WEATHER

“Does the rain have a father?
Who sires the drops of dew?
From whose womb comes the ice?” (38:28-29)

Much of the Lord’s first discourse to Job concerns the weather or, to use an earthier term, the elements. Can we human creatures bring on a rainstorm? Can we make sunny skies to order? Can we, as the Lord asks Job in 38:35, “send the lightning bolts on their way”? Of course we cannot. Ever since we were kicked out of the Garden of Eden we have longed to learn the secrets of such things. But we never have. We call them the elements because they are just that: so elemental as to be, like God Himself, unfathomable. Even in our scientific age the weather is so far beyond human control that it might better be classed as a spiritual than as a natural phenomenon. The rain, for all we really know about it, might as well fall directly out of Heaven rather than from clouds, and thunder might as well be God’s own voice and lightning the snapping of His fingers.

Insurance companies refer to natural disasters as “acts of God.” But is not the sunshine also an act of God? Is dew any less a miracle than manna? And if the secret of a simple thing like dew is entirely out of our reach, how much more awesome are the deeper mysteries of God! Why not admit, then, that if it rains it is only because God has opened the clouds; and likewise, if we have any understanding of God it is only because He Himself has opened our hearts. Consider the words of Micah 5:7—a terrible verse in which even the dew, so delicate and innocent, becomes a symbol of something far more powerful than all the world’s armies and nuclear weapons, for the day is coming when the army of the Lord “will be in the midst of many peoples like dew from the Lord, like showers on the grass.” And then “all [God’s] foes will be destroyed” (v. 9).

Why do people flap their jaws so much about the weather? Why does it often seem to be the only thing to talk about, the one topic we all have in common? Isn’t it because an awareness of the weather is the closest many people ever come to being spiritual? Regardless of our beliefs, weather is one of the most conspicuous ways in which the divine continues to manifest itself in secular lives. Chatting about this phenomenon is one means for a godless society to satisfy its natural yearning to be godly. It is a way of talking about the Lord without the embarrassment of having to mention Him by name. Don’t people’s attitudes toward the weather tell much about their feelings toward God? For many, God will always be either too hot or too cold, too wet or too dry.

Pagan religions revere the elements so highly that they think of them as causes rather than effects, and so give them personal names and worship them as gods. There are gods of snow and of the west wind, and goddesses of dew and of the dawn. Weather is more than the home of these gods; weather’s different manifestations form their very bodies and personalities. At least pagans have a healthy sense of the force behind the elements as being a “who” rather than a “what,” whereas modern meteorology has depersonalized creation. Listening to a weather report can be a bit like hearing an autopsy on someone you love who is still very much alive. As much as this daily barrage of information may give us an illusion of prognostication, is it really the case that nature is any less primitive or unpredictable than it was for Abraham? While the science of meteorology is certainly of great benefit when properly used, it can also have something occultish about it, like astrology or physiognomy. People can give more credence to weather forecasts and thermometers than they do to sticking their own noses out the front door. We can be so curious about what the future will bring that we lose sight even of the present. Rain gauges can be our phylacteries, fancy barometers a kind of modern rosary, and isobars like the entrails of animals.

Concerning all this Jesus warned: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?” (Luke 12:54-56).


Mason, M. (2002). The Gospel According to Job: An Honest Look at Pain and Doubt from the Life of One Who Lost Everything. Crossway.