Can you command the clouds so that a flood of water covers you?
Parallel translations
- WEB “Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, That abundance of waters may cover you?
- KJV Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee?
- NKJV “Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, That an abundance of water may cover you?
- NASB ¶“Can you raise your voice to the clouds, So that an abundance of water will cover you?
- NLT “Can you shout to the clouds and make it rain?
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
Can Job command the clouds to drench him with rain? He has no power to summon the waters of the sky.
Overview
God asks if Job can raise his voice and make the clouds pour out water at his bidding. The obvious answer exposes Job's helplessness over the rain. It contrasts human weakness with the LORD who freely opens and closes the heavens.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Job 22:11it is so dark you cannot see, and a flood of water covers you.
- Zech 10:1Ask the LORD for rain in springtime; the LORD makes the storm clouds, and He will give everyone showers of rain and crops in the field.
- Amos 5:8He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns darkness into dawn and darkens day into night, who summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the face of the earth—the LORD is His name—
- Job 36:27–28For He draws up drops of water which distill the rain from the mist,
- Jas 5:18Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth yielded its crops.
- 1 Sam 12:18So Samuel called to the LORD, and on that day the LORD sent thunder and rain. As a result, all the people greatly feared the LORD and Samuel.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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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 38:34 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.