Elihu’s rhetoric draws to a conclusion by comparing God’s power and majesty to the vastness of a great thunderstorm: “Can anyone understand the spreading of the clouds, the thunderings of his pavilion? See, he scatters his lighting around him” (Job 36:29-30); “He covers his hands with the lightning, and commands it to strike the mark. Its crashing tells about him” (36:32-33); “Listen, listen to the thunder of his voice and the rumbling that comes from his mouth. Under the whole heaven he lets it loose, and his lightning to the corners of the earth” (37:2-3; see also 37:4-6, 37:9, 37:11-12, 37:15-18). Perhaps this is just a very extended metaphor; or perhaps we are to understand that at this point in the dialog an actual thunderstorm has come sweeping across the plains with violent wind and rain, and Elihu was directly commenting on that, rather than speaking theoretically.

Because it is at this point the story’s narrator tells us this: “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind” (Job 38:1). As we have seen, Job had been pleading for God to meet him face to face in order to give Job a chance to plead his case: and now that was about to happen. God’s first words to Job don’t sound too encouraging: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (38:2). But then the thunder turns to invitation: “Gird up your loins like a man; I will question you, and you shall declare to me” (38:3).

So Job got to do question-and-answer with the Almighty: and the questions were hard, drawn from earth science and oceanology (38:4-18), meteorology (38:22-30, 34-38), astronomy (38:31-33), and a lot of zoology (38:39-39:30, 40:15-41:34). It was a wide-ranging examination. None of the ancients would have scored well on it; indeed, even with a modern-day scientific education most of us would do only a little better.

This “nature walk” offers a lot of vivid detail, but by showing the extent of God’s power and knowledge compared to our weakness and ignorance, it reminds us of Bildad’s theology (25:1-6): God is really big, and humans are really small. Wait, what? Is God’s message to Job going to turn out the same as what Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu all said? No. The answer comes in tomorrow’s reading. (I can hardly wait.)

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We are indeed small in your presence, O Lord: small in power and small in knowledge: yet you call us to stand our ground like a warrior, and to be ready to answer to you. Grant us diligence, and faithfulness, that we may indeed be ready.