Job 38:32 Komentář

In most disputes the strife is who shall have the last word. Job's friends had, in this controversy, tamely yielded it to Job, and then he to Elihu. But, after all the wranglings of the counsel at bar, the judge upon the bench must have the last word; so God had here, and so he will have in every controversy, for every man's judgment proceeds from him and by his definitive sentence every man must stand or fall and every cause be won or lost. Job had often appealed to God, and had talked boldly how he would order his cause before him, and as a prince would he go near unto him; but, when God took the throne, Job had nothing to say in his own defence, but was silent before him. It is not so easy a matter as some think it to contest with the Almighty. Job's friends had sometimes appealed to God too: "O that God would speak!" Job 11:7. And now, at length, God does speak, when Job, by Elihu's clear and close arguings was mollified a little, and mortified, and so prepared to hear what God had to say. It is the office of ministers to prepare the way of the Lord. That which the great God designs in this discourse is to humble Job, and bring him to repent of, and to recant, his passionate indecent expressions concerning God's providential dealings with him; and this he does by calling upon Job to compare God's eternity with his own time, God's omniscience with his own ignorance, and God's omnipotence with his own impotency. I. He begins with an awakening challenge and demand in general (Job 38:2, Job 38:3). II. He proceeds in divers particular instances and proofs of Job's utter inability to contend with God, because of his ignorance and weakness: for, 1. He knew nothing of the founding of the earth (Job 38:4-7). 2. Nothing of the limiting of the sea (Job 38:8-11). 3. Nothing of the morning light (Job 38:12-15). 4. Nothing of the dark recesses of the sea and earth (Job 38:16-21). 5. Nothing of the springs in the clouds (Job 38:22-27), nor the secret counsels by which they are directed. 6. He could do nothing towards the production of the rain, or frost, or lightning (Job 38:28-30, Job 38:34, Job 38:35, Job 38:37, Job 38:38), nothing towards the directing of the stars and their influences (Job 38:31-33), nothing towards the making of his own soul (Job 38:36). And lastly, he could not provide for the lions and the ravens (Job 38:39-41). If, in these ordinary works of nature, Job was puzzled, how durst he pretend to dive into the counsels of God's government and to judge of them? In this (as bishop Patrick observes) God takes up the argument begun by Elihu (who came nearest to the truth) and prosecutes it in inimitable words, excelling his, and all other men's, in the loftiness of the style, as much as thunder does a whisper.

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 38 In this chapter the Lord takes up the controversy with Job; calls upon him to prepare to engage with him in it, and demands an answer to posing questions he puts to him, concerning the earth and the fabric of it, Job 38:1; concerning the sea, compared to an infant in embryo, at its birth, in its swaddling bands and cradle, Job 38:8; concerning the morning light, its spread and influence, Job 38:12; concerning the springs of the sea, the dark parts of the earth, the place both of light and darkness, Job 38:16; concerning the various meteors, snow, hail, rain, thunder, lightning, and the influences of the stars, Job 38:22; and concerning provision for lions and ravens, Job 38:40.

Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee? Thy gardens, fields, and farms; canst thou, in a magisterial way, call to and demand of the clouds to let down rain in large quantities, sufficient to water them and make them fruitful? no, thou canst not: thou mayest cry and call as long as thou wilt, not a cloud will stir, nor a drop of water be let down; rain is to be had in a suppliant way, through the prayer of faith, as by Elijah, but not in a dictatorial authoritative way: the clouds and rain are only at the disposal of the Lord; ask of him, and he will give them; but they are not to be commanded, Zac 10:1; see Amo 5:8. . Job 38:35 job 38:35 job 38:35 job 38:35Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are? Thy humble servants; we have been where thou didst send us, and have executed what we were bid to do, and are returned, and here we are waiting further orders; see Mat 8:9; no; lightnings are only at the command of God, and there have been some awful instances of it, Lev 10:1; but not in the power of men; indeed we have an extraordinary instance in Elijah, who, at the motion, and under the impulse of the spirit of prophecy in him, called for fire, or lightning, to consume captains with their fifties, and it came down on them, and consumed them, Kg2 1:10; but he is not to be imitated herein: when the disciples of Christ desired the same upon a provocation, they were severely reproved by him, Luk 9:54; were these at the call and dispose of men, what dreadful things would be done in the world! for if good men, when provoked, would make use of such a power to destroy the lives of men, much more bad men; and our eyes would continually behold the flashes of lighting, and our ears hear the roarings of thunder, and the terrible effects thereof; but neither mercies nor judgments are at the command of men, but of God.

Since in ordering the complexity of the world, Providence did not lack the collaboration of [divine] power, Job now enumerates those things that evidently are an integral part of the power of the Creator. Another interpretation: even though the amount of space between them [i.e., the stars of Pleiades] might be small, your strength will never be able to accomplish this, that is, to force them together into a single place and location, after removing whatever it is that makes them distinct. Neither will you be able to change the turning about of Arctuaus (i.e., Ursa Minor) and move it to a location or region different from the one that I have set.

Dost thou bring forth the morning star at its time, and dost thou make the evening star to rise over the sons of earth? For the Father brought forth the morning star in his season, because, as it is written; When the fulness of the time was come, God sent His Son born of a woman, made under the Law, to redeem them that are under the Law. Who being born of a Virgin, appeared as the morning star, amid the darkness of our night, because, having put to flight the obscurity of sin, He announced to us the eternal morn. But He made Himself known as the morning star, because He arose in the morn from death, and overcame, by the brightness of His light, the hideous darkness of our mortality. Who is well called by John; The bright and morning star. For, appearing alive after death, He became our morning star; because while He furnished us in His own person an instance of resurrection, He pointed out what light comes after. But the Lord makes the evening star to rise over the sons of earth, because He permits Antichrist to hold sway over the unbelieving hearts of the Jews, as their desert demands. And they are therefore justly subjected by the Lord to this evening star, because they chose of their own accord to be the sons of earth. For by seeking after earthly, and not heavenly things, they were so blinded as not to behold the brightness of our morning star; and while they seek for the evening star to rule over them, they are plunged in the eternal night of subsequent damnation. Hence the Lord says in the Gospel, I came in My Father's name, and ye received Me not; another will come in his own name, and him ye will receive. Hence Paul says; Because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved, for this cause God shall send them the operation of error, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but consented to iniquity. The evening star therefore would never rise over them, if they had wished to be the sons of heaven. But while they seek after visible things, having lost the light of the heart, they are in darkness under the prince of night. [MORAL INTERPRETATION] But if we examine this in a moral sense, we find how it is daily occurring; because both the morning star doubtless rises on the Elect, and the evening star, by God's permission, rules over the reprobate. For there is one and the same word of God in the mouth of the preacher. But while these hear it with joy, and those with envy, they change for themselves the brightness of the morning star into the darkness of the evening. Whilst these humbly receive the voice of holy preaching, they open, as it were, the eyes of the heart to the light of the star. But whilst those feel envy at one who advises them well, and seek not the cause of their salvation, but the glory of boasting, when the evening of their iniquity bursts forth, they close their eyes in the sleep of death. By a secret sentence, therefore, he who is the morning star to elect, is the evening star to reprobate hearers. Because by that holy exhortation, with which the good come back to life, the reprobate perish more fatally in sin. Whence it is well said by Paul; We are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish, to the one the savour of death unto death, but to the other the savour of life unto life. He saw then that his word, by which he beheld some roused from their iniquity, and others on the contrary lulled to sleep in their iniquity, was both the morning and the evening star to its hearers. And because this takes place by the secret judgment of God, which cannot be comprehended by men in this life, he rightly there subjoined; And who is sufficient for these things? As if he were saying; We are sufficient indeed to consider that these things occur, but we are not sufficient to investigate why they occur.

Third, the motion of the planets seems wonderful among the heavenly bodies. Although completely uniform, our senses perceive some irregularity in this motion. This can be especially observed in the star Venus, which sometimes rises before the sun and then is called Lucifer, the Morning Star, but sometimes sets after the sun and then is called the Evening Star. It is clear that the stars which always move more slowly than the sun begin first to appear in the morning before the rising of the sun, because the sun in its own proper motion moves from the West to the East and leaves them behind, as one can see in Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. The moon, which has a faster motion than the sun, always begins to appear in the evening as though leaving the sun behind and preceding it towards the East. Venus and Mercury sometimes begin to appear in the morning, sometimes in the evening; but since Mercury is rarely seen and is small in size, its irregularity is less evident. Venus, however, is visible to everyone, and so it clearly sometimes has a faster motion than the sun, sometimes a slower one. From this the irregularity in the motion of the planets clearly is evident, and to show this he says, "Will you bring forth Lucifer," that is, Venus appearing in the morning, "at its time," in a determined time, because this variation is always regular. "And the Evening Star," that is, Venus appearing in the evening, "can you make it rise over the sons of the earth?" Note that in saying, "Will you bring forth," and, "do you make it rise up," he means a new appearance of the star.

The Lord answers Job out of a whirlwind, and challenges him to answer, Job 38:1-3. He convinces him of ignorance and weakness, by an enumeration of some of his mighty works; particularly of the creation of the earth, Job 38:4-7. The sea and the deeps, Job 38:8-18. The light, Job 38:19-21. Snow, hail, thunder, lightning, rain, dew, ice, and hoar-frost, Job 38:22-30. Different constellations, and the ordinances of heaven influencing the earth, Job 38:31-33. Shows his own power and wisdom in the atmosphere, particularly in the thunder, lightnings, and rain, Job 38:34-38. His providence in reference to the brute creation, Job 38:39-41.

Mazzaroth in his season? - This is generally understood to mean the signs of the zodiac. מזרות Mazzaroth, according to Parkhurst, comes from מזר mazar, to corrupt; and he supposes it to mean that pestilential wind in Arabia, called simoom, the season of which is the summer heats.

(Job 38:1-41) Jehovah appears unexpectedly in a whirlwind (already gathering Job 37:1-2), the symbol of "judgment" (Psa 50:3-4, &c.), to which Job had challenged Him. He asks him now to get himself ready for the contest. Can he explain the phenomena of God's natural government? How can he, then, hope to understand the principles of His moral government? God thus confirms Elihu's sentiment, that submission to, not reasonings on, God's ways is man's part. This and the disciplinary design of trial to the godly is the great lesson of this book. He does not solve the difficulty by reference to future retribution: for this was not the immediate question; glimpses of that truth were already given in the fourteenth and nineteenth chapters, the full revelation of it being reserved for Gospel times. Yet even now we need to learn the lesson taught by Elihu and God in Job.

Canst thou bring forth from their places or houses (Mazzaloth, Kg2 23:5, Margin; to which Mazzaroth here is equivalent) into the sky the signs of the Zodiac at their respective seasons--the twelve lodgings in which the sun successively stays, or appears, in the sky? Arcturus--Ursa Major. his sons?--the three stars in his tail. Canst thou make them appear in the sky? (Job 9:9). The great and less Bear are called by the Arabs "Daughters of the Bier," the quadrangle being the bier, the three others the mourners.