Chapter 38
Elihu has finished speaking, finally, after about four chapters. He said a lot of things that I thought were right on target. I agreed with him that Job's words - Job's challenge to God to let him stand before him and make his case - bordered on impertinent. I agreed that Job was not sinless. I agreed that whether Job chose right or wrong for his life would have no effect at all on what God does, plans, or allows. And now, in 38, it is not Job who answers Elihu, but in a sense, God picks up where Elihu left off. God is finally going to respond to Job.
2024 - This verse: 2 "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? [Job 38:2 ESV]. Here is an interesting thought...Is this God's evaluation of the speech by Elihu? Is God telling Job that Elihu not only has no clue, but is sending Job down the wrong road - toward darkness instead of light? It surely rings that way. The MSB note seems to think it was Job who was just making the bad advice of his friends even worse by interpreting them wrongly. I don't see that...especially as it comes after Elihu's protracted speech.
2025 - No. It is Job who darkens council. That's the only way to read this verse in context with vs 1. God is saying that Job has no clue, and even shades him compared to his councilors.
2023 - God answers Job out of the whirlwind...but he did not answer Elijah out of it. Was that part of God's message to Elijah...that he wasn't Job despite his high opinion of himself? Look at this collection: 6 you will be visited by the LORD of hosts with thunder and with earthquake and great noise, with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire. [Isa 29:6 ESV]. Didn't Elijah see all of these, and the Lord was in none of them? I'm off on a tangent...but maybe it's not a tangent at all...Here is the relevant story from Elijah.
11 And he said, "Go out and stand on the mount before the LORD." And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 And after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. [1Ki 19:11-12 ESV]. Looks like the root word is different. All these uses of "wind" in 1Ki are from "ru-ah". Strong's 7307. The whirlwind in Job is "sa-ar", Strong's 5591. Sa-ar is used in 2Kgs of the "wind" that took Elijah up to heaven. Stands to reason that the same writer who chose ru-ah for the wind on the mountain chose sa-ar for the wind that took Elijah up. There is a really interesting word study here...for another day. I did note that the wind on the mountain - ru-ah - is often referencing the moving of a spirit where sa-ar is of a storm, a tempest, that sort of thing. So in 1Ki, the ru-ah, though rending the mountain in pieces, is not called a storm...it even says there that the Lord was passing by. We might see then that the mountain was broken up not by the wind but by the power of God as he passed by, though he said nothing as he passed. I think the wind in Job was a bona fide storm, as in everyone was cowering before it as God spoke from it.
Here is what is coming:
3 Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. [Job 38:3 ESV]
"Gird up your loins..."
So. God is NOT going to answer Job's charges, but instead, God has some questions to put to Job.
Several verses here that I really like:
5 Who determined its measurements--surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? [Job 38:5 ESV] The earth's measurements are in view. It's size and density put it in the sweet spot of the sun, keep it orbiting there, make eclipses work as they do, and tides as they do. Everything about how the earth is put together is so far unique in our knowledge of the universe.
2023 - This verse:
7 when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? [Job 38:7 ESV]. Here is that phrase "sons of God" again. They were already present when God laid the cornerstone of the earth. This says they were immortal. So the sons of God just about have to be angels. We do not know whether at the time the earth was founded these angels had already rebelled with Satan...but I think it is a pretty good bet. So all that stuff about the giants would be best understood, in my opinion, as some kind of demonic breeding program to manipulate God's creation to an extreme end. Angels would have had such knowledge.
11 and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed'? [Job 38:11 ESV]
Why is it that the most continuous erosive force on the planet - the ocean's waves - don't gradually reduce the amount of land available until the whole planet is water? There is enough volume in the deep oceans to hold all the sediment so produced, and the water would still be above. If it takes billions of years to evolve men, then why did the water not flood the planet in that amount of time. You can't have it both ways. Has a study ever been done on this?
2025 - Look at these first 11 verses. God begins this address to Job by establishing who is who. A comparison. God first establishes His credentials as greater by far than Job by recounting some design considerations when creating a universe. God establishes His position in this debate by saying I laid the foundation of the earth, I decided how big to make it, I insured that it was plumb and would remain standing. I decided to make gravity the foundation on which it rests rather than a turtles back or floating it on a maelstrom. THEN, even on the earth itself, water had to be dealt with. It had to be checked or its erosive properties would worn down and/or dissolved absolutely everything. God says he restricted where water could go by creating the hydrologic cycle - by tying some of it up on clouds but also by making "hard borders" out of shifting sand. The waves cannot erode what is already in its simplest form. Waves crash on sand but they do not erode it. Oh my! God invented silica sand as "a bolt and doors" for the ocean, so it could come no further!
17 Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? [Job 38:17 ESV]
Spoken of as true physical gates. One way gates. There in Job's time, still there in ours, and to this day we have no inkling of them.
2023 - Here is God's point, and this is the first of several times that we will see it repeated:
18 Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this. [Job 38:18 ESV].
This is really the whole point of Job. You cannot question God because you are NOT in his league! What man knows, as creature created, is a trifle compared to God. Where then do we find the right to question anything that he does or allows and condones? We have no standing to question God. But how amazing that we are allowed to ASK Him for anything that we want!
2024 - Like arguing with a calculus prof that the distributive property is wrong. No...more like a two year old arguing with that prof that addition doesn't make sense.
2025 - This one:
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? [Job 38:19-20 ESV]. Is this God saying that only He understands how the world could have had light before stars and suns? That he made the light - in some finite volume - and then later decided how to distribute it through all his creation, and to keep it cycling! Imagine a universe limited in size by the volume of light it takes to support it! Because darkness means there is no energy to fuel it!
21 You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great! [Job 38:21 ESV]
Is it sarcasm still when it is God who says it?
The whole point of all this is to remind Job - and all of us - just how piddling tiny small nothings we are in the whole scheme of things. This is the creator of all things talking. He is the One who made it all work the way it does, in harmony and not chaos, with metes and bounds to everything. He made the world with cause and effect in place so that it would be the only "perpetual motion" machine ever created. And it will only stop when the original inventor decides to stop it.
2023 - Vss 22,23...snow and hail reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle. Does this say God "invented" these as tools of correction in his relationship with man? Does it say that's always what we ought to understand from them?
2023 - And these!
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. [Job 38:28-30 ESV]. Look at the point made here!!! There are countless things in the universe that not only are not invented by man, but are in fact beyond his comprehension. And yet man questions the one who invented them and made them work in harmony with all these other things. Man is tiny. That is the point.
2025 - These:
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? [Job 38:25-27 ESV]. God says the earth doesn't even need man to take care of it - to keep plants growing, rain falling - because he has already designed it to be self-nourishing.
2025 - It is interesting that through all this, God seems to be saying that what sets him apart from man is not just knowledge and wisdom, but the ability to create all these interrelated, mutually supportive systems WITHIN what was created from nothing at all, and making it all work. Imagine inventing "light" with all its properties. This is what God says He can do, and until you can do likewise, keep your mouth shut.
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? [Job 38:31-32 ESV]
The heavens work as they do because He created them that way. He understands how it all works. Do you?
2023 - Are the "chains" made of gravity so the constellations hold their relationships as viewed from the earth? Look at one of those star computers that can show you what the sky looked like in Job's time. This says Orion and the Pleiades were known and recognized in Job's time, and they had been named long before then.
2025 - Still another:
36 Who has put wisdom in the inward parts or given understanding to the mind? [Job 38:36 ESV]. We have seen this idea before. Wisdom cannot be purchased for all the gold in the world. It cannot be bought. It cannot be taught. Where does wisdom - not knowledge but wisdom to know what to do with that knowledge - actually come from? God says here that he built it in! HE is the sole source of wisdom!
2021-
These verses from Proverbs surely go right along with this chapter:
19 The LORD by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens; 20 by his knowledge the deeps broke open, and the clouds drop down the dew. [Pro 3:19-20 ESV]
I find it harder and harder to think anyone but Solomon wrote the book of Job.
Vs 19 above goes with Job 38:4-7. 8-11 go with the first part of 20. vs 28 goes with the last part of 20. The whole of chapter 38 could be an expansion of these two verses in Proverbs. It is interesting to see that Solomon considered these things about the natural world incomprehensible in his time, but worthy of study. There are great questions in Job 38, many avenues for study. And Solomon says knowledge like this is a worthy pursuit, not so one will be smarter and wiser, but so that one will understand the nature of the God who created it all, so we will appreciate just how truly beyond our comprehension God is. How can we ever question him if we don't understand his creation. Study, knowledge and wisdom help us to appreciate all the more just how infinite is God's knowledge.
2025 - If God says His credentials are this created universe where we live, and which we cannot comprehend much less imitate or improve, how important is it for us as Christians to maintain that the universe is created by a God who's ways and methods are so far beyond us that they are supernatural. This is why Satan so often attacks, so vigorously undermines the whole idea of God as THE creator. Creation is what makes Him God, over above and beyond even Satan, the most accomplished of the angels, who wants to be worshiped AS God, though he cannot begin to do those things that God has already done. It is the inability to create that puts Satan in a distant second place to our God.