The Devotional Journey: Bible Reading 27

Yahweh questions Job

Read Job 40:1–41:34.

So far, we’ve witnessed Job’s friends trying to convince him that he had committed some sin in his life and that’s why he was facing so much suffering and tragedy (loss of wealth and reputation, loss of his children and loss of his health).

But Job kept insisting he had not sinned against God (which was true). But he began to wonder where was God’s sense of fairness and justice?

Then Yahweh spoke to Job (Job 38). In His first speech, He started with a long series of questions, asking Job if he knew how the universe came to be and how the universe was sustained. The questions were aimed at getting Job to realise that the Creator-God was extremely powerful and nothing was beyond Him, and no one was like Him.

Then here in Job 40 Yahweh began a second speech. He asked, “Do you want still want to argue with the Almighty?” Since Job wasn’t the one who sustained the universe, did he know enough about what was happening that he could accuse God of not being fair? (Recall from Reading 24 that Job was completely unaware of Satan trying to get him to turn his back on Yahweh.)

God continued by asking Job to consider two powerful creatures: the behemoth and the leviathan. What were they? We had discussed the leviathan in Reading 25 and now Yahweh was discussing the behemoth, a second massive creature. (The behemoth’s description would appear to match that of a type of dinosaur.) It would seem that Job was familiar with both these creatures, otherwise, God’s challenge to Job regarding both creatures would be meaningless.

In referring to them, Yahweh was challenging Job to subdue these big and powerful creatures. Obviously, Job couldn’t do that. God was making the point that if Job couldn’t even control animals He had made, what made Job think he could control evil in the universe? But Yahweh, the Creator-God, was the One who made these animals, which suggested that evil forces were also not beyond His control.

So who was Job, a mere man, to be powerful enough, or to know enough to tell Yahweh how to run the universe? God was saying Job was not qualified to take over the Creator’s job or to criticise how He was controlling and conquering evil in the world.

And that’s something for us to consider. As humans, there are many things outside of our control. Though we may be like Job, working hard and being faithful to God as best we can, still we can be impacted by evil, sin and suffering. There are many things beyond our control and awareness and they are not necessarily related to our behaviour.

Instead of accusing God of being unjust, uncaring or unfair, we need to learn to be humble before the Almighty Creator-God. Until we are humble before Him, He won’t do for us what needs to be done. As long we keep complaining and defending ourselves against Him, He won’t work for us to accomplish His plan through us.

As we consider the difficult challenges in our life, what is our attitude? Are we grumbling against God? Or are we making ourselves humble before Him, asking Him to do what we ourselves cannot?

Let us examine our own hearts and ask God for help to have the right attitude towards Him.