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Easy-to-Read Version

Job 38:26

Who makes it rain even in desert places where no one lives?

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Blessing;   God;   Meteorology and Celestial Phenomena;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Herbs, &C;  

Dictionaries:

- Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Miracles;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - God;   Mystery;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Desert;   Job, the Book of;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Knowledge;   Nature;   World;  

Encyclopedias:

- The Jewish Encyclopedia - Wilderness;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
to bring rain on an uninhabited land,on a desert with no human life,
Hebrew Names Version
To cause it to rain on a land where no man is; On the wilderness, in which there is no man;
King James Version
To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man;
English Standard Version
to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man,
New Century Version
Who waters the land where no one lives, the desert that has no one in it?
New English Translation
to cause it to rain on an uninhabited land, a desert where there are no human beings,
Amplified Bible
To bring rain on the uninhabited land, And on the desert where no man lives,
New American Standard Bible
To bring rain on a land without people, On a desert without a person in it,
World English Bible
To cause it to rain on a land where no man is; On the wilderness, in which there is no man;
Geneva Bible (1587)
To cause it to raine on the earth where no man is, and in the wildernes where there is no man?
Legacy Standard Bible
To bring rain on a land without people,On a desert without a man in it,
Berean Standard Bible
to bring rain on a barren land, on a desert where no man lives,
Contemporary English Version
on empty deserts where no one lives?
Complete Jewish Bible
causing it to rain where no one is, in a desert without anyone there,
Darby Translation
To cause it to rain on the earth, where no one is; on the wilderness wherein there is not a man;
George Lamsa Translation
Who causes it to rain on a land where no man is, in the wilderness where there is no inhabitant,
Good News Translation
Who makes rain fall where no one lives?
Lexham English Bible
to bring rain on a land where no one lives, a desert where no humans live,
Literal Translation
to make it rain on the earth where no man is , a wilderness and no man in it;
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
yt it watereth & moystureth ye drye & baren grounde:
American Standard Version
To cause it to rain on a land where no man is; On the wilderness, wherein there is no man;
Bible in Basic English
Causing rain to come on a land where no man is living, on the waste land which has no people;
JPS Old Testament (1917)
To cause it to rain on a land where no man is, on the wilderness, wherein there is no man;
King James Version (1611)
To cause it to raine on the earth, where no man is: on the wildernesse wherein there is no man?
Bishop's Bible (1568)
To cause it to rayne on the earth where no man is, and in the wildernesse where none inhabiteth?
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
to rain upon the land where there is no man, the wilderness, where there is not a man in it; so as to feed the untrodden and uninhabited land,
English Revised Version
To cause it to rain on a land where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man;
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
and weie of the thundur sownynge? That it schulde reyne on the erthe with out man in desert, where noon of deedli men dwellith?
Update Bible Version
To cause it to rain on a land where there is not a man; On the wilderness, wherein there is not man;
Webster's Bible Translation
To cause it to rain on the earth, [where] no man [is]; [on] the wilderness in which [there is] no man;
New King James Version
To cause it to rain on a land where there is no one, A wilderness in which there is no man;
New Living Translation
Who makes the rain fall on barren land, in a desert where no one lives?
New Life Bible
Who brings rain on the land without people, on a desert without a man in it,
New Revised Standard
to bring rain on a land where no one lives, on the desert, which is empty of human life,
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
To give rain over the no-man's land, the desert, where no son of earth is;
Douay-Rheims Bible
That it should rain on the earth without man in the wilderness, where no mortal dwelleth:
Revised Standard Version
to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man;
Young's Literal Translation
To cause [it] to rain on a land -- no man, A wilderness -- no man in it.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
To bring rain on a land without people, On a desert without a man in it,

Contextual Overview

25 Who dug ditches in the sky for the heavy rain? Who made a path for the thunderstorm? 26 Who makes it rain even in desert places where no one lives? 27 The rain gives that dry empty land all the water it needs, and grass begins to grow. 28 Does the rain have a father? Who produces the drops of dew? 29 Does ice have a mother? Who gives birth to the frost? 30 That's when the water freezes as hard as a rock. Even the deep sea freezes over! 31 "Can you tie up the Pleiades? Can you unfasten the belt of Orion? 32 Can you bring out the other constellations at the right times? Can you lead out the Bear with its cubs? 33 Do you know the laws that control the sky? Can you put each star in its place above the earth? 34 "Can you shout at the clouds and command them to cover you with rain?

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

To cause: It is well known that rain falls copiously in thunder storms. The flash is first seen, the clap is next heard, and last the rain descends; though in fact they all take place at the same time. The lightning traverses all space in no perceivable succession of time. Sound is propagated at the rate of 1,142 feet in a second. Rain travels still more slowly, and will be seen sooner or later according to the weight of the drops, and the distance of the cloud. Now as water is composed of two elastic airs or gases, called oxygen and hydrogen, in the proportion of 88+ of the former and 11, 3/4 of the latter in 100 parts, the electric spark, or matter of lightning, passing through the atmosphere, ignites and decomposes those gases, which explode; and the water falls down in the form of rain. This explosion, as well as the rushing in of the circumambient air to restore the equilibrium, will account for the clap and peal; and thus by the lightning of thunder God causes it to rain on the earth.

on the wilderness: Psalms 104:10-14, Psalms 107:35, Psalms 147:8, Psalms 147:9, Isaiah 35:1, Isaiah 35:2, Isaiah 41:18, Isaiah 41:19, Isaiah 43:19, Isaiah 43:20, Jeremiah 14:22, Hebrews 6:7, Hebrews 6:8

Reciprocal: Genesis 2:5 - had not Job 5:10 - fields Job 36:31 - he giveth Job 37:13 - for his Psalms 65:12 - drop Psalms 135:7 - he maketh lightnings Proverbs 3:20 - the clouds Acts 14:17 - and gave

Cross-References

Genesis 4:1
Adam had sexual relations with his wife Eve. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Cain. Eve said, "With the Lord 's help, I have made a man!"
Genesis 37:33
His father saw the coat and knew that it was Joseph's. He said, "Yes, that is his! Maybe some wild animal has killed him. My son Joseph has been eaten by a wild animal!"
Genesis 38:2
Judah met a Canaanite girl there and married her. The girl's father was named Shua.
Genesis 38:3
The Canaanite girl gave birth to a son and named him Er.
Genesis 38:11
Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, "Go back to your father's house. Stay there and don't marry until my young son Shelah grows up." Judah was afraid that Shelah would also be killed like his brothers. So Tamar went back to her father's home.
Genesis 38:12
Later, Judah's wife, the daughter of Shua, died. After Judah's time of sadness, he went to Timnah with his friend Hirah from Adullam. Judah went to Timnah to have the wool cut from his sheep.
Genesis 38:14
Tamar always wore clothes that showed that she was a widow. So she put on some different clothes and covered her face with a veil. Then she sat down near the road going to Enaim, a town near Timnah. Tamar knew that Judah's younger son Shelah was now grown up, but Judah would not make plans for her to marry him.
1 Samuel 24:17
He said, "You are right, and I am wrong. You were good to me, even though I have been bad to you.
2 Samuel 16:22
Then they put up a tent for Absalom up on the roof of the house. Absalom had sexual relations with his father's wives so that all the Israelites could see what happened.
2 Samuel 20:3
David went back to his house in Jerusalem. He had left ten of his slave women to take care of the house. He put these women in a special house. Then he put guards around the house. They stayed in this house until they died. David took care of the women and gave them food, but he did not have sexual relations with them. They lived like widows until they died.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

To cause it to rain on the earth, [where] no man [is]; [on] the wilderness, wherein [there is] no man. Which is uninhabited by men, being so dry and barren; where there is no man to cultivate and water it, as gardens are; and where is no man to receive any advantage by the rain that comes upon it; and yet the Lord sends it for the use of animals that dwell there; which shows his care and providence with respect even to the wild beasts of the earth. This may be an emblem of the rain of the Gospel upon the Gentile world, comparable to a wilderness; see Isaiah 35:1.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is - This is designed to heighten the conception of the power of God. It could not be pretended that this was done by man, for the rain was caused to fall in the desolate regions where no one dwelt. In the lonely desert, in the wastes remote from the dwellings of people, the rain is sent down, evidently by the providential care of God, and far beyond the reach of the agency of man. There is very great beauty in this whole description of God as superintending the falling rain far away from the homes of people, and in those lonely wastes pouring down the waters, that the tender herb may spring up, and the flowers bloom under his hand. All this may seem to be wasted, but it is not so in the eye of God. Not a drop of rain falls in the sandy desert or on the barren rock, however useless it may seem to be, that is not seen to be of value by God, and that is not designated to accomplish some important purpose there.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Job 38:26. To cause it to rain on the earth — It is well known that rain falls copiously in thunder-storms. The flash is first seen, the clap is next heard, and last the rain descends. The lightning travels all lengths in no perceivable succession of time. Sound is propagated at the rate of 1142 feet in a second. Rain travels still more slowly, and will be seen sooner or later according to the weight of the drops, and the distance of the cloud from the place of the spectator. Now the flash, the clap, and the rain, take place all in the same moment, but are discernible by us in the succession already mentioned, and for the reasons given above; and more at large in Clarke's note on "Job 36:29", c.

But how are these things formed? The lightning is represented as coming immediately from the hand of God. The clap is the effect of the lightning, which causes a vacuum in that part of the atmosphere through which it passes the air rushing in to restore the equilibrium may cause much of the noise that is heard in the clap. An easy experiment on the airpump illustrates this: Take a glass receiver open at both ends, over one end tie a piece of sheep's bladder wet, and let it stand till thoroughly dry. Then place the open end on the plate of the airpump, and exhaust the air slowly from under it. The bladder soon becomes concave, owing to the pressure of the atmospheric air on it, the supporting air in the receiver being partly thrown out. Carry on the exhaustion, and the air presses at the rate of fifteen pounds on every square inch; see on Job 28:28. The fibres of the bladder, being no longer capable of bearing the pressure of the atmospheric column upon the receiver, are torn to pieces, with a noise equal to the report of a musket, which is occasioned by the air rushing in to restore the equilibrium. Imagine a rapid succession of such experiments, and you have the peal of thunder, the rupture of the first bladder being the clap. But the explosion of the gases (oxygen and hydrogen) of which water is composed will also account for the noise. See below.

But how does the thunder cause rain? By the most accurate and incontestable experiments it is proved that water is a composition of two elastic airs or gases as they are called, oxygen and hydrogen. In 100 parts of water there are 88 1/4 of oxygen, and 11 3/4 of hydrogen. Pass a succession of electric sparks through water by means of a proper apparatus, and the two gases are produced in the proportions mentioned above.

To decompose water by galvanism: - Take a narrow glass tube three or four inches long; fit each end with a cork penetrated by a piece of slender iron wire, and fill the tube with water. Let the ends of the two wires within the tube be distant from each other about three quarters of an inch, and let one be made to communicate with the top, the other with the bottom of a galvanic pile in action. On making this communication, bubbles of air will be formed, and ascend to the top of the tube, the water decreasing as it is decomposed.

The oxygen and hydrogen formed by this experiment may be recomposed into the same weight of water. Take any quantity of the oxygen and hydrogen gases in the proportions already mentioned; ignite them by the electric spark, and they produce a quantity of water equal in weight to the gases employed. Thus, then, we can convert water into air, and reconvert this air into water; and the proportions hold as above. I have repeatedly seen this done, and assisted in doing it, but cannot, in this place, describe every thing in detail.

Now to the purpose of this note: the rain descending after the flash and the peal. The electric spark or matter of lightning, passing through the atmosphere, ignites and decomposes the oxygen and hydrogen, which explode, and the water which was formed of these two falls down in the form of rain. The explosion of the gases, as well as the rushing in of the circumambient air to restore the equilibrium, will account for the clap and peal: as the decomposition and ignition of them will account for the water or rain which is the attendant of a thunder storm. Thus by the lightning of thunder God causes it to rain on the earth. How marvellous and instructive are his ways!


 
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