We ended our study last time at Job chapter 14, looking at the first series of discourses between Job and his three friends.
From Job 15:1 to Job 37:24, there is a second round of discourses between Job and his friends. For brevity’s sake, I’m skipping ahead now to chapter 38 to God’s first reply to Job. God has remained silent during these discourses and now it’s His turn to respond to Job and his friends.
The Book of Job – Part X: God’s first speech to Job – His knowledge
Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” –Job 38:1-2.
God speaks to Job out of the whirlwind of destruction that has become of his life. God will ask a series of more than 70 questions of Job before He’s through. His first question goes right to the heart of the matter: “How is it that the creature has become the critic of the Creator?” We would all do well in our present “enlightened” age to remember this question! God will be speaking to Job as Creator God.
“Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will ask you, and you instruct Me! Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.” –Job 38:3-4.
Here God accepts Job’s challenge that he posed to Him back in Job 10:2, 13:3, 23:3, and 31:35. Be careful of ever presuming that you can challenge the Almighty. All these questions are good ones for atheists and agnostics, as well as evolutionists and humanists.
“Who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone.” –Job 38:5-6.
Remember that we said that the book of Job is one of the oldest in the Bible. You could place the events of the book during the time of the Patriarchs. God is talking to Job from His role in the Creation. Job and his contemporaries didn’t have ancient manuscripts of the law yet. So God is literally taking Job back to the days of creation and showing him His foundational works at the beginning of the world.
“When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” –Job 38:7.
The angels rejoiced at the creation of the world. I believe they rejoiced because now the angels get to see the wisdom of God by watching us!
“Or who enclosed the sea with doors when, bursting forth, it went out from the womb; when I made a cloud its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, and I placed boundaries on it and set a bolt and doors, and I said, ‘Thus far you shall come, but no farther; and here shall your proud waves stop’?” –Job 38:8-11.
It is God Himself who tells the sea how far it can go.
“Have you ever in your life commanded the morning, and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, and the wicked by shaken out of it? It is changed like clay under the seal; and they stand forth like a garment. From the wicked their light is withheld, and the uplifted arm is broken.” –Job 38:12-15.
What a question: “have you ever in your life commanded the morning?” Think about that. Who has the power over the morning? He does!
“Have you entered into the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? Have you understood the expanse of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this.” –Job 38:16-18.
At this point, I imagine Job sitting there with his mouth open, unable to provide a single answer. But God isn’t through yet.
“Where is the way to the dwelling of light? And darkness, where is its place, that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home? You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great!” –Job 38:19-21.
Where does light dwell? Where is darkness that you know where it lives? I love God’s statement. Don’t think that God does not have a sense of biting irony. It is found here in Job 38:21.
Whenever you get prideful and boastful about how great you think you are, remember you are but dust! It’s never about you or me, it’s about Him!
“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, which I have reserved for the time of distress, for the day of war and battle?” –Job 38:22-23.
While God is mainly referring here to the things He has created, these verses have prophetic implications. Hail will figure prominently in the end times as outlined in Revelation 8:7. It also comes into play during an invasion of Israel by Gog. From Ezekiel:
“With pestilence and with blood I shall enter into judgment with him; and I shall rain on him and on his troops, and on the many peoples who are with him, a torrential rain, with hailstones, fire and brimstone.” –Ezekiel 38:22. (Emphasis mine.)
“Where is the way that the light is divided, or the east wind scattered on the earth? Who has cleft a channel for the flood, or a way for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a land without people, on a desert without a man in it, to satisfy the waste and desolate land and to make the seeds of grass to sprout? Has the rain a father? Or who has begotten the drops of dew? From whose womb has come the ice? And the frost of heaven, who has given it birth? Water becomes hard like stone, and the surface of the deep is imprisoned.” –Job 38:24-30.
We may have scientific explanations for floods, lightning, rain, frost, and ice. But ultimately, “who’s their daddy?” to put it in the vernacular.
“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion? Can you lead forth a constellation in its season, and guide the Bear with her satellites? Do you know the ordinances of the heavens, or fix their rule over the earth?” –Job 38:31-33.
I’m not sure how one can look into the night sky, see the expanse that is before them, and not understand the knowledge nor wisdom of the Creator.
“Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, so that an abundance of water may cover you? Can you send forth lightnings that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’?” –Job 38:34-35.
Perhaps one of the reasons I have always loved thunderstorms is because of the sheer power in them. My parents used to tell me when I was a child that it was God and the angels bowling in heaven. I was never afraid of them. Still to this day a thunderstorm just seems to warm my soul. Maybe now that I’m older, it’s because I understand these verses and know that it’s God Himself who–as in says in Job 38:25–knows exactly where every lightning bolt will strike.
“Who has put wisdom in the innermost being or given understanding to the mind? Who can count the clouds by wisdom, or tip the water jars of the heavens, when the dust hardens into a mass and the clods stick together?” –Job 38:36-38.
Have you ever tried counting clouds?
Chapter 38 dealt with God as Creator. The end of 38 and chapter 39 will now deal with God in the natural world.
God as the God of all nature
“Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, when they crouch in their dens and lie in wait in their lair? Who prepares for the raven its nourishment when its young cry to God and wander about without food?” –Job 38:39-41.
It’s God’s job to feed his creation. I sometimes have a hard enough time feeding my own family let alone all of creation!
“Do you know the time the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the deer?” –Job 39:1.
There was a line in of the movie, “Jurassic Park,” where John Hammond–the founder of Amgen and Jurassic Park–said to his guests as one of the eggs was hatching that he watches over the “birth” of every animal on the island. The character, as you might recall, was so wrapped up in their ability to create life that they lost sight of the fact that maybe they should not have been toying around with that ability.
The truth is, God created life and it’s by His hand that life continues on our little planet called earth.
“Can you count the months they fulfill, or do you know the time they give birth? They kneel down, they bring forth their young, they get rid of their labor pains. Their offspring become strong, they grow up in the open field; they leave and do not return to them.” –Job 39:2-4.
God asks Job, plainly: “Do you know the times every animal gives birth? Do you know and see them growing up and leaving their home?”
“Who sent out the wild donkey free? And who loosed the bonds of the swift donkey, to whom I gave the wilderness for a home and the salt land for his dwelling place? He scorns the tumult of the city, the shoutings of the driver he does not hear. He explores the mountains for his pasture and searches after every green thing.” –Job 39:5-8.
The next animal God asks Job about is the wild donkey. Different from the domestic donkey, the wild donkey is graceful and a “fleet of foot.”
“Will the wild ox consent to serve you, or will he spend the night at your manger? Can you bind the wild ox in a furrow with ropes, or will he harrow the valleys after you? Will you trust him because his strength is great and leave your labor to him? Will you have faith in him that he will return your grain and gather it from your threshing floor?” –Job 39:9-12.
Now it’s the wild ox, a beast a burden. God asks Job if this mighty beast will act like an obedient pet to him. Will the ox labor for Job without binding him or harnessing its power?
“The ostriches’ wings flap joyously with the pinion and plumage of love, for she abandons her eggs to the earth and warms them in the dust, and she forgets that a foot may crush them, or that a wild beast may trample them. She treats her young cruelly, as if they were not hers; though her labor be in vain, she is unconcerned; because God has made her forget wisdom, and has not given her a share of understanding. When she lifts herself on high, she laughs at the horse and his rider.” –Job 39:13-18.
As for the ostrich, God describes how they appear to be unconcerned for their young. It’s a beautiful picture, drawing parallels between the ostrich leaving her young unattended and Job feeling like God has left him abandoned. Just as the trials he faced–as well as all godly people–seemingly unreasonable to Job, within lies the divine purposes of God.
“Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with a mane? Do you make him leap like the locust? His majestic snorting is terrible. He paws in the valley, and rejoices in his strength; he goes out to meet the weapons. He laughs at fear and is not dismayed; and he does not turn back from the sword. The quiver rattles against him, the flashing spear and javelin. With shaking and rage he races over the ground, and he does not stand still at the voice of the trumpet. As often as the trumpet sounds he says, ‘Aha!’ and he scents the battle from afar, and the thunder of the captains and the war cry.” –Job 39:19-25.
The use of horses in battle is well-known. For centuries men have ridden horses and they have charged into battle, fearless and undeterred.
“Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars, stretching his wings toward the south? Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high? On the cliff he dwells and lodges, upon the rocky crag, an inaccessible place. From there he spies out food; his eyes see it from afar. His young ones also suck up blood; and where the slain are, there is he.” –Job 39:26-30.
The last animals God references are the hawk and the eagle (or possibly the vulture). God asks Job if he understands their migratory behavior and if it’s by his command.
God then closes his first speech with:
Then the Lord said to Job, “Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty? Let him who reproves God answer it.” –Job 40:1.
God asks Job if he is in the position to teach God. God is saying to Job that he has been speaking without knowledge. It’s a dangerous place to be.
Wisely, Job declines to answer:
Then Job answered the Lord and said, “Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You? I lay my hand on my mouth. Once I have spoken, and I will not answer; even twice, and I will add no more.” –Job 40:3-5.
J. Vernon McGee has this to say of this passage:
Job says, “I should have kept quiet. Now I see I am vile.” Is this the man who said that he would maintain his integrity regardless of what happened? Is this the man who declared that he was a righteous man and that therefore there must be something wrong with God to let this happen to him? This same man is now saying that he is vile. As someone has said, if we could see ourselves as God sees us, we couldn’t stand ourselves. When we get into the presence of God, we will acknowledge that we are vile. –J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible with J. Vernon McGee
Do you see your sins as red as scarlet?
Do you see that you cannot keep God’s laws on your own?
Don’t play the “but I’m a good person” card: that won’t hold up in God’s court. You’re already guilty and condemned before a righteous God.
There is only one way to stand before God, white as snow and pure as gold: by making Jesus Lord over your life!
God still isn’t done with speaking to Job. Next time we’ll look at God’s second speech to him.
May He Increase!
