When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a {g} swaddlingband for it,

(g) As though the great sea was but as a little baby in the hands of God to turn to and fro.

Wesley's Notes

38:9 The cloud - When I covered it with vapours and clouds which rise out of the sea, and hover above it, and cover it like a garment. Darkness - Black and dark clouds. Swaddling band - Having compared the sea to a new - born infant, he continues the metaphor, and makes the clouds as swaddling - bands, to keep it within its bounds: though indeed neither clouds, nor air, nor sands, nor shores, can bound the sea, but God alone.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

38:4-11 For the humbling of Job, God here shows him his ignorance, even concerning the earth and the sea. As we cannot find fault with God's work, so we need not fear concerning it. The works of his providence, as well as the work of creation, never can be broken; and the work of redemption is no less firm, of which Christ himself is both the Foundation and the Corner-stone. The church stands as firm as the earth.