Albert Barnes Commentary Job 36:27

"For he draweth up the drops of water, Which distil in rain from his vapor," — Job 36:27 (ASV)

For he maketh small the drops of water – Elihu now appeals, as he proposed to do, to the works of God, and begins with what appeared so remarkable and inexplicable, the wisdom of God in the rain and the dew, the tempest and the vapor.

What excited his wonder was the fact regarding the suspension of water in the clouds, and its distilling on the earth in the form of rain and dew.

This very illustration had been used by Eliphaz for a similar purpose (Notes, Job 5:9–10), and whether we regard it as it “appears” to people without the light that science has thrown upon it, or look at the manner in which God suspends water in the clouds and sends it down in the form of rain and dew, with all the light that has been furnished by science, the fact is one that eminently evinces the wisdom of God.

The word that is rendered “maketh small” (גרע gâra‛), properly means “to scrape off,” “to detract,” “to diminish,” or “to take away from.” In the Piel, the form used here, it means, according to Gesenius, “to take to one’s self, to attract”; and the sense here, according to this, is that God attracts, or draws upward, the drops of water.

So it is rendered by Herder, Noyes, Umbreit, and Rosenmuller. The idea is that he “draws up” the drops of water to the clouds and then pours them down in rain.

If the meaning in our common version is retained, the idea would be that it was proof of great wisdom in God that the water descended in “small drops,” instead of coming down in a deluge; compare the notes at Job 26:8.

They pour down rain – That is, the clouds pour down the rain.

According to the vapour thereof – לאדו lᵉ'êdô.

The idea seems to be that the water thus drawn up is poured down again in the form of a “vapory rain,” which does not descend in torrents. The subject of admiration in Elihu’s mind was that water should evaporate and ascend to the clouds, be held there, and then descend again as a gentle rain or fine mist. The reason for admiration is not lessened by becoming more fully acquainted with the laws by which this is done than Elihu can be supposed to have been.