God's Here! Job 38-42

The beginning of chapter 38 caught my attention. Why? Well the Lord finally has a saying in all of this. I’m glad to have heard others’ opinions but it’s nice to see it from the actually “correct” point view. Correct in the sense that it is now God who can give us his opinion and finally speak up against Job and his complaints. I was actually kind of waiting for this moment you know, especially because it was weird to be reading the bible and not have God’s opinion on all of this. Also, he was being questioned and even challenged by these individuals and not having him speak up was starting to bother me.

So anyways, as the chapters tell, God finally answers Job’s complains, somehow trying to explain the reasoning behind it all. In my belief, it is all a matter of balances.It is not my intention to sound redundant, but I strongly believe that for every positive a negative comes in. that is, for every good thing we receive, a bad one come in the package too.

It is also clear how the appearance of God changes the entire mood of the story.

Obviously having a much higher role than Job himself, God speaks in an authoritarian tone, as if to intimidate others. “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?” Job 38.2. This is only the second line of the chapter, but I was able to perceive how the Lord is actually aware of all the talking that had been going on and is therefore questioning back at Job what his true motives were. As a matter of fact, he even challenges his knowledge, making me in particular wonder how much we can possibly know in comparison to this apparently unbeatable being.

But I would like to talk a little about the point of the chapter in general. After the dialogue between Job and God, it’s the Lord’s decision to “reward” Job after all the misfortunes he’s suffered, by doubling everything he used to have. However, I found it confusing. I’m not entirely sure why but how I look at it, God is practically fooling around with Job. Why is that so? It is confusing that he had caused all of that suffering to Job, even making him crack and curse, to in the end simply give it back. I understand it was all an essential part to our understanding of God’s ways, but I can’t help but to question the point of it all.