Job 38

Yahweh Challenges Job

38Then^a Yahweh answered Job from the storm, and he said,

²“Who is this darkening counsel

by words without knowledge?

³Prepare yourself for a difficult task like a man,^b

and I will question you, and you shall declare to me.

Yahweh Interrogates Job

⁴“Where were you at my laying the foundation of the earth?

Tell me, if you possess understanding.

⁵Who determined its measurement? Yes, you do know.

Or who stretched the measuring line upon it?

⁶On what were its bases sunk?

Or who laid its cornerstone,

⁷when the morning stars were singing together

and all the sons of God^c shouted for joy?

⁸“Or who shut the sea in with doors

at its bursting, when it went out of the womb,

⁹at my making the clouds its garment

and thick darkness its swaddling band,

¹⁰and I prescribed my rule for it,

and I set bars and doors,

¹¹and I said, ‘You shall come up to here, but^d you shall not go further,

and here it will set a boundary for your proud surging waves’?^e

¹²“Have you ever in your life^f commanded the morning?

Have you made the dawn know its place,

¹³to take hold of the earth’s skirts

so that^g the wicked might be shaken off from it?

¹⁴It is changed like clay under a seal,

and they appear like a garment.

¹⁵And their light is withheld from the wicked,

and their uplifted arm is broken.

¹⁶“Have you entered into the sea’s sources?

Or have you walked around in the recesses of the deep?

¹⁷Have the gates of death been revealed to you?

Or have you seen the gates of deep shadow?

¹⁸Have you considered closely the earth’s vast expanse?

Declare it, if you know all of it.

¹⁹“Where then^h is the way where the light dwells?

And where thenⁱ is its place,

²⁰that you may take it to its territory,

and that you might discern the paths to its home?

²¹You know, for you were born then,

and the number of your days is great.

²²Have you entered into the storehouses of the snow,

or^j have you seen the storehouses of the hail,

²³which I have reserved for the time of trouble,

for the day of battle and war?

²⁴Where then^k is the way where the light is distributed,

where he scatters the east wind upon the earth?

²⁵“Who has cut open a channel for the torrents

and a way for the thunder bolts,^l

²⁶to bring rain on a land where no one lives,^m

a desert where no humans live,ⁿ

²⁷to satisfy desert and wasteland,

and to cause the ground to put forth the rising of grass?

²⁸Is there a father for the rain,

or who fathered the drops of dew?

²⁹From whose womb did the ice come forth,

and who fathered the frost of heaven?

³⁰Like stone the waters become hard,

and the faces of the deep freeze.

³¹“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades,

or can you loosen the cords of Orion?

³²Can you lead forth the southern constellations at their appointed time,

or^o can you lead the Bear with its children?

³³Do you know heaven’s statutes,

or can you establish their rule on the earth?

³⁴Can you lift up your voice to the clouds

so that^p a flood of water may cover you?

³⁵Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go?

And will they say to you, ‘Here we are’?

³⁶Who has put wisdom in the ibis,^q

or who has given understanding to the rooster?^r

³⁷Who can number the clouds with wisdom?

Or^s who can tilt heaven’s jars,

³⁸at the flowing of the dust into a cast

and the clods cling together?

³⁹“Can you hunt prey for the lion?

And can you satisfy the hunger of strong lions

⁴⁰when they are crouched in the dens,

when they lie in the thicket in an ambush?

⁴¹Who prepares for the crow its prey,

when its young ones cry to God for help,

and they wander around for lack of food?^t