The Riddleblog

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

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.

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Reflections on JobKim RiddlebargerMarch 9, 2022God answers Job, God challenges JobComment

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

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).

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Reflections on JobKim RiddlebargerFebruary 14, 2022God answers JobComment