Job 9:5 Commentary and Bible Study

Job speaks in exalted terms about the being of God. All of the things chosen to illustrate God’s power are far beyond human ability, so that a comparison is made between God and man. Man is puny in comparison to the Lord. God is to be known by his works, and these so dwarf man that he can only bow before God in wonder and confess how great is his power and knowledge. God does not consult man in any of these works. God moves the mountains, by flood or volcano eruption or some other great force, and the mountains are powerless to resist. It is as if they are taken hold of so suddenly that they hardly know what has happened to them. How could man achieve such a thing? God overturns the mountains in his anger, not anger at the inanimate object, but at human sin, the same anger which caused God to send a flood that covered the highest mountains and reprofiled the earth. ‘Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble.’ The Lord shakes the earth in one of the most terrifying of phenomena known to man, which instantly undermines his sense of security and makes men feel that nowhere is safe. Man made structures collapse and even the very pillars or foundations of the earth seem to be unstable and no longer to be relied upon. How little we think about the stability of things until it is threatened, and when that happens it troubles us deeply. We are hardly aware of how much we take for granted until it is touched by the Lord. ‘Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not.’ What man ascribes of nature, is all the continual work of God. Job is drawing attention to the Lord’s continual involvement with his creation. Nothing happens on its own, as if it operated by a power contained within it. Christ upholds all things by the word of his power, or else all things could not function. God commands the sun to rise each day, but he can equally command it not to rise. It must obey him, and therefore we are ultimately dependent not on the creature but on the Creator for every breath we take. All that happens is evidence of his power. ‘And sealeth up the stars.’ This may mean that just as he is able to command the sun not to rise, so he can obscure the stars from view. Nothing just happens. All is the result of his working.‘Which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea.’ The Lord is above his creation in that he is free from all the limits which apply to it. He can spread out the heavens if he pleases, even though man cannot see how he does it. He can walk on the waves, defying gravity, because he is not subject to the laws he has created. He can break them at any time he wishes, and he does so in order to teach us that he is the Creator and not a creature.‘Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south. ¹⁰ Which doeth great things past finding out; yea, and wonders without number.’ The stars that we see maintain their fixed positions. God preserves them so that over a human lifetime they still adopt the same configuration, and indeed our ancestors saw them just as we do. These are but a small number of the wonders that he does.