Please see the first post on Job (click HERE) for how I am approaching Job and for an important caveat.
The LORD Answered
Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind
(Job 38:1)
Right away this is incredible. Back in chapter 33, Elihu said that God speaks to humans through dreams and through suffering. I don’t know what “out of the whirlwind” looked like exactly, but God is doing something that was not mentioned by any of Job’s friends nor Job. Part of Job’s accusation against God was that God wouldn’t answer him or engage in dialogue with him. Job said, back in chapter 30,
20 “I cry to you for help and you do not answer me;
I stand, and you only look at me.
21 You have turned cruel to me;
with the might of your hand you persecute me.”
I was doing a little more reading on Job’s time period using Halley’s Bible Handbook. It dates Job around Genesis 36 (different than what I had posted earlier). Job may have known a few examples of God speaking directly to humans, but it would have appeared at this time in history that God arrives on His time, not necessarily at the request of humans.
The words “the LORD answered Job” would’ve been juicy news! This God has broken barriers and answered Job at Job’s request, even after all those accusations from Job! No wonder Job was speechless after God started speaking (Job 40:3-5).
The name of God used here is Yahweh (signified by “LORD” in all caps in most Bible translations). God didn’t reveal Himself as Yahweh until He revealed the name to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14-15). Tradition ascribes the authorship of Job to Moses, perhaps hearing the story while he was in Midian. If this is true, then when Moses recorded Job’s story, he wrote that “Yahweh” (the name revealing God’s personal nature) answered Job!
Job wouldn’t have known the name Yahweh, but because Moses chose (was inspired to choose) this name, we who read the story thousands of years later can be encouraged that in the midst of trauma, Yahweh, I AM, is present. It reminds me of a phrase in Isaiah 48, “From the time it came to be I have been there.”
[Note: Yahweh is used many times before Exodus 3. Moses is ascribed the authorship of the first 5 books of the Bible. Therefore, although the name Yahweh might not have been known until Exodus, the name was known my Moses by the time the stories were recorded.]
Rhetorical Questions
God launches into a series of rhetorical questions to Job, all implying the vastness of God’s understanding and the immeasurable greatness of His power. I love the poetry language used to explain God’s ways in nature.
God describes how He gave animals knowledge and created their personality (e.g. the courage of horses). God ends with the Behemoth and the Leviathan. We do not know the exact identities of these animals, but whatever they were, they were the top of the food chain on land and sea, respectively. God proclaims, “Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine.“
Resurrection
Job quotes God’s opening lines and responds in confession and repentance (although God says Job spoke rightly of Him, so this has always been a little confusing for me).
Job 42:3a – Job quotes God from 38:2
Job 42:3b – Job responds
Job 42:4 – Job quotes God from 38:3b
Job 42:5 – Job responds
Job walked through “death” – he had a life before the trauma and then after the trauma. Trauma often creates a new timeline in someone’s life. The dialogue between Job and his friends was a type of burial – where Job felt alienated, alone, agonized, abandoned, betrayed, and more. He had determined that God had left him to languish in the “grave” of misery, but Job never stopped processing his thoughts, his emotions, his body sensations, etc. with friends and to God. Then Yahweh answered Job and Job was transformed into a new man. This happened BEFORE God restored Job’s prosperity. The prosperity wasn’t the resurrection, the new man Job became was the resurrection.
God did a new thing in Job’s life. Job had heard things about God, but now His eyes were opened to this new thing. Did it matter the exact words God chose or just the fact that God answered? Both?
I don’t recommend telling a sister in trauma, “Just read Job 38-41. It worked for Job!” We all want Job 42 without Job 3-37. We want resurrection without death and burial. This applies to us following Jesus in general, which is why Jesus tells us to take up our cross (Luke 9:23). And it applies to trauma in particular. We will not find resurrection after trauma without facing the reality of the death and walking through the darkness of burial – the hard recovery work, the heart searching, working through triggers, being in community, etc.
God says to Eliphaz, “You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (repeated twice). God was angry toward Eliphaz and the other two friends. He calls them to repentance, to offer sacrifices and have Job pray for them. I see God’s heart for reconciliation – between the three friends and God as well as between the three friends and Job. God’s directions for reconciliation would’ve given so much healing to the fractured relationships.
There was still a journey ahead and Job needed friendship (Job 42:11). With the three friends and Job participating in reconciliation, I believe (this is purely speculation) God resurrected the friendships – friendships that were transformed and changed forever.
In some mysterious way, reconciliation with God was directly connected to reconciliation with others. I guess this is why the two greatest commandments are intertwined (Love God and Love People) or that the Lord’s Prayer includes asking for forgiveness as we forgive others.
I hope you have grown a little deeper in your understanding of trauma and emotional wisdom as I have. May we all continue to grow as safe sisters for each other as we grow in Christ together!
By the River Together 