(source)
Dr. Henry Morris writes, “It is interesting that this book (Job), the oldest in the Bible, contains more references to snow, ice, and frost than any other book of the Bible. This is despite the fact that Job’s homeland was in what is now essentially a desert region.
Possibly the effects of the post-Flood Ice Age were still strong in Job’s day.
In any case, the beautiful phrase, “treasures of the snow,” is both appropriate and prophetic.
Its crystal structure, though mostly in the form of delicate six-pointed “stars,” is endlessly varied and always intricately symmetrical and incredibly beautiful.
(Source)
“Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail?” ~Job 38:22
Do you live where it snows? Little do we imagine what intricacy and glittering beauty lies hidden in that very snowfall just outside our window!
Right outside our door.
Do you remember the song ‘My Favorite Things’ from the Sound Of Music? The words ‘snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes‘ may bring to mind magical times as the huge flakes have floated sown and lingered on our children’s cheeks and hair. If you’ve ever stopped momentarily to study this delicate but fleeting symmetry, you might have admired it.
Using his inquisitive mind, Vermont farmer Wilson A. Bentley became known as ‘Snowflake’ Bentley for being the first person to successfully photograph a snowflake for us to admire. Bentley became famous for capturing more than 5,000 jewel-like snowflakes on film in 1885.
Does it seem to you, as it does to me, that he is smiling in this old black and white image?
No two snowflakes are truly identical, but they do share common growth patterns and features.
(source)
“Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated. When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was gone, without leaving any record behind.” ~ Wilson Bentley, Jericho, Vermont
Fast Forward To Today
Now we can see wonderful photography of individual snowflakes that have fallen upon the ground and are in the process of melting away. The following images were all captured using a Nikon D80 DSLR and a 60 or 90mm macro lens.
These shots are so detailed and so perfect that you might wonder if they are computer-generated fabrications, but they are not!
The Snowflake
…. here one minute and gone the next!
Ice Crystals
And Frost
“By the breath of God frost is given: and the breadth of the waters is straitened.” ~Job 37:10
(Source: Russian Photographer Andrew Osokin’s Photo Collection)
This world, down to its tiniest detail, is truly a masterpiece work, and we are the blessed recipients and stewards! It is only a tiny foretaste of the world to come! The snowflake’s sublime beauty and endless originality is a testament to our Creator’s eternal power.
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” ~Romans 1: 20
The photograph below, of a considerably more recent vintage than Bentley’s, was made with electron microscopy in 2003.
(National Geographic)
Two especially good books on Wilson Bentley and his work:
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10 As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” ~Isaiah 55: 9-11
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