NOTES for Job 38:36
36 Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart? |
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In the Bible, wisdom is not theory, not abstraction, not something speculative. Biblical wisdom is a practical thing. If, for example, a person could make a beautiful object out of stone, wood, or metal, he could be called wise. Because what was needed here was not only skill, but also that sense of beauty which a person feels with the heart more than with the hands.
Wisdom was also the art of dealing with people, the ability to understand them and see the motives of their actions. And righteousness too was wisdom: the skill of righteous life, without which it was impossible to follow God in spite of one's own sins, following while stumbling as little as possible and not falling. In the time when the Book of Job was written, this skill of righteous life was called wisdom above all. But righteousness is first of all relations with God. And with people too, in accordance with the commandments given by God. And those commandments did not appear by chance. They are not a moral code invented by God specially for man.
The commandments reflect the spiritual laws according to which a person's relations with God and people's relations with one another are built. They have existed as long as the world itself. Or at least as long as man has existed in the world. But if so, then God conceived these laws even before the creation of man, when He was creating His world. That means wisdom is not a human matter. Not only in the sense that man did not invent it, but also in the sense that it was not invented at all.
Man does not invent wisdom; he discovers it. More precisely, God reveals it to him, and man receives this revelation. But the origins of wisdom, which Job sought so intently, are where the origins and first cause of everything else, of all that happens in the world, are: with God. In His eternity. In the fullness of His life. In the depth of His person. There, where His creative will begins. And therefore there, where man by definition cannot penetrate. The origins of wisdom are inaccessible to man. Wisdom itself is accessible insofar as man is ready to receive it from God's hands, not by right, which man does not have, but by God's mercy.
Other notes
For Job 38:22-41
22 Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, |
23 Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war? |
24 By what way is the light parted, which scattereth the east wind upon the earth? |
25 Who hath divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightning of thunder; |
26 To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man; |
27 To satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth? |
28 Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew? |
29 Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? |
30 The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen. |
31 Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? |
32 Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? |
33 Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? |
34 Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee? |
35 Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are? |
36 Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart? |
37 Who can number the clouds in wisdom? or who can stay the bottles of heaven, |
38 When the dust groweth into hardness, and the clods cleave fast together? |
39 Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion? or fill the appetite of the young lions, |
40 When they couch in their dens, and abide in the covert to lie in wait? |
41 Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat. |
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