lets first look at who is speaking in Job 37
his name is Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram he was a descendant of the brother of Abraham .
he crashed the party. he is a younger man who has been listening to the 3 accuser friends of Job accusing him but not making their point because they were wrong.
when there is a lull he explains that he has been sitting like “fermenting wine” ready to burst out of new wineskins. He literally could not contain himself
some scholars say he was an interloper who was out of line and should have not intervened claiming “perfect knowledge of God”. hmmm… intervened? yes some consider him a foreshadowing of Christ or a preparatory prophet like
John the baptizer or Elijah perhaps. But while he is there to set the stage for God’s grandeur and majesty he also makes the mistake of assuming Job is guilty of sin and being punished.
And so Elihu complicates things with being himself a kind of paradox.
some beautiful poetry in his description of God includesHe unleashes his lightning beneath the whole heaven
and sends it to the ends of the earth.After that comes the sound of his roar; he thunders with his majestic voice.When his voice resounds, he holds nothing back.
He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth,’ and to the rain shower, ‘Be a mighty downpour.’ So that everyone he has made may know his work,
The breath of God produces ice, and the broad waters become frozen.He loads the clouds with moisture; he scatters his lightning through them.
He brings the clouds to punish people, or to water his earth and show his love.
“Listen to this, Job; stop and consider God’s wonders.
can you join him in spreading out the skies, hard as a mirror of cast bronze? God comes in awesome majesty. The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power;
in his justice and great righteousness, he does not oppress.
38 Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the whirlwind. He said:
“Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.
well God questions Job about God through the end of chapter 38. Such as
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.
Then he says something which has greater significance today. There are those that believe that we are living not in a false reality but in some kind of simulated one
like a computer program. What is clearly true is that the fabric, the logos, the word that creation is knit together with is mathematical. If there was one instance where 2+2 did not equal 4
the whole universe would fall to pieces. So here, God says”
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?
then there is an allusion which fits in with the councils and the plural “Elohim” that Michael Haiser covered in great detail in his book The Unseen Realm when God says:
while the morning stars sang together and all the angels[c] shouted for joy?
In fact if science has proven anything about God it has not been supportive of such as Bart Ehrman (atheist author) but to give us more to marvel at.
Let me give you a few of those things and then back to God’s questioning of Job. Here are just a few…
DNA is in the mitochondria of every cell in our bodies. If you uncoiled and connected the DNA from all the cells in a single human body end-to-end, the total physical length is about 74 billion kilometers. This is long enough to travel from Earth to the sun and back roughly 247 times. Also the odds of one single functioning protein coming together by random chance are 1 in 10 to the 272nd power. There are no shortage of this things that leave your lower jaw on the floor.
Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?
Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.
then God really gets into some heavy chastisement asking
“What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years!
What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s[g] dominion over the earth?
Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens when the dust becomes hard
God continues into chapter 39 with his glory being represented in the wild animals of the world which is such beautiful poetry.
It is not until later in Job that God redirects the conversation to the matter at hand but you can imagine by now that Job is already in such awe
that he has dropped all charges against God and so should we all be if we be so predisposed in the first place.
Two words to remember from the song “How Great Thou Art” could be sufficient “awesome wonder”.
God bless ye faithful.
