Job 38:28

Who Sends The Rain?

Hath the rain a father? Job 38:28.

The words of the text sound as if they were a bit out of a fairy tale. Where but in a fairy tale does one hear of such a thing as the rain having a father? You say to yourselves that if every verse in this wonderful Book of Job were like this one you would read it straight through without stopping.

As most of you know, the Book of Job was written by an Oriental that is a person belonging to a country far away to the east and eastern people have ways of thinking very different from ours. Even the ancient Greeks, who were not Orientals, had a way of putting everything under charge of some god. The air, the winds, and the waters were peopled with spiritual beings, and everything in the natural world was under their control. Iris was the goddess who brought the beautiful rainbow out of the dark clouds and formed with it a bridge between earth and heaven. Aurora was the goddess by whose power the dawn crimsoned the east and ushered in each new day.

Your text is an example of the same thing. Instead of asking, “Who made the rain?” the writer has put down, “Hath the rain a father?”

Little boys and girls are like these people in a certain way. Before they go to school for the first time, they think of nearly everything about them as being alive. The wind is something that is very strong and is often cruel. The moon is a face that keeps laughing all the time. The huge guardian trees of the wood are hoary old men, older than any grandfather. Jack Frost is a funny little man who on cold mornings draws lovely pictures on the windows.

But school soon drives away all those ideas. There you learn things about nature. You are very soon able to say, “I know where the rain comes from. It comes from the clouds, and the clouds come from the sea; it is the sun that raises the vapors from the sea to form the clouds, and these clouds are driven by the winds and attracted by the mountains, and so reach places where they are to send down showers upon the ground. It is all very true, and as I said interesting also; but the more you study the more you want to put the question, “Who superintends everything? Who really does send the rain?”

Not that you like it! We in this dim and cloudy country have rather a prejudice against rain. Once a boy had been promised a visit to a farm. He could hardly sleep for joy the night before the promised visit. He thought of all he would see there. There was the stable, and the big horse on which he would get a ride. There were hens and ducks. There was the ploughman who might take him a drive in his cart, and allow him to hold the reins. But when the morning came, the rain was lashing on the windows. Even before he got up he knew that there was no chance of going to the farm that day, so he cried, and complained that his holiday had been spoilt by the nasty rain. But at the very farm which the little fellow was to visit, his uncle, when he rose and saw the rain falling, rubbed his hands, and was as happy as his young nephew had been the evening before. His land wanted rain, and if it had delayed coming what was growing in the fields would have been ruined.

Even when the rain cheats you of a trip to the country don't forget that it may be a great blessing to the farmer. A traveler with his guide was on one occasion passing over the range of Carmel when rain began to fall in torrents. The guide threw a large Arab cloak over the traveler, saying, “May God preserve you, while He is blessing the fields.”

There is a great English writer who speaks of the cloud that brings the rain as “The Angel of the Sea.” That is a beautiful thought; but this verse gives us one that is even finer. It is that the God who sends the soft gentle rain, as well as the great dashing rains, is your Father and mine. He takes care of us, and will never really let anything hurt us. His plan for all of us must in the end be kind, for He is too wise to make mistakes and too loving to do anything that is against the real good of His creatures.

Soft comes the April rain to bud and flower

And tender grass: the shrinking violet

Unharmed receives the gently falling shower,

And scarce her petals by its gift are wet:

The blue-bell, peeping from the trellised bower,

Holds up her tiny goblet to the sky,

Till on its rim a dainty pearl is set,

Such as the Indies cannot give nor buy:

Hid in the fragrant blossom sits the bee,

Secure; the oriole forgets his melody,

And trails his scarlet wings, his ebon bill

Uplifting gratefully; and as I look, the hill

Is bathed in sunlight; ceased the gentle rain,

And bird and bee take up their song again.

(Robert F. Roden, in A Garland of Verse, 158.)