Also can any understand the spreadings of the clouds, or the thunder of his tabernacle?
All Commentaries on Job 36:29 Go To Job 36
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
19. The Lord ‘spreads out the clouds,’ when, opening the way of preaching to His ministers, He disperses them in every direction, through the breadth of the world. But it is well said, As His tent. For a tent is wont to be pitched, on a journey. And, when holy preachers are sent into the world, they make a way for God. Whence it is written, Behold, I send My Messenger before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way before Thee. [Mal. 3, 1] And hence also it is said by the Psalmist, Make a way for Him Who ascendeth over the west. [Ps. 68, 4] And again, O God, when Thou wentest forth before Thy people, when Thou passedst through the desert, the earth was moved. [ib. 7] For God, Who of Himself is, not locally, in every place, walks locally into the regions of the world, by means of His preachers. Whence also it is said by the Prophet, And I will walk in them. [Lev. 26, 12] For He does in truth walk through them, whilst He pours Himself into the hearts of men by their teaching. And in this journey the tents of God are these self-same hearts of the Saints, by which He is covered, as it were, in resting on the way. Whilst coming through them to the minds of men, He effects what He has ordained, and is not beheld. Hence it is that all the synagogue together is called a ‘tent,’ when the Lord complains by Jeremiah that the priests had ceased from preaching, saying, There is none to stretch forth My tent any more, and to set up My curtains. [Jer. 10, 20] Hence again it is said of its extermination, He hath destroyed His tent, as a garden, He hath thrown down His tabernacle. [Lam. 2, 6] For since the Lord at that time dwelt secretly among men in the worship of a single people, He called that self-same people His tent. Whence also these clouds are now rightly called His tent, because God, when coming to us by His grace, is concealed within the hearts of His preachers. Was not Paul His tent, when coming to the hearts of men, from Jerusalem round about into Illyricum, the Lord was resting in his mind? [Rom. 15, 19] For he was a cloud for men, but a tent for God; because he was invisibly retaining Him in his heart, Whom he was by his preaching pouring into the hearts of his hearers. When the same Paul was proceeding towards Rome, bound in chains, to take possession of the world, God, concealed in his breast, was journeying as if in a tent. [Acts 27, 28] Because He could not be seen, from being concealed, and yet, disclosed by the words of preaching, He was prosecuting without ceasing the course of grace which He had begun. Moses appeared as His cloud, when, before he undertook the leadership of the Jewish people, he was dwelling for forty years in the wilderness, and aiming at lofty things, lived separated from the converse of the people. [Ex. 3] But he was made the tent of God, when, on being sent into Egypt, to bring back the people, he was going on, bearing in his heart the invisible truth; and when Almighty God, Who was manifested in his work, was lying concealed in his heart. And He who is ever present, and containing all things, coming into Egypt was journeying thither in His servant. Whence it is written, God went into Egypt, that He might ransom His people. [2 Sam. 7, 23] Behold He is said to journey, by Whose uncircumscribed presence all things are contained, because He, Who is every where by His Majesty, places, as it were, His steps in the way, by preaching.
20. But words only are by no means sufficient for these same holy preachers, for persuasion, unless miracles are also added. Whence it is said, When He will spread out the clouds as His tent, it is rightly subjoined, And lighten with His light from above. For what else but miracles ought we to suppose lightnings to mean? Of which it is said by the Psalmist, Thou wilt multiply Thy lightnings, and confound them. [Ps. 144, 6. LXX] By these clouds then He lightens from above with His light; because by holy preachers He illumines the gloom of our insensibility even by miracles.
21. And when these clouds rain down with words, and when they disclose, by miracles, the power of their glittering light, they convert to divine love even the farthest boundaries of the world. Whence it is rightly subjoined, He will cover also the ends of the sea. A thing which we heard by the voice of Eliu was to take place, but which we at this time see performed by the power of God. For the Almighty Lord has covered, with His lightening clouds, the ends of the sea; because, by the brilliant miracles of preachers, He has brought even the ends of the world to the faith. For, lo! He has now penetrated the hearts of almost all nations; lo! He has joined together in one faith the boundaries of the East and of the West; lo! the tongue of Britain,
[This special mention of Britain was probably added after the publication of the work, as the Saxons were not converted till St. Gregory had been some years Pope. See his Eps. to St. Augustine, Bertha, and Edilberthus. Lib. xi. Ind. iv. 28. 29. 64. 65. 66. Ben. (St. Gregory was not, however, unaware of the existence of the British Church, and may have referred to it. Ed.)]
which knew only how to grate barbarian sounds, has begun long since to resound in the Divine praises the Hebrew Alleluia. Behold the ocean, which before was swelling, is now calmed beneath, and subject to, the feet of the saints: and its barbarous motions, which the princes of the earth had been unable to control with the sword, do the mouths of priests bind with simple words through fear of God: and he who, when unbelieving, had not dreaded the bands of combatants, now fears, when faithful, the tongues of the humble. For because the virtue of Divine knowledge is poured into him, by the heavenly words which he hears, and by the brightness also of miracles, he is so restrained by his dread of this same Divine power, as to fear to do wrong, and to long with all his desires to attain to the grace of eternity.
