Job 38:3

Calamity had not broken him. Insult and scorn could not subdue his proud spirit. He would hold his head up without fear before the best of his fellow men. Even in the presence of the Almighty he would stand up as a prince. What could a man say after that? That surely was the climax, the limit, and Job felt it so to be, for he added, "The words of Job are ended." But they were not. The Almighty took up his challenge. He had heard all his proud words and now He answers him and demands that Job should open his mouth again.

If he had longed wistfully to find God, Jehovah does answer him... He had asked God, challenging Him to such a meeting. God replies: "Gird up now your loins like a man." It is not now, "What is mortal man?" as Job had said... He used the word "man" in the sense of mortality or weakness. But God uses a very different word: "Gird up now your loins like a hero," for that is pretty much the force of the word. It means a strong man. He had challenged God to this judicial trial, and he was now heard.

"Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth." This is the first thing... Our state comes first, and there is no divine activity until the heart is perfectly in order. The loins are the seat of strength when they are properly tied up. But they stand for the deep affections and movements of the heart. This picture comes from the customs of the country where these instructions were given. People there wore long garments, which got in the way of their work unless they tied them up. We get the expression in Job 38:3 — "Gird up now your loins like a man" — that is, to see what he had to say to God.

And Jehovah does answer out of the storm. He challenges Job to gird up his loins as a hero: let the creature then make the Creator know, seeing that He now asks questions of him! What a proud thing the flesh is, and no better in the saint than in the sinner! Would Job also set aside the moral dealings of Jehovah? Worse still, would he condemn Him so as to justify himself? Grace produces the exact opposite in every soul born of God. It makes a person ready to take God's part against self, to judge his own ways, and to bow to the word.

And yet Jehovah is not seeking to crush Job, but rather to bring him to a true knowledge of himself and of God. Let him gird up his loins like a man. God will not ask questions which a man cannot understand. His loins are girded with truth, and he can answer — as indeed he does — these questions. The very fact that Jehovah addresses Job this way shows His purposes of mercy for him. His appeal is to reason, and so to conscience.

God expects Job to take only a man's place. The questions God asks are simple enough for a man to understand. Yet Job would find himself helpless to answer them.