Job
10
We’ve reached one of the greatest chapters in the Bible – chapter 38 of Job. The Lord answered Job out of the storm and it’s immediately apparent that when God plays the question master and starts asking the questions, Job has to ‘pass’ on every one because he just does not know the answers. God enquires of Job whether he can explain God’s creation:
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell Me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone – while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?” (verses 4-7).
With holy irony, even with sarcasm, God blasts Job with a hail of questions which puncture his pride and magnify the gap between man’s tiny worldview and God’s cosmic perspective.
The questioning is relentless. “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb (verse 8), when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt?” (verse 11). Had Job ever told the sun to rise to dispel the darkness? Had Job ever walked in the depths of the sea? In places the Pacific is nearly seven miles deep! Had Job ever been shown the gates of death? The vastness of creation causes Job to realise the Creator is in a different league from the created.
God’s questions keep coming. “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings? Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years!” (verses 19-21).
Little man is a Johnny-come-lately on the earth and is no match for the Ancient of Days. God wants Job to answer. Do you know where snow and hail are stored until God needs them? Do you know where God keeps His lightning and winds? What do you know about the rain, the ice and the frost? Are you the rainmaker, Job? Can you control the constellations, Pleiades or Orion? The bigness of God is overwhelming Job. More unanswerable questions fly at him. “Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’? Who endowed the heart with wisdom or gave understanding to the mind? Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens when the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together?” (Verses 35-38).
Job catches a glimpse of the big picture. His questions are not being answered, but that doesn’t seem to matter any more. The Answer to all things, namely God, is addressing him. The silence has ended. Job realises he could never oversee God’s massive creation and now God speaks about His remarkable providence.
Who feeds the wild animals? It isn’t you, Job. Six animals are mentioned – the lions, mountain goats, the doe, the wild donkey, the wild ox and the warhorse. Five birds are mentioned – the raven, the ostrich, the stork, the hawk and the eagle. God is asking Job, “Do you understand how they live or know how to take care of them? Would you even know if they were hungry? Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?” (Chapter 39 verse1) “Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom and spread his wings towards the south? Does the eagle soar at your command and build his nest on high? He dwells on a cliff and stays there at night; a rocky crag is his stronghold. From there he seeks out his food; his eyes detect it from afar.” (Verses 26-29).
We’re not at the end of the book yet, but there are a couple of important lessons we can learn from the story so far. The first is this. When confronted with inexplicable injustice and crushing darkness, it is better to be irate, than resigned. Job felt betrayed by God, but he is never censured by God for his uncontrolled outbursts. Loud complainers like Job, Jeremiah and Jonah seem to grab God’s attention and He is willing to engage with them. God prefers honest disagreement and even furious interrogation, to passivity, dishonest submission or simply settling for religious guesswork. Job’s strong remarks scandalised his friends, but God remained unperturbed. As Philip Yancey says, “One bold message in Job is that you can say anything to God. Job wavered, contradicted himself, backtracked and sometimes collapsed in despair, but it never occurred to him to ignore God.”
In the final analysis, Job’s four friends emerge as self-righteous dogmatists as they try to defend the mysterious ways of God, forgetting that God is vaster than any creed or doctrine and His ways are past finding out.
Secondly, when God seemed completely absent, in one sense, He had never been more present. Job’s experience had been, to quote from Isaiah chapter 45 verse 15, “Truly You are a God who hides Himself, O God and Saviour of Israel.” Actually, far from being abandoned by God, Job was getting direct, almost microscopic scrutiny from Him. Though oblivious of what was going on behind the scenes, Job was participating in a trial of cosmic significance. Little did he know that the part he was playing in this classic test of faith was not, as he supposed, the prosecuting attorney but the main witness.