compared with the Discoveries of the Modern Sciences. 249 
ordinary to all the interpreters of the Book of Job, where it 
is literally stated, that, from not being able to comprehend 
it, they have altogether misinterpreted it. All of them have 
translated the expression rowach, which properly signifies the 
air or the aériform layer which environs the globe, by the 
term wind, although they have preserved its true sense to the 
word mischkal, that is to say, heaviness or weight. 
They have been led to do this, because they were unable 
to conceive that the air could be heavy ; and, knowing from 
experience that we encounter a certain resistance when moy- 
ing against its beds or layers in motion, they have ascribed 
weight to it on account of its strength and power. Instead 
of following Scripture, and assigning to the air itself a cer- 
tain weight, they have referred it to the agitation and im- 
petuosity of its moveable strata. 
The above interpretation once admitted, all commentators 
who have followed the first translators have adopted the same 
version, without attempting to ascertain whether it was con- 
formable to the true sense of the Hebrew text. 
If the old interpreters had understood the true sense of 
the 7th verse of the 135th Psalm, they would have found in 
it an additional proof of Scripture attributing weight to the 
air. The Psalmist there praises God, ‘‘ Because he maketh 
lightnings for the rain, and because he causeth the vapours 
to ascend from the ends of the earth, and bringeth the winds 
out of his treasuries.” The ascent of the aqueous vapours 
in the midst of the air, is the consequence of their lightness 
being greater than that of the atmospheric strata through 
which they pass. Both the one and the other of them are, 
therefore, heavy, and the excess of weight is here in favour of 
that which, at the first glance, would appear destitute of it. 
As they are regarded by Scripture, the aqueous vapours 
are the source of clouds, whence the waters descend which 
fertilise the fields, or lay them waste when they are too 
abundant. They are, therefore, the cause of impetuous rains 
and storms, when they afford a free passage to the light- 
nings of thunder. Scripture thus recognises their density, 
and that of the aériform stratum which affords them access 
to the middle of its interstices. 
