Job 38:17

Now He goes down lower still. Sheol, or Hades, as we have it — that is, the place where departed spirits are kept — is pictured here as the heart of the earth, and it may in fact be so. It is not the same thing as the lake of fire. But here we have a prison for those who have died.

Had the gates of death been opened to him? (v.17). Of course the seas have swallowed countless millions of people, including those drowned in the flood of Noah's day. But apart from this, did Job understand where death had taken all those it had claimed through the years?

The first thing God does is to overwhelm him. This man claimed to sit in judgment on God's moral ways. So God fills him with a sense of his utter ignorance and helplessness before the least works of divine power, even in creation… A man whose understanding was baffled by such a question was in no position to judge God's deep things… Had the gates of death been revealed to him?

What is the aim of the Lord in putting these questions? To show that God is greater than man and to humble man, to bring Job to the needed true knowledge of himself and to deliver him from the pride of his heart.

Does he know the secret things — those "which belong to God"? The hidden depths of the sea with its countless dead; the gates of death and what lies beyond. Has Job searched this out?… Does modern science truly know it?… Jehovah addresses these questions not only to Job, whose knowledge was limited to his own time, but to people today.

What is the key to all these questions? It is God, the true knowledge of Himself. Knowing Him, we know the Author and Source of all knowledge. Leave Him out, and the sum of all science is a blank wall, with the hidden truth still lying beyond it.

Job had dared to sit in judgment on Jehovah and His ways. So God tests whether he is fit for it: what does he know? What can he do?… Job's two answers show the effect. In the first, he humbles himself and lays his hand on his mouth. In the second, he fully confesses his sinful pride and hates what he is. This prepares the way for his outward recovery and return to prosperity.

In no other way could the gates of death be opened for us than by His resurrection from the dead. He has opened them, and He holds their keys, as the One who lives forever. To all who put their faith in Him He says, "Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades" (Rev. 1:17-18). He is Master of death and the grave… He has flooded the darkness of death with the light of hope.