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From: Job 38:1, 12-21; 40:3-5

The Lord Speaks to Job

[1] Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:

[12] “Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
and caused the dawn to know its place,
[13] that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth,
and the wicked be shaken out of it?
[14] It is changed like clay under the seal,
and it is dyed like a garment.
[15] From the wicked their light is withheld,
and their uplifted arm is broken.
[16] Have you entered into the springs of the sea,
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
[17] Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?
[18] Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?
Declare, if you know all this.
[19] Where is the way to the dwelling of light,
and where is the place of darkness,
[20] that you may take it to its territory
and that you may discern the paths to its home?
[21] You know, for you were born then,
and the number of your days is great!

Job bows before God

[3] Then Job answered the Lord:
[4] Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer thee?
I lay my hand on my mouth.
[5] I have spoken once, and I will not answer;
twice, but I will proceed no further.”

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Commentary:

38:1-42:6. The theophany and the Lord’s discourse that follow it form the climax
of the book: after each of the friends and the impertinent Elihu have opined on
Job’s attitude and on the meaning of suffering, and after Job himself has repeat-
edly called on God to pronounce judgment, God’s intervention gives a perfect fi-
nish to the whole debate. The Lord upbraids the friends for rejecting the very
idea that he would appear in person to reply to Job, and he commends Job for
his desire to meet with Him.

The content of the Lord’s speeches are along the lines of the previous Ones as
regards created beings reflecting the power and wisdom of their Maker; but the
tone is very different. The Lord does not take issue with Job’s views or lament
his misfortune, or even respond directly to Job’s demand that his innocence be
recognized; what he wants him to do is to watch a film documentary, as it were,
recording the wonders of creation; to discover the beauty and endowments of
created beings; and to acknowledge, in all simplicity, the sovereignty and wis-
dom of the Creator.

From a literary point of view, the Lord’s discourses contain typical descriptions
of all kinds of creatures, such as the ostrich (39:13-18), the warhorse (39:19-25),
and Behemoth and Leviathan (40:15-41:26). These animals are depicted so ex-
pertly, with a mixture of realism and fantasy, that we don’t know whether they
belong to the world of reality or that of mythology. But they are all creatures of
the Lord.

The theophany consists of two lengthy speeches by God (38:4-39:30; 40:15-41:
26), each preceded by an appeal to Job (38:1-3; 40:6-14) and each followed by
a grateful and humble response from Job (40:3-5; 42:1-6).

38:1-39:30. The Lord’s first speech is very rich in language and very skillfully con-
structed, but the message is quite simple: God is present in places where Job
or no one else has ever been; he has acted and does act where no human being
ever could or can: he arranges things most wisely and takes the greatest care
of created beings (stars, birds, animals) far beyond man’s reach. In other words,
God is infinitely more powerful than Job; yet here he is, inviting him to engage
in conversation and join him in contemplating the wonders of the cosmos and
of the animal world.

This speech cannot be described as a class in Creation Theology; and in fact
in few places does it overlap with creation accounts in Genesis or in the book of
Wisdom; it is rather, a sapiential description of the entire universe and of the way
created beings operate; no account is taken of secondary causes or of the use-
fulness these beings may have for man.

The speech consists of an introduction (38:1-3) and two lengthy sections. The
first of these focuses on the inanimate world (38:4-38), and the second on the
animal world (38:39-39:30). The first has a certain logical order to it, ranging out
from the better known to the more remote phenomena — earth, sea, light, the
ends of the earth, and the abyss, the elements, stars … But the animal section
seems to have no particular order to it; instead, the writer uses devices found in
wisdom literature: his list of animals runs to ten (ten being a number symbolizing
completeness) – lion, raven, goat, deer, wild ass, wild ox, ostrich, horse, lark,
eagle; by choosing undomesticated animals, he accentuates the power of God.

38:1-3. The introduction to these speeches provides keys to their meaning. It
uses the proper name of the God of Israel, the Lord (YHWH), as does the pro-
logue (2:1-7) and epilogue (42:7-17) of the book itself, whereas in the preceding
debate, as we have seen, the generic Greek name appears (’El, Eloah, Elohim,
Shaddai). This serves to underline that genuine wisdom belongs to the God of
Israel, and he communicates it to his people. The text keeps repeating that it
is God who is speaking: “And the Lord said …”, “the Lord answered.” The theo-
phany “out of the whirlwind” would alone have made this plain; it was a whirlwind
that took Elijah up to heaven (2 Kings 2:1,11) and it figures in the eschatological
appearances of the Lord (cf. Ezek 1:1-3; 15; Zech 9:14); even if God had made
himself silently present, Job would have had his desire fulfilled: he would have
met the Lord. But by responding to Job with words, God is bestowing on him
the same sign of favour as he gave to the patriarchs and to Moses, with whom
he spoke face to face. In this way the sacred writer shows how very worthy a
person Job is.

“Who is this that darkens counsel” (v. 2): the Hebrew word translated as ‘’coun-
sel”(’esah) means God’s plan, his purposes, which stay unchanged for all eterni-
ty (cf. Is 25:1) and are irrevocable (Is 14:24, 26). What the word primarily means
here is governance of the universe, that is, divine providence: “Since human rea-
son on its own cannot comprehend the truth of divine providence, the argument
between Job and his friends needed to he resolved by divine authority [...]. So the
Lord, as arbitrator of the dispute, criticizes the friends whose words do not judge
Job fairly, and Elihu for his mistaken assumptions” (St Thomas Aquinas, Exposi-
tio super lob, 38, 2). But, given that in the Old Testament this word is always con-
nected with divine intervention in the lives of nations and individuals (Jer 32:19),
here it also applies to God’s part in making Job’s life so miserable. Job has raised
objections to this. The Lord himself now invites him to view this counsel, these
“plans”, from the point of view of God, not man. Man’s perspective is narrow and
blurred.

“I will question you, and you shall declare to me” (v. 3). In keeping with the tone
of irony that surfaces elsewhere in the speech (38:4, 18, 21), the Lord grants Job
the status of interlocutor and implies that he is capable of answering all the great
questions and of supplying the sort of sapiential argument he will use in his
speech. At no point does God try to humiliate Job; he is simply encouraging him
to accept with a good grace the teaching he is going to offer him.

38:4-15. The description of the earth (vv. 4-7), the sea (vv. 8-11) and the sunlight
(vv. 12-15) contains a lot of symbolism. For example, the earth is depicted as an
impressive building which the stars find awesome. St Gregory the Great does
well to apply this description to the Church, God’s beloved, built on the foundation
of the apostles and with Christ as its cornerstone; earth and Church are a source
of amazement to the angels (cf. Moralia in lob, 6:28, 5-7, 14-35).

The ocean, which was full of bluster in the high seas, becomes all mild when it
reaches the shore, just as a restless baby becomes quiet when it is held and
clothed. “The gates of the Holy Church”, St Gregory explains, “may he battered
by the waves of persecution, but they cannot he destroyed; the wave of persecu-
tion may rock the gates from without, but it cannot break through to the heart of
the Church” (Moralia in lob, 6, 28, 18, 38).

The light of dawn dispels the darkness (vv. 12-13), which is an accomplice of
evildoers, as Job previously acknowledged (cf. 24:13-17): “Evildoers love the dark
of night, and flee in despair at the dawning of the day. For this reason he adds:
“And you shook out the wicked”, that is, you forced them to flee into hiding when
the light of day stripped away their cover of darkness” (Fray Luis de Leon, Expo-
sitio lob, 38, 13).

38:16-38. The elements mentioned in this section were things that ancient man
found difficult to fathom, so much so that they were often mythologized. First
come earthly phenomena — sea, the deeps, death, light-and-darkness (vv. 16-
21); then weather phenomena — snow, hail, ice, floods, lightning; and finally the
constellations and heavenly bodies (vv. 31-38). But God knows them to perfection
and controls them. In other words, all these things manifest his omnipotence; he
has created them with wisdom and love; (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church,
268).

The lesson is clear. We should believe in the sovereignty of God and in his kind-
ly providence, even though we cannot fully grasp that human suffering and evil in
general fit into the divine plan: “We firmly believe that God is master of the world
and of its history. But the ways of his providence are often unknown to us. Only
at the end, when our partial knowledge ceases, when we see God’s face to face’
(1 Cor 13:12) will we fully know the ways by which — even through the dramas of
evil and sin — God has guided his creation to that definitive sabbath rest (cf. Gen
2:2) for which he created heaven and earth” (CCC, 314).

40:1-5. The Lord’s speech is interrupted at this point by a short but significant ex-
change between God and Job. The style of sapiential dispute is employed again,
and the author uses this literary device to retain the reader’s attention at this deci-
sive moment in the encounter between God and Job.

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.