Job 38:1- 39:30 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,… I. INTRODUCTION. APPEARANCE OF GOD; SUMMONS TO JOB. (Vers. 1-3.) Out of the storm, in all its grandeur and beauty, which had been gathering while Elihu was speaking, the voice of the Creator is heard, calling upon Job, as one who has been obscuring the Divine counsel by ignorant words, to gird up his loins and prepare for the contest he has so often invoked. II. GOD'S QUESTIONS TO MAN'S REASON AND CONSCIENCE. (Ver. 4-Job 39:30.) These questions all appeal to man's wonder and curiosity, which impel him to seek the causes of things, and are therefore indirect reminders of his ignorance which can find no last answer to the questions he cannot but ask. 1. Questions on the mode of creation. (Vers. 4-15.) (1) How was the earth founded? Who prescribed its limits? How shall the solid pillars, on which in the fancy of the ancient world it was conceived as resting, be themselves conceived as supported? Where is the corner-stone of this world-building, and who laid it? How can that great epoch of creation be realized in imagination when all the celestial beings held jubilee over the new-born world? We conceive of the existence of the earth in space under different notions than these; but is the wonder of a world rolling in space, and bound by the principle of gravitation to other bodies, a less wondrous conception, or one more easy to explain? (2) So with the great sea. Who gave it its limits, who shut in as with gates the vast flood of waters? Breaking forth, as it seemed, from the womb of earth with impetuous force, yet governed and kept within bounds, so that its proud waves cannot transcend the limits fixed by Omnipotence, clothed with the raiment of clouds, the great ocean awakes in all minds the sense of sublimity, the emotion of awe. "Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests; in all time, - Calm or convulsed, in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving - boundless, endless, and sublime, The image of eternity, the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee: thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone" (3) Or look again at the dawn in its splendid beauty, which men worshipped as Eos, Ushas, Aurora; consider the regularity of its appearance, gladdening the hearts of all creatures. Who bade the dawn arise and gild the summits of the mountain, causing the earth to flash with all her brilliant variety of colours? Who bade the sun clothe the torrent with rainbows? Nay, who made yonder sun a symbol of righteousness, instinctively perceived by the human conscience, so that ill-doers flee before its revealing beams, for their stronghold of darkness is broken open and their power is overthrown? 2. Question continued: earth's depths and heights, and the forces that thence proceed. (Vers. 16-27.) (1) The depths under the earth. (Vers. 16-18.) God calls man to reflect upon the immeasurable, the inaccessible; to cause his thought to plunge into the abysses of the sea, to pass in imagination those gloomy portals where the sun goes down, and which lead to Hades, the realm of shadows and of darkness; or with extensive view to survey the broad earth in all its vastness from east to west. "Cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd" to one spot by the conditions of the bodily life, our mind has spiritual capacities and organs by which we may have notions of the Infinite, and these fill us with the sense of the unsearchableness of God. (2) Again, from the depths let fancy sear to the bright heights above (vers. 19-21), let it seek to explore the unapproachable fount of light, or the seat of darkness. Still our ignorance blushes and hides her face before the Divine secrets of existence. With what keen irony does Jehovah rebuke the sciolists of every age in ver. 21? Shall short-lived man presume to know the beginning and source of anything? What though we may have cleared up some childlike confusions of thought, have introduced some method and system into our conceptions of the universe, have reduced heat and light to modes of motion, traced the correlation of forces, and perhaps are on our way to the conception of a oneness of force in all its various manifestations: what then? Whence force? Whence and what is motion? Approach as indefinitely near as we may to the last generalization, to the ultimate germ-principle of the genesis of the universe, there will still remain the unknown and the unknowable; there will be need and room still for wonder, worship, reverence, religion. (3) Or turn to the wonders of the atmosphere: snow and hail, light and wind (vers. 22-27). The questions here asked again are those of childlike wonder and ignorance. We do not put them in the same way. Science restates these questions for us; but only to give our wonder a new direction, a wider scope, a more intelligent quality. 3. The wonders of the air and starry heavens. (Vers. 28-38.) (1) Here a number of natural phenomena and processes are mentioned, and the explanation of them in like manner demanded. The generation of rain, of dew, of ice, of frost, - science mediately explains these, i.e. traces them to their secondary causes, and brings these causes under certain general laws. But thus the interest deepens in the phenomena; the wonder is not less, but more. (2) The guidance of the stars, and their influence upon the earth (vers. 32, 33). The Pleiades, or seven stars, appear as if threaded upon a skein, as a necklace of jewels. Who formed that wondrous thread? Or who can loose the fetters of Orion, so that that splendid figure of the heavens should fall to pieces or descend from the sky? Can man lead forth the splendid stars (Mazzaroth) in their season? - Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and the Bear along with its little ones? Knowest thou the laws of the heaven, by which the course of the planets, the changes of the day and of the year, are brought about? Or canst thou determine its influence upon the earth? Modern science has answered these ancient questions with a clearness and fulness inconceivable in the days of the patriarch. But the field of contemplation and of wonder it thus opens to us is infinitely vaster (see Proctors 'Other Worlds than Ours'). And the sentence holds good, "An undevout astronomer is mad." Perhaps there is no science which more assists the mind to the sense of the sublimity of God than astronomy. And besides the revelation of the infinitely great above our heads, microscopic science has brought to light the infinitely small beneath our feet. The longer Job stands gazing, musing, the more do the Divine questions thicken upon him. From every star, from every cloud amidst the innumerable host spread out in the welkin, from every flash of lightning and from every drop of rain, the same voice speaks, the same challenge comes. Man cannot create by all his science the least of these things, and how shall he presume to penetrate the mysteries of the counsel of the Almighty, or question the wisdom and the rightness of his doings? 4. The animal world. (Ver. 39-39:30.) A rich field of study is opened here in the evidences of natural history to the creative power and the loving providence of God for all his creatures. We cannot turn our sermons into lectures on natural history; to descend into details would be to lose sight of those grand elementary truths of which nature's every page furnishes such abundant illustrations. For purposes of teaching, religion and science must to some extent be kept apart in their consideration. That is, we must not burden religious teaching with natural details, however interesting; nor interrupt at every step a scientific lesson, in order to pronounce a homily, or thrust forward a moral application. But viewed in a general way for the purpose of stimulating intelligent religious feeling, the animal world presents: (1) Variety, rich and boundless, of form, of structure, of mode, and existence. How different the powers of the animals here enumerated - the lion, the raven, the goat, the wild ass, the horse! The limbs that spring and bound, that climb or fly, provided with that muscular apparatus which no human art can rival; the internal organs fitting the creature for its particular food and scene of existence; - these and all the variety of facts that come to light under this head bespeak a power and skill that can adapt the instrument to every set of circumstances, can be daunted by no difficulty, can find means for all necessary ends (see the illustrations in McCosh and Dickie's 'Typical Forms and Special Ends'). Whatever may be the scientific theory in fashion, whether teleological or evolutionary, in so far as it is a true theory, i.e. correctly represents the facts of observation, it can and must lend itself to natural piety, to the confirmation of the great truths of religion. Separate the wild guesses of some scientific men from the sober theories of an accurate science, the latter must ever remain, side by side with the Bible, a witness for God. (2) Consider again the marvellous force that we call instinct. Instinct may possibly be defined as unconscious reason. We see traces of it in plants, and more strikingly marked ones in animals. It is a power by which these lower creatures arrive at ends, execute designs of marvellous skill and beauty, penetrate immediately to natural truth. Man, plodding his way slowly by the light of reason to his ends, stands in amazement before the effects and results of this mysterious mind-force. Well he may; for what is this force, so constant, so unerring, so matchless, but a direct emanation and impartation from the Creator himself? (3) And again our sense of the beautiful and the sublime is awakened by the study of animal life. The description of the war-horse in ch. 39, has always been reckoned among the most striking examples of the sublime. His strength, his vibrating mane and trembling neck, all quivering with emotion, his fiery spirit breathing, as it were, fire through his nostrils, pawing the ground in his impatience, rushing to the charge at the battle-signal, - the whole is a living expression of Divine force, awful and beautiful to behold. The analytic habits of scientific thought may hinder, if we do not guard against it, our simple and intense appreciation of nature and nature's individual objects as appealing to our sense of wonder, awe, and beauty. These feelings were given to lead us upward to the Fountain of all existence, to adore the beauty and the might of God. Thus "the book of animal life, that God here writes down for us, may be to us a true book of training for all virtues" (Cramer). If God cares so closely and so providently for the life of the lower animals, how much more are we, his children, his care? This wondrous life in body, soul, and mind; these capacities of moral improvement, of increasing knowledge of eternal life in communion with himself; - will he not care fro them? Let the cry of the dumb creatures remind us of our need of prayer, and of him who delights to hear; let the contemplation of the beauty and order of their divinely created life fill us with disgust at the disorder of sin in our own heart and life, and let us seek, in the new redeemed mode of existence, to use and improve all our powers, and consecrate them to the service of our faithful Creator, our compassionate Father and Redeemer. - J. Parallel Verses KJV: Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, |
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