CLOUD. The allusions to clouds in Scripture, as well as their use in symbolical language, must be understood with reference to the nature of the climate, where the sky scarcely exhibits the trace of a cloud from the beginning of May to the end of September, during which period clouds so rarely appear, and rains so seldom fall, as to be con sidered phenomena—as was the case with the harvest rain which Samuel invoked (I Sam. 17, 18), and with the little cloud, not larger than a man's hand, the appearance of which in the west was immediately noticed as something remarkable not only in itself, but as a sure harbinger of rain (I Kings xviii. 44).
As in such climates clouds refreshingly veil the oppressive glories of the sun, clouds often symbo lize the Divine presence, as indicating the splen dour, insupportable to man, of that glory which they wholly or partially conceal (Exod. xvi. ro xxxiii. 9 ; xxxiv. 5 ; xl. 34, 35; Num. xi. 25 ; xxi. 5 ; Job xxii. 14; Ps. xviii. II, 12; XCVii. 2; civ. 3 ; Is. xix. I ; Matt. xvii. 5 ; xxiv. 30, etc.; Acts i. 9 ; Rev. i. 7 ; xiv. 14, 16). Somewhat
allied to this use is that which makes clouds the symbols of the Divine power (z Sam. xxii. 12 ; Ps. lxviii. 34 ; lxxxix. 6 ; civ. 3 ; Nahum i. 3).
Clouds are also the symbol of armies and mul titudes of people ( Jer. iv. 13 ; Is. lx. 8 ; Heb. xii. 1). This is often very scientifically explained by the information that clouds are composed of innumerable drops of rain or vapour. This, al though true, is certainly not the truth which the Hebrew poets had in view. Any one who has noticed the effect of a large and compact body of men upon the surface of an extensive plain, mov ing like a cloud in the clear sky, or who has seen a similar body of men upon the side of a distant hill, will find a more obvious source of the com parison.
There are many other dispersed symbolical allu sions to clouds in Scripture not coming under these descriptions ; but their purport is in every case too obvious to need explanation (see particu larly Prov. xvi. 15 ; Eccles. xii. 2 ; Is. iv. 5 ; xliv. 22 ; 2 Pet. ii. 17 ; Jude 12).—J. K.