After Elihu, who declared that he could perfectly well replace God for Job because, supposedly, Job would hear from God the same thing he heard from him, Elihu, God Himself finally spoke. And it would seem that He said nothing new to Job...
After Elihu, who declared that he could perfectly well replace God for Job because, supposedly, Job would hear from God the same thing he heard from him, Elihu, God Himself finally spoke. And it would seem that He said nothing new to Job. But the matter is not only what is said; the matter is also who says it. And sometimes even first of all who says it. Job finally heard the One who can say all the right words with authority and with knowledge of the matter. He heard the voice of God. And the very first question God asks Job makes Job fall silent. What do you know about My world? Do you know it as I do?
The question is not idle and not rhetorical. Though the answer to it is obvious. But it makes one think. After all, God places in one row the change of day and night, the changing face of the earth, and judgment over the wicked. And if this is so, what can a person really know about the evil in which the world found itself after the fall?
Of course, a person knows the evil of the world. Just as he knows the change of day and night and the changes that take place in nature. He knows them insofar as they concern him personally. Everything else is only extrapolation, and therefore theory, abstraction, something a person does not really know, but knows only speculatively. But for God the whole world is real. In all its fullness. For Him there is nothing abstract or speculative in the world. Nor does He need extrapolations: He sees all the possibilities of the world He created, all its paths and all its dead ends, and He sees them not as certain models of possible reality, but as the reality of different ways in which the world exists and the possibilities laid in it are brought to fulfillment. For God, even hell, which He did not create, is more real than it is for those because of whom that hell appeared.
God perceives the evil we create more fully and vividly than we do, we who create it. And He certainly knows better than any of us what to do with that evil. Only the One who knows the world in its fullness knows how to free it from what hinders that fullness. This is exactly what God says to Job. Of course, his friends had said something of the same kind to him. But when such words are spoken by people, they are more apt to make one think that those who say them are merely trying to fence themselves off from the problem, to shut themselves away from it with correct words that obligate them to nothing. It is another matter when they are spoken by the One who created the world and knows everything about it. The One who is responsible for the destinies of the world and does not remove from Himself responsibility for it. Such words can be believed.
38 God begins with an awakening challenge, Job 38:1-3.
Proceeds to several proofs of Job's inability to contend with him, because of his ignorance and weakness: for he knew nothing of the founding of the earth, Job 38:4-7.
The limiting of the sea, Job 38:8-11.
Of the morning light, Job 38:12-15.
The recesses of the sea and earth, Job 38:16-21.
Of the treasures in the clouds, Job 38:22-27.
He could do nothing toward the making of his own soul, the producing of rain, frost, lightning, or the directing of the stars and their influences, Job 38:28-38.
He could not provide for the lions or the ravens, Job 38:39-41.
How then should he direct God's secret counsels? Here God takes up the argument, begun by Elihu, and prosecutes it in inimitable words, exceeding his, and all other mens in the loftiness of the style, as much as thunder does a whisper.
38:1 Lord - The eternal word, Jehovah, the same who spake from mount Sinai. Answered - Out of a dark and thick cloud, from which he sent a tempestuous wind, as the harbinger of his presence. In this manner God appears and speaks to awaken Job and his friends, to the more serious attention to his words; and to testify his displeasure both against Job, and them, that all of them might be more deeply humbled and prepared to receive, and retain the instructions which God was about to give them.
38:2 Counsel - God's counsel. For the great matter of the dispute between Job and his friends, was concerning God's counsel and providence in afflicting Job; which Job had endeavoured to obscure and misrepresent. This first word which God spoke, struck Job to the heart. This he repeats and echoes to, chap.Job 42:3, as the arrow that stuck fast in him.
38:3 Gird up - As warriors then did for the battle.
38:4 Where - Thou art but of yesterday; and dost thou presume to judge of my eternal counsels! When - When I settled it as firm upon its own center as if it had been built upon the surest foundations.
38:5 Measures - Who hath prescribed how long and broad and deep it should be. Line - the measuring line to regulate all its dimensions.
38:6 Foundations - This strong and durable building hath no foundations but God's power, which hath marvelously established it upon itself.Cornerstone - By which the several walls are joined and fastened together, and in which, next to the foundations, the stability of a building consists. The sense is, who was it that built this goodly fabrick, and established it so firmly that it cannot be moved.
38:7 Stars - The angels, who may well be called morning - stars, because of their excellent lustre and glory. Sons of God - The angels called the sons of God, because they had their whole being from him, and because they were made partakers of his Divine and glorious image. Shouted - Rejoiced in and blessed God for his works, whereby he intimates, that they neither did advise or any way assist him, nor dislike or censure any of his works, as Job had presumed to do.
38:8 Doors - Who was it, that set bounds to the vast and raging ocean, and shut it up, as it were with doors within its proper place, that it might not overflow the earth? Break forth - From the womb or bowels of the earth, within which the waters were for the most part contained, and out of which they were by God's command brought forth into the channel which God had appointed for them.
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.
38:10 Break up - Made those hollow places in the earth, which might serve for a cradle to receive and hold this great and goodly infant when it came out of the womb. And set - Fixed its bounds as strongly as if they were fortified with bars and doors.
38:12 Morning - Didst thou create the sun, and appoint the order and succession of day and night. Since - Since thou wast born: this work was done long before thou wast born. To know - To observe the punctual time when, and the point of the heavens where it should arise; which varies every day.
38:13 That - That this morning light should in a moment spread itself, from one end of the hemisphere to the other. Shaken - From the face of the earth. And this effect the morning - light hath upon the wicked, because it discovers them, whereas darkness hides them; and because it brings them to condign punishment, the morning being the usual time for executing judgment.
38:14 It - The earth. Turned - Is changed in its appearance.By the seal - The seal makes a beautiful impression upon the clay, which in itself hath no form, or comeliness. So the earth, which in the darkness of night lies like a confused heap without either form or beauty, when the light arises and shines upon it, appears in excellent order and glory. They - The men and things of the earth, whether natural, as living creatures, herbs and trees; or artificial, as houses or other buildings. Stand - Present themselves to our view.Garment - Wherewith the earth is in a manner clothed and adorned.
38:15 Withheld - That light which enjoyed by others is withholden from them, either by their own choice, because they chuse darkness rather than light; or by the judgment of God, or the magistrate, by whom they are cut off from the light of the living. Arms - Their great strength which they used to the oppression of others.
38:16 Springs - Heb. the tears; the several springs out of which the waters of the sea flow as tears do from the eyes. Walked - Hast thou found out the utmost depth of the sea, which in divers places could never be reached by the wisest mariner? And how then canst thou fathom the depths of my counsels?
38:17 Death - Hast thou seen, or dost thou know the place and state of the dead; the depths and bowels of that earth in which the generality of dead men are buried. Death is a grand secret? We know not when or by what means we shall be brought to death: by what road we must go the way, whence we shall not return. We cannot describe what death is; how the knot is untied between soul and body, or how the spirit goes "To be we know not what, and live we know not how." With what dreadful curiosity does the soul launch out into an untried abyss? We have no correspondence with separate souls, nor any acquaintance with their state. It is an unknown, undiscovered region, to which they are removed. While we are here in a world of sense, we speak of the world of spirits, as blind men do of colours, and when we remove thither, shall be amazed to find how much we were mistaken.
38:18 Breadth - The whole compass and all the parts of it?
38:19 Dwelleth - Hath its constant and settled abode. Whether goes the sun when it departs from this hemisphere? Where is the tabernacle and the chamber in which he is supposed to rest? And seeing there was a time when there was nothing but gross darkness upon the face of the earth, what way came light into the world? Which was the place where light dwelt at that time, and whence was it fetched? And whence came that orderly constitution and constant succession of light and darkness? Was this thy work? Or wast thou privy to it, or a counsellor, or assistant in it?
38:20 Take it - Bring or lead it: and this it refers principally to the light, and to darkness, as the consequent of the other.Bound - Its whole course from the place of its abode whence it is supposed to come, to the end of its journey. Know - Where thou mayst find it, and whence thou mayst fetch it.