God recognized Job as the most perfect and righteous man on earth; he was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil (Job 1:8). In addition to that he was very rich, and he was a pretty smart fellow. Job lived on the trade route between the east and west (6:19), so he was up on all the important events in the news. He no doubt was familiar with the customs of different cultures, and was knowledgeable in the affairs of his day. He knew about the escapades of kings and princes (3:14), the roaring of lions (4:10), the starry constellations such as the Bear, Orion, and Pleiades (9:9); he knew of the habits of beasts, birds, and fish (12:7,8), of the mining of silver, gold, copper, and iron (28:1,2), of precious stones such as onyx and sapphires (28:16), of coral and quartz (28:18), of jackals and ostriches (30:24), of musical instruments such as flutes and harps (30:31), of hawks and eagles (39:26), and of the mysterious behemoth and leviathan (41:1). Yet with all his riches and knowledge, there were mysteries of nature that neither he nor his buddies comprehended. They observed many things such as thunder and lightning, the wind, the blue sky and the starry heavens, and they were perplexed to explain what they saw. One of these mysterious phenomena was how the clouds are hung in empty space (Job 37:16, CEV).
Today, through science, we know more about these natural phenomena. Hydrologists and meteorologists tell us how tons of water are lifted from oceans and seas, carried many miles through the air, and deposited onto land as rain, snow, and ice. Clouds are water vapor condensed into tiny water droplets. Since condensation is a heating process, each cloud is surrounded by and rests upon a warm cushion of heated air that is less dense than the surrounding atmosphere. Thus a cloud is like a hot-air balloon floating in midair and apparently defying the force of gravity.
Eagles, hawks, and vultures take advantage of this rising column of warm air, called a thermal, to soar for hours without flapping their wings. Similarly, hang gliders are able to soar for hours, go long distances, and reach incredible heights on these upcurrents. Gliders in Owens Valley, California have traveled 200-300 miles before landing, and the strong updrafts of the trade winds along the Makapu's headlands of Oahu support gliders for hours.
Since the days of Job, God has revealed many of His secrets, and we no longer wonder about lightning and thunder, or about the wind and weather, or about the mysteries of light and sound, or about our marvelously designed bodies. God's many works in nature that we are only now beginning to understand were a mystery to man for thousands of years, but there are many yet to be explained. Even though we understand, we still gaze in awe at "the balancing of the clouds."
