Who gives rain upon the earth, and sends waters upon the fields:
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Didymus the Blind
AD 398
Eliphaz acknowledges that God is the ruler and creator of all things. It is likely that he has these convictions. He is a man who possesses wisdom in human things. Eliphaz also has an understanding of the invisible and visible, since he speaks of the inexplorable, the great, the honorable, and of water and rain. If he distinguishes that water from rain, he must have in mind water from wells, from creeks and from cracks in stone. One can find very wise thoughts of this kind in many places in Scripture, not least of all in Paul, who writes, “In him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible.” One has to imagine that Eliphaz became afraid in a human way because of the things that had happened to holy Job. He therefore admired the works of providence. Regarding the “things without number,” one has to think that Eliphaz speaks from a human perspective. For God knows everything. That is no miracle. Doesn’t Solomon say, “For it is he who gave me unerring know...
20. Forasmuch as we believe that the friends of blessed Job were enlightened by their intercourse with him, we must needs handle these words of Eliphaz in a mystical manner. Thus Almighty God ‘gives rain upon the earth,’ when He waters the withered hearts of the Gentiles with the grace of heavenly preaching, and He ‘sendeth waters upon all things,’ in that by the fulness of the Spirit He fashions the barrenness of lost man to fruitfulness; as ‘Truth’ says by His own lips, Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst. But by the title of the universe man is denoted, in that in him there is set forth a true likeness and a large participation in common with the universe. For every thing that is either is, yet does not live; or is and lives, yet does not feel; or is and lives and feels, yet neither understands nor discriminates; or is and lives and feels and understands and discriminates. For stones are, yet do not live. Trees both are and live, yet do no...
“He does great and unsearchable things.” Eliphaz enumerates the riches of divine providence that God properly bestows on each and every human being in common through each generation. “He gives rain on the earth.” From the greatness of his power and the effusion of his liberality God gathers what is safe for humans. The defendant must place his hope of salvation not in his own merits but in the Lord’s clemency. - "Exposition on the Book of Job 5.9–10"
