Job 38:1 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters | Metropolitan Tabernacle

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Job 38:1

Comments

It seems that the approaching storm which Elihu referred to (Job 37:1) has now arrived, and at last God speaks directly to Job and ‘takes up the argument begun by Elihu and prosecutes it in inimitable words, excelling his, and all other men’s, in the loftiness of the style, as much as thunder does a whisper’ (Matthew Henry). This was what he claimed to have wanted, yet when it comes the effect on him is very different from what he anticipated.‘God perceiving that Job was not sufficiently subdued with the matters and reasons that Elihu had advanced, makes him to feel his greatness by a whirlwind, so that, being put in fear, he should yield himself to acknowledge his fault … since there is too much pride in our nature, we need to feel him as he is, so that we learn to fear him and to hear his word with humility and diligence’ (Calvin – in modern English).It must be remembered that when Job is finally spoken to by God, he repents in dust and ashes and has nothing further to say. He laid his hand upon his mouth and this is enough to say that all that he has said before has had sin mixed with it. We may therefore rightly learn from the character sins of Job that God has set before us and which we may see in Job’s words.

Application

Here the creative and sustaining power of God, in things massive or minute, visible or invisible, temporal or eternal, is laid before the wilting patriarch. What can possibly be said of these chapters except that in depression or despondency, grievance or grief, weakness or want, there is no better course for a child of God than to sit down with these words, and let God speak. Nothing can be more humbling than to read again and again of God’s majesty and power, and then of his wonderful and detailed tender provision for all his creatures (chapter 39). Nothing is too large or complicated, or too small for the care of our God. Job utters his words of sorrow and repentance (Job 40.2) but the Lord goes on with the most profound and practical pastoral themes.

Questions

The name Jehovah is re-introduced here used, which, after the opening two chapters describing the dialogue between God and Satan, had otherwise only been used once in the book (Job 12:9). The focus now moves to the self-existent God and the amazing fact that, so exceptionally, he spoke audibly to a mortal human being direct from heaven. This might have been God’s chosen method of communication always but the Bible tells us that it is exceedingly rare. God has chosen instead to speak by dreams and visions, through prophets and apostles, and above all through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. On one of the few other occasions when the voice of God was heard speaking openly from heaven, at the giving of the ten commandments, the people knew instinctively that they could not bear such proximity to their Creator and immediately requested that he should instead speak through Moses (Exodus 20:19). This passage in the book of Job is all the more remarkable because of its length; nothing else like it occurs in the Bible. Of course when the incarnate Son of God spoke on earth, Israel also heard the voice of God speaking to them, but for many the miraculous nature of it was hidden in the mystery of the incarnation.

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Job 38:1 Commentary and Bible Study