Commentaire sur Job 38:1

from the tempest Heb. מן הסערה. Count your hairs and I will give you as many answers. From the tempest with which you reproached Me (above 9:17), “He Who would crush me with a tempest,” I will answer you, as you will hear at the end of the chapter (verse 25), “Who has separated a place for the hair?” a shaft for every hair. Another explanation: With a tempest He afflicted him, and with a tempest He healed him, as is explained in Sifrei(?).

1. God’s Providence extends over mankind severally, in as much as He had listened attentively (Psalms 116:2) to everything Job had said and had now come to argue with him and teach him some sense (Ecclesiastes 12:9). This testifies to the existence of individual Providence over all the steps a man takes (Psalms 37:23, Proverbs 20:24). Thus, Job’s thesis that God does not administer the world is refuted.