Job 41:1-34
God Finishes Talking with Job
1 "Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook
or tie down his tongue with a rope?
2 Can you put a cord through his nose
or pierce his jaw with a hook?
3 Will he keep begging you for mercy?
Will he speak to you with gentle words?
4 Will he make an agreement with you
for you to take him as your slave for life?
5 Can you make a pet of him like a bird
or put him on a leash for your girls?
6 Will traders barter for him?
Will they divide him up among the merchants?
7 Can you fill his hide with harpoons
or his head with fishing spears?
8 If you lay a hand on him,
you will remember the struggle and never do it again!
9 Any hope of subduing him is false;
the mere sight of him is overpowering.
10 No one is fierce enough to rouse him.
Who then is able to stand against me?
11 Who has a claim against me that I must pay?
Everything under heaven belongs to me.
12 "I will not fail to speak of his limbs,
his strength and his graceful form.
13 Who can strip off his outer coat?
Who would approach him with a bridle?
14 Who dares open the doors of his mouth,
ringed about with his fearsome teeth?
15 His back has rows of shields
tightly sealed together;
16 each is so close to the next
that no air can pass between.
17 They are joined fast to one another;
they cling together and cannot be parted.
18 His snorting throws out flashes of light;
his eyes are like the rays of dawn.
19 Firebrands stream from his mouth;
sparks of fire shoot out.
20 Smoke pours from his nostrils
as from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds.
21 His breath sets coals ablaze,
and flames dart from his mouth.
22 Strength resides in his neck;
dismay goes before him.
23 The folds of his flesh are tightly joined;
they are firm and immovable.
24 His chest is hard as rock,
hard as a lower millstone.
25 When he rises up, the mighty are terrified;
they retreat before his thrashing.
26 The sword that reaches him has no effect,
nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin.
27 Iron he treats like straw
and bronze like rotten wood.
28 Arrows do not make him flee;
slingstones are like chaff to him.
29 A club seems to him but a piece of straw;
he laughs at the rattling of the lance.
30 His undersides are jagged potsherds,
leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge.
31 He makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron
and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment.
32 Behind him he leaves a glistening wake;
one would think the deep had white hair.
33 Nothing on earth is his equal—
a creature without fear.
34 He looks down on all that are haughty;
he is king over all that are proud."
When I first read Job, I get waiting to read and find the part of his patience...I had heard about the patience of Job, but didn't find it in his book...I read where Job and his friends ask many questions, but for me there was not a patience theme in The Book of Job...I have read it many times now and find more persistence on Job's part than patience...Job wanted healed (and healed quickly) and he wondered why God was taking His time...Job was in the worst suffering of his life...Job wants to know why he is suffering...What did he do to deserve to get this pain?...
Even more than the theme of being patient, I hoped to read something even more...I had also hoped that God would us some light, on the problem of pain and suffering...The more I have read and studied Job, his friend's, and God's testimonies the more I learn...I even found a little about being patient the more times I read Job...
God finishes talking with Job in chapter forty one...God does not answer Job about his suffering...Job had many questions, but none of them are answered...Instead, God asks Job many questions when He presents Himself in chapter thirty eight...In fact, God asks Job question after question about creation, its creatures, and the earth...God uses questions to guide Job...
When I first read Job, I didn't read it from how personal this was for Job...That is, if this were me (in Job's situation), how would I react...Maybe one has to be in the exact situation of Job, to understand how Job feels in the end...Maybe one can feel close to Job when one has had as many tragedies as Job had...But as read Job over again I think it is more than that Job had his personal questions, and God gave Job that we personal for Him...Job could relate, in only his way to God's questions...This was Job's mystic experience with God and not mine...
Job has a personal contact with God...Job gets to feel the Presence of God...This relationship is personal for Job from the Living God...Job's suffering is very personal...His meeting and feeling God is very personal and unique...God came for Job, and not for Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu (although each would probably learn from our LORD)...Job is desperate...And Job's faith is increased in this great desperation, and His feeling God's Presence...This experience of- God and Job- was unique for Job...I think we can relate to Job, but we cannot feel what Job felt...God made Job unique...Only Job could feel what he felt when our LORD arrived for him...
Jesus teaches us to love God with all our hearts, souls, and minds (Matthew 22:37)...We should seek Him (Deuteronomy 4:29)...We should seek Him with all our strength (and weaknesses) in heart, soul, and mind...We must be patient in our seeking of Him...I think Job thought that God was slothful like in His coming to him in his sufferings...God does not always come immediately when we pray...Job was given two tests from the evil one, and God did not arrive after the first test and tragedy of Job...We must be persistent, when we search for Him...When we seek Him, we will have many questions...Some will get answered, some will not...We can learn from our personal questions...God teaches us that...
Faith can slump during our troubled times...Jesus teaches us in His Sermon on the Mount, He tells us that blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted (Matthew 5:4)..But, our faith then can be strengthened in times of tragedy....God is near in times of troubles and in our good times...Sometimes we feel Him more, when we have a problem of pain and suffering...No doubt Job's faith was strengthened by these experiences he had...Since God has made us unique, our sufferings are unique and we can learn from them...It is difficult to understand this, while we are going through them...We do not learn much more, at the end of the book, than in the dialogue of Job and his four friends (in the earlier chapters)...But like Job, after God arrives, he learns from his pain and tragedies...
Job had questions, and His LORD had questions (for Job)...God encourages questions, He does not stifle questions...God uses questions and our curiosity to guide us...
When we are touched by the LORD, it is ours personally...We can share the feeling with others, but only we can feel it...That is the result of the personal relationship God can have with each of us...God is living and He is personal...When Job felt God, it was unique for him and only him...God answered Job's questions for him, but it wasn't in a specific statement or words...Job's answer was His Presence...The answer was not in a statement that God made to Job, it was more in Job knew God was there...God is the answer Job was looking for...God's presence is the greatest comfort of all...