Job 38:1

One more thing crowns Elihu's work: the incomparable favour Job had also, in a frantic way, begged for. He asked that a man rather than God might meet him; but he asked that he might find God too. And so he does. God appears. Jehovah Himself gives His answer from the whirlwind... this is the special value at the close of the book of Job: God does not wait until the day of judgment to decide where there is faith to look for Him. Only now it is His word, and in no way an appearance of God in visible form. Jehovah meets him here, when Elihu's word had done its work.

Here, then, we have Jehovah — notice that this name has not appeared after Job 2 (except in Job 12:9) in the historical part... He speaks according to His authority and His relationship. That is exactly what "Jehovah" means. It is God not merely in the abstract, but God in relation to man upon the earth. And so He answers Job. But He answers him here because it was a rebuke out of the whirlwind... And it is a terrible thing when God does not rebuke a soul upon the earth. What does it mean? It means judgment by and by for ever. Everyone God brings into living relationship with Himself has His interference.

The whirlwind had continued a long time, and is still blowing when the Lord speaks in these verses. The whirlwind itself was meant to impress on Job that all his swirling troubles and confusion stood under the Creator's controlling hand. "The LORD has His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet" (Nahum 1:3).

Wind is not visible; yet when it blows hard, men feel its pressure and hear its roar. As the whirlwind came near, its roar was the voice of Jehovah Himself. He spoke to Job alone.

Out of that whirlwind Jehovah replies to Job's empty questions and laments — not to Elihu, who had been God's spokesman leading up to this. So it was not Elihu who darkened counsel. "My desire is that the Almighty would answer me," was Job's closing word (Job 31:35). He is now to have his wish granted; but how different the effect! "As a prince would I go near to Him" (v. 37), he had declared. "I am vile" is what he has to say when he hears His voice. Jehovah asks, "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" To darken counsel is to hide the purposes of God and the truth. Job had poured out a flood of words — laments, protests, accusations. Much was true and excellent. But as far as God's purposes went, it was all spoiled by one thing: he exalted his own righteousness at the expense of Jehovah's.

The other very striking thing comes at the end. All the cloud of words had died away, and Jehovah answers Job out of the whirlwind. What will He say?... He didn't do it! Not one word of explanation of Himself did God utter. Not one word to answer the questions that Job had asked. His words were entirely concerned with the things of this earth and nature.

These moments in the presence of God produced a result that all the talk of the three friends, and even of Elihu, had not achieved. Here was a man who stood out among men, with a good word from God Himself. Now he had discovered his own utter sinfulness in the deepest springs of his being. A discovery we all in our turn have to make!