Scripture Daily

Context No. 1827 of 4322 · Job

Context · Reflection

Job 38:17-32: in context

17Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the gates of the shadow of death? 18Have you comprehended the earth in its width? Declare, if you know it all. 19“What is the way to the dwelling of light? As for darkness, where is its place, 20that you should take it to its bound, that you should discern the paths to its house? 21Surely you know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great! 22Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, 23which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war? 24By what way is the lightning distributed, or the east wind scattered on the earth? 25Who has cut a channel for the flood water, or the path for the thunderstorm, 26to cause it to rain on a land where there is no man, on the wilderness, in which there is no man, 27to satisfy the waste and desolate ground, to cause the tender grass to grow? 28Does the rain have a father? Or who fathers the drops of dew? 29Whose womb did the ice come out of? Who has given birth to the gray frost of the sky? 30The waters become hard like stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen. 31“Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loosen the cords of Orion? 32Can you lead the constellations out in their season? Or can you guide the Bear with her cubs?

Out of the whirlwind, God answers Job's demand for explanations, not with answers, but with questions. Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Do you know where light dwells, or darkness? Have you entered the storehouses of the snow and the hail? Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loosen the belt of Orion, or lead out the constellations in their season? Question after question about the vast mysteries of creation confronts Job with how little he understands even of the world, let alone of God.

Job had demanded that God explain himself, account for the suffering that had fallen on him. And God's answer is to take Job on a tour of creation's mysteries, asking him whether he understands the storehouses of the snow, the birth of the frost, the binding of the stars, the paths of the light. Job cannot answer any of it; he does not comprehend even the workings of the natural world before his eyes, the weather, the constellations, the mysteries of ice and light. And the unspoken conclusion is clear: if Job cannot fathom these ordinary wonders of creation, he is in no position to demand that God account for the deeper mysteries of his providence and his ways. God does not answer Job's questions about his suffering; instead he enlarges Job's sense of God's greatness until the demand for an explanation gives way to humility and trust. There is wisdom here for our own suffering and our own demands for explanation. When we suffer, we often want, above all, an explanation, a reason, a full accounting from God of why. And sometimes what God gives instead is not the answer we demanded, but a deepened sense of who he is, of a greatness and wisdom so far beyond us that we come to see we are in no position to sit in judgment on his ways. If we cannot understand the frost and the stars, how shall we understand the depths of God's purposes? This is not a dismissal of our pain; God does not scold Job for suffering. It is a reorientation, from demanding that God justify himself to us, to trusting a God whose wisdom so exceeds ours that the demand itself begins to seem out of place. Job ends by saying he had spoken of things too wonderful for him, and repenting of his demand. The humility God led him to is one worth learning: to trust the God whose greatness we cannot fathom, rather than to insist he explain himself to minds that cannot grasp the snow.

When I suffer and demand from God an explanation, a full accounting of why, can I let him do for me what he did for Job, enlarging my sense of his greatness and wisdom until I see that I, who cannot fathom the frost and the stars, am in no position to demand he justify his ways, and so move from demanding answers to trusting him?

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