By the breath of God ice is given: and the broad waters are frozen.
All Commentaries on Job 37:10 Go To Job 37
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
52. Because, as the Holy Spirit breathed on the hearts of the faithful, and conferred greater miracles of power, benumbing envy grew up the more in the sluggish hearts of the faithless; and the unbelieving multitude became hardened against God, from the same causes, as the humble people softened the obduracy, with which it had bound itself. For when God blew on them, they were turned into ice, who said, through envy of the miracles they had witnessed; Behold, the whole world hath gone after Him. [John 12, 19] They were beholding the signs, perceiving the miracles performed by His ministers, and foreseeing, that the whole world was now about to follow the preaching of the faith; and yet, the more the Holy Spirit had filled the world, the more firmly was the malice of envy binding their minds. The water therefore had been turned into ice, when sluggish Judaea was still remaining in envy, as the whole world was going after God. But because Divine Power was sufficient to soften the hardness even of such great cruelty, and to melt the hearts of unbelievers to love Him, after this ice it is immediately well subjoined;
And the waters are again poured forth abundantly.
53. For the Lord has in truth poured forth the waters abundantly, after this ice; for after He had endured the hardness of the Jews, even unto death, He immediately melted their hearts from the hardness of unbelief, by breathing on them the love of Himself; in order that they might afterwards run the more eagerly to obey Him, the more obstinately they had before resisted His commands. Whence it is well said by a certain wise man, As ice in fair weather, so shall thy sins be melted away. [Ecclus. 3, 15] The Prophet had desired to be freed from the ice of this torpor, when saying, Turn our captivity, O Lord, as the stream in the South. [Ps. 126, 4] Of these waters, that is, of people flocking together to the Lord, it is said again, He will send forth His word, and will melt them: His breath will blow, and the waters will flow. [Ps. 147, 18] Waters run from ice, because many great preachers are made out of hard persecutors. Ice therefore melts in water, when the numbness of inward cold is changed into the irrigation of preaching. Was not Paul ice, who when going to Damascus, after he had received letters, was seeking to check the seeds of the word of God, which had been scattered in the heart of the faithful, as if in the earth that they might not spring up to the perfection of good deeds? [Acts 9, 2] But this ice returned in water; because he afterwards watered with the streams of holy exhortation those whom he before endeavoured to oppress with persecution, in order that there might arise a more abundant harvest of the Elect, in so much as the shower of God was watering it from the mouth even of a persecutor.
