Day 11

The thunderheads are saying, "He made darkness his screen; dark thunderheads, dense clouds were his pavilion round about him." (Ps. 18:12)

The clouds of glory are saying, "He loads the thunderhead with moisture; the clouds scatter his lightening." (Job 37:11)

There are two different words for clouds here.  Neither one refers to the rows and flows of angel hair, the ice cream castles and feathered canyons of the Joni Mitchell song.  Both of them are rain clouds: the dense thunderhead (av); and the cloud (anan), often, as here, illumined by lightening.   The illumined cloud is frequently mentioned in the Torah in the phrase “pillar of cloud.”

Perek Shira does not mention the thunder itself, but that too is seen as a hierophany, especially in Psalm 29, where it is no less than the voice of God.