Job 38

¹ Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: ² “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? ³ Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. ⁴ “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. ⁵ Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? ⁶ On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, ⁷ when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? ⁸ “Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, ⁹ when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, ¹⁰ and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, ¹¹ and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’? ¹² “Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, ¹³ that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it? ¹⁴ It is changed like clay under the seal, and its features stand out like a garment. ¹⁵ From the wicked their light is withheld, and their uplifted arm is broken. ¹⁶ “Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep? ¹⁷ Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? ¹⁸ Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this. ¹⁹ “Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness, ²⁰ that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home? ²¹ You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great! ²² “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, ²³ which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war? ²⁴ What is the way to the place where the light is distributed, or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth? ²⁵ “Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt, ²⁶ to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man, ²⁷ to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground sprout with grass? ²⁸ “Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew? ²⁹ From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the frost of heaven? ³⁰ The waters become hard like stone, and the face of the deep is frozen. ³¹ “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion? ³² Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season, or can you guide the Bear with its children? ³³ Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth? ³⁴ “Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that a flood of waters may cover you? ³⁵ Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’? ³⁶ Who has put wisdom in the inward parts or given understanding to the mind? ³⁷ Who can number the clouds by wisdom? Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens, ³⁸ when the dust runs into a mass and the clods stick fast together? ³⁹ “Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, ⁴⁰ when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in their thicket? ⁴¹ Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God for help, and wander about for lack of food?

Job 39

¹ “Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the does? ² Can you number the months that they fulfill, and do you know the time when they give birth, ³ when they crouch, bring forth their offspring, and are delivered of their young? ⁴ Their young ones become strong; they grow up in the open; they go out and do not return to them. ⁵ “Who has let the wild donkey go free? Who has loosed the bonds of the swift donkey, ⁶ to whom I have given the arid plain for his home and the salt land for his dwelling place? ⁷ He scorns the tumult of the city; he hears not the shouts of the driver. ⁸ He ranges the mountains as his pasture, and he searches after every green thing. ⁹ “Is the wild ox willing to serve you? Will he spend the night at your manger? ¹⁰ Can you bind him in the furrow with ropes, or will he harrow the valleys after you? ¹¹ Will you depend on him because his strength is great, and will you leave to him your labor? ¹² Do you have faith in him that he will return your grain and gather it to your threshing floor? ¹³ “The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, but are they the pinions and plumage of love? ¹⁴ For she leaves her eggs to the earth and lets them be warmed on the ground, ¹⁵ forgetting that a foot may crush them and that the wild beast may trample them. ¹⁶ She deals cruelly with her young, as if they were not hers; though her labor be in vain, yet she has no fear, ¹⁷ because God has made her forget wisdom and given her no share in understanding. ¹⁸ When she rouses herself to flee, she laughs at the horse and his rider. ¹⁹ “Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with a mane? ²⁰ Do you make him leap like the locust? His majestic snorting is terrifying. ²¹ He paws in the valley and exults in his strength; he goes out to meet the weapons. ²² He laughs at fear and is not dismayed; he does not turn back from the sword. ²³ Upon him rattle the quiver, the flashing spear, and the javelin. ²⁴ With fierceness and rage he swallows the ground; he cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet. ²⁵ When the trumpet sounds, he says ‘Aha!’ He smells the battle from afar, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting. ²⁶ “Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars and spreads his wings toward the south? ²⁷ Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high? ²⁸ On the rock he dwells and makes his home, on the rocky crag and stronghold. ²⁹ From there he spies out the prey; his eyes behold it from far away. ³⁰ His young ones suck up blood, and where the slain are, there is he.”

Steven Lawson tells of a college student who went to take a final exam at the end of his Fall semester and realized to his horror that he did not know the answer to a single question. After mulling over what to do, the young man wrote the following on his exam: “Only God knows the answer to these questions. Merry Christmas!” Over Christmas break, the graded exam arrived in the mail. On the top of it the professor had written this: “Then God gets a 100, and you get 0. Happy New Year!”[1]

There is something of that humorous but very real truth here in Job 38 and 39. Whatever else we learn from God’s speech in these chapters, we see clearly the staggering distance between God and man. But we also learn more than this.

God is less concerned with the answer than with the presumption behind the question.

God’s dramatic appeal to the distance between us and Him reveals to us that God is less concerned with the answer than with the presumption behind our questions. Consider what God says in the beginning of Job 38:

¹ Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: ² “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

The Lord begins by telling Job that he does not and cannot know as much as God about the issue at hand or any issue for that matter: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” Job’s wisdom can only succeed in darkening the truth. Later, Paul will make this point powerfully through his memorable words in 1 Corinthians 1:

²⁰ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹ For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. ²² For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, ²³ but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

Imagine: the wisest theologian on earth right now knows less than the simplest person in Heaven. I realize that when we speak from a place of raw transparency and pain we speak, in our minds, from our greatest vantage point of clarity, a point where all pretensions have passed away, a point where we have no need or desire to posture or impress. Pain is the place of the baring of our souls. But we must realize that we can be most sincere and yet still be sincerely incorrect. “Raw” and “transparent” are not synonyms for “correct” and “true.”

What is more, it is not merely that Job does not have the wisdom he thinks he has, it is also that Job’s presumption of his ability to hear and receive the answer is also mistaken. Behind all of Job’s questions is the assumption that were God to answer, Job could receive it. But it is this assumption, indeed, this presumption, that is so very mistaken.

As we will see, the premise of human ability to receive divine wisdom concerning the deepest mysteries of reality is fatally flawed. Only God can fully understand God. Man can receive and, to some extent, understand those things about God that God has chosen to reveal, but even those things have been put in images and words and pictures that are accessible to us. We stumble like blind men and women over what God has revealed, then we presume to be able to receive any more!

What God has revealed, He has revealed out of love and mercy and grace. We can know what He has spoken, but we can only know it to the extent that we are able. Job assumes that he can receive the answer. He cannot.

The Lord continues:

³ Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me.

Steven Lawson tells us that “dress for action like a man” can be interpreted “brace yourself like a man” and “was a military command that called a soldier to prepare for a fierce battle.”[2] In other words, God tells Job to prepare to defend Himself and to prepare to answer. Job had asked enough questions. Now it was time for him to answer God’s questions.

God is transcendent, above, and other in a way that should lead us to awe-inspired trust and humbling perspective.

In February of 2016, Umberto Eco died. Eco was one of my favorite authors. He is most well known for writing the international bestselling novel, The Name of the Rose. He wrote numerous other novels, collections of essays, works on semiotics (his field of study), culture, history, philosophy, and literature. He was, to put it mildly, a fascinating man with a dizzying mind!

In 2009, he published an entire book devoted to lists entitled The Infinity of Lists. In it, he gives numerous examples of lists in literature, sacred texts, and other historical media. Early in the book, Eco discusses why people write lists and what the overall effect of lists on a reader is. He suggests that lists are employed as a…

…mode of artistic representation, one where we do not know the boundaries of what we wish to portray, where we do not know how many things we are talking about and presume their number to be, if not infinite, then at least astronomically large. We cannot provide a definition by essence and so, to be able to talk about it, to make it comprehensible or in some way perceivable, we list its properties…

Eco goes on to say that lists represent “an actual infinity made up of objects that can perhaps be numbered but that we cannot number.” Lists, then, according to Eco, are representations that suggest “infinity almost physically, because in fact it does not end, nor does it conclude in form.”[3]

I cannot help but think of Eco’s explanation of lists as I read the following words from Job 38 and 39. And, make no mistake, the best way to process this list of questions, this list of attributions, this list of evidence for the sovereignty of God, is to hear it read, to catch the full sensation of infinity, or transcendence, of otherness that arises at such a reading. This is not a text to be dissected. We will see that Job’s response is to put his hand over his mouth. No, it is a text to be heard, absorbed, and adored. More than that, it is a text that, if rightly heard and rightly received, will lead us into the very throne room of God.

So still your mind and heart. If need be, shut your eyes. Imagine you are standing before a terrifying whirlwind reverberating with the tremors of transcendent glory. You are broken – physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually – and your have had your say. You have said things you never thought you would to and about God. You still love Him, but it has become a fragile touch instead of a confident grasp. And you are there, before the whirlwind, and out of the whirlwind, God speaks.

Listen:

⁴ “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. ⁵ Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? ⁶ On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, ⁷ when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? ⁸ “Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, ⁹ when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, ¹⁰ and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, ¹¹ and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’? ¹² “Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, ¹³ that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it? ¹⁴ It is changed like clay under the seal, and its features stand out like a garment. ¹⁵ From the wicked their light is withheld, and their uplifted arm is broken. ¹⁶ “Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep? ¹⁷ Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? ¹⁸ Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this. ¹⁹ “Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness, ²⁰ that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home? ²¹ You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great! ²² “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, ²³ which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war? ²⁴ What is the way to the place where the light is distributed, or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth? ²⁵ “Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt, ²⁶ to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man, ²⁷ to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground sprout with grass? ²⁸ “Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew? ²⁹ From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the frost of heaven? ³⁰ The waters become hard like stone, and the face of the deep is frozen. ³¹ “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion? ³² Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season, or can you guide the Bear with its children? ³³ Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth? ³⁴ “Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that a flood of waters may cover you? ³⁵ Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’? ³⁶ Who has put wisdom in the inward parts or given understanding to the mind? ³⁷ Who can number the clouds by wisdom? Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens, ³⁸ when the dust runs into a mass and the clods stick fast together? ³⁹ “Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, ⁴⁰ when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in their thicket? ⁴¹ Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God for help, and wander about for lack of food?

Job 39

¹ “Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the does? ² Can you number the months that they fulfill, and do you know the time when they give birth, ³ when they crouch, bring forth their offspring, and are delivered of their young? ⁴ Their young ones become strong; they grow up in the open; they go out and do not return to them. ⁵ “Who has let the wild donkey go free? Who has loosed the bonds of the swift donkey, ⁶ to whom I have given the arid plain for his home and the salt land for his dwelling place? ⁷ He scorns the tumult of the city; he hears not the shouts of the driver. ⁸ He ranges the mountains as his pasture, and he searches after every green thing. ⁹ “Is the wild ox willing to serve you? Will he spend the night at your manger? ¹⁰ Can you bind him in the furrow with ropes, or will he harrow the valleys after you? ¹¹ Will you depend on him because his strength is great, and will you leave to him your labor? ¹² Do you have faith in him that he will return your grain and gather it to your threshing floor? ¹³ “The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, but are they the pinions and plumage of love? ¹⁴ For she leaves her eggs to the earth and lets them be warmed on the ground, ¹⁵ forgetting that a foot may crush them and that the wild beast may trample them. ¹⁶ She deals cruelly with her young, as if they were not hers; though her labor be in vain, yet she has no fear, ¹⁷ because God has made her forget wisdom and given her no share in understanding. ¹⁸ When she rouses herself to flee, she laughs at the horse and his rider. ¹⁹ “Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with a mane? ²⁰ Do you make him leap like the locust? His majestic snorting is terrifying. ²¹ He paws in the valley and exults in his strength; he goes out to meet the weapons. ²² He laughs at fear and is not dismayed; he does not turn back from the sword. ²³ Upon him rattle the quiver, the flashing spear, and the javelin. ²⁴ With fierceness and rage he swallows the ground; he cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet. ²⁵ When the trumpet sounds, he says ‘Aha!’ He smells the battle from afar, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting. ²⁶ “Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars and spreads his wings toward the south? ²⁷ Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high? ²⁸ On the rock he dwells and makes his home, on the rocky crag and stronghold. ²⁹ From there he spies out the prey; his eyes behold it from far away. ³⁰ His young ones suck up blood, and where the slain are, there is he.”

Behold the awesome majesty of God!

Steven Chase has pointed out that “the questions in the speech directed by God at Job do not seem to ask if Job is a righteous human, but rather if Job is, like YHWH, a god; YHWH asks questions more suited to a rival god than to a human suffering in rotting skin, as if the human were knowledgeable enough to share an intimate conversation with YHWH as co-creator of the universe.” Chase further argues that “the implicit answer…is that there is a moral order to the universe, but it is beyond human understanding, and it can be accessed, not changed, by faith.”[4]

That is as good a summation of any of what is happening here.

God is God.

Job is not.

There is the answer.

In a sense, God’s response to Job’s questions is the same as God’s response to Moses concerning what he was to tell Pharaoh when questioned: “I AM!”

This is a paraphrase of Job 38 and 39: “I AM!”

I ask you and I ask myself: are we content to rest in the sovereignty of a holy God?

Is it enough for us to know that God is God, to let God be God, and to accept with comfort and with praise that great fact?

Does this sound cruel to you? Perhaps it does. We think that human beings are entitled to know. But what if we not only are not entitled to know the mysteries of God, we could not know them if God spoke them to us. We do not possess the mental and spiritual space to contain, much less understand, certain truths.

We will one day.

Or perhaps then we will not care.

Perhaps when we stand before the blazing fire and whirlwind of the grandeur of God Almighty all of our presumptions and our sense of entitlement and even our need to know will melt away before the beauty and awesomeness of God.

We need Job 38 and 39. We need to hear again this amazing list and learn to tremble again before the God who loves us and who has revealed Himself to us in Christ.

Yes, we need to learn to tremble.

And to love.

And to trust.

“Why!” cries Job.

“I AM!” answers God.

It is enough.

Amen.

 

[1] Steven J. Lawson, Job. Holman Old Testament Commentary. Vo.10 (Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2004), p.333.

[2] Steven J. Lawson, p.327.

[3] Umberto Eco, The Infinity of Lists. (New York, NY: Rizzoli, 2009), p.15,17.

[4] Steven Chase, Job. Belief. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), p.256.