He fills His hands with lightning and commands it to strike its mark.
Parallel translations
- WEB He covers his hands with the lightning, and commands it to strike the mark.
- KJV With clouds he covereth the light; and commandeth it not to shine by the cloud that cometh betwixt.
- NKJV He covers His hands with lightning, And commands it to strike.
- NASB “He covers His hands with the lightning, And commands it to strike the target.
- NLT He fills his hands with lightning bolts and hurls each at its target.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God covers His hands with lightning and commands it to strike its target. He directs even the lightning with precision.
Overview
Elihu pictures God wielding lightning like a weapon, aiming it exactly where He wills. This vivid image conveys God's complete mastery over the most awesome natural forces. Nothing in creation is random or beyond His direction, assuring believers that the God who commands the lightning also orders every detail of their lives for good (Rom. 8:28).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Ps 148:8lightning and hail, snow and clouds, powerful wind fulfilling His word,
- Ps 135:7He causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth. He generates the lightning with the rain and brings forth the wind from His storehouses.
- Ps 147:8–9who covers the sky with clouds, who prepares rain for the earth, who makes grass to grow on the hills.
- Job 37:15Do you know how God dispatches the clouds or makes the lightning flash?
- Ps 18:11He made darkness His hiding place, and storm clouds a canopy around Him.
- Job 26:9He covers the face of the full moon, spreading over it His cloud.
- Job 37:12They swirl about, whirling at His direction, accomplishing all that He commands over the face of all the earth.
- Acts 27:20When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the great storm continued to batter us, we abandoned all hope of being saved.
- Exod 10:21–23Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, so that darkness may spread over the land of Egypt—a palpable darkness.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 36:32 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.