NOTES for Job 38:2-4
The Lord addresses the one who asks Him questions. It must be harder for someone who has formed a clearly defined idea of God to hear Him, the Incomprehensible One who surpasses all things, than for someone who, like Job, is perplexed but open toward God.
The Lord rejects Job's speeches, calling them words without meaning. But His address to Job does not sound like words of accusation. Only the Lord sees the full picture of everything happening in the universe, while any human judgments are based on extremely limited initial data. Therefore He is the only One able to reveal the Truth.
We have no right to judge the fullness of the structure of the universe, and therefore no right to claim that we understand the full meaning of everything that happens to us, because all this does not fit into inevitably limited human thinking. And yet the Lord addresses Job not as some insignificant creature that can be ignored, but as one who understands little and is nevertheless endowed with the dignity that God does not reject. The words calling Job to answer, gird up your loins now like a man, testify precisely to this.
Before us once again is revealed the twofold unity of man, who, for all his weakness, sinfulness, and limitation, is the summit of Creation, called to stand before God.