Job 38:4-Job 40:2 - Yahweh Interrogates Job

⁴ Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. ⁵ Who determined its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? ⁶ On what were its foundations set and who laid its cornerstone? ⁷ while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

⁸ Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb? ⁹ When I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, ¹⁰ when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, ¹¹ when I said: 'This far you may come and no farther'; here is where your proud waves halt?

¹² Have you ever commanded the morning, or shown the dawn its place? ¹³ It might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it? ¹⁴ The earth takes shape like clay under a seal. Its features stand out like those of a garment. ¹⁵ The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken.

¹⁶ Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? ¹⁷ Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death? ¹⁸ Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.

¹⁹ Where is the way to the dwelling of light? And where does darkness reside? ²⁰ Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings? ²¹ Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years! ²² Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail? ²³ These I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle. ²⁴ What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?

²⁵ Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm? ²⁶ Who waters a land where no man lives, a desert with no one in it? ²⁷ Who satisfies a desolate wasteland to make it sprout with grass? ²⁸ Does the rain have a father? Who has begotten the drops of dew? ²⁹ From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens ³⁰ when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen?

³¹ Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades? Can you loose the cords of Orion? ³² Can you bring forth the constellations of the zodiac in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs? (Mazzaroth Constellation) ³³ Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set their dominion over the earth? ³⁴ Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? ³⁵ Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you: Here we are?

³⁶ Who endowed the innermost being with wisdom or gave understanding to the mind? ³⁷ Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens? ³⁸ This when the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together?

³⁹ Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions ⁴⁰ when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket? ⁴¹ Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?

¹ Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the deer? ² Can you number the months that they fulfill, and do you know the time when they give birth, ³ when they crouch to give birth to their offspring, and are delivered of their young? ⁴ Their young ones become strong, they grow up in the open; they go forth, and do not return to them.

⁵ Who has let the wild donkey go free? Who has loosed the bonds of the swift donkey? ⁶ Whose home I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwelling? ⁷ He scorns the tumult of the city. He does not heed the shouts of the driver. ⁸ The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searches after every green thing. ⁹ Will the wild ox be willing to serve you? Will he bed by your manger? ¹⁰ Can you bind the wild bull in the furrow with ropes? Or will he plow the valleys behind you? ¹¹ Will you rely on him for his great strength? Will you leave your heavy work to him? ¹² Can you trust him to bring in your grain and gather it to your threshing floor?

¹³ The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully, but they cannot compare with the pinions and feathers of the stork. ¹⁴ She lays her eggs on the ground and lets them warm in the sand. ¹⁵ She is unaware that a foot may crush them, that some wild animal may trample them. ¹⁶ She treats her young cruelly, as if they were not hers. Even if her labor is in vain, she is unconcerned. ¹⁷ This is because God has made her forget wisdom. He has not given her a share of understanding. ¹⁸ When she lifts herself on high, she laughs at the horse and his rider.

¹⁹ Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with a mane? ²⁰ Do you make him leap like the locust? His majestic snorting is terrible. ²¹ It paws in strength and finds joy in its power. It charges into battle. ²² It laughs at fear, is afraid of nothing, and does not back away from swords. ²³ A quiver of arrows rattles on it along with the flashing spear and javelin. ²⁴ Anxious and excited, the horse eats up the ground and does not trust the sound of the ram's horn. ²⁵ As often as the horn sounds, the horse says: Aha! And it smells the battle far away; the thundering orders of the captains and the battle cries.

²⁶ Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and spreads its wings toward the south? ²⁷ Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes its nest on high? ²⁸ It lives on the rock and makes its home in the fastness of the rocky crag. ²⁹ It spies the pray from there. Its eyes see it from far away. ³⁰ Its young ones suck up blood; and where the slain are, there it is.

¹ JEHOVAH SPEAKS TO JOB: ² Will the person who finds fault with the Almighty correct him? Will the person who argues with God answer him?