FRAMEWORKS:
Job 38: The
LORD Speaks about Creation [ch.1 of 4]
[Introduction
to the God's words: Before you read the following chapters,
check how you envisage the tone of voice of the Lord. So often
we envisage these words coming in anger AND as a rebuke. The latter
is true but it would be possible to read these pages with a gentle
tone of a loving father who is explaining to a confused son. His
goal is not to provide an ethical or moral treatise that answers
all the questions, comments and assertions that have gone on in
the previous chapters – He leaves us to work out those things
in study and meditation. He simply wants to remind Job, and the
others and us, of His greatness so that at the end, we may arrive
at the same conclusion as the apostle Paul did on one occasion
when he wrote, “
But who
are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed
say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?'”
[Rom
9:20] The following chapters are perhaps one of the greatest challenges
in the Bible, to modern man, to gain a right perspective. We will
say more at the end in the Appendix.]
[Preliminary
Comments: This chapter is a torrent of questions for
which the Lord obviously doesn't wait to give Job time to answer.
Many of them start ‘Who' and simply point to His greatness. Some
of them start, “Can you” challenging Job and revealing his total
inadequacy in comparison to God. God is all-mighty, all-powerful,
all knowing, Creator of all things. Job is nothing in comparison.]
v.1
Then
the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:
v.2
“Who
is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge?
v.3
Brace yourself
like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.
v.4
“Where
were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me,
if you understand.
v.5
Who
marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who
stretched a measuring line across it?
v.6
On
what were its footings set, or who laid its
cornerstone—
v.7
while
the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted
for joy?
v.8
“Who
shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from
the womb,
v.9
when I made
the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness,
v.10
when
I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place,
v.11
when
I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your
proud waves halt'?
v.12
“Have
you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn
its place,
v.13
that it might
take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?
v.14
The earth
takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like
those of a garment.
v.15
The
wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken.
v.16
“Have
you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in
the recesses of the deep?
v.17
Have
the gates of death been shown to you? Have you
seen the gates of the deepest darkness?
v.18
Have
you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell
me, if you know all this.
v.19
“What
is the way to the abode of light? And where
does darkness reside?
v.20
Can
you take them to their places? Do you
know the paths to their dwellings?
v.21
Surely
you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years!
v.22
“Have
you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the
storehouses of the hail,
v.23
which I reserve
for times of trouble, for days of war and battle?
v.24
What
is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,
or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
v.25
Who
cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path
for the thunderstorm,
v.26
to water a
land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert,
v.27
to satisfy
a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass?
v.28
Does
the rain have a father? Who fathers
the drops of dew?
v.29
From
whose womb comes the ice? Who gives
birth to the frost from the heavens
v.30
when the waters
become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen?
v.31
“Can
you bind the chains of the Pleiades? Can
you loosen Orion's belt?
v.32
Can
you
bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the
Bear with its cubs?
v.33
Do
you know the laws of the heavens? Can you
set up God's dominion over the earth?
v.34
“Can
you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself
with a flood of water?
v.35
Do
you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do
they report to you, ‘Here we are'?
v.36
Who
gives the ibis wisdom or gives the rooster understanding?
v.37
Who
has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can
tip over the water jars of the heavens
v.38
when
the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together?
v.39
“Do
you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger
of the lions
v.40
when they
crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket?
v.41
Who
provides food for the raven when its young cry out to
God and wander about for lack of food?
[Concluding
Comments: There are thirty-five rhetorical questions
[marked out in bold], a river of questions for Job that basically
say to Job, “I AM the Creator of this world and by comparison
you know nothing and have no power – I have it all. It is as simple
as that.]