Where Wast Thou?

"Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me."

"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"

"Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb? When I made the cloud the garment thereof… And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?"

"Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days…? Have the gates of death been opened unto thee?… Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow?… To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man… Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?… Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion?… Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto God."

Building the world

God describes creation as building a house: foundations, measurements, a line stretched, a cornerstone laid, with a song at the laying. Ancient temple-building texts describe similar ceremonies. The Babylonian Enuma Elish (above) also has the world built after the defeat of the sea, Tiamat; in Job the sea is not slain but swaddled like a newborn and given a boundary.

Rain where no one lives

38:26 is striking: God sends rain on the desert "where no man is." Creation is not centred on human use. The rest of the speech will show wild animals cared for by God alone.

The stars again

Kimah and Kesil (Pleiades and Orion?) return from 9:9, with Mazzaroth (constellations or a particular star group) and 'Ayish (the Bear?) "with her sons" (38:31–32). Babylonian astronomers mapped and named constellations in the same period; the Hebrew identifications remain uncertain.

Morning stars and sons of God

38:7 pairs "morning stars" with "sons of God" (bene elohim), the divine council of the prologue (1:6; 2:1). At creation the heavenly beings rejoice. The library's Greek reads "when the stars were made, all my angels praised me with a loud voice." The verse links the whirlwind speech to the court scene Job never saw, without telling Job what happened there.

Questions without accusation

God does not repeat the friends' charges. He does not say Job sinned and was punished. His rebuke is that Job "darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge": Job spoke about what he could not know. The answer moves Job from courtroom to cosmos.

No science claimed

Foundations, pillars, storehouses of snow and gates of death are the poetic cosmos of the ancient Near East. They are not meant as physics and should not be read as such, in either direction.