Job -- The Suffering Prophet (11): Shall You Contend With the Almighty?

Reflections on the Book of Job (11)

Job in YHWH’s School of Wisdom

YHWH’s examination now takes the student (Job) beyond matters of day and night, to matters of weather and the heavenly bodies (the first part of chapter 38). It is self-evident to Job that God rules over heaven and earth, because he has created them. Yet Job, a mere creature, has no control over the world in which he lives. YHWH’s examination of his suffering prophet continues, for there is still much for Job yet to learn. YHWH continues his examination of Job as the ordeal challenge continues. Beginning in verse 22 of Job 38, the Lord asks of Job,

“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? “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? “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. “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? “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?

No, Job cannot issue commands to the lightening in the storm. No, Job did not hang the constellations in space. Yet, the lightening coming from the storm is the Lord’s servant. The Lord spoke and the constellations came into being. Job is firmly put in his place–he is a creature, a sinful one at that.

YHWH’s Examination of Job Continues

At the end of chapter 38 and continuing on throughout chapter 39, the focus of YHWH’s exam shifts to the animal kingdom. Job is reminded that he is unable to govern or rule the creatures God has made. While humanity was given dominion over the animals in Eden, this dominion was severely compromised after the fall of the human race into sin. Job cannot possibly know the full and wondrous extent of animal activity, nor can he control the ways of creatures. Job has neither set their boundaries nor established their domains. In Job 38:39 and following, YHWH asks his student,

“Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in their thicket? Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God for help, and wander about for lack of food? (Job 39:1) “Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the does? Can you number the months that they fulfill, and do you know the time when they give birth, when they crouch, bring forth their offspring, and are delivered of their young? Their young ones become strong; they grow up in the open; they go out and do not return to them. “Who has let the wild donkey go free? Who has loosed the bonds of the swift donkey, to whom I have given the arid plain for his home and the salt land for his dwelling place? He scorns the tumult of the city; he hears not the shouts of the driver. He ranges the mountains as his pasture, and he searches after every green thing. “Is the wild ox willing to serve you? Will he spend the night at your manger? Can you bind him in the furrow with ropes, or will he harrow the valleys after you? Will you depend on him because his strength is great, and will you leave to him your labor? Do you have faith in him that he will return your grain and gather it to your threshing floor?

Job can control none of the creatures. Yet, God ordains their every move. Much less can Job control the birds of the air (Job 39:13-30) as in the following challenge put to Job,

“The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, but are they the pinions and plumage of love? For she leaves her eggs to the earth and lets them be warmed on the ground, forgetting that a foot may crush them and that the wild beast may trample them. She deals cruelly with her young, as if they were not hers; though her labor be in vain, yet she has no fear, because God has made her forget wisdom and given her no share in understanding. When she rouses herself to flee, she laughs at the horse and his rider. “Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with a mane? Do you make him leap like the locust? His majestic snorting is terrifying. He paws in the valley and exults in his strength; he goes out to meet the weapons. He laughs at fear and is not dismayed; he does not turn back from the sword. Upon him rattle the quiver, the flashing spear, and the javelin. With fierceness and rage he swallows the ground; he cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet. When the trumpet sounds, he says ‘Aha!’ He smells the battle from afar, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting. “Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars and spreads his wings toward the south? Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high? On the rock he dwells and makes his home, on the rocky crag and stronghold. From there he spies out the prey; his eyes behold it from far away. His young ones suck up blood, and where the slain are, there is he.”

Round One Of Job’s Ordeal Is Over – And Job Doesn’t Win

The first “fall” in the belt wrestling ordeal has been decided. The time has come for Job to admit defeat. In verses 1-2 of Job 40, “And the Lord said to Job: “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.” Job has no choice but to cry “uncle.” His wisdom is no match for the wisdom of God.

In what follows (verses 3-5), we find that Job will no longer dispute with God as he had done previously in the latter stages of the dialogue with his friends. Nor will Job demand to approach God as a prince, as he had done in the closing words of his final speech. The reality has set in. Job has lost the contest. He is humbled, but he is also assured. We read, “Then Job answered the Lord and said: “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further.”

But Job has not yet learned all that he needs to learn. He has lost the first fall in the belt-ordeal, but the match (which apparently includes two falls, not one) is not over. There is more to learn. Job is ordered to take up the challenge again, to put his belt back on, and to go one more round with YHWH. Job’s initial submission to YHWH is the beginning of true repentance, and Job must fully recognize the unreasonableness and the sinfulness of criticizing his Creator.[1]

Round Two of The Ordeal Challenge Begins

In verses 6-7, the challenge is renewed. “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: “Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me” We can only imagine Job’s reaction to the news that the contest is not yet over. Throughout the opening verses of chapter 40, the focus falls upon God’s sovereign work in redemption, often depicted throughout the Old Testament as YHWH’s outstretched hand. Job has no reason to complain about how God does things. Yet, Job’s increasingly self-centered demand to be vindicated amounts to a kind of self-deification, the inevitable result of human sinfulness.[2] Because of human sin, God’s purposes, which are always good and true, even when we cannot see nor understand why things unfold as they do, somehow become subservient to the desires of sinful humans. This is Job’s great failure and exposes his lack of wisdom. As the next round opens (in verses 8-14), YHWH challenges Job yet again.

Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his? “Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity; clothe yourself with glory and splendor. Pour out the overflowings of your anger, and look on everyone who is proud and abase him. Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low and tread down the wicked where they stand. Hide them all in the dust together; bind their faces in the world below. Then will I also acknowledge to you that your own right hand can save you.

If Job can do what God can do, then the Lord will worship him! Elihu was right. Job has sought to justify himself rather than God. No, only God can justify himself, because only God is without sin. Job, the sinner, has no right to question the holy God.

YHWH’s second challenge now moves in a different direction. How would Job fare against feared members of the animal kingdom? Beginning in verse 15, YHWH asks Job,

“Behold, Behemoth [the Hippo], which I made as I made you; he eats grass like an ox. Behold, his strength in his loins, and his power in the muscles of his belly. He makes his tail stiff like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are knit together. His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like bars of iron. “He is the first of the works of God; let him who made him bring near his sword! For the mountains yield food for him where all the wild beasts play. Under the lotus plants he lies, in the shelter of the reeds and in the marsh. For his shade the lotus trees cover him; the willows of the brook surround him. Behold, if the river is turbulent he is not frightened; he is confident though Jordan rushes against his mouth. Can one take him by his eyes, or pierce his nose with a snare?

Job has no chance in a belt wrestling contest against the mighty Hippo. It was common in the ancient world to depict animals in such contests with humans, yet YHWH controls every move made by his creatures.[3]

The same holds true for Leviathan, probably the feared crocodile. In Job 41:1 and following, Job is asked,

“Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook or tie down his tongue with a rope? Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he keep begging you for mercy? Will he speak to you with gentle words? Will he make an agreement with you for you to take him as your slave for life? Can you make a pet of him like a bird or put him on a leash for your girls? Will traders barter for him? Will they divide him up among the merchants? Can you fill his hide with harpoons or his head with fishing spears? If you lay a hand on him, you will remember the struggle and never do it again! Any hope of subduing him is false; the mere sight of him is overpowering. No one is fierce enough to rouse him. Who then is able to stand against me? Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me”

The crocodile was feared in Job’s day. Yet even the crocodile does the will of YHWH. But Job dare not attempt to lay his hand on one.

“I will not fail to speak of his limbs, his strength and his graceful form. Who can strip off his outer coat? Who would approach him with a bridle? Who dares open the doors of his mouth, ringed about with his fearsome teeth? His back has rows of shields tightly sealed together; each is so close to the next that no air can pass between. They are joined fast to one another; they cling together and cannot be parted. His snorting throws out flashes of light; his eyes are like the rays of dawn. Firebrands stream from his mouth; sparks of fire shoot out. Smoke pours from his nostrils as from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds. His breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from his mouth. Strength resides in his neck; dismay goes before him. The folds of his flesh are tightly joined; they are firm and immovable. His chest is hard as rock, hard as a lower millstone. When he rises up, the mighty are terrified; they retreat before his thrashing. The sword that reaches him has no effect, nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin. Iron he treats like straw and bronze like rotten wood. Arrows do not make him flee; slingstones are like chaff to him. A club seems to him but a piece of straw; he laughs at the rattling of the lance. His undersides are jagged potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge. He makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment. Behind him he leaves a glistening wake; one would think the deep had white hair. Nothing on earth is his equal-a creature without fear. He looks down on all that are haughty; he is king over all that are proud.”

The Light of Wisdom Begins to Dawn

In Job 40:8, YHWH asked Job, “Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?” It has become clear that God’s mighty power and glorious works point Job beyond God’s works to God himself. God alone is good. His perfect righteousness is displayed in the heavens, on the earth, and in his creatures. If God can do all of this and more, and since Job is a man bound by time and space and also guilty for his own sins as well as Adam’s, then even through the fog of suffering, surely Job can begin to see the obvious. Job has no right to question the Almighty or his ways. Once he understands this to be the case, we can say that Job has begun to grasp true wisdom. And true wisdom tells Job that God is just in all his ways–even when Job does not understand, nor necessarily like, the things that God is doing. The God who created and sustains all things is surely as mysterious to us as he was to Job. And yet, from the consideration of his works, we know that he is good.

Job’s reply to YHWH’s second challenge is quite the opposite of his heartfelt lament of chapter 3. Having gained the wisdom he needed, Job freely acknowledges his sins in going too far in his effort to justify himself, rather that giving glory and honor to God, no matter what his circumstances.

Job’s Haughtiness is Gone

What makes the words of Job 42:1-6 all the more amazing is that Job is still suffering and has not yet received the explanation for the nature of his trial by ordeal! God has not given Job the answer to his question “why?” which Job was certainly expecting. The answer we are given is that God’s ways are not our ways, his thoughts are not ours. Do we hang constellations into space? Do we control the earth’s creatures? To people without faith in Jesus Christ, this is not an answer. Not remotely so. But to believers who know that Christ died for their sins and was raised for their justification, this is the perfect answer! If the righteous one suffered to save us from our sins, then who are we to question God, or to act as though God knows nothing of our pain? Jesus Christ is the man of sorrows! He is like us in every way, yet without sin.

As a man who trusted in the God of the promise, Job shows himself to be everything the Lord has said of him. He is upright and blameless. Job is a justified sinner, and a faithful servant of the covenant. Despite having lost everything, and after going through such horrible suffering, Job still refuses to curse God, and now, having gained true wisdom and being assured of God’s favor, Job humbly repents of his sins in sack-cloth and ashes.

God has been present with Job throughout his entire ordeal. Once God spoke to him from the storm, Job knows this to be true. He should have never doubted it, nor demanded his own vindication, even though he had the legal right to do so. Job knows that nothing can “thwart” God’s will. Job did not know of what he spoke. Now he has learned sufficient wisdom to keep silent. There is nothing left for him to say. God appeared to Job from the whirlwind and reminded his suffering prophet of the wisdom of all God’s ways. All of this has been too wonderful for Job to grasp. He knows that God can do all things, and his ways are always righteous. There is only one proper response in faith. “I despise myself. I repent in dust and ashes.”

It is a fact of Scripture that there is no way that a true believer can encounter the living God without being undone by the guilt of their sin. At no time did God ever tell Job why he suffered. Yet Job has his answer. When God appears to Job from the midst of the storm, Job knows that God is with him, and he is for Job, and that is enough.[4] As Job repents and despises his own actions, God is preparing to restore him beyond Job’s wildest expectations. As the reader of Job is soon to learn, God always keeps his promises. Job’s story, just as ours, must have a happy ending! Why? Because of Christ’s cross and the empty tomb tells us so!

The Lord has taken away, but the Lord will surely restore! Blessed be the name of the Lord!

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

To read the next installment, The Lord Made Him Prosperous Again

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[1] Kline, Job, 487.

[2] Kline, Job, 488.

[3] Kline, Job, 488.

[4] Kline, Job, 489.