Job 38 · Clearspring

The LORD Challenges Job

¹Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:+ ²“Who is this who obscures My counsel by words without knowledge?+ ³Now brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall inform Me.+ ⁴Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.+ ⁵Who fixed its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched a measuring line across it?+ ⁶On what were its foundations set, or who laid its cornerstone,+ ⁷while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?+ ⁸Who enclosed the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,+ ⁹when I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its blanket,+ ¹⁰when I fixed its boundaries and set in place its bars and doors,+ ¹¹and I declared: ‘You may come this far, but no farther; here your proud waves must stop’?+ ¹²In your days, have you commanded the morning or assigned the dawn its place,+ ¹³that it might spread to the ends of the earth and shake the wicked out of it?+ ¹⁴The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its hills stand out like the folds of a garment.+ ¹⁵Light is withheld from the wicked, and their upraised arm is broken.+ ¹⁶Have you journeyed to the vents of the sea or walked in the trenches of the deep?+ ¹⁷Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?+ ¹⁸Have you surveyed the extent of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this.+ ¹⁹Where is the way to the home of light? Do you know where darkness resides,+ ²⁰so you can lead it back to its border? Do you know the paths to its home?+ ²¹Surely you know, for you were already born! And the number of your days is great!+ ²²Have you entered the storehouses of snow or observed the storehouses of hail,+ ²³which I hold in reserve for times of trouble, for the day of war and battle?+ ²⁴In which direction is the lightning dispersed, or the east wind scattered over the earth?+ ²⁵Who cuts a channel for the flood or clears a path for the thunderbolt,+ ²⁶to bring rain on a barren land, on a desert where no man lives,+ ²⁷to satisfy the parched wasteland and make it sprout with tender grass?+ ²⁸Does the rain have a father? Who has begotten the drops of dew?+ ²⁹From whose womb does the ice emerge? Who gives birth to the frost from heaven,+ ³⁰when the waters become hard as stone and the surface of the deep is frozen?+ ³¹Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loosen the belt of Orion?+ ³²Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear and her cubs?+ ³³Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set their dominion over the earth?+ ³⁴Can you command the clouds so that a flood of water covers you?+ ³⁵Can you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?+ ³⁶Who has put wisdom in the heart or given understanding to the mind?+ ³⁷Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Or who can tilt the water jars of the heavens+ ³⁸when the dust hardens into a mass and the clods of earth stick together? ³⁹Can you hunt the prey for a lioness or satisfy the hunger of young lions+ ⁴⁰when they crouch in their dens and lie in wait in the thicket?+ ⁴¹Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God as they wander about for lack of food?’’+

The LORD Challenges Job

Study Job 38