The waters harden like a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.
Read Chapter 38
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
56. For I remember that I have often taught already that ‘waters’ are taken for peoples. But by a ‘stone,’ by reason of its very hardness, the Gentile peoples are sometimes designated. For they themselves worshipped stones. And of these it is said by the Prophet, Let them, that make them, become like unto them, and all who trust in them. [Ps. 115, 8] Whence John, beholding that the Jews boasted themselves in their pedigree, and foreseeing the Gentiles passing over to the stock of Abraham, by the knowledge of the faith, says, Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father; for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up sons to Abraham. [Matt. 3, 9] Certainly calling ‘stones’ the Gentiles, who were hardened in unbelief. Because then Judaea first believed in God, while all the Gentile world was remaining in the obstinacy of its unbelief, and because the hearts of the Gentiles were afterwards softened to receive the faith, and the unbelief of the Jews w...
God does not want to say that it comes out from his womb, God forbid! But then what do the words about “begetting” and “womb” mean in this context? As when the author said about the sea, “When its mother begot it,” he did not mean that it has a mother; so here he does not mean that [ice] came forth [literally] from God’s womb, but he wants to speak about its formation and origin.… Why then did he constantly use here the words about “begetting”? In my opinion he wants to allude to the One who is the first and only cause of everything and to the fact that creatures were shaped even before being completely perfected. - "Commentary on Job 38.28a–29a"
