The Lord Answers Job P2 (40:6-41:34)
Do you understand real power and justice?
God goes on to question Job about his power and capabilities. “Will you put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?” (v6) This is a powerful eye-opener. We don’t often think this way, but when we complain about the way things are, we are either accusing sinful human society, or God, for the state of things. And, as people of faith, we are most in danger of saying our ways are better than God’s, because we believe He is in control.
(As a bit of an aside, this is something we see a lot of today. Many “people of faith” are falling away because of the injustice they see in God. They stop believing in Him, or at least stop aligning themselves with His people, because they can’t agree with what He says is good and evil. In their judgement, they know better than God what is good, and if the Christian picture of God does not align with their ideas, then He must not exist.)
God calls out Job’s and Job’s friends’ illogical position, by asking Job to demonstrate his power. Can you judge the earth? If you know so much, can you point out all the wicked men and punish them? Can you correct the evil course of the world? If so, then you can indeed be God, save yourself, and fix the world.
Whoa.
At this point, God goes on to use two more illustrations to highlight how puny Job (or any person) is in the grand scheme of things: Behemoth and Leviathan. Before saying anything else about these figures, we need to remember the point here: we are being put in our place. Just as when Elihu pointed to the coming storm, we are meant to recognize how little power we have—even related to created things.
So, who are Behemoth and Leviathan? That is an excellent, but incredibly tough question. And coming in a book all about the fact that we can’t hope to know all of the answers, in a section consisting of questions that we aren’t supposed to be able to answer, maybe we should leave it at that. But where is the fun in that?
Behemoth is often said to be a hippopotamus. But since when do they have tails like cedars! Some have called it a Brontosaurus (back before that creature was determined to not exist, and then that decision was reversed). The dinosaur theory is problematic, mostly because we don’t really know enough about them to say anything definitive.
Leviathan, on the other hand is fairly known in scripture and ancient texts. It is a giant sea monster. Here in Job, it appears from the description to be a fire-breathing dragon. In other parts of the bible, it represents all the powers in creation that try (unsuccessfully) to oppose the Creator’s will. Some footnotes claim that it is a description of a crocodile, but when has a croc ever spewed fire?
With this being a poetic text, we can’t get away from the possibility that these may be symbolic or mythical monsters that God is using to illustrate Job’s powerlessness. Then again, they could be real creatures, or creatures that everyone in Job’s day believed to be real. None of that makes any difference to God’s point in this passage. We are not God. We are not even as powerful as other parts of creation. And yes, a hippo or crocodile could easily take a man out and do so from time to time.
So, who are we to question what happens in the world? We either trust God to be in control and to be a good God or we don’t. Complaining won’t change things.
God goes on to question Job about his power and capabilities. “Will you put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?” (v6) This is a powerful eye-opener. We don’t often think this way, but when we complain about the way things are, we are either accusing sinful human society, or God, for the state of things. And, as people of faith, we are most in danger of saying our ways are better than God’s, because we believe He is in control.
(As a bit of an aside, this is something we see a lot of today. Many “people of faith” are falling away because of the injustice they see in God. They stop believing in Him, or at least stop aligning themselves with His people, because they can’t agree with what He says is good and evil. In their judgement, they know better than God what is good, and if the Christian picture of God does not align with their ideas, then He must not exist.)
God calls out Job’s and Job’s friends’ illogical position, by asking Job to demonstrate his power. Can you judge the earth? If you know so much, can you point out all the wicked men and punish them? Can you correct the evil course of the world? If so, then you can indeed be God, save yourself, and fix the world.
Whoa.
At this point, God goes on to use two more illustrations to highlight how puny Job (or any person) is in the grand scheme of things: Behemoth and Leviathan. Before saying anything else about these figures, we need to remember the point here: we are being put in our place. Just as when Elihu pointed to the coming storm, we are meant to recognize how little power we have—even related to created things.
So, who are Behemoth and Leviathan? That is an excellent, but incredibly tough question. And coming in a book all about the fact that we can’t hope to know all of the answers, in a section consisting of questions that we aren’t supposed to be able to answer, maybe we should leave it at that. But where is the fun in that?
Behemoth is often said to be a hippopotamus. But since when do they have tails like cedars! Some have called it a Brontosaurus (back before that creature was determined to not exist, and then that decision was reversed). The dinosaur theory is problematic, mostly because we don’t really know enough about them to say anything definitive.
Leviathan, on the other hand is fairly known in scripture and ancient texts. It is a giant sea monster. Here in Job, it appears from the description to be a fire-breathing dragon. In other parts of the bible, it represents all the powers in creation that try (unsuccessfully) to oppose the Creator’s will. Some footnotes claim that it is a description of a crocodile, but when has a croc ever spewed fire?
With this being a poetic text, we can’t get away from the possibility that these may be symbolic or mythical monsters that God is using to illustrate Job’s powerlessness. Then again, they could be real creatures, or creatures that everyone in Job’s day believed to be real. None of that makes any difference to God’s point in this passage. We are not God. We are not even as powerful as other parts of creation. And yes, a hippo or crocodile could easily take a man out and do so from time to time.
So, who are we to question what happens in the world? We either trust God to be in control and to be a good God or we don’t. Complaining won’t change things.
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