Job 38:31 - 4-:24 - When God Asks the Questions (Session 39)

In this verse-by-verse study of Job 38:31–40:24, Reasoning Through the Bible continues through one of the most humbling sections in all of Scripture as God keeps questioning Job about the stars, the weather, the mind, the wild animals, and the structure of the world. After Job had demanded answers, the Lord turns the questions around and shows just how little man understands about the universe he lives in. 

This session explores the constellations, the ordinances of heaven, the complexity of the human mind, the instincts of mountain goats, ostriches, horses, hawks, and eagles, and then moves into Job’s first response of silence before God. The message is not merely that creation is impressive. The message is that the Creator is beyond human correction. 

The episode also addresses Job’s pride, the problem of evil, why people think they can judge God, and the significance of the mysterious “behemoth” passage. Most importantly, it shows that when God finally speaks, human self-confidence collapses, and the right response is humility, reverence, and trust. 

Topics in this episode include:

•  Job 38 explained 
•  Job 39 explained 
•  Job 40 explained 
•  when God asks the questions 
•  constellations and the ordinances of heaven 
•  design in nature 
•  Job’s silence before God 
•  the problem of evil and human pride 
•  behemoth and divine power 

Reasoning Through the Bible is a verse-by-verse Bible teaching ministry committed to careful exposition, biblical context, and faithful application.

Transcript

God’s Questions Begin In Space

SPEAKER_00 0:16

We're at the section of the Word of God where God is speaking to Job and God is reminding Job of how profound God is and his creation. God has been walking us through the creation. Today we're going to be in space. Last time we were on earth, today we're going to find out about space. Hi, my name's Glenn. I'm here with Steve. We go verse by verse through the Word of God. If you have your copy of the Bible, then turn to Job chapter 38. Again, we are in a midst of a speech by God. He is quite blunt with Job simply because Job was questioning God's wisdom and his justice. So now God is saying, if you know so much, tell me how things should run. And of course, that is the question that all of us will get asked, assuming that we think we know better than God. Well, today we're going to see some questions here about how the universe runs. Steve, can you start at Job 38, verse 31 and read to 41?

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Can you tie up the chains of the Pleiades or untie the cords of Orion? Can you bring out a constellation in its season and guide the bear with her satellites? Do you know the ordinances of the heavens or do you establish their rule over the earth? Can you raise your voice to the clouds so that an abundance of water will cover you? Can you send flashes of lightning so that they may go and say to you, Here we are. Who has put wisdom in the innermost being or given understanding to the mind? Who can count the clouds by wisdom and pour out the water jars of the heavens when the dust hardens into a mass and the clods stick together? Can you hunt the prey for the lioness or satisfy the appetite of young lions when they crouch in their hiding places and lie in wait in their lair? Who prepares feed for the raven when it's young cry to God and wander about without food?

Constellations And The Laws Of Heaven

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Verses 31 to 33 talk about space. He mentions constellations there, Orion and the Pleiades and the Bear are all constellations still spoken of today. God has laid out the laws of nature and how the stars and the galaxies operate. So God asks Job here in verse 33, do you know the ordinances of the heavens? And this makes me think of some of the most intelligent people that have ever lived, or people like Isaac Newton. It took all the way to Isaac Newton just to determine that gravity exists and to calculate how it works. Newton said that gravity is a force. Albert Einstein came along and added to that and said, no, gravity is not a force, but a curvature of space-time. It took these very intelligent, genius people to even begin to understand how the heavens work. His famous book on the heavens, Galileo, he did a pretty good job of explaining how the planets go around the sun, but he missed it big time when it came to how gravity worked. Galileo, in his famous book, denied flatly that the moon's gravity would have any impact on the Earth. He called that idea childish and occultic. My friend, we think we're so intelligent because we've figured out a little bit of how space works. We've understood a little bit of how the mechanism works, and we think we're so good that we can question the man who made the mechanism. Only with great work and long hours of difficulty can the greatest human minds figure out the very first steps of how the universe works. And meanwhile, the Lord God spoke all these things into existence. He set everything in motion. He is sitting on his throne asking, Do you know the ordinances of heaven? Steve, how could we respond to such a question?

SPEAKER_01 4:26

There is no response. And of course, the response of Job is going to be one of awe and respect whenever he gets to the point of responding to God. It's something that we see over and over again in Scripture. Whenever the presence of the Lord is there, people bow down, the presence himself is just overwhelming. We just don't have any appreciation of it because we don't see it on a daily basis. But we can read about it, we can see the reaction of the people that God's presence in itself is heavy to the point that people fear for their lives and then the presence of the Lord out of fear and respect for him.

Wisdom, Learning, And The Human Mind

SPEAKER_00 5:05

In verse 36, God asked this question: Who has put wisdom in the innermost being or given understanding to the mind? Now, this reminds me that the human brain is one of the most complex things in the universe. My field of study and my professional career was in learning psychology and instructional design and how people learn things. After hundreds of years of study, we've just started to learn a very few things about how the brain works. Just to give you a clue, if we take a child and bring them in and teach that child that two plus three equals five, and then bring them back tomorrow and ask them the question, how much is five minus three? If they get the answer right, then the learning psychologist can't really agree on what happened in the human mind. Is that learning or is it some sort of just repetition? How learning happens, the brightest minds in the world disagree. There's many different learning models. We can't really understand how people learn, let alone be able to understand how the human brain is conscious and self-aware. No one really knows how self-awareness works. They don't even really know what it is to be able to describe it. Learning psychologists can't agree on how the brain works. They can't agree on how learning happens. This just leaves us in an interesting set of quandary of looking at this world. And we think we're so smart, but we don't even really get to the first two steps of understanding God's creation. And that's the point here that he's trying to make. All the way back in Job's day, all the way to today, we've made such little progress in really understanding how the world works. In the next chapter, God continues asking questions of

Wild Animals That Need No Help

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Job. So, Steve, can you read the first eight verses of Job chapter 39?

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Do you know the time the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the deer? Can you count the months they fulfill, or do you know the time that they give birth? They kneel down, they deliver their young, they get rid of the labor pains, their offspring become strong, they grow up in the open field, they leave and do not return to them. Who sent the wild donkey out free? And who opened the bonds of the swift donkey to whom I gave the wilderness as his home and the salt land as his dwelling place? He laughs at the turmoil of the city, he does not hear the shouting of the taskmaster, he explores the mountains of his pasture and searches for every green thing. Will the wild bull be willing to serve you, or will he spend the night at your feeding trough?

SPEAKER_00 8:03

In this section, he talks about some wild animals, such as mountain goats and donkeys, and he's making the point here that nobody has to go out there and take care of the mountain goats and teach them where they're supposed to go when it's time to have a young goat and what they have to do to take care of it. God made them such that they can have the young in remote places without help, and the herd just keeps going very well. Thank you very much. They have their young, and the young set out on their own all by themselves. They don't need somebody going out there showing them how, checking on them, teaching them how. By contrast, I've seen some people that don't have enough sense to come in out of the rain and have to be taken care of with all of their needs. And Steve, I just find this to be tremendous. God created this world where the animals know what they're supposed to do, but many people that are supposed to be wise don't.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

And you've just depicted that God has put all of these things within the animals themselves of how to do it. We call it nature, we call it something that happens naturally, but it's really by the design of God in order to procreate and keep the species going. And of course, we have the different economies of the animals that some are carnivore, some are omnivore, and they eat plants. God has provided all of these things so that they can sustain itself. Again, it's just something that speaks of a design. It doesn't speak of something that just happens naturally without any type of thought behind it.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

God has indeed set up and is running a wonderful, fantastic world. Let's keep reading. I'm starting in verse nine. He's going to talk about wild bulls now. Will the wild bull be willing to serve you? Or will he spend the night at your feeding trough? Can you tie down the wild bull in a furrow and with ropes? Or will he plow the valleys after you? Will you trust him because of his strength is great and leave your labor to him? Will you have faith in him that he will return your grain and gather it from your threshing floor? The wings of the ostrich flap joyously with the pinion and feathers of love, for she abandons her eggs to the earth and warms them in the dust, and she forgets that a foot may crush them, or that a wild animal may trample them. She treats her young cruelly as if they were not hers. Though her labor is for nothing, she is unconcerned, because God has made her forget wisdom and has not given her a share of understanding. When she rushes away on high, she laughs at the horse and his rider. So in this section, it first talks about wild bulls. They're very large animals, very strong animals, and they can usually do whatever they decide they want to do simply because they're so large and so strong, not much can stop them, especially the wild ones have a mind of their own. So trying to get a wild bull or a wild ox to plow a straight furrow is a fool's errand. But God says he can lead them around like a pet. God is in control of all of these animals. Then he moves into talking about ostriches. An ostrich will lay eggs and not worry about whether they're going to be damaged by the other ostriches. They are quite careful in building the place where they lay the eggs and where the legs will lay out very level. In warm climates, the ostrich doesn't have to sit on the eggs to incubate them. So the ostrich can wander around and make sure the eggs are still being taken care of. They'll lay eggs in a common nesting ground and sometimes come back to eggs that are not theirs. That's what it's talking about here. The ostrich seems to come back and forget where she laid her eggs, go sit on others, and abandon the first ones. So God created these wild animals to prosper, even though they have no wisdom like humans do. I find it interesting that many biologists have studied ostriches and written books about how ostriches operate, but no ostrich has ever written a PhD dissertation about the mating and nesting habits of human beings. God created ostriches to survive pretty well, even though they do not have any wisdom. It seems like we are always the ones studying them and not the other way around. Job couldn't answer his friends about how creation works, let alone create a better system. That's why I find it almost laughable that the atheist and the skeptic would question God or deny his design for his universe. He set things up to where it prospers pretty

Horses, Hawks, And Designed Instincts

SPEAKER_00 13:03

well. Steve, can you start at verse 19 and read down through verse 25? This next passage talks about the grand beauty of horses. Do you give the horse his might?

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Do you clothe his neck with a mane? Do you make him leap like locusts? His majestic snorting is frightening. He paws in the valley and rejoices in his strength. He goes out to meet the battle. He laughs at fear and is not dismayed. And he does not turn back from the sword. The quiver rattles against him, the flashing spear and javelin. He races over the ground with a roar and fury, and he does not stand still when he hears the sound of the trumpet. As often as the trumpet sounds, he says, and he senses the battle from afar and the thunder of the captains and the war cry.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Of course, this is great poetry about this majestic animal, the horse. You can see the colors and you can almost feel the wind in the horse's mane. It's great literature. And he talks about this very strong, very noble animal. Steve, who gave strength to the animals?

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Well, that's what he's talking about. And he's asking Job rhetorically, are you the one that has taken this animal, the horse, and made him in such a way that you can tame him and that he will operate in times of peril, that he will go with the human wants him to go into battle and not fear and go straight into it, even though the opposing enemy has swords or javelins. So he is giving a different picture. He just comes off of the ostrich, like you were talking about, that even though it doesn't have some understanding, the chicks are still hatched into this horse that has no fear and can operate and be beneficial to man in a time of war or a time of battle. So he's going through, in my opinion, Glenn, and showing the diversity that he has done in creating all these different animals and how they procreate, how they are able to operate on their own in various ways. It's something to me that shows a design behind it. It's not something that shows to me that it's just happened naturally. Because if we want to believe that it just happened naturally, then you would take the logical conclusion that the best way everything would migrate to a single way to procreate and to raise its offspring. Why? Because it's the best way to do it. That's not what we see, though, in nature. We see all this diversity that God is calling out here to Job.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

This passage paints this grand picture of horses, but it also makes it very clear that in those days, horses were war animals. Farm work was done by oxen. If people rode anything, it was a donkey. Horses were for battle. That's why it talks here about the quiver of the arrows, the spear, the war tools here are all in the context of this horse, whereas the plowing was done earlier in the chapter by the oxen. That's why the Lord told Israel not to multiply horses over in Deuteronomy 17. Horses were for war. And the Lord wanted Israel to trust him for their defense, not their own strength. So these horses are beautiful, magnificent, strong animals, and God made the horse the way it is: its strength, its beauty, its intelligence, and its speed. In this next section, God continues to paint a picture of his majesty. Steve, can you start at verse 26 and read down to verse 30?

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars, stretching his wings toward the south? Is it at your command that the eagle flies high and makes his nest on high? He dwells and spends his nights on the cliff, on the rocky cliff, inaccessible place. From there he tracks food. His eyes look at it from afar. His young ones also lick up blood greedily, and where the slain are, there he is.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

In this section, he talks about hawks and eagles. And these are magnificent birds that are designed very well. If you study anything about birds, you'll understand that their entire design with the hollow bones and the shape of the wings. And in this case, he talks about the eyes of the hawk. Do you realize that a hawk has such great eyesight that it can see something the size of a mouse from the top of a mountain? And it has a very wide 280-degree field of view. So it can see all of these tiny little animals from flying way up high. An eagle has such power and great eyesight that it can see a fish just underneath the surface of the water and swoop down and grab the fish. God has endowed these animals with tremendous and amazing skills. The Lord is asking Job, if you think you're so smart, describe a better way for these birds to be designed. If you think you're so good, how could I have done it better? Explain to me, or better yet, you go make one that works better than this. Without God, we have this absurd idea that the exquisite design of nature is purely undirected and purposeless. This to me, Steve, is just one of the great proofs for the existence of God is the design in nature.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Last session we talked about things being simple yet complex, and the eye, in that example of the eagle that comes down and plucks the fish out of the water, there's refraction in the water. So whenever somebody is looking at a fish, the fish is not actually where it appears to be. Ones who do spear fishing know this. You have to actually aim somewhere else and take into account the refraction. Yet the eagle and other birds who live off of fish, they are able to account for the refraction. And again, it just does what you just talked about. It shows that God has put into the place of these animals the ability to do this, what we call naturally, but it's the design of how they are to operate.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

That brings us to chapter 40. God's tone is not going to let up. If the Lord sounds a little harsh here, we have to remember Job's tone earlier in the book. Job had been saying that God was the cause of his suffering. He was going to knock on God's door and give God an earful and explain to him how God was not running his universe correctly. Job had accused God of not caring about him. He'd accused God of being unjust. Therefore, here when God shows up, he said, Okay, now's your chance. If I'm unjust or if I haven't run things correctly, you explain to me how these things should run. Therefore, God has been quite stern with Job. Job is now realizing how powerful and wise and immense that God is.

Job Puts His Hand On His Mouth

SPEAKER_00 20:16

We have a brief statement here at the beginning of chapter 40 where Job responds to God. Steve, can you read the first five verses of Job chapter 40?

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Then the Lord said to Job, Will the fault finder contend with the Almighty? Let him who rebukes God give an answer. Then Job answered the Lord and said, Behold, I am insignificant. What can I say in response to you? I put my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once and I will not reply, or twice, and I will add nothing more.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

So, Steve, when Job has his chance to speak, what does he say?

SPEAKER_01 20:55

He doesn't miss the opportunity to keep his mouth shut. He covers his mouth, he says, There is no response that I can give to everything that you've just said.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

And that's really the way any of us would respond as well. We may question, God, why are you doing these things? But when we think we can correct him, when we think we're going to ask him some hard questions, when he finally shows up, he's so overwhelming. And again, he has asked some quite difficult questions that we just cannot answer. We cannot correct God. We can wonder why he does things. We can ask for an explanation, but we cannot judge him and we cannot find fault with what he does. He says that here at the beginning, will the fault finder contend with the Almighty? So you're finding fault. You're really gonna think you're going to argue back with me. You're sadly mistaken. But God's not finished. Here I'm starting in verse six. Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind and said, Now tighten the Belt on your waist like a man, I will ask you and you instruct me. Will you really nullify my judgment? Will you condemn me so that you may be justified? Or do you have an arm like God? And can you thunder with a voice like his? Adorn yourself with pride and dignity and clothe yourself with honor and majesty. Let out your outburst of anger and look at everyone who is arrogant and humble him. Look at everyone who is arrogant and humble him, and trample down the wicked where they stand, hide them together in the dust, imprison them in the hidden place. Then I will also confess to you that your own right hand can save you. Steve, what is he saying in this passage?

SPEAKER_01 22:41

He says the same thing that he said before to Job, tighten your belt on your waist like a man. In other words, buckle up buttercup. I'm fixing to ask you some tough questions here, and I want you to respond. And he says, Well, in verse 8, will you nullify my judgment? Will you condemn me so that you may be justified? Though remember back in Job in the latter parts of his last answer and reply to his friends, he was a little bit prideful of talking about how well he was thought of in the village and how he was the king over his family and the things that he had. And we talked about it in that session that Job was a little bit prideful. And then the next chapter, he talks about now that his condition was one of boils and lost everything, that the people in the village derided him and didn't think of anything of him. And we saw really that kind of prideful side of Job that he wasn't respected like he once was before. And God, I think, here is coming back and bringing that back up to mind to Job of what he talked about when he says, Will you condemn me so that you may be justified? It's a direct question back to Job, and it's one that really strikes to the heart of Job's pride.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

If you remember when we were going through these passages, one of the themes that came up was the problem of evil. Job was questioning God, why aren't you dealing with evil? Well, here in verse 12, God turns that same question around to Job, and he says, Well, Job, look at everyone who's arrogant and humble him and trample down the wicked where they stand. If you think the wicked need to be dealt with, you go do it. So God here is turning Job's demands back on him. The things that Job was accusing God of, God turns around and says, You can't do it either. So why do you think you're questioning me? You think you're gonna find fault with me. The Lord is saying to him, in effect, if you think it would be better at correcting the wicked, then you step up like a man and you do it. It's easy for us to sit here and question how God runs his universe. It's something else entirely to try to come up with a better system. In the next section, God returns to reminding Job about the design in creation.

Behemoth And A Final Humbling

SPEAKER_00 25:02

Steve, can you read from verses 15 down to 24?

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Behold behemoth, which I made as well as you. He eats grass like an ox. Behold, his strength in his waist and his power in the muscles of his belly. He hangs his tail like a cedar, the tendons of his thighs are knit together, his bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs are like bars of iron. He is the first of the ways of God, let his maker bring his sword near. Indeed, the mountains bring him food, and all the animals of the field play there. He lies down under the lotus plants in the hiding place of the reeds and the marsh. The lotus plants cover him with shade, the willows of the brook surround him. If a river rages, he is not alarmed. He is confident, though, the Jordan rushes to his mouth. Can anyone capture him when he is on watch? Can anyone pierce his nose with barbs?

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Up to now, in this section, in this speech that God is giving, we've known exactly what the animals were. God was very clearly speaking about known animals. He talked about eagles and hawks and ostriches and things like that. Here, the translators really don't know exactly which animal this is. They use the word behemoth. It's not really identified. Some Bible teachers say this is a poetic use of just a generic animal, while others suggest that the animals, such as a hippopotamus, or a buffalo, or even dinosaurs, have been suggested. Egyptian carvings often included the hippopotamus, and that might be one of the closest ones that fit the description. The animals mentioned thus far, again, are known. So either here it is a known animal, and the term just got lost by uh the translators over the years, or he has begun to speak in a poetic manner. And we're going to see more of that in the next chapter. The main point here is not really which animal this is. The point here is that Job can't go up against the fierce animals, and he should be a little more humble. God can lead these uh animals around like they have a ring in their nose, whereas Job can't even really tame them, get them to do work for him, let alone design something even better. That's the point. God is saying, these large animals, these fierce ones, who do you think you are questioning me? I've created them, I can get them to do what I want. God is then making Job aware that Job has a pride problem. Job can't control these fierce animals, let alone explain how they ought to be doing it better. God is reminding Job that he has a pride problem. We should stop here because of time. We're gonna pick up again next time as we continue to reason through the book of Job. Thank you so much for watching and listening.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

May God bless you.