Job 38:4 Commentary and Bible Study

The whole chapter is designed to humble Job, but this is all that some commentators see in it, as if all that is accomplished is to get Job to stand in awe of God. Of course this is part of it, but would God use so many illustrations to make just that one point? No, the context is God’s discipline, and the illustrations are designed to shed light on this. The building illustration – an architect has everything in hand: survey, foundation, building and calibrations. This whole world order is like a building, and the predestinating God has had ever part in view. Job has behaved as if God was a bad organiser and didn’t know what he was doing, but this world is something planned; our God knows everything about our lives. If the building is a great building, it requires not only a plan but also a careful master-builder. Supposing you did not have an architect – things will be done in the wrong order, and strains and stresses will be allowed to develop which the materials are not able to bear. Foundations need to be laid – foundation were only laid for splendid houses – if the house is to last and to be admired. Who did the survey? Are the foundations deep enough? Are they laid in the right place? It all has to be watched carefully. God could not design the world and then leave it. God could not save his people, and then leave them to their own devices for the rest of their earthly lives. He must discipline them at the same time. The words are designed to humble Job. It is about what he has failed to consider: that the Lord has the detailed government of the world in his hands. If our Father has such concern for the created order, even in a fallen world, then how can a child of God ever doubt his overseeing the lives of his people? God starts at the beginning, for if Job was not there at the foundation of the earth, then he was absent at the origin of all things, at the moment which determined the essence of every creature and established the laws of nature. If Job is going to take it upon himself to correct his Creator, he must start by being God’s match, and coming near his understanding (Calvin). Of course the question, ‘Where were you?’ is rhetorical and does not demand a serious answer. It is ironical, and highlights Job’s powerless at such a significant moment. He was only a thought in the mind of God and was able to exercise no influence on anything. God did not need advice from Job in order to complete the task then, and he has not somehow decayed in strength so that he needs it now. The question is designed to expose Job’s inadequacy and ignorance, and therefore his presumption in daring to correct God on the basis of so little knowledge. ‘Speak, Job, about this matter if you want to speak about anything, or else let your ignorance convict you that you did not remain silent previously. If you cannot speak of these relatively mundane things, how can you think of speaking of what takes place in the spiritual realm which is so much higher than these?’‘Tell me, Job,’ says the Lord in mocking tones, ‘how was it decided what the dimensions of the earth would be, how far it would be from the sun, what was the strength of gravity, and how that and the other fundamental forces would work? Surely you know. Surely you can explain to me how all this works, given your great presumed wisdom. Who got out a great measuring rod and recorded the distance between the earth and the moon and the effects that the moon would have on the tides of earth?’ The materialist says that all these things happened by chance and fortuitously fell out the way they are, but he has put his head in a bucket. God worked without helper and without machinery or tools. His own wisdom guided him in everything so that from the start, without trial and error, all was as intended. Does his skill deteriorate so that he has become weak and in need to help from the very creature he has made, whose life he holds in his hands by a thread?Overwhelming Job’s ignorance, the Lord proceeds to tax him with further detailed questions which it is impossible for him to answer. Every building must have foundations and every foundation must be fixed to something solid and immovable, but to what was the earth fastened in order to make it stable enough to form the habitation of the human race? Where are those foundations laid and where is the cornerstone which every building possesses and which allows the walls of the building to be lined up correctly? It hangs in space with no lines attached to it and the secrets of gravity, which holds it in position relative to the sun, are still evading us; Job certainly understood none of these things. As the human race advances in knowledge, one generation building on the work of the previous generation, we uncover more of the mysteries of God’s workmanship, just as he intended that we would in line with the dominion mandate. But the idea that Job could have known all this and assisted the Lord in his work at the beginning of the world is farcical; the impossibility of this is God’s skilful way of humbling Job.‘When the morning stars sang together’ – not the literal stars which were not made until the fourth day according to Genesis 1, but the angels, who are known as stars in Biblical imagery (Isaiah 14:13; Daniel 8:10; 12:3; Revelation 12:4), and as the parallel second half of the verse indicates. These things were wondered at by angels, yet Job behaves as if they were nothing. The angels were created before the physical world, and so were present to witness all of the following creative acts of God. Was Job among them? Would he exalt himself to such heights in his attempt to prove himself capable of correcting his Creator? Surely not. God humbles him by showing the heights to which his pride would have to exalt him, if it were really to take on the role that he assumes for himself. Job naturally shrinks back from this and catches a view of himself which fills him with shame.