had three sons. He named the first one Er;
Genesis 38:11
Judah did not want the same thing to happen to his son Shelah, and he told Tamar, "Go home to your father and live there as a widow until my son Shelah is grown." So Tamar went to live with her father.
Genesis 38:12
Some years later Judah's wife died, and he mourned for her. He then went with his friend Hirah to the town of Timnah, where his sheep were being sheared.
Genesis 38:14
She also realized that Shelah was now a grown man, but she had not been allowed to marry him. So she decided to dress in something other than her widow's clothes and to cover her face with a veil. After this, she sat outside the town of Enaim on the road to Timnah.
1 Samuel 24:17
and said: David, you're a better person than I am. You treated me with kindness, even though I've been cruel to you.
2 Samuel 16:22
Absalom had a tent set up on the flat roof of the palace, and everyone watched as he went into the tent with his father's wives.
2 Samuel 20:3
David had left ten of his wives in Jerusalem to take care of his palace. But when he came back, he had them taken to another house, and he placed soldiers there to guard them. He gave them whatever they needed, but he never slept with any of them again. They had to live there for the rest of their lives as if they were widows.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

To cause it to rain on the earth, [where] no man [is]; [on] the wilderness, wherein [there is] no man. Which is uninhabited by men, being so dry and barren; where there is no man to cultivate and water it, as gardens are; and where is no man to receive any advantage by the rain that comes upon it; and yet the Lord sends it for the use of animals that dwell there; which shows his care and providence with respect even to the wild beasts of the earth. This may be an emblem of the rain of the Gospel upon the Gentile world, comparable to a wilderness; see Isaiah 35:1.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is - This is designed to heighten the conception of the power of God. It could not be pretended that this was done by man, for the rain was caused to fall in the desolate regions where no one dwelt. In the lonely desert, in the wastes remote from the dwellings of people, the rain is sent down, evidently by the providential care of God, and far beyond the reach of the agency of man. There is very great beauty in this whole description of God as superintending the falling rain far away from the homes of people, and in those lonely wastes pouring down the waters, that the tender herb may spring up, and the flowers bloom under his hand. All this may seem to be wasted, but it is not so in the eye of God. Not a drop of rain falls in the sandy desert or on the barren rock, however useless it may seem to be, that is not seen to be of value by God, and that is not designated to accomplish some important purpose there.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Job 38:26. To cause it to rain on the earth — It is well known that rain falls copiously in thunder-storms. The flash is first seen, the clap is next heard, and last the rain descends. The lightning travels all lengths in no perceivable succession of time. Sound is propagated at the rate of 1142 feet in a second. Rain travels still more slowly, and will be seen sooner or later according to the weight of the drops, and the distance of the cloud from the place of the spectator. Now the flash, the clap, and the rain, take place all in the same moment, but are discernible by us in the succession already mentioned, and for the reasons given above; and more at large in Clarke's note on "Job 36:29", c.

But how are these things formed? The lightning is represented as coming immediately from the hand of God. The clap is the effect of the lightning, which causes a vacuum in that part of the atmosphere through which it passes the air rushing in to restore the equilibrium may cause much of the noise that is heard in the clap. An easy experiment on the airpump illustrates this: Take a glass receiver open at both ends, over one end tie a piece of sheep's bladder wet, and let it stand till thoroughly dry. Then place the open end on the plate of the airpump, and exhaust the air slowly from under it. The bladder soon becomes concave, owing to the pressure of the atmospheric air on it, the supporting air in the receiver being partly thrown out. Carry on the exhaustion, and the air presses at the rate of fifteen pounds on every square inch; see on Job 28:28. The fibres of the bladder, being no longer capable of bearing the pressure of the atmospheric column upon the receiver, are torn to pieces, with a noise equal to the report of a musket, which is occasioned by the air rushing in to restore the equilibrium. Imagine a rapid succession of such experiments, and you have the peal of thunder, the rupture of the first bladder being the clap. But the explosion of the gases (oxygen and hydrogen) of which water is composed will also account for the noise. See below.

But how does the thunder cause rain? By the most accurate and incontestable experiments it is proved that water is a composition of two elastic airs or gases as they are called, oxygen and hydrogen. In 100 parts of water there are 88 1/4 of oxygen, and 11 3/4 of hydrogen. Pass a succession of electric sparks through water by means of a proper apparatus, and the two gases are produced in the proportions mentioned above.

To decompose water by galvanism: - Take a narrow glass tube three or four inches long; fit each end with a cork penetrated by a piece of slender iron wire, and fill the tube with water. Let the ends of the two wires within the tube be distant from each other about three quarters of an inch, and let one be made to communicate with the top, the other with the bottom of a galvanic pile in action. On making this communication, bubbles of air will be formed, and ascend to the top of the tube, the water decreasing as it is decomposed.

The oxygen and hydrogen formed by this experiment may be recomposed into the same weight of water. Take any quantity of the oxygen and hydrogen gases in the proportions already mentioned; ignite them by the electric spark, and they produce a quantity of water equal in weight to the gases employed. Thus, then, we can convert water into air, and reconvert this air into water; and the proportions hold as above. I have repeatedly seen this done, and assisted in doing it, but cannot, in this place, describe every thing in detail.

Now to the purpose of this note: the rain descending after the flash and the peal. The electric spark or matter of lightning, passing through the atmosphere, ignites and decomposes the oxygen and hydrogen, which explode, and the water which was formed of these two falls down in the form of rain. The explosion of the gases, as well as the rushing in of the circumambient air to restore the equilibrium, will account for the clap and peal: as the decomposition and ignition of them will account for the water or rain which is the attendant of a thunder storm. Thus by the lightning of thunder God causes it to rain on the earth. How marvellous and instructive are his ways!


 
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