Job 38:39 Commentary and Bible Study

Furthermore, if I have made powerful beasts and you cannot sustain them, control them, or detain them, then why think you know better than I in ordering your affairs? Perhaps it would be better if a new chapter started here. There is nothing more novel and amazing than these animal pictures at the end of the Book of Job. Even in a fallen world with the curse in place, we are presented with so many lessons in the created order all around us. The Lord uses the most remarkable teaching procedure to appeal to Job and to help him to see the blessings of God and the true standing of the Christian. It is frequently said that these animal pictures are here to show Job God’s greatness and power as Designer and Creator. That is true, but it falls short of a full appreciation of these verses. It is challenging material and full of meaning. It is not simply about God, as it were, blinding Job with science. But Job had a great knowledge of science and probably did know some of these things: the gestation of the hinds. The comforters have said these things themselves. God is not just educating Job by telling him facts he does not know – Job has said it before himself. As the passage goes on, the Lord is going to consolidate what he has said earlier about his perfect ways.Could you, Job, take on the responsibility of feeding the lion and providing enough for its young lions to grow strong so that the hunger of each one was satisfied? Could you even do this for one individual out in the wild, let alone for all? Could you raise up sufficient supplies to nourish the lion, causing the herds of cattle on which it feeds to thrive so that there is a plentiful supply of fresh meat, bringing them to the place where the lion hunts? Could you give strength and speed and agility to the lion to catch its fleeing prey? Far less could you arrange for every wild creature to have what it needs to satisfy its hunger. What a variety of ways in which they feed and what a vast task it would be to supply each one! God still supplies the needs of his creatures even in this fallen meat-eating world. Some are hunters and some are hunted, giving their lives as food for others, and all this for man’s sake in order to teach him innumerable lessons.The lions do not have the power to bring this about, but according to their natures, sleep in their dens and wait for a provision which they cannot meet. Their gratitude is the dumb gratitude of satisfaction in what they devour, and their contentedness in lying down to sleep and digest their meal. In all this they are dependent on the Lord, even though they are not aware of it. Nursing their instinctive desires and brooding on their animal needs, they fulfil the purpose for which they were created. It is their nature to trust, to the degree that they are capable of trusting. But man fails to trust his Creator, in spite of seeing all this. If you solve one problem he will find another. If we satisfy one thing we will find another. We become questioning people, never satisfied.