Job's Protector part two

Lesson seven in the Job series.

Now we are going to examine God's speech in chapters 38 and 39. Put on your thinking caps because we have to begin the process of comparing God's words with all the words that have been spoken by everyone else, so we can piece this puzzle together. Here is our first example: When God says, "Who is darkening my counsel with words without knowledge? he is obviously targeting Elihu who has been relentlessly ranting about words without knowledge. Elihu was accusing Job of lying about his intimate relationship with God. He was saying to Job, "You don't know God at all. You talk like a wicked man!" Now God is saying the exact same thing to Elihu. Then God says, "Dress for action like a man!" We already saw how this same message meant different things to each person present. It gave Job great hope because if you remember, he was dressed in sackcloth and covered in dust and ashes. When it is time to take off sackcloth, there is joy ahead. And Job knows that he will be completely healed because God is telling him that he has a new service for him to perform. This one phrase from God is the equivalent of being raised from the dead. It show God's approval of Job in the same way that Jesus' resurrection showed God's approval of him. 

God begins a series of questions here and it is fairly easy to see whom his remarks are directed at. Do you remember who said this?

Are you the first man who was born?

Or were you brought forth before the hills?

Have you listened in the council of God?

And do you limit wisdom to yourself?

What do you know that we do not know?

What do you understand that is not clear to us?

Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us,

Older than your father.

In case you forgot, it was Eliphaz interrogating Job. Now look at what God says in his speech:

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 all the morning stars sang together

and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

Or who shut in the sea with doors

when it burst our from the womb,

when I made clouds its garment

and this 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?'

Have you commanded the morning since your days began,

and caused the dawn to know its place,

that it might take hold to 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.

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.

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!

It should be obvious that God is targeting Eliphaz here. He mimics the way Eliphaz speaks and then he makes a really sarcastic comment about Eliphaz bragging about how old he was and why this makes him wise. I love it when God says these kinds of sarcastic things because it really helps us understand what is truly going on. God is answering Eliphaz as if God was taking Job's place in the argument. (Which he is!!!)

In addition to criticizing and correcting Job's friends, God commends Job's arguments by fleshing them out, thus vindicating Job in chapters 38-39. In Job 9:1-13, we see Job making a case for God's might and strength and wisdom in creating the earth, giving commands to the sun, sealing up the stars, stretching out the heavens, trampling the waves of the sea, making the Bear and Orion and Pleiades...concluding that God "does great things beyond searching out." When we skip over to Job 38, God picks up on Job's argument and spends the whole chapter fleshing it out. It is as if God is taking them on this amazing tour of the cosmos to personally show them some of the things Job has wondered about and spoken about. He mentions the very same things that Job had mentions--the Bear, Orion and the Pleiades--and all of it gives weight to Job's argument.

Then in Job 12:7-8, Job says, "But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you." He is arguing the point with his friends that God's sovereignty is based in his wisdom and might and that things are not always as they appear. In 12:17-25 Job gives example after example of how things go contrary to the way we expect. When we again skip over to chapter 39, God seems to devote the whole chapter to picking up this part of Job's argument. He shows by giving one example after another that things are not as they seem and that some things can never be understood by man. My favorite example is the ostrich. By looking at her plumes, you would thing her capacity for loving her young would be great and that she could take them under her wing for protection. But in fact, the ostrich is cruel to her young. You can't always judge things by how they appear. This is a direct criticism of Job's friends who judge everything by appearances. 

Next time we will finish God's speech in chapters 40 and 41 and I think you will find it amazing!