Study
18 From the Book of Job is: Job 38:1 – 40:5. The first speech of
the Lord and
The
speeches of the Lord and Job's Replies (38:1 – 42:6)
- Consider the examples of God's handiwork here depicted. What relation had this to Job's condition and perplexity? What response ought this to produce in us? Cf. Pss. 97:1-6, 12: 104: 1, 24.
- Job had pleaded for an interview with God in which his innocence could be established. See 13:3; 23:3, 4; 31:37. God proves his littleness. Why do you think Job is answered like this? What does Job confess in his reply?
Notes
- 38:2. This means: 'You are obscuring the truth by speaking without thinking.'
- 38:4ff. The reader should take good note of the bold, magnificent images employed here. The world is like a building erected by one man (verse 4). The sea's birth was like a child's issuing from the womb (verse 8). Dawn shakes the earth like an open-air sleeper rising and shaking out of his blanket the creatures which came in for warmth (verses 12, 13). 'God is now speaking to deeper need, to the hidden fear, hardly realized by Job and certainly unconfessed, that there might be somewhere where the writ of God did not run, where god was not all-sovereign' (H.L. Ellison).
- 40:2. This means: Can you prove yourself right only by proving me wrong?
