00:00:00:26 – 00:00:17:50
Clint Loveall
Hey friends, thanks for being with us. Thanks for listening as we continue through our book of job, here we are in the 40th chapter. God has made an appearance. God has begun speaking a pretty wide ranging.

00:00:17:55 – 00:00:39:57
Clint Loveall
Challenge to job listing the many accomplishments of God and and essentially pointing out that job won’t be able to answer most of God’s questions, though he wants God to answer his. And we continue along that theme in chapter 40.

00:00:40:02 – 00:01:04:14
Clint Loveall
The Lord said to job, shall a fault finder contend with the Almighty. Anyone who argues with God must respond, and then we get jobs response. Now, ultimately, job will make a more full response later, but here we just get a few words. Job, answered the Lord. See, I am of small account. What shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth.

00:01:04:19 – 00:01:26:31
Clint Loveall
I’ve spoken once, and I will not answer twice, but will proceed no further. Now, again, this isn’t the last word from job, but it is job saying in a sense I don’t have anything. I can’t respond to that. I don’t know where the snow goes. I don’t know where the rain comes from. I don’t know when things give birth or when the season of that is.

00:01:26:31 – 00:01:52:12
Clint Loveall
I’ve not been to the storehouses of hail and all of these things that God has said. And job says, I, I, I, I can’t speak to that of how could I answer? And you might think, okay, well, we’re done. But God has more to say, and so God’s going to move on from there.

00:01:52:21 – 00:02:31:50
Michael Gewecke
We said this yesterday, but just to make sure that, you know, we’re all caught up on the same page, that’s a important part of the road that’s been leading us here, I think, in that tire set of machine gun questions that came from God. You have implicit in it this idea that job needs to recognize the gap between the complaint that he has to bring to God and his status as creature, with the limited information that comes with that, and a more simple way of saying, that is, God who made everything and holds everything in his hand, sustains everything God knows.

00:02:31:50 – 00:03:00:04
Michael Gewecke
And if job is going to give an account, okay, job, then you tell me, how much do you know? If you want to have a conversation on what foundation is your opinion and your thoughts and your accusations about the divine will and the divine choice? And ultimately, I just think this is a very succinct way of saying when asked the question that way, creature says to creator, yeah, I’ve got nothing to say.

00:03:00:12 – 00:03:11:26
Michael Gewecke
There’s no response that I can give to that. That is the steamrolling that we talked about. It’s just there’s not much argument to be had here with God who set up this argument from the whirlwind.

00:03:11:28 – 00:03:37:45
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And we can return to this later after we’ve gone through more of this at the end of the book. But there is a dis satisfaction in that. If we hoped for an answer, if we hoped for, you know, God explaining himself to job, if we if we thought this book was going to provide some mystical kind of insight along those lines, I think this book is going to leave you disappointed.

00:03:37:50 – 00:03:46:26
Clint Loveall
There is also a sense in which scholars and interpreters point out that.

00:03:46:31 – 00:04:10:33
Clint Loveall
There there is a difference. Is there a difference? I guess we could say philosophically between the idea that God answers job and the idea that God silences job, and I, you know, there’s a little bit of a spectrum there in terms of what you think this book is trying to do. Which of those you might think that ultimately the speeches of God bring about.

00:04:10:33 – 00:04:31:04
Clint Loveall
But there is a nuance and again, we can return to that. But let’s jump back into the text here, verse six. We’ve heard this before. The Lord answered job out of the whirlwind, geared up your loins like a man. I will question you, you declare to me. And then a very interesting verse will you even put me in the wrong?

00:04:31:09 – 00:04:45:40
Clint Loveall
Will you condemn me that you might be justified? And then he goes on to challenge him, have you and arm like God, deck yourself with majesty, dignity.

00:04:45:45 – 00:05:08:40
Clint Loveall
About 4 or 5 verses. And then verse 14, then I will also acknowledge to you that your own right hand can give you victory. In other words, job, when you can do what I do, then you will have this conversation. Then. Then I can call you, right, then we can talk. And what comes next, Michael is God has gotten a lot of attention through the years.

00:05:08:43 – 00:05:38:02
Clint Loveall
It seems very odd to us. We see God appealing to two creatures, possibly even mythical creatures, certainly fantastical creatures, one called or named behemoth and the other called Leviathan. One of the earth, one of the water, possibly the air.

00:05:38:07 – 00:06:17:16
Clint Loveall
What you do with these is interesting. Are they real? Do you try to identify them? Some people have guessed. Hippopotamus, rhinoceros, elephants, something along those lines. Others looking at Leviathan have thought squid, whale. Something of the depth that depths that people are afraid of. I don’t know how deeply we need to get into those conversations in in some extreme interpretations, you even hear people talk about perhaps these being representative of dinosaurs or something like that.

00:06:17:19 – 00:06:44:07
Clint Loveall
I think to get into what these animals are is a little bit distracting. I mean, people can do that. There’s a lot of that out there. If that interests you, you can certainly dig into it. I think realistically, the answer is we’re not exactly sure. What they do represent is the height of the created world that humans are afraid of.

00:06:44:09 – 00:07:19:21
Clint Loveall
They represent the most out of control, the most untamable, the most wild and scary things. There’s a line here, I think, in regard to the Leviathan that says, yeah, I mean, verse nine of chapter 41, Michael, any hope of capturing it was will be disappointed. We’re not even the gods overwhelmed at the sight of it. So that’s not obviously a literal.

00:07:19:26 – 00:07:49:33
Clint Loveall
Inference that there are other gods. It’s just this language is over the top, these creatures are over the top, and the idea is the scariest things that humans can imagine with no hope of taming. God controls. God has power over. And you know, it’s interesting how again, mysteries in the Bible, Michael. People are people are fascinated by them.

00:07:49:33 – 00:07:55:55
Clint Loveall
And certainly these these two animals, kind of they fit that definition, I think.

00:07:56:00 – 00:08:21:40
Michael Gewecke
So we’ve had this many times when studying the Old Testament. I think that this is a classic example here in job is the the moment where you will have a chapter or in this case chapter and a half, two chapters where you have something that is fantastical, something that is striking. What you’ll see is that we’ll be particularly interested in that section.

00:08:21:45 – 00:08:39:14
Michael Gewecke
It’s just this tiny little mountaintop in the text, and we end up saying the same version of the same thing each and every time we have a moment like this. If this is the only study that you tune into, if you find us because you’re interested in these creatures, that’s great. And we’re really glad that you’re here. But I want to be clear.

00:08:39:14 – 00:09:07:40
Michael Gewecke
You have to understand that this is in a larger text for a larger purpose, that this is accomplishing something. And it strikes me when you get to verse 34 of chapter 41, it the Leviathan surveys everything that is lofty. It is king over all that are proud. Now, I just want you to think about all of these dialogs that we’ve had between Jobe and these friends.

00:09:07:43 – 00:09:37:02
Michael Gewecke
Elihu. Right. And then when God shows up and God brings all of the force and might of creation and says, hey, job, you earthly creature, can you actually spar with me, the creator of all this? And then at the end of the section on these fantastical that are beyond human control or beyond even the gods ability to control, as we had named, then we have very clear it is surveying all that’s lofty.

00:09:37:04 – 00:10:06:48
Michael Gewecke
It’s king over all other problem. It’s not said hey, job, you’re proud. But the implication is that even these things that are not God himself, job is under, job is subservient to. And the reality of human finiteness, the reality that as humans, we don’t get to call the shots. We can look at the universe and we can point out the ways in which it doesn’t seem to land on us.

00:10:06:48 – 00:10:30:36
Michael Gewecke
Fair. But when this argument is really fleshed out, I think what is so dissatisfying is also the point being made that this is above your pay grade, that this is something that is easy to talk about and impossible for you to actually do. And when you list these creatures, it would be fun to take that whole alley and to see where it takes you.

00:10:30:36 – 00:10:56:40
Michael Gewecke
But the point that’s being made in job, I think, is actually far less interesting to us, because it’s pushing back against the very thing that we would like to hear, which is, yes, we’re capable. We can have the conversation, we can learn more, we can we can press our argument with the adversary, as Joe has said before. But the point being made here is, hey, listen, Joe, that’s not in your wheelhouse and that’s not available to you.

00:10:56:45 – 00:11:29:16
Clint Loveall
I don’t know if this is entirely fair, but there is, I think, a sense in which God is saying, look, job, look at this creature, the behemoth. Are you going to stand up to it? Are you going to tame it? Are you going to stop it when it decides to do whatever it wants to do? And then even more so, the Leviathan that, as you read the description, has beams of light that come from its eyes and breathes fire and has impenetrable skin and and makes even the gods afraid.

00:11:29:21 – 00:11:53:52
Clint Loveall
Verse 25 of chapter 41, there’s a sense in which God is saying, are you going to stand before that? Because if you can’t even do that, which, by the way, you have a chance of doing, then how are you going to call me to account? How are you going to sit and complain about me? How are you going to level charges about me?

00:11:54:04 – 00:12:29:40
Clint Loveall
You can’t stand with the most powerful things of the created world. How much less could you stand in confidence and arrogance before the creator of those things that you’re frightened of and and pitiful in comparison to? I think there’s just a it’s just a scale here. And I think the function of these creatures is to remind job and the reader again, we saw it just we saw it done in one approach early.

00:12:29:40 – 00:12:48:04
Clint Loveall
And then in these next chapters of God’s speech, we see it done specifically through these two almost mythical kind of of, of beasts of, but again of the created order. And if you can’t do that job, what chance do you think you have with me?

00:12:48:09 – 00:13:37:24
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, I think what’s fascinating about this now extended section, Clint, which I think comes at a very similar argument from a variety of different perspectives, is that Joe is getting the full weight of God’s power and providence and sovereignty, the gods largeness, as you’ve said, in contradistinction to jobs smallness. What is interesting, though, is, as we continue on with the argument in job, what you would expect is for God to bring down the hammer on job is for God to call out job and to say, in light of all of this, not only what you’ve said is foolish, but it’s sinful, and you stand in error, that you stand in need, that that you have

00:13:37:24 – 00:13:59:00
Michael Gewecke
failed. And you know, I’m not going to skip ahead, but I think you’re going to be surprised. I think it’s a surprising end of this line of questioning, because when God addresses job, there’s not a real room for response. This isn’t a dialog. This isn’t like slowing down to give job an opportunity to get in the word that wise.

00:13:59:00 – 00:14:35:04
Michael Gewecke
When God starts speaking, say for a couple English sentences that we have in our translation job doesn’t have voice. It’s just God continuing on what this and this and this and this and and yet we see that I think the heart and tone of what God’s going to say later is going to help us understand and shape this, that there’s a correct right order to the human life, that knowing our place, that knowing that we don’t stand before the Leviathan, knowing that the behemoth is not a thing like our cattle, that we can hem in and control.

00:14:35:07 – 00:14:55:14
Michael Gewecke
Like the this idea that there’s a wildness outside of our control is, I think, part of the point. It’s the inherent reality to say that we can have opinions about what happens in our lives, but we are not the kinds of creatures that can have our hand on the controller of our lives and control all of those outcomes.

00:14:55:14 – 00:15:23:31
Michael Gewecke
And when we get ourselves in the wrong position and desire that, we are inevitably going to find ourselves soul crushed because our backs weren’t made for all of the anxieties, for all of the fears, or all of this stuff of the world. We weren’t made to hold it all. And I hear this argument in a way, very forcefully and very powerfully disabused job of the idea that he could.

00:15:23:36 – 00:15:46:33
Clint Loveall
Yeah, this is I think this is a likely a shallow example. And that and I apologize for it. But those moments when you’re a child and your parent gives you an answer that you didn’t like yet. Yes, you have to do that or no, you can’t do that. And you begin to push back with, why explain it to me.

00:15:46:38 – 00:16:12:45
Clint Loveall
And the most frustrating answer of my childhood was because I’m your mother. Yeah, because I’m the adult, right? And and as a child, you then think, well, when I’m a parent, I’m going to explode everything. I’m going to make sure it makes sense to my children, only to later learn they’re not capable of comprehending what goes into those decisions.

00:16:12:45 – 00:16:42:45
Clint Loveall
And so you find yourself in that horrible moment uttering the same thing you heard a million times. Because I said so, because I’m the parent. And there is there is a recognition here of that. The imbalance job wants to stand before God toe to toe, and God is reminding job. That’s not how it works. Having said that, as we move into jobs response.

00:16:42:50 – 00:17:25:19
Clint Loveall
Jobs questions are not gone. Jobs problems are not gone. The issues if if the book ended here, if that was the last word, okay, it might be unsatisfying, but it would be interesting. But there is a little bit still to come and how one hears or what one thinks job means by his response is a difficult question, and a pivotal question in the sense of wrapping up this book.

00:17:25:19 – 00:17:43:36
Clint Loveall
So I hope you’ll be able to be back with us, because this is, to some extent, this is the culmination we’ve been building toward. I’m not going to promise you that it’s a satisfying ending, but I do think it’s the ending the book has been leading us to.

00:17:43:40 – 00:18:04:14
Michael Gewecke
If one is looking for an ending that resolves, yeah, then one is going to be disappointed. But I want to be clear. I think one of the things that makes job so interesting to study, and we’ve seen this over and over again, Clint is job is adept as a book at not just teaching through what it says, but also through what it lasts.

00:18:04:16 – 00:18:22:26
Michael Gewecke
It leaves unsaid, and job often has something to teach us because of the form that it takes, not not just the content inherent within that form. There’s a lot more to come. Hope you’ll certainly like and subscribe so you don’t miss studies like this one. Make sure that you don’t miss us as we continue on tomorrow. Until then, be blessed.

00:18:22:28 – 00:18:23:02
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.