Job 38:24 Commentary and Bible Study

The question here is: how is it that when the sun arises and the source of this world’s light appears over the horizon, the light is diffused so rapidly across the whole face of the earth. Even the man completely uneducated about these things can see that just before the sun arises there is darkness at the side of the world opposite to the where the sun will arise, and that as soon as it rises in an instant the light floods all parts of the horizon. How does it spread so rapidly? This was one of the primitive indications of the vast speed of light. But what it was and how it was transmitted was a mystery.The KJV – ‘Which scattereth the east wind’ – suggests a connection between the light and the wind, but the word ‘which’ is in italics and is not in the original. The real connection between the two parts of the verse seems to be that both describe a rapid scattering process. How is it that the east wind so rapidly affects the entire landscape? – a question about the earth’s weather systems. Job of course did not know about weather systems and high- and low-pressure regions, and the question would have to wait until man’s knowledge had considerably advanced before such matters could be understood. Nevertheless, the passage points out significant areas of investigation that lay ahead for mankind.