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Job 26:8
8 He bindeth up [tsarar] the waters [mayim] in his thick clouds [`ab]; and the cloud [`anan] is not rent [baqa`] under them. KJV-Interlinear
8 'He wraps up the waters in His clouds; And the cloud does not burst under them. NASB
'He' in all of these verses is a reference to God. And again, Job did not have the knowledge of the meteorological sciences that we have today. Whether or not he had been to a mountain top or high hills during his life and encountered fog or the mists of clouds is possible, but that is not the purpose of his comments here.
It is God who devised a watering and cooling system for this planet. We call it evaporation and condensation, but Jobs comments here draw a line between that which God is able to do and that which man is not able to do.
Look at our systems of irrigation. Today we have lots of machines, pumps, plumbing and so forth which we use to water our lawns, and crop fields.
We even depend on good snowfalls in the winter mountains, to provide a dependable water supply for each coming year. Cities are always having problems from year to year in maintaining lake and reservoir levels.
But God has designed and implemented a system for holding billions of gallons of water in the clouds of the atmosphere. Those clouds can be thousands of miles wide and long, and tens of miles in height or thickness.
Gentle sprinkles or horrendous storms can come from their rain. And yet while the vapor sits high in the sky, the clouds do not tear or cave under the weight of so much water. The clouds just seem to glide along with the winds, to a destination that no one knows.
And yet man takes the clouds and the rain for granted, as he does so many things in life. Back in Jobs day, the population of the world could easily fit into a small area. The population could easily travel to regions that had plenty of rain and water.
If there were no rain or water, then man just move on until he found another good location for living.
But Jobs point here is that the systems which God has created are so massive and yet so simple, but still man cannot duplicate them. Nor does man seem to see the gift of the creators' weather systems. They are taken for granted.
But one day soon the population of the world will grow to double what it is today, and then it will double again and again. Perhaps in a hundred years or perhaps in two-hundred, humanity will come face to face with a dilemma. Water, where to find it, or how to live without it.
The Tribulation accounts in Revelation, tells us that water will be a big problem, in that the oceans will become useless and fresh water will become scarce.
Ever since man was booted from the Garden, a region of perfection, sin has brought with it a deterioration in the world around us. That deterioration will reach its maximum by the time of the Tribulation. Everything is moving slowly in that direction.
It won't be until the Second Advent, which will mark the beginning of the Millennium, when everything will almost instantaneously be restored to its former perfect state.
But until then, we have Gods marvelous design right in front of us, day in and day out. A design which should help us to focus our attention on Him and His overall plan, and especially on His plan specifically for each of our individual lives.
Job lived how long ago? And He could see it all. Is there a reason that we cannot figure it all out now?
