God Silences Job
January 30, 2020
Job 38:1 – 40:5
There are a couple of ways to read God’s first words to Job. If we think he is angry, his words sound frightening and overwhelming. However, if we infuse God’s words with love and a desire for relationship, they sound like an invitation. God didn’t come to destroy Job. He came extending an invitation to an audience with the King of the Universe.
In Job 1:8 God described Job this way:
“Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”
Job didn’t know what God had said about him. He didn’t know what God thought about him at all. Most of this story is about Job trying to figure God out, but God had already figured Job out. He was a strong man who went through a terrible crisis of faith, and didn’t crumple. In the end Job was still an upright man who feared God and shunned evil.
God Calls Job Back
When God spoke to Job from the storm, he knew Job could take it. He also knew that Job didn’t think much of himself as a man anymore. In his last speech Job said he was reduced to dust and ashes, he felt like a broken man, his skin blackened by disease and burning with fever. He thought he belonged out in the wilderness with jackals and owls. (Job 30:19, 24, 29, 30)
But God called Job back to who he really was. Job was a man to whom God wanted to disclose himself. He told Job to brace himself because God was going to question him and he must answer.
“Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you will answer me.’” Job 38:1-3
God knew Job better than Job knew himself. His problem with Job was that he talked about things he didn’t have enough knowledge to discuss. He was full of his own perceptions and thoughts and they distracted him from God’s plans.
“Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge?” Job 38:2
God was about to test Job’s understanding in such a way that there would be no question about who was the final authority.
God proceeded to tell Job things that only God could know and he talked about three areas under his sovereignty, the universe he created, the animal kingdom that depended on his care, and the forces of evil that he restrained in the world.
Where Was Job When . . .
God asks Job some hard questions.
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? . . . Who marked off its dimensions, surely you know! . . . On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone – while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?” Job 38:4-7
God knew the answers to these questions because he made the earth. He told Job that his creation of the earth caused such a celebration that the morning stars sang and angels shouted for joy. People first heard the music of the stars and planets when two Voyager space probes launched in 1977 sent back recordings from outer space. But four thousand years before that God told Job the stars sang together.
God’s Relationship to Creation
Every paragraph in this discourse by God revealed something that could only be known by him. He knew how the seas came to be and he fixed their boundaries. In the movement of the tides we can see how God set limits to the oceans. He uses the power of the sun and seas to produce rain clouds above the earth.
God saw into the depths of oceans and told Job about what was going on there in Job 38:16. It was only in the 20th century that scientists discovered springs on the ocean floor.
God established the gates of death. He knew where people went when they died. He made light and sent it out from its place, and he saw where darkness went when light came in.
Snow, hail, lightning, winds and torrents of rain were all under God’s control. He directed them wherever he wanted them to go in order to bless the earth.
God directed the constellations in the sky above. At his command they appeared in their seasons and moved at his direction. No one but God could control the revolving of the stars and planets in space.
The Animals God Loves
The wild animals gave God great pleasure. He created them with their instincts for survival and reproduction. He kept track of the pregnancies and births of mountain goats and deer. He enjoyed willful, stubborn wild donkeys, and loved the great lumbering wild ox.
The ostrich was a particular favorite with her joyfully flapping wings. God didn’t give the ostrich very much good sense, and she was not a good mother, but when she ran she laughed at the horse and rider. Maybe God laughed with her.
God gave the horse great strength and courage, along with great beauty. He made the horse the servant of man, to go to war with him and lend speed and power in the battle.
Hawks and eagles didn’t care what people thought. They lived high in the rocky crags and looked for prey with their keen eyes. They were natures scavengers, cleaning up dead carcasses. God loved them for doing what he made them to do.
God Challenges Job
Now God invited Job to correct him, to step up to prove his accusations against God, but Job was suddenly stricken with humility. He only wanted to confess the error of his ways.
“I am unworthy – how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer – twice, but I will say no more.” Job 40:4-5
If Job was a man who feared God before, he was doubly that now. God restored Job to his right mind, and he had taught Job not to talk about things he knew nothing about. The scene ended here; Job had his hand over his mouth and he decided he had said enough.