Who can number the clouds by wisdom? or who can pour out the water skins of heaven,
All Commentaries on Job 38:37 Go To Job 38
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
But because He withdraws their words, when He presents Himself to us in outward form, He immediately subjoined;
And who will make the harmony of heaven to sleep?
17. For in this life the Lord has spoken to our weakness, not by the outward manifestation of His majesty, but by the voice of His preachers; in order that the carnal tongue might strike those hearts which are still carnal, and that they might the more readily receive unusual things, the more they heard them by the sound of an accustomed voice. But after that the flesh is resolved into dust by death, and the dust is animated by the resurrection, then we seek not to hear words from God, because we now behold in outward appearance that One Word of God, Which fills all things. Which sounds to us still louder, the more it penetrates our minds by the power of inward illumination. For when those words are taken away, which begin, and end, the very image of the inward vision becomes to us a kind of sound of eternal preaching. Whence the Lord now also says rightly to blessed Job; Who will declare the system of the heavens, and who will make the harmony of heaven to sleep? For what is meant by the system of the heavens, but the inward power of secrets? What is signified by the harmony of heaven, but the accordant language of preachers? When our Creator therefore has begun to relate the system of the heavens, He makes the harmony of heaven to sleep; doubtless, because when He is manifested to us in visible appearance, the words of preachers are withdrawn. For hence the Lord says by Jeremiah; A man shall no longer teach his neighbour and his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all shall know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest, saith the Lord. [Jer. 31, 14] Hence Paul says, Whether prophecies, they shall be made void; whether tongues, they shall cease; whether knowledge, it shall be destroyed. [1 Cor. 13, 8] Or certainly the system of the heavens is that very vivifying power which forms the spirits of angels. For as God is the Cause of causes, and as He is the Life of the living, so is He the Reason [‘Ratio.’] of reasonable creatures. The Lord therefore then declares the system [‘Rationem’] of the heavens, when He brings Himself before us, as to the way in which He rules over Elect spirits. He then relates the system of the heavens, when the mist of our mind is wiped away, and He manifests Himself to us in bright vision. Whence the Lord also says in the Gospel; The hour cometh when I shall no longer speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father. [John 16, 25] For He asserts that He shews plainly of the Father, because by the appearance of His Majesty, which was then manifested, He shews both how He springs from the Father not unequal to Himself, and how the Spirit of Both proceeds coeternal with Both. For we shall then openly behold, how That Which Is by an origin, is not subsequent to Him from Whom It springs; how He Who is produced by procession, is not preceded by Those [Plural. see note at end of Book XXIX] from Whom He proceeded. We shall then behold openly how both The One is divisibly Three, and the Three indivisibly One. The tongue of God then Who then speaks, is the visible brightness of God exalting us. And the harmony of heaven will then sleep, because when the Rewarder of our works appears in judgment, the words of exhortations will at once cease. Whence also the very period of the resurrection is openly subjoined.
