it (reverentially) from afar, - the same thought as that which has already (Job 26:14) found the grandest expression in Job's mouth.
Verses 26-29
Job 36:26-29 26 Behold, God is exalted-we know Him not entirely;
The number of His years, it is unsearchable. 27 For He draweth down the drops of water,
They distil as rain in connection with its mist, 28 Which the clouds do drop,
Distil upon the multitude of men. 29 Who can altogether understand the spreadings of the clouds,
The crash of His tabernacle?
The Waw of the quasi-conclusion in Job 36:26 corresponds to the Waw of the train of thought in Job 36:26 (Ges. §145, 2). מספּר שׁניו is, as the subject-notion, conceived as a nominative (vid., on Job 4:6), not as in similar quasi-antecedent clauses, e.g., Job 23:12, as an acc. of relation. שׂגּיא here and Job 37:23 occurs otherwise only in Old Testament Chaldee. In what follows Elihu describes the wondrous origin of rain. “If Job had only come,” says a Midrash (Jalkut, §518), “to explain to us the matter of the race of the deluge (vid., especially Job 22:15-18), it had been sufficient; and if Elihu had only come to explain to us the matter of the origin of rain (מעשׂה ירידת גשׁמים), it had been enough.” In Gesenius' Handwörterbuch, Job 36:27 is translated: when He has drawn up the drops of water to Himself, then, etc. But it is יגרע, not גּרע; and גּרע neither in Hebr. nor in Arab. signifies attrahere in sublime (Rosenm.), but only attrahere (root גר) and detrahere; the latter signification is the prevailing one in Hebr. (Job 15:8; Job 36:7). With כּי the transcendent exaltation of the Being who survives all changes of creation is shown by an example: He draws away (draws off, as it were) the water-drops, viz., from the waters that are confined above on the circle of the sky, which
