“Then the Lord answered Job out of the Whirlwind”. God now speaks and the final commentary comes to us in a decisive manner. God’s talks are divided into two parts, with a brief comment by Job.
There is a disposition on the part of some critics to regard the second Divine speech as an addition by a later editor. There does not appear to be any sound reason for this suggestion from the point of view of scholarship, but rather a failure to grasp the inner meaning of the book and the logical place for each part; as a result, because there does not appear any reasonable explanation for the second speech, it is felt therefore, that it should be omitted. Our answer to the foregoing must be, of necessity, by demonstrating the logical progressive development of the whole book, and the manner in which each part fits into the whole.
That God should answer Job out of storm is clear evidence of Divine displeasure. There are several examples in the prophets of God making use of nature in its more awesome aspects as a vehicle for the expression of His condemnation: notably Ezekiel, 1.
As is usual in this remarkable book of Job, the choice of words is quite significant as the Lord says,” who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge ?” It is the Hebrew “Hashak” that is translated here as “darkeneth”, and in effect, it implies the drawing of a veil over something.
Another example of its use is in Psalm 69 2-3, where it is rendered “confusion”. The word counsel is a translation of “etsah”, meaning “advice”; examples of this are to be found in Psalms 1;1, and 73;24.
Finally, there is the word “knowledge”: this is a rendering of the word “death” and has the meaning of “discernment”, rather than the idea of factual information. Again, an illustration is found in the Psalms 139;6. In other words, God says that Job’s wordy arguments only served to darken and confuse the issues, demonstrating his lack of spiritual discernment. Job, at the last, is to see the justice of these remarks and to acknowledge them in that most significant phrase, “I have heard of Thee with the hearing of the ear. but now mine eye seeth Thee”.
How does God deal with the problem? Well, first of all, He turns Job away from contemplation of himself, to a consideration of the immensity of time and space, and to the greatness of God. Here is elaborated the key principle expressed by Elihu in chapter 33;12 “God is greater than man”.
There is irony in the questioning, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ?” From verse 4 to verse 38 God calls the inanimate creation to witness in a series of rhetorical questions: “where wast thou?”. “who shut up the sea with doors?” “hast thou entered ?” “hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth?” There is sarcasm in the comment of chapter 38;21, “You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great.” To all this Job could answer nothing.
To contemplate the beginning of things is to contemplate a “when we were not”; to contemplate the immensity of the universe—its beauty and harmony—is to feel utterly and completely insignificant, and it is salutary to human egotism. The Psalmist was moved by this and expressed it in the beautiful words that are so pregnant with meaning:
“When I consider the heavens, the work of they fingers,
the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained,
What is man that thou art mindful of him or the son
of man that thou visitest him ?”
There is another aspect to the first phase of God’s reply, and again the problem of human conceit is involved. Man conceives himself the center of creation as if all things were made for and on his account: sunshine to brighten and warm his days, rain to make the land produce that he might be filled with food, beauty and harmony in the natural world about him to satisfy his aesthetic senses. God gives us another thought in chapter 38;25, “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, and on the desert in which there is no man, to satisfy the waste and desolate land and make the ground put forth the grass.”
To satisfy the Eternal’s own personal sense of beauty and harmony ?
In the second part of this first talk God chooses six examples of the wild creatures of the earth as illustrative of His wisdom. The choice gives us food for endless thought; it is doubtful if we would have chosen such a group for the same purpose. It is evident here that there are living creatures brought into existence without regard to human will or benefit, and some whose contribution to the general harmony of creation we might question. The mountain goat, at home with sureness of feet in the high clefts of the mountains, where men go only with awkwardness and fear.
The wild ass, the wildest free spirit of the steppes and almost impossible to train; the foolishness of the ostrich and its lack of wisdom, its indifference to its young—what a fascinating group of living creatures! All of them free, independent wise, strong, foolish, cruel, and all made by God.
It is evident, then, that God is not only bringing Job to consider the greatness of the Universe, and the insignificance of the man in the scope of time, but is also showing him that there are things in the world which are impossible to understand without the perspective of Him that made them.
And to all this Job answers for all of us in chapter 40;4, “Behold I am vile, what shall I answer thee.” (A.V.).
“Behold I am of small account,” (R S.V.) Unless man can measure and evaluate the universe from the point of view of Eternity, or see the whole of creation at a glance, and grasp the relationship of the tiniest part to the whole (and to do this he must be God) he is, like Job, unable to answer at all.
How far has Job progressed? To Elihu’s analysis he has no answer; there seems a partial recognition, in his brief answer at this stage, that he has been presumptuous, but there is a curious reluctance as if pride will not let him completely surrender yet. If Job had made spiritual progress, had seen and acknowledged the true nature of the purpose of God, en indeed the critics are right-we should dispense with the second major talk that God now proceeds to give, as it could fairly be considered redundant.
But because there are major issues involved that God has not dealt with, and one in particular that is the key to Job’s offence, the final talk may be rightly regarded as the most important in the book. Before we go on to consider it, however, let us go back to the first few verses of Chapter 40, “Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct Him?” (A.V.) “Shall a fault-finder contend with the Almighty?” (R.S.V.)
The Tar-gum of Jonathon has yet another rendering, “Shall he who disputes with the Almighty yield? Will he that reproves God answer these things ?” Job had chosen to find fault with God’s methods of doing things, and from the apparently impregnable position of his own integrity, has in effect, “reproved God”.
There is a suggestion in the narrative that he was active in passing judgment on others and finding fault with God before his calamity came upon him. If we compare the translation of Chapter 36;17, as it is rendered in the R.S.V. “You are full of judgment on the wicked”, with the statement God is to make to Job in Chapter 40;8, “Will you even put me in the wrong?”
“Will you condemn me that you may be justified, have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like His?”, then we arrive at a fairly good idea as to the point Job had reached in his self-righteousness.
Following this, there is the most striking declaration in chapter 40;6-11, and to this we append a statement by James Strahan in his book on Job: “The divine irony, infinitely keen and yet infinitely kind, becomes most hen-bling at the close of the answer from the whirlwind; it invites the doubter to array himself with honour and majesty, mount the throne of the world seize the rains of the government of the world. For then he will know what it is to be God; will realize the amazing complexity of the universe, the endless multiplicity of the Divine interests and solicitude’s, the relation of each self-centered human unit to the mighty sum of things, and then it will be time for God to praise a man, whose own right hand hath gotten him the victory.”
God now proceeds to deal with two examples of animal creation which are, to many, the most puzzling in the whole Book. Behemoth—most likely the hippopotamus, and Leviathan—the alligator.
“Behold Behemoth, which I made as I made you”—is God reminding Job of the claim he had made on God in chapter 10;8-10? God has made him, why, therefore should He destroy him. Yet God made Behemoth and does not preserve him; if the physical is to be the basis of man’s claim on Cod, then what distinguishes him above the animal? Nothing, indeed the animal is superior—both in strength and in time, for, says God, “He is the first of the works of God”.
Still dealing with the superiority of the animal from the physical point of view, God now mentions the alligator: a beast that is king in his own environment, impossible to train, tough to fight. “None is so fierce that he dares to stir him up”. “Who then can stand before me?” (Who made him)
And now, in the context of the comparison which God is making between Job and the animal, there is introduced another of the key statements in the Book—Chapter 41;11. “Who hath prevented me that I should repay him”? (A.V.) “Who has given me that I should repay him?” (R.S.V.) “Who ever preceded me with a gift?” (Interpreters’ Bible). In Romans, after a statement regarding the wonderful wisdom of God Paul says, “Or who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid?’
We have dealt with the reason for this before, in considering the comment of Elihu in chapter 35;1-8. The effect of the religious philosophy of Job was to place an obligation upon God; this is always the great evil of righteousness based on law. It begins with believing that blessing can be earned and, eventually, reaches the belief that blessing is a right. There is nothing that mar can give to God.
There remains one final subtle lesson given to Job in the vivid characterization of the animals. The details are vividly descriptive of a proud, arrogant man. He cannot be reasoned with, he is thick-skinned, stiff-necked, hard-hearted, and gives vent to arrogant mouthing’s. Verses 33-34, “Upon earth there is not his like, a creature without fear,
He beholds everything that is high;
He is King of the sons of Pride”.
This is the final thrust and completes the scathing analysis, by God, of Job’s problems.
We suggest that the reader thoughtfully study the 73rd Psalm in this connection, and note particularly verses 21-22. “When my soul was embittered, When I was pricked in heart, I was stupid and ignorant, I was like a beast toward thee.”
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One