God Responds to Job
The band Daughtery, in their song "Home," made popular a folk saying full of truth...be careful what you wish for, for you just might get it all. Truer words coould not be found to express the emotionsof this passage.
For 36 chapters, Job has been contending with his friends as to teh reasons for his suffering. He lost his economic and social status. He lost his children. He lost his health. He is an utterly broken man who's only lot in life is "to curse God and die"; as his wife directed him.
JOb did nto know much but he knew that he (himself) was not responsible for this evil as his friends contended. Job knew his answer lay with God. That somehow, God was to blame. For those who have read the first two chapters, we know Job is right.
Frustrated at the answers of humanity that places the blame for evil events on the one who suffers them - bad things happen to bad people - Job demands an answer form God.
Job does not reverantly petition God for an answer the way the lowest peasent might petition his king. No, his request is a demnad. An angry demand driven by the injury of loss and suffering at the most personal level. Job has lost everything, he need not operate with diplomacy for fear that God might strike him in some other way. Job is neither patient nor reverant. He wants...he demands...oen thing, for God to show himself and answer "why?"
It is a simple question asked by a man whom God brags about. It is a simple question who's answer seems obvious. However, God comes down and plays the heavy.
The discussion is over before it even starts. "Will the faultfinder contend the Almighty?" Will the created charge teh creator? Will the finite debate the infinite? To borrow from C.S. Lewis in "Till We Have Faces"...the question is the answer. Immidiately, Job recognizes the enormity of his request / demand. "Behold, I am insignificant, what can I reply to You? I lay my hand over my mouth."
However, God relents not. He begins describing "behemoth." All those who try to make this into dinasours or some mythical creature miss the point. THis is not a discussion in zoology. It is a description of God's creative act in one animal. In a sense, God is asking Job...So you want to talk to me about why I did this to you? Let us first talk about thiis creature I created." In short, Job can not talk to God about Behemoth. How then can he talk to God about this wheightier issue?
This is no feel good ending. There is no, answering of wuestionsor tying up the lose ends. If we as readers can know what is going on, why can Job not be answered? I think that is the purpose of the book, Can we identify with the plight of Job ot the degree that this book discomforts us in the way Job was dicomforted? We must identify with JOb for the previous 38 chapters before we can let 40-42 resonate with our lives. The story does nto find its resolution until chapter 42. But for now, Job must stand in the tremendous reality of having recieved everything he asked and wished for.
Created over 3 years ago
