Job 26--Job Replies: God's Majesty Is Unsearchable

Job Replies: God's Majesty Is Unsearchable
26 Then Job answered and said:

2 “How you have helped him who has no power!
    How you have saved the arm that has no strength!
3 How you have counseled him who has no wisdom,
    and plentifully declared sound knowledge!
4 With whose help have you uttered words,
    and whose breath has come out from you?
5 The dead tremble
    under the waters and their inhabitants.
6 Sheol is naked before God,
    and Abaddon has no covering.
7 He stretches out the north over the void
    and hangs the earth on nothing.
8 He binds up the waters in his thick clouds,
    and the cloud is not split open under them.
9 He covers the face of the full moon
    and spreads over it his cloud.
10 He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters
    at the boundary between light and darkness.
11 The pillars of heaven tremble
    and are astounded at his rebuke.
12 By his power he stilled the sea;
    by his understanding he shattered Rahab.
13 By his wind the heavens were made fair;
    his hand pierced the fleeing serpent.
14 Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways,
    and how small a whisper do we hear of him!
    But the thunder of his power who can understand?”

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Even though Bildad's argument was rather terse, Job's reply to it is going to be rather lengthy.  Like me, Job knows how to give a long answer to a short question (sometimes a question he wasn't even asked).  In this case, Job goes back to the idea of Eliphaz's argument about man not being able to know God and says that it is not God that is unknowable, but it is the majesty (or maybe glory) of God that is unsearchable.  Job will seem to come back and answer Bildad's argument in the next chapter we discuss where he will argue that he maintains his integrity despite Bildad arguing that no man can be upright and blameless.

In this chapter it seems that Job speaks directly God in a prophetic voice again declaring the character, nature, and works of God.  First, Job challenges his friends to ask them if they think they are God by asking them if they can do the things that only God can do--give power to the powerless, knowledge and wisdom to the one who has neither, and put His words in the mouth of His prophets by the work of Spirit?

Job then moves to how creation reacts to His power, authority and majesty.  Even the dead and the demons in the bottomless pit (Abaddon) tremble as they are naked and exposed before the all-seeing God.  He is the creator of all things including the starry hosts of heaven and Job describes how he made the earth to hang upon nothing--a very interesting, scientifically correct statement for someone who lived so long ago with no ability to see the Earth from outer space.  This is one of the verses that the astronauts who looked back at the earth from space quoted.  You won't hear many of those recordings today, but their reaction was praise, worship, prayer, and the words of Scripture.

Job seems to be going through the creation account here and started with "in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" and has now moved onto God "separating the waters from the waters" and making the seas and the sky.  For Job talks about the mystery of God making the thick clouds that are full of water and yet the clouds do not split open under the heavy weight, and the clouds soften and hide the beauty of the full moon in the evening.

Job then seems to talk about day one and day four next as God separated light from darkness and we have the cycle of day and night.  Even the statement of God inscribing the boundary on the circle of the earth is again a incredibly specific and mathematically and scientifically correct statement (the word for circle and orb are not different in Hebrew as an orb is basically a three-dimensional circle to them).  God's power is shown and His majesty is made manifest through His creation (see Romans 1).

​Job then goes on to say that God has the powers to shake the "pillars' (the foundations) of the heavens and the earth--you can read about this in 2 Peter 3 in the judgment that is coming--and the seas are stilled (remember Jesus twice calming the storms on the Sea of Galilee?) and He has shattered Rahab--the name give to the evil spirit (sometimes imagined to be a water dragon) that would stir up the waters of the sea.  The people of the Near East (and some other cultures of the sea) believed that the demons had influence over the open sea and that's why it was so dark and stormy and tumultuous there, and that only God could defeat those demonic forces and bring peace and calm which explains the reaction of the disciples when Jesus spoke and the Sea become instantly calm--this was not just power over nature to them, but over the supernatural, and then Jesus follows that up by casing out a legion of demons from a man and calming the "storm" inside that man known as Legion (see Luke 8:22-39 and Mark 4:35-5:20).

The world translated as "wind" in verse 13 could also just as easy be translated as "breath" or "spirit"--remember how God breathed His breath or His spirit into Adam to give him life, so the idea of breath, wind, and spirit are all connected.  This is an amazing text to say God's word or the Spirit of God is enough to slay the serpent (the water dragon we were just speaking of, but also probably Satan who is known as both a serpent and a dragon), and that He speaks to us in a still small voice (see 1 Kings 19:11-13), yet He can also speak it peals of thunder so that no one can understand (see Exodus 19 and 20, 1 Samuel 2:10, 1 Samuel 7:10, 1 Samuel 12:17-18, 2 Samuel 22:14, and many more places especially in Job and Psalms in the Old Testament.  In the New Testament remember in John 12 where the people only heard thunder when God spoke and in the book of the Revelation where we see the thunder and lightening associate with the voice of God or the other voices in heaven many times--Revelation 4:5, 6:1, 8:5, 10:3-4, 11:19, 14:2, 16:18, and 19:6).

God is going to bring Job back to this place once again when God finally answers because God's answer to Job is going to be one of reminding Job of His power and majesty and that His character and nature and actions are all consistent with one another.  When Job can't understand the actions of God, He need only remember God's character, nature, and past actions.  To put it in the lyrics of a song that I love, "When you can't trace His hand, trust His heart."