Job -- The Suffering Prophet (10): God Answers Job from the Whirlwind

Reflections on the Book of Job (10)

God Answers Job from the Whirlwind

Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar have had their say. So has Job. So has Elihu. Now Job will get the very thing he has been demanding–an audience before God. But when God speaks to Job, things will be much different than Job has been expecting. There will be no formal indictment with charges for Job to answer. The Lord will not give Job a detailed response to his list of questions, nor respond to Job’s specious charges that YHWH has not treated him fairly. Instead, God will cross-examine Job through a series of questions designed to teach Job true wisdom. In the end, Job not only will be much wiser, he will be humbled. Yet at the same time, Job will be assured of God’s favor toward him, even in the midst of his trial by ordeal, which blessedly comes to an end.

We move to the climatic closing chapters of the Book of Job (38-42). God speaks to Job from the midst of a whirlwind. At long last we get an answer to the question which has dominated this entire story so far–why do the righteous suffer? More specifically, why does Job suffer? But the answer Job receives from God is not one Job expects nor even necessarily likes. In fact, some would consider God’s words to Job no answer at all. In Job 38-42 we finally discover what God means when he says in Isaiah 55:8, “my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord,” and in Psalm 145:3 and Isaiah 40:28 when we read that God’s “greatness is unsearchable.” In our weakness, God condescends to teach Job that God’s thoughts, ways, and greatness transcend anything humans think or imagine. As a result, Job will be thoroughly humbled and transformed in his thinking before, in his grace, God restores to Job all those things which had been taken from him during his trial by ordeal, which is now blessedly completed (chapter 42).

As the final section of the Book of Job unfolds, God’s appearance to Job is utterly gracious. Instead of coming to Job in judgment and confronting this suffering prophet with a list of his sins or rebuking him for his thoughtless questions, God takes Job to the School of Wisdom, where the primary entrance requirement is a diploma from the school of suffering, from which Job has now graduated with highest honors. The Lord will teach Job true wisdom through a series of rhetorical questions, a process designed to remind Job that YHWH, the creator and sustainer of all things, has graciously drawn near and speaks to him about the nature of the world and his Lordship over every inch of all of that he has made.

Yes, God is still on his throne despite all that has happened to Job and despite Job’s fear that he’s been abandoned. Since the God who created all things and rules and governs them, condescends to appear to Job from the midst of the storm, Job is instantly assured that everything is okay, despite his present circumstances. Knowing that God is not angry at him, it no longer really matters to Job what will happen next, since the very presence of God assures Job that all is well and puts all things–even his suffering–into proper perspective.[1]

Lest we forget, God has been preparing Job for this transforming moment all along. Job has come to see that none of his three friends possessed true wisdom. It could be said (and probably should be said) that these three well-intended doofuses (Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar) have only darkened the way of understanding. Job’s ability to quickly silence them showed that he was on the right track. But his increasing pride and conceit in his effort to vindicate himself showed that he too was not yet ready to receive true wisdom. It was not until the speech from another friend, Elihu, that Job began to realize that he had gone too far in his demands to be vindicated. It is Elihu, who, by humbling Job, actually prepares the way for the Lord to come and speak to Job from the midst of the whirlwind. Given all that Job had been through, without such preparation, he surely would have been overwhelmed by the Lord’s approach. Job is simultaneously humbled and yet completely assured of God’s favor.

Back to the Beginning — The Story Behind Job’s Ordeal

We also need to keep in mind the reason for Job’s ordeal as revealed in the prologue (chapters 1 and 2). It was the Lord himself who summoned Satan and called his attention to the Lord’s righteous servant, Job. So now God comes to Job, also in the form of a challenge, this time through a series of rhetorical questions. The irony in all of this is that God confronts both Job and Satan with his wondrous works. Job himself is that work of divine grace through which God challenges Satan–“see my righteous servant Job? There is no one else like him on all the earth.” God’s challenge to Job to consider his wondrous works is the means by which God’s work of redemption will be perfected in Job. This enables the righteous servant to triumph over the Devil through his trial by ordeal.[2] In the end, Job will bow his knee before his creator and praise his name. He will not curse God as Satan had predicted. Job has learned true wisdom.

Job’s ordeal also prefigures the coming of Jesus Christ, who will be truly righteous and perfectly obedient, who will finally and totally defeat Satan when he is afflicted with grief at the hands of sinful men and women. Throughout the Book of Job, we find a fundamental truth of redemptive history being set forth in type and shadow–someone must fulfill all righteousness and then offer a full and complete satisfaction for human sin in order to undo the works of the Devil. Job’s obedience does so in a very limited and provisional way. But the suffering Job, who struggles to find wisdom, becomes a type of the greater Job, Jesus Christ, who is the Wisdom of God incarnate.

Out of the Whirlwind!

In Job 38:1-40:2, God delivers his first challenge to Job, followed by Job’s response in 40:3-5, which, in turn, is immediately followed by a second challenge in Job 40:6-41:24. In this installment, we turn to first part of YHWH’s speech to Job beginning in Job 38:1.

The story of Job has been building to this dramatic moment from chapter 4 on. We have heard the three cycles of cruel speeches from Job’s friends, who because of their faulty understanding of the principle of divine retribution, accused Job of having sinned. We have also heard Job’s heartfelt complaint in chapter 3, along with the responses to his three friends and then the increasingly defiant and self-righteous speeches from Job in chapters 26-31. Finally, another friend, Elihu, not one of the three, speaks as prophet and offers heartfelt praise to God for all of his glorious works (Job 36-37). When Elihu comes to the end of his speech, we are told 38:1, “Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind.” The way has been prepared for the Lord to come. The human quest for wisdom has come to a pitiful end. The Lord instructs Job in the way of wisdom and Job will never be the same.

Whenever there is an appearance of YHWH in the Old Testament (a theophany), it is always accompanied by physical manifestations, in this case a “whirlwind” (cf. Psalm 18:7 ff; 50:3; Ezekiel 1:4, 28, Nahum 1:3, Habakkuk 3 and Zechariah 9:14). It is with these images in mind that the author of Hebrews, speaks of God as a consuming fire (cf. Hebrews 12:29). Such upheaval in the natural order not only indicates the presence of the Lord, it illustrates the significance and importance of the divine revelation which was about to follow.[3] It is important for the reader of Job to remember that it was also a windstorm which took the lives of Job’s children, so the reference to the storm is perhaps intended to remind the reader that nothing comes to pass apart from the will of the Lord–even windstorms which take the lives of those we love.

In verses 2-3, the Lord challenges Job. “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.” We read in Job 42:7 that Job spoke correctly about the Lord throughout his ordeal, the Lord’s rebuke of Job is based on the fact that Job spoke in ignorance about the plans (counsel) of God. The creature has no right whatsoever to criticize the Creator, especially when the creature can only speak from ignorance about the mysterious ways of the sovereign God.

The Trial by Ordeal

The Lord’s command for Job to brace himself like a man is an image taken directly from the ancient sport of belt-wrestling in which the winner was able to either remove his opponent’s belt, or else give his opponent such a massive wedgie that they were forced into submission. This was not only an athletic image (the idea of a contest or fete of strength), but grabbing someone’s belt was also the means of subduing them in a court of law or upon capture.[4] As a sign of ordeal, the implication is clear–Job’s trial by ordeal is about to be resolved. YHWH will subdue Job, not to punish him, but as a means of ending the ordeal by teaching Job that which he has been seeking–true wisdom.

We need to be clear that this contest is not merely about God’s power or sheer strength. The issue is not that God is bigger than Job and like a bully can do whatever he wants. God does not belittle Job, given his greatness and Job’s contrasting finitude. Job is not crushed nor consumed by God’s greatness. But he is humbled. There is a big difference. The contest between God and Job centers in the revelation of divine wisdom, not in power for power’s sake.[5] God’s wisdom is presented as that of a skilled craftsman. God’s wisdom is displayed on earth, in the heavens, and in the animal kingdom as seen in the mention of creatures who are beyond human control, but who are God’s pets [6]. While Job is not consumed by God’s greatness, Job does become fully aware of how truly great God is and how sinful and weak men and women truly are.[7] God will now give to Job the very thing he lacks–wisdom. Such wisdom enables Job to accept the ways and purposes of God, whatever they may be, even in the midst of suffering.

Because the ordeal centers in a test of wisdom, the Lord asks Job a series of questions designed to show Job his spatial and temporal limitations. Job will live out the average span of a human life. He can only be in one place at a time and can only understand a small fraction of what he observes. His inherent sinfulness causes him to see things in a self-centered and distorted way. Job, in other words, is a sinful human. But God is not bound by space or by time. He is perfectly Holy, just and righteous in all his doings. Reminding Job of this is the point of this series of questions–which are surely not intended to offer a scientific explanation of origins [8], but which are designed to point out that Job was nowhere to be found when God created the heavens and the earth. “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?” Job was nonexistent when God created the earth. God is without beginning or end and predates the earth by countless (endless) ages.

The same thing holds true of the sea (v. 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?’” Even the seas with all their storm and tempest obey their creator–men and women are helpless to control the ocean. Furthermore YHWH sets the day and night in place, as we see in verses 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.” Job must rise with the sun and sleep when it sets. But the Lord creates both the day and the night and has never slumbered, nor ever been sleepy.

The limits of human existence become clear in verses 16-18 when the Lord says to Job. “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.” No, Job does not know any of these things. He is bound to one place. He will live and die at a particular time. Not so with the LORD, who does all of the things which he now asks Job in verses 19-21. “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings? Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years!” In the creation account, God separates the light from the darkness. But Job was nowhere to be seen when God did this. It is important to notice that God is not ridiculing Job, although it is easy take these words as such. As one writer reminds us, it is not unkind nor sarcastic when God reminds a creature of his limitations, “to let God be God”[9]. God is not showing Job up. But he is reminding Job of the difference between a creature and the Creator and understanding this Creator-creature distinction is the beginning of wisdom. The Creator-creature distinction is one the most fundamental truths in all of Christian theology. YHWH has made that clear to Job.

Next Time: YHWH continues to answer Job from the storm

To read the next sin the series: Shall You Contend with the Almighty?

To read the first in this series: Job: The Suffering Prophet (1)

___________________________________

[1] Andersen, Job, 269.

[2] Kline, Job, 486.

[3] Kline, Job, 486.

[4] Kline, Job, 486.

[5] Kline, Job, 487; Andersen, Job, 268-272.

[6] Andersen, Job, 273.

[7] Kline, Job, 487.

[8] Andersen, Job, 274.

[9] Andersen, Job, 277.