Thunder Struck

Job 37: Hear attentively the noise of His voice. Though the thunder will be heard, and whatever we are doing we cannot help attending to it, yet, to apprehend and understand the instructions G-d thereby gives us, we have need to hear with great attention and appliction applicatio of mind. Thunder is called the voice of the L-rd (Ps. 29:3-9), because by it G-d speaks to the children of men to fear before Him, and it should put us in mind of that mighty word by which the world was at first made, which is called thunder.
How Elihu describes them:
1. Their original, not their second causes, but the first. G-d directs the thunder, and the lightning is His in 37:3. Their production and motion are not from chance, but from the counsel of G-d and under the direction and dominion of His providence, though to us they seem accidental and ungovernable.
2. Their extent. The claps of thunder roll under the whole heaven, and are heard far and near; so are the lightings darted to the ends of the earth; they come out of the one part under heaven and shine to the other.
3. Their order. The lightning is first directed, and after it a voice roars in Job 37:4. The flash of fire, and the noise it makes in a watery cloud, are really at the same time; but, because the motion of light is much quicker than that of sound, we see the lightning some time before we hear the thunder, as we see the firing of a great gun at a distance before we hear the report of it. The thunder is here called the voice of G-d's excellence, because by it He proclaims His transcendent power and greatness. He sends forth His voice and that a mighty voice, Ps. 68:33.
4. Their violence. He will not stay them, that is, He does not need to check them, or hold them back, lest they should grow unruly and out of His power to restrain them, but lets them take their course, says to them, Go, and they go--Come, and they come--Do this, and they do it. He will not stay the rains and showers that usually follow upon the thunder (which He had spoken of, in 36: 27, 29, but will pour them out upon the earth when His voice is heard. Thunder-showers are sweeping rains, and for them He makes the lightings, Ps. 135:7.
5. The inference he draws from all this, in v. 5. Does G-d thunder thus marvellously with His voice? We must then conclude that His other works are great, and such as we cannot comprehend. From this one instance we may argue to all, that, in the dispensations of His providence, there is that which is too great, too strong, for us to oppose or strive against, and too high, too deep, for us to arraign or quarrel with.
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 G-d the director of them, who shows His power and serves the purposes of His providence by them! We must take notice of the glory of G-d, not only in the thunder and lightning, but in the more common revolutions of the weather, which are not so terrible and which make less noise.
Notice of the winter-weather, when He speaks the word the small rain distils and the great rain pours down as He pleases--the winter-rain. Then He says to the snow, Be thou on the earth; He commissions it, He commands it, He appoints it, where it shall light and how long it shall lie. He speaks, and it is done. The distinction in the Hebrew between the small rain and the great rain is this, that the former is called a shower of rain, the latter of rains, many showers in one; but all are the showers of His strength: the power of G-d is to be observed as much in the small rain that soaks into the earth as in the great rain that batters on the house-top and washes away all before it.
It is the duty and interest of all men to fear G-d. Those that will not fear the L-rd and His goodness shall for ever tremble under the pouring out of the vials of His wrath.
Matthew Henry