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The Lord Answers Job
Job 38:1-11
Good News Translation (GNT)
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1 Then out of the storm the Lord spoke to Job.
The Lord
2 Who are you to question my wisdom with your
ignorant, empty words?
3 Now stand up straight and answer the
questions I ask you.
4 Were you there when I made the world?
If you know so much, tell me about it.
5 Who decided how large it would be?
Who stretched the measuring line over it?
Do you know all the answers?
6 What holds up the pillars that support the
earth? Who laid the cornerstone of the world?
7 In the dawn of that day the stars sang
together, and the heavenly beings shouted
for joy.
8 Who closed the gates to hold back the sea
when it burst from the womb of the earth?
9 It was I who covered the sea with clouds and
wrapped it in darkness.
10 I marked a boundary for the sea and kept it
behind bolted gates.
11 I told it, "So far and no farther!
Here your powerful waves must stop."
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Commentary taken from Our Daily Bread
Ministries, a Christian organization founded
by Dr. Martin De Haan in 1938.
Beyond what we know
Job 38:1-11
We can find nearly every argument
in the book of Job about why there is pain in the world,
but the arguing never seems to help Job much.
His is a crisis of relationship
rather than a crisis of doubt.
Can he trust God?
Job wants one thing above all else:
an appearance by the one Person
who can explain his miserable fate.
He wants to meet God Himself,
face to face.
Eventually Job gets his wish.
God shows up in person.
He times His entrance with perfect irony,
just as Job's friend Elihu is expounding
on why Job has no right to expect
a visit from God.
No one -
not Job, nor any of his friends -
is prepared for what God has to say.
Job has saved up a long list of questions,
but it is God, not Job, who asks the questions.
"Now stand up straight like a man,"
He begins;
"I will question you, and you shall answer me".
Brushing aside thirty-five chapters' worth
of debates on the problem of pain,
God plunges into a majestic poem on
the wonders of the natural world.
God's speech defines the vast difference
between the God of all creation
and one puny man like Job.
His presence spectacularly answers
Job's biggest question:
Is anybody out there?
Job can only respond,
"Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know" (42:3) (Philip Yancey)
Lord, we have so many questions about life
and its unfairness.
You have shown Yourself good to us.
Help us to trust You for what we cannot understand.
No calamity is beyond God's sovereignty.
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