The Lord's First Speech: What Wonderful Knowledge: Job: The Wisdom of the Cross [Job 38:1-38]

Brian Larkin

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The Lord’s First Speech: What Wonderful Knowledge: Job: The Wisdom of the Cross [Job 38:1-38]

[Pray]

Who here is astonished by creation? I love the outdoors…hunting, fishing, hiking, kayaking if it’s an outdoor activity I probably like it. I don’t know how many times I’ve sat in a deer stand and have been just amazed by God’s creation. But just as creation is amazing, there are somethings I just don’t understand about it because I’m limited on my knowledge of creation.

We live in a day of vast information at our fingertips…but even with the wealth of information there is certain knowledge we just don’t have…especially that of creation and how it all works. But God…the creator of all things has complete knowledge of how everything works and why…His knowledge truly is a wonderful knowledge.

We come to the last section of the book of Job where God begins to speak. Did you hear that??? God speaks. I’ve heard people say, “I wish God would just speak”, well here you go. You want to know what God has to say…we’re going to look at it. Now all of scripture is God speaking of course, but in this last section God answers Job, and if you remember this is what Job has wanted, he has wanted to hear from God…well Job, I hope your ready to hear from God.

While God’s speech is one long speech I will break it up in themes we can better handle. This first section will be considered under the headings of The Event, The Issue, and The Answer.

The Event: The Astonishing Voice of God [Job 38:1]

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said … (v. 1)

It is what Job has both desired most passionately and feared most deeply. God speaks, and speaks directly and personally, to Job himself.

At least four things mark this speech as significant.

The first is that this is recorded as unmediated speech, like God’s speech to Israel at Mount Sinai (Exodus 20:1, 19). So we need to listen with attention.

The second marker of significance is the use of the covenant name “the LORD” (Yahweh) for the first time since chapters 1, 2. Although this covenant name will not be revealed in its redemptive fullness to Israel until centuries later (Exodus 3 and 6), the narrator correctly tells us that the God who spoke to Job is the God who will later be revealed as the covenant God and the same God who has been sovereign in the heavenly scenes in chapters 1, 2.

Third, God speaks directly and personally to one man, to Job himself, this is important.

Fourth, God speaks ‘out of the whirlwind’ Sometimes God speaks in the still small voice like He did to Elijah…but sometimes he speaks from the whirlwind and that is a scary event.

This great God speaks when and to whom he chooses. He “neither hurried nor humbled himself to do what Job demanded.” Such a manner of speaking humbled Job, and humbles us. In the midst of the storms of Job’s life, God speaks to him.

So this is the event. But what is the issue? For what purpose does God speak to Job?

The Issue: Full Knowledge of the Universe [Job 38:2-3]

Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

Dress for action like a man;

I will question you, and you make it known to me. (vv. 2, 3)

The Lord will speak twice. Each speech begins with a challenge, which sets the agenda and signals the key point being addressed. These are different in the two speeches.

In this first address Job is accused by God of darkening “counsel by words without knowledge” (v. 2). In this context the word “counsel” is “a broad term for the mysterious and paradoxical way in which the world is ordered and operates.” Job is not convicted of the supposed secret sins of which the comforters have accused him. All along he has maintained his innocence of these, and he is right. But he has spoken “words,” many words, and some of his words have lacked real wisdom and knowledge.

It is about Job’s words that God challenges him. He has spoken words about the order of the world, not only as it has impacted him, but also more generally about how it has affected others. What we say about God matters.

For example, he has accused God of bringing “deep darkness to light” (12:22), which seems to mean introducing terrible evil into the world. He has accused God of shaking the earth and making its stable pillars tremble as he introduces disorder where there ought to be order (9:5, 6).

But Job has spoken these words out of ignorance, for he does not know as he has claimed to know. He has spoken as if he has cosmic knowledge, as if he really grasped how the universe is governed and could therefore be critical of the one who is governing it, but he does not have this cosmic knowledge. And neither do we.

Although at the very end God will affirm that Job has spoken rightly of him (42:7), Job has also said some very wrong things about God. We shall have to ask, when we get to chapter 42, in what sense Job’s words have been right. For the moment we have to focus on where he went wrong.

God says to Job, ‘dress like a man’ or ‘prepare yourself like a man’ i.e. “man up Job” it’s about to get real.

The Answer: God’s Counsel is Revealed in the Inanimate Created Order [Job 38:4-38]

We look at inanimate creation today next week we look at what God has to say about living things in creation. The answer is broken up in two headings with multiple points.

1.) The Place of Evil in the Good Created Order (38:4–21)

The first five passages emphasize the place of evil in creation, using the language of the sea, darkness, and death. In considering the way God runs the world (his “counsel” [v. 2]), Job needs—and we need—to think carefully about good and evil and where and how evil fits into the overall picture. We are faced with this reality everyday so we need to understand how it works…the best we can that is.

The Order of Creation Is Joyful (vv. 4–7)

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 sons of God shouted for joy? (vv. 4–7)

First, the universe is pictured as a great building project. It has a foundation, measurements, lines, a base, a cornerstone and God is the architect who designed it, surveyed it, and constructed it, and God said it was good.

The next section begins to answer the obvious question, but what about evil?

Evil Has a Limited Place in Creation (vv. 8–11)

Or who shut in the sea with doors

when it burst out from the womb,

when I made clouds its garment

and thick darkness its swaddling band,

and prescribed limits for it

and set bars and doors,

and said, “Thus far shall you come, and no farther,

and here shall your proud waves be stayed”? (vv. 8–11)

There is a place for evil in this world, but it is a place with strict limits. In verse 8 the imagery changes abruptly, and God invites Job to think about “the sea,” that symbol in the Bible of disorder, chaos, danger, evil, and ultimately death. Job understands this imagery. Earlier he had asked God, “Am I the sea, or a sea monster, that you set a guard over me?” (7:12).

Picture a wild ocean coastline, with huge waves crashing against the cliffs under dark skies, with wild winds and storm clouds. How are we—how is Job—to think of this symbol of all that has made his life a misery? With a strange dark humor, we are invited to think of this sea as being like a baby! How?

After a baby is born they are put in swaddling clothes to restrain it....that’s the imagery here [v.9] evil is swaddled in the created order by God. When the power of evil is pitted against the power of God it’s about an threatening as an infant is to the parent… it’s not threat at all. God is stronger. God is pictured as a disciplinary parent over evil.

So that leads to another question, if evil has a place in creation-albeit a restricted one-must we deal with evil forever?

The Structure of Creation Shows That Evil Will One Day Be Destroyed (vv. 12–15)

Have you commanded the morning since your days began,

and caused the dawn to know its place,

that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth,

and the wicked be shaken out of it?

It is changed like clay under the seal,

and its features stand out like a garment.

From the wicked their light is withheld,

and their uplifted arm is broken. (vv. 12–15)

Again the imagery changes. Now, in place of the architect, surveyor, and builder, and in place of the disciplinary parent, God is portrayed as a commander or general.

God says to Job, “have you ever told the sun to rise? In delightful imagery it is as if God shakes sleepy dawn in its bed, gets it up, and tells it that it is time to get the world up again, for the sun to rise and the light to return to a dark world.

All of which is a vivid poetic way of saying that every time the sun rises, it is evidence that there is a judgment to come. Every time the light is switched on in creation, it reassures us that darkness will not last forever. Each new day is cosmic proof that evil has no enduring place in the created order.

Sure, it must be part of this creation for now; it has a place in God’s purposes, albeit a strictly limited one. But it will not be with us forever. There will come a day when the sea (in this symbolic sense) will be no more (Revelation 21:1).

The wheat and the weeds may need to grow together for the present; but the day of judgment will come, when the weeds will be burned and the wheat gathered into God’s barns (Matthew 13:24–30).

Here is a universe in which the ugliness of evil is part of the creation of God and will ultimately serve the glory of God.

The natural question that now arises is, how can we be sure that evil is a part of God’s creation and under the control of God? How can we be sure that lurking in the dark corners of the universe there is no independent and autonomous power of evil that might threaten the good purposes of God? How do we know God is in complete control of everything? It is this question that the next two passages address.

The Place of the Dead Is Known to God (vv. 16–18)

Have you entered into the springs of the sea,

or walked in the recesses of the deep?

Have the gates of death been revealed to you,

or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?

Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?

Declare, if you know all this. (vv. 16–18)

Extremes fascinate human beings. In our day we have extreme sports; we send probes to the bottom of the sea, we send vessels to the moon and stars, we press the extremes of the universe. Why do we do this? To understand the world and therefore to hope to gain control of the world. The next passage takes Job to an extremity where no man had yet gone and returned—the place of the dead.

“The springs of the sea” or “the recesses of the deep” (v. 16) are the places deep down below the wild disordered sea, at the boundary between the deep dark sea and the place of the dead, what the Jews called Sheol. Following on from verses 16, 17 the Lord asks Job if he has seen the underworld. It is all one big question: have you been to the extremity of existence that is death itself?

The place of the dead is the deepest, the darkest, and the worst extremity in creation. It lies outside Job’s area of knowledge and therefore beyond his region of control. But by implication it does not lie outside the Lord’s area of perfect knowledge and entire control. If that is true for the place of the dead, then we may be sure that there is no shadowy nook or dark cranny of the universe—visible or invisible—that lies outside God’s knowledge or control.

Unlike Job, we now know that one man, Jesus Christ, has now been to, and right through, the gates of death. Christ has gone deep into the place of the dead, and he has returned victorious.

That terrible place that has been known to God since it began is a place whose sting has been removed and whose terrors need terrify the Christian no more...because of Christ’s victory over death we need not fear death.

Light and Darkness Are Controlled by God (vv. 19–21)

Where is the way to the dwelling of light,

and where is the place of darkness,

that you may take it to its territory

and that you may discern the paths to its home?

You know, for you were born then,

and the number of your days is great! (vv. 19–21)

Job is taken to another extreme (or pair of extremities); these are over the horizon, or two horizons to be precise. Where light dwells and where darkness dwells. Job have you been to either of these? Have you been to where light dwells or where darkness dwells and the answer is of course no. Darkness is a great mystery to him; he cannot understand why this world has within its existence both light and darkness.

Which leads into the next the second section of God’s answer.

2.) The Skies Speak of Creation Order (38:22–38)

The next five passages all call on Job—and us—to look upward to the skies and to reflect on what the skies teach us about the wonderful counsel of God in his world. Four of the five are about water. Water is one of the most familiar parts of existence, and yet it is a puzzle.

Snow and Hail Are God’s Waters for Trouble (vv. 22–24)

Have you entered the storehouses of the snow,

or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,

which I have reserved for the time of trouble,

for the day of battle and war?

What is the way to the place where the light is distributed,

or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth? (vv. 22–24)

In the poetic cosmology, above the firmament or canopy of the sky there are “storehouses” containing the different precipitations that humans experience (v. 22).

The Lord highlights two of them here—water in the forms of “snow” and “hail” (v. 22). Why these two? Because each is associated with war and destruction, “the time of trouble … the day of battle and war” (v. 23). In the days of Joshua “the LORD threw down large stones from heaven” to terrify the Amorites (Joshua 10:11). Hail was one of the plagues of Egypt (Exodus 9:18–26) and is part of prophetic language about the wrath of God (e.g., Isaiah 30:30). Snow too is a weapon of war with God, as in Psalm 68:14

In this context “the light” of verse 24 seems to be the lightnings that come down from Heaven, and “the east wind” means a stormy wind that comes at the same time (v. 24). Together we are given a picture of destruction unleashed on the world from above. Job is asked if he has been to the places from which these things come; if he has, then he will understand why, how, and when they are unleashed, and he will be able to control them. But of course he has not and he cannot.

We have advanced technology today that tells us when we can expect such storms, but we still have no control over it.

Rain Is God’s Water for Life (vv. 25–27)

Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain

and a way for the thunderbolt,

to bring rain on a land where no man is,

on the desert in which there is no man,

to satisfy the waste and desolate land,

and to make the ground sprout with grass? (vv. 25–27)

God now turns to another form of water. Water can fall as snow and hail to bring death and destruction, but it can also fall as life-giving “rain” (v. 25). In the poetry here the “channel” for the rain is the path the rain takes from the heavenly storehouses down to the ground (v. 25). This channel is “cleft,” indicating deliberate action by God; it does not just happen by chance (v. 25).

It is associated here with a “thunderbolt” (v. 25). We are to picture a massive rainstorm. But whereas the snow and hail brought trouble in battle and war, this water brings rain on “a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man,” an uninhabited and uncultivated land, an utterly barren land, a land that would have no water if God did not send this rain (v. 26).

Water in this form satisfies or saturates the wastelands and causes vegetation to sprout where there was nothing. This is life-giving water. What a contrast! The same element, sent by the same Creator, with such different consequences!

Interlude: Think about the Different Forms of Water (vv. 28–30)

Has the rain a father,

or who has begotten the drops of dew?

From whose womb did the ice come forth,

and who has given birth to the frost of heaven?

The waters become hard like stone,

and the face of the deep is frozen. (vv. 28–30)

God wants Job to pause and think deeply about what he can learn from water. So he inserts this beautiful interlude. In these three verses we think about “rain” (v. 28a), “dew” (v. 28b), “ice” (v. 29a), “frost” (v. 29b), and “frozen … waters” over “the deep” (v. 30). We think about their differences—rain and dew to make crops grow, ice and frost to threaten life, icy waters to cover the threatening “deep,” perhaps even to hide the “chaotic terror lurking below.”

But as well as thinking about water in its different forms, we meditate on its Creator, in terms of its “father” (v. 28a), the one who has “begotten” it (v. 28b), from whose “womb” it came (v. 29a) and who “has given birth” to it (v. 29b).

The imagery of origins is beautiful and intimate. It suggests an intimate relation between the Creator and water in all its forms, water that brings life and water that brings death. All these different experiences of water speak of a God who is intimately involved in his world, bringing both life and death. He is the sovereign originator of them all.

The Heavenly Government of the World Is under God’s Control (vv. 31–33)

Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades

or loose the cords of Orion?

Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season,

or can you guide the Bear with its children?

Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?

Can you establish their rule on the earth? (vv. 31–33)

In the fourth passage we are still looking up to the skies but are no longer thinking about water. Four names are given for heavenly bodies. “The Pleiades” and “Orion” (v. 31) are well-known and clearly identifiable constellations.

In verse 32 two other heavenly bodies (or groups of bodies) are spoken of. “The Mazzaroth” (a transliteration of the Hebrew) may be a reference to the planets, to the constellations in general, or to some unknown constellation. “The Bear” is probably a constellation, although we do not know who “its children” are.

It was, of course, common in the ancient religions, as with modern horoscope users, to suppose that the stars influence and govern events on earth. While the Bible does not accept this, it unashamedly takes such well-known language and uses it to affirm the government of God through intermediate spiritual agencies.

It is God who governs the universe.

Life-Giving Water Is under God’s Control (vv. 34–38)

Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,

that a flood of waters may cover you?

Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go

and say to you, “Here we are”?

Who has put wisdom in the inward parts

or given understanding to the mind?

Who can number the clouds by wisdom?

Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens,

when the dust runs into a mass

and the clods stick fast together? (vv. 34–38)

Finally, in verses 34–38 we come back to water. The main meaning of the passage is quite clear. In verse 34 Job is asked if he has the authority to call up to “clouds” so that they send a much-needed life-giving rainwater. In verse 35 he is asked much the same thing, but in terms of having the authority to command bolts of lightning.

The main point is that no human being has the authority to command life-giving waters of blessing;

no human being can command rain and prevent hail and snow;

no human being can avoid suffering and ensure constant blessing. This is not within Job’s power, and it is not within our power.

A Pause for Thought

How is Job—and how are we—to respond thus far? One striking observation is that although Job has to answer no to all the questions, it is to Job that the questions are asked.

There is here an implicit dignity possessed by Job and by extension to redeemed humankind. Just as Adam was entrusted with the honor of governing the world on God’s behalf, so even fallen human beings are given the dignity of being the ones to whom God asks these questions. He does not ask these questions of any other creature. Mankind has a very unique role in God’s economy. i.e. people are very special to God.

A second thought concerns God’s technique of using rhetorical questions rather than just making straight statements. After all, God could have rephrased the whole speech in terms like “Job, you don’t know this, but I do.”

What does a rhetorical question do to Job and by extension to us?

The answer is that it does what rhetorical questions always do: they draw in the listeners to the reasonings behind those questions, so that they begin to interiorize them, to make these truths their own as they think and then answer for themselves.

But the main response so far is to begin to think more deeply about how the doctrine of the sovereignty of God extends to his sovereignty over evil. We must banish from our thoughts any idea of dualism in which evil is conceived as an independent or autonomous power.

We are forced to consider the strange but wonderful possibility that even evil serves the purposes and glory of God and that in some mysterious way even darkness is necessary to show forth the light of God’s goodness in this fallen world.

There is a goodness in this mixed good and evil creation that lies below the surface and that will become fully evident only at the end, when the pure kindness and utter goodness of God will be vindicated for all to see. Our knowledge of how the universe works is limited but God’s is not He is the one who created it.

To grasp God’s goodness in the midst of suffering and evil needs a deeper faith in the absolute supremacy of God and universal sovereignty of God... Job has yet to exercise. But by the grace of God he is on the way.

And by the grace of God we too may place our faith in the supremacy of God and His universal sovereignty that challenges us.

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