Here, we finish our look at the book of Job. This is from the end of the book, after Job is finished lamenting his misfortune, and getting told by his friends that he must have been at fault somehow. At this point, God steps in to have his say.
Job 38: 1-13 - Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?— when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, "Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped'?
"Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, so that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it?”
The actual chapter is much longer, but it is pretty much all like this.
I’ve had some conversations about this section of the book before with believers, and there’s no clear concensus about it. Some have said that what we have here is a list of imponderables. In other words, the mesasage to Job is that just as he has no hope of knowing what went into the creation of the world or how it works, so also is it impossible for him to know the answer to his main question: why have all these misfortunes come to me?
To me, it seems that God is saying that since Job is ignorant of “the big picture,” he has no right to criticise what God sees fit to do. This not only makes us aware of our ignorance, but I think it also encourages us to think that such questions, being declared as not answerable, should not even be inquired about.
We will see this attitude voiced in more detail in later books, both Old Testament and New.
Comments?
