God Answered Him With Questions

For thirty five chapters, nobody answers Job.

His friends talk. Job 38 is a long way off yet, and most of what they say is that there must be a reason and the reason is probably him. Job answers them, at length, and he says one thing over and over which is not an accusation but a request. Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat.

He does not want a theory. He wants an interview.

Then in chapter thirty eight, God shows up.

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.Job 38:1-3, King James Version

And what follows, across four chapters, is somewhere near seventy questions. Where were you. Who shut up the sea with doors. Have you entered the springs of the sea. Can you bind the sweet influences of Pleiades. Do you know the time when the wild goats bring forth.

And not one of them is the question Job asked.

God never tells him why. Not in chapter thirty eight, not in thirty nine, not in forty or forty one. The reader of the book knows about the conversation in chapter one. Job never does. He goes to his grave without the information.

I am not going to explain that. Job does not explain it, and where the book is silent I am going to be silent, because filling that in would be putting words where God chose not to.

But there is something in the first seven verses that I do want to show you, and I think it is the reason the whole speech works.

Look at what He shows him first

God has the whole of creation to open with. He could start with power. He could start with the flood, or the mountains, or the thunder, and any of those would have made the point about size.

Here is the first thing He says.

Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?Job 38:4-7, King James Version

He takes him back to the foundation. And then, at the end of the sequence, He tells him what the atmosphere was like while it was being laid.

When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.

There was singing at the foundation. There was shouting. The first picture God gives a man in ruins is not machinery and it is not raw force. It is a building site with music on it.

You are not owed an explanation, and you are not left without an answer. Job 38:1 says the LORD answered him, using the word answered for a speech that never addresses the question, and it is the Holy Spirit who keeps that distinction from collapsing when a person concludes silence and presence are the same thing.

Now, I want to be honest about the whirlwind, because it is easy to sentimentalize it.

This is not gentle. Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee. That is a summons. God does not arrive apologizing, and He does not agree with Job's assessment of the situation. The book is not tidy here and I am not going to tidy it.

And yet. Read chapter forty two, when Job responds. He does not say now I understand. He says I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. The change in the man is not informational. Something moved from hearsay to sight, and nothing in his circumstances had altered yet when he said it.

You have been given the one thing Job actually asked for through thirty five chapters, and it was never the reason. The written word records him asking for an audience and never for a theory, and the same Spirit who preserved that distinction is the reason a person can stop waiting for a sentence that is not coming.

Let me name what the wanting is like, because I have watched it and I have done it.

You want a shape. You want to be able to say: this happened because. Not to feel better about it, necessarily. Just so that the thing has edges. An event with a reason attached is a thing you can put down. An event with no reason attached follows you around the house.

And the friends in this book are all offering shapes. That is what makes them so useless and so recognizable. Every one of their speeches is an attempt to hand Job edges, and every one of them costs him more than it gives.

You were never required to find the edges before you could be met, and God does not hand Job a single one. Job 38 opens with a question and not an outline, and it is His Spirit who makes that a rest rather than a frustration for somebody who has been searching for a reason for years.

There is one more thing in these seven verses and it is the tenderest. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations. On the face of it that is a rebuke about smallness. But look at what it also says: the foundations were laid. Somebody measured it and stretched a line on it and set a corner stone.

This is construction language. Deliberate, measured, planned. The universe in Job 38 is not an accident that a man is unfortunately caught in. It is a building with a plan and a cornerstone, and the plan was not shown to him.

You have a foundation described in measured, deliberate language over a life that has felt entirely unplanned. Job 38:5 speaks of measures and a line stretched out, and the same Spirit who preserved that language is the reason a person in ruins is not standing on an accident.