How the thunder-clouds are dispersed, or else employed by God either for correction or mercy.
By watering - by loading it with water.
Wearieth, [ yaTriyach (H2959)] - burdeneth it, so that it falls in rain: thus "wearieth" answers to the parallel "scattereth" (cf. note, Job 37:9); a clear sky resulting alike from both.
Bright cloud - literally, cloud of His light, i:e., of His lightning. Umbreit, for "watering" [ bªriy (H7377), from riy (H7377), watering], etc., translates, 'Brightness drives away the clouds; His light scattereth the thick clouds.' [The Hebrew is thus from baarar, to make clear.] The parallelism is thus good, but the Hebrew hardly sanctions it.
Verse 12. It - the cloud of lightning.
Counsels - guidance (Psalms 148:8) [ tachbuwlowt (H8458)]; literally, steering: the clouds obey God's guidance, as the ship does the helmsman. So the lightning (note, Job 36:31); neither is haphazard in its movements.
They - the clouds, implied in the collective singular "it."
Verse 13. Literally, He maketh it (the rain cloud) find place, whether for correction, if (it be destined) for his land
(i:e., for the part inhabited by man, with whom God deals, as opposed to the parts uninhabited, on which rain is at other times appointed to fall Job 38:26), or for mercy. 'If it be destined for His land' is a parenthetical supposition (Maurer; who, however, takes "for His land," not as I have suggested above, but for God's earth' - i:e., the whole earth, which is God's). In the English version this clause spoils the even balance of the antithesis between the 'rod' (margin) and "mercy" (Psalms 58:9, is an instance of mercy; Genesis 7:1, of the rod).