Bible Commentaries
Job 39

Verses 4-30

God’s questions of Job 38:4-39:30

As Job’s friends had done, God began to break Job down blow by verbal blow. Finally all his pride was gone. However, where Job’s friends had failed, God succeeded.

"The function of the questions needs to be properly understood. As a rhetorical device, a question can be another way of making a pronouncement, much favoured by orators. For Job, the questions in the Lord’s speeches are not such roundabout statements of fact; they are invitations, suggestions about discoveries he will make as he tries to find his own answers. They are not catechetical, as if Job’s knowledge is being tested. They are educative, in the true and original meaning of that term. Job is led out into the world. The questions are rhetorical only in the sense that none of them has any answer ventured by Job. But this is not because the questions have no answers. Their initial effect of driving home to Job his ignorance is not intended to humiliate him. On the contrary the highest nobility of every person is to be thus enrolled by God Himself in His school of Wisdom. And the schoolroom is the world! For Job the exciting discoveries to which God leads him bring a giant advance in knowledge, knowledge of himself and of God, for the two always go together in the Bible." [Note: Ibid., p. 269.]

God gave Job an oral science examination covering aspects of cosmology, oceanography, meteorology, astronomy, and zoology. He began with the origin of the earth (Job 38:4-7). God’s point was that since Job was absent when He had created the earth, he lacked the information that God had which enabled Him to govern the earth better than Job could. The phrase "sons of God" (Job 38:7) evidently refers to the angels (cf. Job 1:6; Psalms 148:2-3). The "morning stars" may be stars or planets, but it seems more likely that they, too, are angels since there is synonymous parallelism in this verse.

God next asked Job about the origin of the oceans (Job 38:8-11). Obviously Job had nothing to do with this major aspect of God’s creative activity, so his knowledge again proved inferior. [Note: See Hans-Jurgen Hermission, "Observation on the Creation Theology in Wisdom," in Israelite Wisdom: Theological and Literary Essays in Honor of Samuel Terrien, pp. 52-54.]

Job had no experience causing the sun to rise and thereby sustaining the earth, either (Job 38:12-15). The rising sun shakes the wicked out of the ends of the earth (Job 38:13) in the sense that the wicked love darkness rather than light (cf. John 3:19). The "light" of the wicked (Job 38:15), that element in which they flourish, is darkness. By causing the sun to rise God withholds the darkness, their "light," and so frustrates (breaks) their work. Another interpretation holds that this verse (Job 38:15) may be an ironic statement saying that God does not break the wicked but only controls them. [Note: E.g., Hartley, p. 497.]

Even though "the dawn of every day provides an occasion to punish the wicked . . . this possibility is not in practice realized and is therefore not in the plan of the world." [Note: Matitiahu Tsevat, "The Meaning of the Book of Job," Hebrew Union College Annual 37 (1966):99.]

"Although a major thrust of the Lord’s speeches (Job 38:1 to Job 40:2; Job 40:6 to Job 41:34) was to polemicize against all potential rivals to His lordship over the cosmos, there is also a subtle refutation of the dogma of divine retribution. Although granting that the control of chaotic forces of evil (which in some instances is inherent in the design of the universe-38:12-15) is somewhat consistent with the principle of divine retribution, God demonstrates that the universe is not always geared to this principle." [Note: Parsons, p. 145.]

Job was likewise ignorant of the springs of the sea, the gates of death, and the scope of the earth (Job 38:16-18)-none of which he had seen. Nor did he know where the light (sun) went when it apparently set or where the darkness came from and went at sunset and sunrise (Job 38:19-20). Job 38:21 presents Yahweh as a master of sarcasm.

The next subject on God’s quiz was the weather (Job 38:22-38). "Light" (Job 38:24) may refer to "lightning." The "channel for the flood" appears to be the "path" through the sky that rain takes on its way to the earth (Job 38:25).

Yahweh referred to the constellations next, to impress Job’s lack of insight and his impotence on the patriarch further (Job 38:31-33; cf. Job 9:9).

Next, God turned to the animal world and pointed out six mammals and four birds-only one of which was evidently a domesticated creature in Job’s day: the horse (Job 38:39 to Job 39:30). They include "the ferocious, the helpless, the shy, the strong, the bizarre, the wild." [Note: Zuck, Job, p. 170.] They illustrate God’s creative genius and His providential care. The animal world exists for partially unknown reasons, not merely to meet the needs of humankind. People cannot explain why animals live as they do. This is another mystery that only God understands fully.

One writer wrote the following about the wild ox (or aurochs, Job 39:9-12).

"Extinct since 1627, this enormous animal was the most powerful of all hoofed beasts, exceeded in size only by the hippopotamus and elephant." [Note: Andersen, p. 281. See Zuck, Job, pp. 171-74, and George Cansdale, Animals of Bible Lands, for more information about these animals.]

God’s point in asking Job to consider each of these animals was this. Even upon careful examination, there are many things about their individual characteristics, behavior, and life that people simply cannot explain. That is still true today. For reasons unknown to Job, God allowed each animal to experience what was His will for that species. Similarly, He permits every human being to experience what he or she undergoes for reasons partially unknown to us. Only Yahweh is powerful enough and wise enough to do this.

"A main function of the Lord’s speeches is to show the absurdity of Job’s attempt to manipulate God by a ’lawsuit,’ which assumed that his relationship to God is a juridical one." [Note: Parsons, pp. 149-50.]

God rarely used legal metaphors in His speeches to Job, which Job had so often utilized. From now on, Job stopped using them. This is an important observation because it shows that the basis of Job and God’s relationship was not a legal one, as Job had assumed. A legal relationship requires just compensation by both parties for what each of them has done to the other. The basis of God’s dealings with Job was gracious, not legal (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:7).