God asks Job another question
40
📚Then the LORD continued to answer Job and said, 2 📚“Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let the one who rebukes God answer it”.
40:2 Job has been wanting to argue his case before God (Job 13:3; 23:4). He thought he had a great many things to say in his defense. But in the two preceding chapters God has revealed something of His own great power and wisdom and has overwhelmed Job with questions for which he had no answer. Now God asks him if he thinks he is wise enough to give God correction and advice. Does Job wish to continue the debate? Then let him answer God now.⚜
Job’s answer to God
3 Then Job answered the LORD and said,
4 📚“Look, I am insignificant 📖. What answer can I give you? I lay my hand over my mouth.
5 📚Once I have spoken, but I will not answer. Yes, twice, but I will proceed no further”.
God questions Job further
6 📚Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said,
7 📚“Now make yourself ready like a man. I will question you, and you instruct me.
40:7 This is Job 38:3 repeated.⚜
8 📚Would you indeed do away with my judgment? Would you condemn me that you may be justified?
40:8 This has been the tendency of some of the things Job has said (Job 7:20-21; 9:22-24; 10:3; 19:6-7; 24:12; 27:2). Those who had disputed with Job did not understand the reason for his sufferings, but they thought they discerned his fault and rebuked him for it (Job 8:3; 15:4, 12, 13; 34:5-6). Now God Himself puts the matter before him. This was Job’s one big error in the things he said. Job would not admit his friends were right even in this one point. But it is one thing to argue with one’s friends, quite another to stand before God. God will now bring Job to full confession and repentance for his sinful speaking.
Complaining about God’s dealings with us is the same as accusing Him of injustice. It implies we are better than He. No matter what troubles come to us God has a right to demand of us complete trust in Him, complete submission to His will, complete love and devotion. He is the great King over the universe (see note at Ps 47:2). The business of God’s people is not to question God but to glorify Him (see notes on Ps 73). God will bring us believers (as He did Job) into situations where we cannot understand what He is doing, where His dealings with us seem contrary to reason, and where we must simply trust Him. In some way or other, and in some measure, all believers are Jobs. Have we yet learned simply to trust God as Job did, no matter what may be happening in our lives or circumstances?⚜
9 📚Do you have an arm like God’s, or can you thunder with a voice like his?
10 📚Then adorn yourself with majesty and splendour, and clothe yourself in glory and beauty.
11 📚Scatter the fury of your wrath, and see everyone who is proud and humble him.
12 📚Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low, and trample on the wicked in their place.
13 📚Hide them together in the dust; bind their faces in the concealed place.
14 📚Then I will also admit to you that your own right hand can save you.
40:9-14 The purpose of these words seems to be to remind Job of this truth: Job does not have the power to bring the world to judgment, so he doesn’t have the wisdom to criticize God’s dealings with men.⚜
God speaks of two great beasts
15 📚“Look now at the behemoth, which I made along with you. He eats grass like an ox.
16 Now see what strength he has in his loins, and what power in the muscles of his belly.
17 📚He moves his tail like a cedar. The sinews of his thighs are knit together.
18 📚His bones are like strong pieces of bronze. His limbs are like bars of iron.
19 📚“He is chief of the ways of God; the one who made him can bring near his sword.
20 📚Surely the mountains produce food for him, and all the beasts of the field play there.
21 📚He lies under the lotus plants, in the hidden place of the reeds and marshlands.
22 📚The lotus plants conceal him in their shadow; the willow trees by the stream surround him.
23 📚See, though a river overflows him, he is not alarmed; he is confident even though the Jordan should pour into his mouth.
24 📚Who can catch him about the eyes, or pierce his nose with a trap?
40:15-24 From v 15 onward all God’s message to Job is taken up with a description of two beasts – “behemoth” and “leviathan”. At first, this might seem to us a very strange message to give to a man suffering in body and mind, a man who has been full of tormenting questions. But God knew He would very shortly bring Job’s sufferings to an end. He also knew that there were more important matters than answering Job’s questions. He was working to produce complete submission to Himself in Job’s heart. He wanted Job to renounce his questioning of God’s goodness, and justice, and simply trust Him fully and forever.
People sometimes think that above all else they want their questions answered. But when they come into God’s presence and submit to Him in faith they find their questions are not as important to them as they had thought.
As for the beast described in these verses (behemoth) some scholars have thought it is an elephant, others a hippopotamus. Others think it refers to some huge animal now extinct. Certainly the beast described is more like a hippopotamus than an elephant. As for it being a now extinct creature such as some kind of dinosaur – v 19 may suggest a creature somewhat grander than the hippopotamus, but there is no proof that a now extinct animal is meant. We cannot be sure whether Job knew anything about any such animal, and God is calling his attention to an animal with which he is familiar (v 15). Some scholars have suggested that possibly some types of dinosaurs were on the ark with Noah and so were in existence after the flood, and that they could have been alive on the earth until Job’s day. This may have been so, but as far as the author of these notes is aware, there is as yet no fully satisfactory evidence either for or against this view.⚜