They waited for me as for the rain - The idea continued. They longed as much to hear me speak, to receive my counsel and my decisions, as the thirsty land does for refreshing waters.
They opened their mouth wide - A metaphor taken from ground chapped with long drought.
The latter rain - The rain that falls a little before harvest, in order to fill and perfect the grain. The former rain is that which falls about seed-time, or in spring, in order to impregnate and swell the seed, and moisten the earth to produce its nourishment.
God has given in His word a picture of a prosperous man—one whose life was in the truest sense a success, a man whom both heaven and earth delighted to honor. Of his experiences Job himself says: Ed 142.1
“In the ripeness of my days,
When the secret of God was upon my tent;
When the Almighty was yet with me,
And my children were about me; ...
When I went forth to the gate unto the city,
When I prepared my seat in the broad place [margin],
The young men saw me and hid themselves,
And the aged rose up and stood;
The princes refrained talking,
And laid their hand on their mouth;
The voice of the nobles was hushed....
Ed 142.2
“For when the ear heard me, then it blessed me;
And when the eye saw me, it gave witness unto me;
Because I delivered the poor that cried,
The fatherless also, and him [margin], that had none to
help him.
Ed 142.3