Bible Commentaries

In most disputes the strife is who shall have the last word. Job's friends had, in this controversy, tamely yielded it to Job, and then he to Elihu. But, after all the wranglings of the counsel at bar, the judge upon the bench must have the last word; so God had here, and so he will have in every controversy, for every man's judgment proceeds from him and by his definitive sentence every man must stand or fall and every cause be won or lost. Job had often appealed to God, and had talked boldly how he would order his cause before him, and as a prince would he go near unto him; but, when God took the throne, Job had nothing to say in his own defence, but was silent before him. It is not so easy a matter as some think it to contest with the Almighty. Job's friends had sometimes appealed to God too: "O that God would speak!" Job 11:7. And now, at length, God does speak, when Job, by Elihu's clear and close arguings was mollified a little, and mortified, and so prepared to hear what God had to say. It is the office of ministers to prepare the way of the Lord. That which the great God designs in this discourse is to humble Job, and bring him to repent of, and to recant, his passionate indecent expressions concerning God's providential dealings with him; and this he does by calling upon Job to compare God's eternity with his own time, God's omniscience with his own ignorance, and God's omnipotence with his own impotency. I. He begins with an awakening challenge and demand in general, Job 38:2,3. II. He proceeds in divers particular instances and proofs of Job's utter inability to contend with God, because of his ignorance and weakness: for, 1. He knew nothing of the founding of the earth, Job 38:4-7. 2. Nothing of the limiting of the sea, Job 38:8-11. 3. Nothing of the morning light, Job 38:12-15. 4. Nothing of the dark recesses of the sea and earth, Job 38:16-21. 5. Nothing of the springs in the clouds (Job 38:22-27), nor the secret counsels by which they are directed. 6. He could do nothing towards the production of the rain, or frost, or lightning (Job 38:28-30,34,35,37,38), nothing towards the directing of the stars and their influences (Job 38:31-33), nothing towards the making of his own soul, Job 38:36. And lastly, he could not provide for the lions and the ravens, Job 38:39-41. If, in these ordinary works of nature, Job was puzzled, how durst he pretend to dive into the counsels of God's government and to judge of them? In this (as bishop Patrick observes) God takes up the argument begun by Elihu (who came nearest to the truth) and prosecutes it in inimitable words, excelling his, and all other men's, in the loftiness of the style, as much as thunder does a whisper.

The Lord answers Job out of a whirlwind, and challenges him to answer, Job 38:1-3. He convinces him of ignorance and weakness, by an enumeration of some of his mighty works; particularly of the creation of the earth, Job 38:4-7. The sea and the deeps, Job 38:8-18. The light, Job 38:19-21. Snow, hail, thunder, lightning, rain, dew, ice, and hoar-frost, Job 38:22-30. Different constellations, and the ordinances of heaven influencing the earth, Job 38:31-33. Shows his own power and wisdom in the atmosphere, particularly in the thunder, lightnings, and rain, Job 38:34-38. His providence in reference to the brute creation, Job 38:39-41.

INTRODUCTION TO Job 38

In this chapter the Lord takes up the controversy with Job; calls upon him to prepare to engage with him in it, and demands an answer to posing questions he puts to him, concerning the earth and the fabric of it, Job 38:1; concerning the sea, compared to an infant in embryo, at its birth, in its swaddling bands and cradle, Job 38:8; concerning the morning light, its spread and influence, Job 38:12; concerning the springs of the sea, the dark parts of the earth, the place both of light and darkness, Job 38:16; concerning the various meteors, snow, hail, rain, thunder, lightning, and the influences of the stars, Job 38:22; and concerning provision for lions and ravens, Job 38:40.

Ch. 38–42:6. The Lord answers Job out of the Storm

We are now to witness the last act of the drama. And to understand it we have to go back to the starting-point and recall the idea of the Poem. This idea is expressed in the question, Doth Job serve God for nought? Or, as otherwise put, the idea is, The trial of the Righteous. This trial has been observed proceeding throughout the whole Book. Now it approaches its conclusion. The Lord, who caused it or permitted it, and has watched it from afar, must now interpose to bring it to an end, and bestow on Job the fruits of it. The trial has been successfully borne: for though Job has sinned under it, his sin has not been of the kind predicted by the Adversary; he has continued to cleave to God, and even sounded deeps of faith profounder than ever he had reached before (ch. 19), and tasted the sweets of righteousness with a keener delight than during his former godly life (ch. Job 17:9).

At the point at which we are now arrived the sole object of interest is Job’s mind in its relations to God. The speculative question discussed between him and his friends concerning the meaning of his sufferings, or the meaning of evil in general in the providence of God, has no importance, except so far as the conclusions which Job has arrived at have left his mind in a condition of perplexity in regard to the ways of God. The Author’s didactic purpose in raising the discussion between Job and his friends has been served (ch. 21, 23–24.). Job himself now remains the problem.

Though the trial has been successfully borne upon the whole, Job has not come out of it scatheless. His demeanour towards God, especially in presuming to contend with Him, has been at many points profoundly blameworthy. And the thought, which he refuses to abandon (ch. Job 27:2-6, Job 31:35 seq.), that God is unjust in His rule of the world, even though he maintains it more as a theory and necessary construction of facts as he observes them, without allowing it much to influence his life, or destroy his larger faith in God, is a thought not only derogatory to God, but one that must cripple every religious movement of Job’s heart. So long as such a feeling remains his trial cannot be said to be ended. But nothing that Job himself can do, nor anything that his friends can urge, is able to remove it. It was God, by His mysterious providence, who raised this dark doubt in His servant’s mind, and He must interpose to drive it away.

It might be supposed at first that the simplest way of restoring Job to peace would have been to reveal to him that his afflictions were not due to his sin, but were the trial of his righteousness, and in this way solve the problem that perplexed him. But the elements of blameworthiness in Job’s conduct forbade this simple treatment. The disease had spread in his mind, and developed moral symptoms, which required a broader remedy. Besides, it is God who now speaks to Job; and in His teaching of men He never moves in the region of the mere understanding, but always in that of the religious life. He may remove perplexities regarding His providence and ways from men’s minds, but He does not do so by the immediate communication of intellectual light, but by flushing all the channels of thought and life with a deeper sense of Himself. Under the flow of this fuller sense of God perplexities disappear, just as rocks that raise an angry surf when the tide is low are covered and unknown when it is full. This is the meaning of God’s manifestation to Job out of the storm. He brings Himself and His full glory near to Job, and fills his mind with such a sense of Him as he had never had before—“Now mine eye seeth thee” (ch. Job 42:5). At this sight of God his heart not only quivers with an unspeakable joy, but he abhors his past thoughts of Him, and his former words, and repents in dust and ashes.

The object of the Lord’s answer to Job out of the storm is twofold, to rebuke Job, and to heal him—to bring home to his heart the blameworthiness of his words and demeanour towards God, and to lift him up out of his perplexities into peace. The two things hardly differ; at least both are effected by the same means, namely by God’s causing all His glory to pass before Job.

The Lord’s answer to Job out of the storm consists of two parts, or contains two questions:—

First, ch. Job 38:1 to Job 40:5, Shall mortal man contend with God?

Second, ch. Job 40:6 to Job 42:6, Shall man charge God with wrong in His rule of the world?

The two questions, however, are hardly kept apart, for the first implies the second, inasmuch as a man’s contention with God will naturally be because of His unjust treatment of himself. And Job, in his final words of penitence (ch. Job 42:1-6), refers back to ch. Job 38:2.

In the beginning of His first address Jehovah invites Job to enter upon that contention with Him, which he had so often sought, “Gird up thy loins like a man; and I will demand of thee, and answer thou me” (ch. Job 38:3). The point aimed at by the Divine Speaker is the presumption of Job in desiring to contend with the Almighty. Then the Lord causes a panorama of creation, both inanimate and living, to pass before Job (ch. Job 38:4 to Job 39:30). Having done so He demands, “Will he that reproveth the Almighty contend with Him”? (ch. Job 40:2.) Does Job, now that the glory of God has been made to pass before his eyes, continue to desire to contend with Him? To which Job replies, “Behold I am too mean; how shall I answer thee? I lay mine hand upon my mouth” (ch. Job 40:4). The exhibition of the great panorama of creation was but a method of revealing God, not in one attribute but in all His manifoldness and resource of mind. It was designed to abase Job before God, and rebuke his presumption. And this was its effect: “Behold I am too mean”! But the revelation of God had another design besides abasing Job. It was given to Job that he might know God, and be at peace (ch. Job 22:21).

The process, however, is not yet complete. In a second address the Lord again commands Job to gird up his loins and answer Him. But now He is more specific: “Wilt thou condemn me that thou mayest be in the right”? (ch. Job 40:8.) And He ironically invites Job to clothe himself with the attributes of the Supreme Ruler, and conduct the rule of the world himself. The invitation brings home to Job a still deeper feeling of that which the Almighty is, and he exclaims, “I had heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee” (ch. Job 42:5). And in this light of God his own past thought of Him seems the darker: “I abhor it, and repent in dust and ashes.”

Thus the solution to Job’s problem given in God’s answer from the storm is a religious solution, not a speculative one. It is a solution to the heart, not to the intellect. It is such a solution as only God could give; a solution which does not solve the perplexity but buries it under the tide of a fuller life and joy in God. It is a solution as broad as Job’s life and not merely the measure of his understanding; the same solution as was given to the doubting Apostle, making him to exclaim, “My Lord and my God!” and teaching him that not through his sense of touch or his eyesight, but through a broader sense, God makes himself felt by man.

Ch. Job 38:1 to Job 40:5. The Lord’s First Answer to Job out of the Storm. Shall mortal Man contend with God?

The passage has three general divisions:

First, ch. Job 38:1-38, a review of inanimate nature, the wonders of earth and sky, all revealing the manifoldness of the Divine mind, and suggesting by contrast the littleness of man.

Second, ch. Job 38:39 to Job 39:30, a review of the world of animal life, having the same object as the former division.

Third, ch. Job 40:1-5, the impression produced on Job by this vision of the glory of God in creation—he is abased and brought to silence.

This first address to Job touches simply the presumption of a man seeking to contend with God. Hence it is taken up with presenting God and man in opposition to one another. The vivid pictures of the inanimate creation, with its wonders, and the world of animal life, with its instincts and properties—all of them originated and bestowed by God—are but the means used for displaying God. And the sharp, ironical questions put to Job, where he was when God laid the foundations of the earth; whether he hunts her prey for the lioness; or combined such contradictory qualities in the ostrich; or created that wonder of beauty and fierceness, the war-horse—these questions but serve to bring out by contrast with God the feebleness and meanness of man.

Job 38:1-41.

1. Jehovah appears unexpectedly in a whirlwind (already gathering

Job 37:1, 2),

the symbol of "judgment"

(Ps 50:3, 4,

&c.), to which Job had challenged Him. He asks him now to get himself ready for the contest. Can he explain the phenomena of God's natural government? How can he, then, hope to understand the principles of His moral government? God thus confirms Elihu's sentiment, that submission to, not reasonings on, God's ways is man's part. This and the disciplinary design of trial to the godly is the great lesson of this book. He does not solve the difficulty by reference to future retribution: for this was not the immediate question; glimpses of that truth were already given in the fourteenth and nineteenth chapters, the full revelation of it being reserved for Gospel times. Yet even now we need to learn the lesson taught by Elihu and God in Job.

Then the Lord answered Job - This speech is addressed particularly to Job, not only because he is the principal personage referred to in the book, but particularly because he had indulged in language of murmuring and complaint. God designed to bring him to a proper state of mind before he appeared openly for his vindication. It is the purpose of God, in his dealings with his people, "to bring them to a proper state of mind" before he appears as their vindicator and friend, and hence, their trials are often prolonged, and when he appears, he seems at first to come only to rebuke them. Job had indulged in very improper feelings, and it was needful that those feelings should be subdued before God would manifest himself as his friend, and address him in words of consolation.

Out of the whirlwind - The tempest; the storm - probably that which Elihu had seen approaching, Job 37:21-24. God is often represented as speaking to people in this manner. He spake amidst lightnings and tempests on Mount Sinai Exodus 19:16-19, and he is frequently represented as appearing amidst the thunders and lightnings of a tempest, as a symbol of his majesty; compare Psalm 18:9-13; Habakkuk 3:3-6. The word here rendered "whirlwind" means rather "a storm, a tempest." The Septuagint renders this verse, "After Elihu had ceased speaking, the Lord spake to Job from a tempest and clouds."

The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind - It is not סופה suphah, as in the preceding chapter, Job 37:9; but סורה searah, which signifies something turbulent, tumultuous, or violently agitated; and here may signify what we call a tempest, and was intended to fill Job's mind with solemnity, and an awful sense of the majesty of God. The Chaldee has, a whirlwind of grief, making the whole rather allegorical than real; impressing the scene on Job's imagination.

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind,.... As soon as Elihu had done speaking, who saw the tempest rising, and gave hints of it, Job 37:2; and hastened to finish his discourse. This was raised to give notice of the Lord being about to appear, and to display his majesty, and to command reverence and attention. The Targum calls it the whirlwind of distress, as it might be to Job; and a representation of the distressed and disturbed state and condition in which he was. The person that spoke out of it is Jehovah the Son of God, the eternal Word, who very probably appeared in an human form; there was an object seen, Job 42:5; and spoke with an articulate voice to Job;

and said; in answer to his frequent wishes and desires that the Lord would appear and take his cause in hand.