1.
But Job answered and said,
2.
How hast thou helped him that is without power? how savest thou the arm that hath no strength?
3.
How hast thou counselled him that hath no wisdom? and how hast thou plentifully declared the thing as it is?
4.
To whom hast thou uttered words? and whose spirit came from thee?
5.
Dead things are formed from under the waters, and the inhabitants thereof.
6.
Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering.
7.
He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.
8.
He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds; and the cloud is not rent under them.
9.
He holdeth back the face of his throne, and spreadeth his cloud upon it.
10.
He hath compassed the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an end.
11.
The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his reproof.
12.
He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud.
13.
By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent.
14.
Lo, these are parts of his ways: but how little a portion is heard of him? but the thunder of his power who can understand?
THE MAJESTY OF GOD
‘The thunder of His power who can understand?’
Job 26:14
We come here to Job’s answer.
I. This as to Bildad occupies but one chapter, which is characterised from beginning to end by scorn for the man who has no more to say.—In a series of fierce exclamations he reveals the impotence of all that his friend has said to help him in any way.
II. Then, in order to show the poverty of Bildad’s argument, he speaks of the greatness of God in order to show that he knows it, and even more perfectly than his friends. God’s power is exercised in the under-world. The ‘shades tremble,’ the grave ‘is naked,’ destruction has ‘no covering.’ The whole material fabric is upheld simply by His power. The mysteries of controlled waters and light and darkness are within the sphere of His government. The sweeping storm and its disappearance are alike by His power and spirit. Having thus in almost overwhelming poetic beauty suggested his consciousness of the greatness and government of God, he declares that all these things are but the ‘outskirts of His ways,’ that, after all, everything that man is conscious of is but ‘a whisper’ of God. The ‘thunder of His power’ is evidently beyond human comprehension.
Illustration
‘One great school of men finds that the basis of all things is spiritual; another school finds that the basis of all things is material.… Says one, The life of the universe is supernatural; says the other, We can only trust a tangible and material foundation.… We believe that at last the things that are seen rest upon the wise and eternal will of God, over all, blessed for ever. When men say that everything is to be explained by natural laws, natural causes, natural sequences, we believe in natural laws, natural causes, natural sequences. But before all changes, all states, all stages, we must find the Prime Mover, and as to all the rest, all the secondary causes, the will of God works through them all, to His high and wonderful purpose.’