Creation Moment 10/4/2016 - Creation in the Book of Job

Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?

Job 38:2

"After his long trials and testings, God took Job on a tour of the universe repeatedly and pointedly questioning Job: "Where were you, Job when all these things were taking place?

Next Yahweh takes Job on a personal tour into the lives of ten representatives of the animal kingdom: the lion, the raven, the

mountain goat, deer, wild donkey, the wild ox, the ostrich, the horse, the hawk and the eagle. God created each of them and each rears its young, hunts and lives according to God's designs. Does Job understand them, does he feed and care for them? Yahweh created the universe, but He also sustains it on a daily basis. All His works are done in love with careful attention to every detail.

Yahweh asserts that he rules supreme over the world he has created. He knows and controls all the recesses of the universe. No area or region is beyond his governance. Furthermore, he manages the various forces in the world for the benefit of all creation. For example, he commands the rain clouds to travel over the desert where no human being lives, and there he orders them to pour out their water. The implication of this point is that if human beings could direct the weather patterns, they would guide them for their

own selfish benefit. They would preserve the precious rain solely for the cultivated land and neglect the barren steppe.

Yahweh raises the key question for Job. Does he have to argue that Yahweh is guilty of governing the world unjustly in order to prove his own innocence? If Job thinks Yahweh fails to rule the universe justly, then he is setting himself up as wiser than God, even as one who could rule better than God.

And Yahweh challenges him to show his mastery over the great primordial monsters, Behemoth and Leviathan, which are symbolic of cosmic forces that at times are hostile to Yahweh's rule. But if Job cannot subdue them, he is in no position to discredit God, his Creator and Master, for treating him unjustly. Furthermore, the only conclusion he can come to is that Yahweh is the supreme Lord of the universe. This means that all creatures must fear him....By questioning Job about the primordial monsters Behemoth and Leviathan, Yahweh is trying to persuade Job that he is Master of all powers in the world, both earthly and cosmic." Lambert