The Power of God (Job 26,27)

…Job takes over the conversation with a series of monologues that will last for the next six chapters. His “friends” and “counselors” are no help. He berates them with some harsh sarcasm. 

“How have you helped him who is without power?!
   How have you saved the arm that has no strength?!
How have you counseled him who has no wisdom,
   and plentifully declared sound knowledge?!
With whose help have you uttered words,
   and whose breath [spirit] has come out from you?!” 

For all of their wisdom, Job’s friends have not helped the poor and powerless. (Job had.). They have not really given wise advice. Their words have condemned, not counseled. They have judged Job and not the situation. As readers of the prologue, we know Job is not guilty of something worthy of the calamity he is faced with. So, when Job accuses the friends of channeling a false spirit, we see that he is right. Perhaps Satan is up to more than just destroying Job’s life. He is supplying men with false teaching and heretical theology! 

What follows is some of the most colorful and poetic imagery describing the immense yet incomprehensible power of God. We can see hints of what He is up to in the universe, but ultimate knowledge and wisdom are beyond the wise. God is too much for the mind of man… 

“Lo, these are but the outskirts of his ways,
   and how small a whisper do we hear of him!
   but the thunder of his power who can understand?”

He then insists on his integrity and righteousness. (Something we have already had confirmed by God in the prologue.) Job goes on to describe the lot of the wicked—not in their unjust success as he has up until now—but rather in the eternal judgement they will face in the afterlife. Here we see that the justice of God will be accomplished in the end, even when it may sometimes feel as though the evil succeed while the righteous suffer.