By the breath of God ice is given, and the broad waters are frozen fast.
The changes and extremities of the weather, wet or dry, hot or cold, are the subject of a great deal of our common talk and observation; but how seldom do we think and speak of these things, as Elihu does here, with an awful regard to God the director of them, who shows his power and serves the purposes of his providence by them!
Commenting on Job 37:6-13
By the breath of God frost is given,.... By the word of God, as the Targum; at his command it is, at his word it comes, and at his word it goes, Psa 147:15; or by his will, as Ben Gersom interprets it, when it is his pleasure it should be, it appears; it may be understood of a freezing wind from the Lord, for...
the breath of God--poetically, for the ice-producing north wind. frost--rather, "ice." straitened--physically accurate; frost compresses or contracts the expanded liquid into a congealed mass (Job 38:29-30; Psa 147:17-18).