Bible Commentaries

The Theophany

Job 38:1).

It was a daring line even for an author to write. He proposed his own end, and by that end he shall be judged. He himself assigned the level of his thought, and we are at liberty to watch whether he keeps upon the level, or falls to some lower line. A wonderful thing to have injected God into any book! This is what is done in the Bible, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Whether he did so or not, some man said he did. That thought must be traced to its genesis. It is easy for us now, amid the familiarity of religious education, to talk of God doing this and that, and accomplishing great purposes, and consummating stupendous miracles. We were born into an atmosphere in which such suggestions and inquiries are native and familiar. There was a time when they had to be invented—or revealed. Notice that God is supposed to have taken part in the colloquy. Now Job will be satisfied. He has been crying out for God; he has been telling his friends again and again that if he could but see God everything would be rectified almost instantaneously. Job has been mourning like one forsaken, saying, Oh that I knew where I might find him! Oh that God would come to me, and prefer his accusation against me in his own person and language! Now the aspiration is answered: God is at the front. Let us see what comes of the conflict.

Still we may dwell upon the sweet and sacred thought that God is taking part in human controversies, inquiries, and studies of every depth and range. He is a friend at least who suggested that God has something to say to me when all time is night, when all sensation is pain. If we could be sure that One takes part in human conversation if only by way of cross-examination, it would be something to know; at any moment he might change his tone. It is everything to feel that he is in the conversation. Whatever point he may occupy, whatever line of reply he may adopt, to have him, who is the beginning and the ending, in the intercourse, is to have at least a possible opportunity of seeing new light, and feeling a new touch of power, and being brought into more vivid and sympathetic relations with things profound and eternal. Why do we edge the Almighty out of life by describing his supposed intervention as the suggestion of poetry? What is this poetry, supposed to be so mischievous? Is it any more mischievous than a sky? What crimes has it committed? What is the indictment against poetry? By "poetry" we are not to understand words that meet together in sound and rhyme, but the highest reason, the sublimest philosophy, the very blossom of reason. Men suppose that when they have designated a saying or a suggestion as poetical, they have put it out of court. It is not so. A fable may be the highest fact. In a romance you may find the soul of the truest history; there may not be p solitary literal incident in the whole, and yet the effect shall be atmospheric, a sense of having been in other centuries and in other lands, and learned many languages, and entered into masonry with things hither unfamiliar. Sometimes we must use wings. Poetry may be as the wings of reason. But how good the poetry is which suggests that God is a listener to human talk, and may become a party to human conversation, and may at least riddle the darkness of our confusion by the darts of his own inquiries. Here is a case in point. Does he ask little questions? Are they frivolous interrogations that he propounds? Is the inquiry worthy of his name, even though that name be poetical? Is every question here on a level with the highest thinking? Judge the Theophany as a whole, and then say how far we are at liberty to excuse ourselves from the applications of its argument on the trivial ground that it is but poetry.

Who can read all these questions without feeling that man came very late into the field of creation? No deference is paid to his venerableness. The Lord does not accost him as a thing of ancient time as compared with the creation of which he is a part. Everything was here before man came: the earth was founded, the stars shone, the seas rolled in their infinite channels; the Pleiades were sprinkled on the blue of heaven, and the band of Orion was a fact before poor Job was born. It would seem as if everything had been done that could have been done by way of preparation for him! He brought nothing with him into this creation, not even one little star, or one tiny flower, or one singing bird: the house was furnished in every chamber for the reception of this visitor. This is scientific according to the science of the passing time. Has any one invented a theory that man came first, and furnished his own house, allotted his own stars, and supplied the face of the earth with what ornamentation he required? Is there anything here inconsistent with the marvellous doctrine of evolution? Contrariwise, is not everything here indicative of germ, and progress, and unfolding, and preparation, as if at any moment the consummation might be effected and God's purpose revealed in the entirety of its pomp and beneficence? Man is here spoken of as having just come into the sphere of things, and not having yet had time to know where he Job 39:9-12). What art thou? Gird up thy loins now like a Job 40:3-4). A second address completes the work. It proves that a charge of injustice against God involves the consequence that the accuser is more competent than he to rule the universe. He should then be able to control, to punish, to reduce all creatures to order—but he cannot even subdue the monsters of the irrational creation. Baffled by leviathan and behemoth, how can he hold the reins of government, how contend with him who made and rules them all?—Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.

The Theophany.
II.

Job 38:31). Hark how he speaks of Pleiades as if the white sapphires were but a handful, and a child could use them! "Or loose the bands of Orion?" Answer me! "Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the the earth? Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee? Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are?" ( Job 38:32-35). These questions admit of some answer. Surely we should be able to give some reply to interrogatories of this kind. Then how man's power is mocked—"Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib?" Try him; reason with him; show thyself friendly to him: come, thou art learned in the tricks of persuasion and all the conjuring of rhetorical argument, try thy skill upon the unicorn—"canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee?" Make some use of him; make a domestic of him; make a slave of the unicorn: or trust him; put confidence in him; be magnanimous to the unicorn: "Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him?" Surely there is a mocking laugh running through all these particular inquiries,—not a laugh of bitter mockery, but of that taunt which has a gracious meaning, and by which alone God can sometimes call us to a realization of our strength which is in very deed our weakness. Then when all the questions are answered so far, God says, "Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?" Thou art very able and yet very feeble: come, let us see what thou canst do. Thou canst beat a dog,—conciliate a unicorn; thou canst slay an ox, and stand over him like a butcher-conqueror,—call the eagle back from heaven's gate; demand that he come; thou art a Job 13:22, Job said, in quite a round strong voice, indicative of energy and independence and self-complacency, "Then call thou, and I will answer: or let me speak, and answer thou me." That tone needed to be taken out of his voice. Oftentimes the musical teacher says to the pupil, Your voice must be altogether broken up, and you must start again in the formation of a voice; you think now your voice is good and strong and useful, but you are mistaken; the first thing I have to do with you is to take your voice away, then begin at the beginning and cultivate it into an appropriate expression. Job's voice was out of order when he said, "Call thou, and I will answer,"—or, if it please thee, I will adopt another policy—"let me speak, and answer thou me." Behold how complacent is Job! how willing to adopt any form of arbitration! how anxious to throw the responsibility upon another! He feels himself to be right, and therefore the other side may make its own arrangements and its own terms, and whatever they are he will boldly accept them! Every man must be answered in his own tone: "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." If your challenge is so bold and proud, God must meet you on the ground which you yourself have chosen. "Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said—" then comes the cataract of interrogation, the tempest of inquiry, in which Job seems to say, O spare me! for behold I am vile: what shall I answer thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth: once have I spoken, but I will not answer; yea, twice, but I will proceed no further: O thou God of the whirlwind, give me rest; let me have time to draw my breath! But, poor Job , thou didst say to God, "Call thou, and I will answer: or let me speak, and answer thou me:" where is now thy boast, thy pride, thy vain talking? Thus does God humble us in a thousand ways. We pull down our barns and build greater, and behold in the morning they are without roof and without foundation and none can say where the solid structure stood. We say, "Let us build a tower which shall reach even unto heaven"; and we build it very high, and in the morning when we come to finish it, lo, there is not one stone left upon another. There is a humbling ministry in creation. Nature is full of rebuke, and criticism, and judgment; or she is full of comfort and suggestion, and religiou rapsable and most tender benediction.

How apt we are to suppose that we could answer God if we only had the opportunity! Could we but see him; could we but have an interview with him; could we but speak to him face to face, how we should vindicate ourselves! There was a man who once sought to see God, and he turned and saw him, and fell down as one dead. Sudden revelation would blind us. Let us not tempt God too much to show himself. We know not what we ask. What is the great answer to our trial? The universe. What is the great commentary upon God? Providence. What is the least profitable occupation? Controversy. Thus much have we been taught by our reading in the Book of Job. Where Job had a spiritual revelation—a voice answering out of the whirlwind—we have had personal example. We do not hear God or see God in any direct way, but we see Jesus, the Son of God, the Son of man, who also knows all the secrets of nature, for he was before all things, and by him all things consist: the universe is his garment; behold, he is within the palpitating, the living soul. O mighty One! when thou dost come to us in our controversies and reasonings, plead not against us with thy great power, but begin at Moses, and the prophets, and the Psalm , and in all the Scriptures expound unto us the things concerning thyself; and we shall know who the speaker is by the warmth that glows in our thankful hearts.