Job 26:14 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Job 26:14

Comments

God hides far more than he reveals. In creation we see his power for ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork’ but this is only a small part of his infinite power. The finite human mind is not capable of grasping the full reality, and therefore we must come humbly before him and recognise our limitations and remember that his real glory always transcends our knowledge and our imagination. This does not mean that we do not know him at all, for what he has revealed gives us true knowledge, but it is only partial knowledge. We rejoice that his being is infinitely greater than we are able to grasp in any one moment because we need him to fill our eternal future. Nevertheless it is right that we should stretch out to reach him, for the mind that thinks it fully knows him already has not got a proper hold on God. Using the strongest language that he can muster Job asks, who can know the thunder of his power. God of course knows it, for he perfectly knows himself; the Father knows the Son and the Son knows the Father, but no created being knows it as it really is. Partial knowledge is true knowledge but it is incomplete knowledge. So Job speaks of the wonder of God’s being, which should fill the horizons of every man and woman. This glory so much surpasses the glory of any created object that it should draw our attention away from the world. When men are preoccupied with the creature rather than the Creator, they have deliberately shut their minds to his glory.

Application

‘There is no purpose in our beholding God’s works unless we decidedly conclude that they pass all our understanding and capacity, and that they are so great and so high that we must be dazzled by them. For when a man applies his whole study to know God both in heaven and earth, and would attempt to glorify God in all his works, if he thinks it possible to know all, he certainly dishonours God. Can we do God a greater dishonour than to enclose him in our own understanding? It is as if a man took it upon himself to shut up both sea and land in his own fist, or hold them between a couple of his fingers. It is a great madness, because the heaven and earth are not as great as the justice, power, wisdom, and goodness of God; they are only small indications of them … Therefore let us mark well that the chief point which we ought to bear in mind in considering the works of God, is to remember our own weakness, and to know that our own understanding is too feeble to mount up so high’ (Calvin – in modern English).

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Job 26:14 Commentary and Bible Study