Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’?
God answers Job out of the storm with a question about the lightning. The point is not weather but power: who gives the orders in this universe?
Why God Asks Instead of Explains
These questions sweep across the whole of nature, and Job could not answer one of them. They also have an aim:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinAnd then the rain clouds, the lightnings and their control. What questions these are. They cover every field of what man calls "natural sciences." That means geology, meteorology, geography, oceanography, astronomy, and more. Job had not a single answer to these questions, and if he had spoken, his words would have been folly... But what is the Lord's aim in putting these questions? To show that God is greater than man, and to humble man. It is to bring Job to the true knowledge of himself that he needs, and to free him from the pride of his heart.
The Test Anyone Can Try
Anyone can test this under a dark sky. The question about the lightning follows straight after the question about the clouds:
Leslie M. GrantHe had spoken of the rain in verses 25-28. Now He adds a question (v.34): could Job give orders to the clouds to drop their water when Job wanted it? We may see the clouds dark and heavy, and think at such a time that we could tell them to pour out their rain. But it may be that no rain falls at all. Lightning may trigger a rainfall, but who can send the lightning? (v.35).
Lightning Reports to Someone
The lightning does answer, "Here we are" — but not to Job. It answers to the One who made it. So does everything else God points to:
Truth & TestimonyGod speaks first about the lifeless things — the earth, sea, clouds, hail and rain. He shows three things about them. First, that He designed them; second, that He created them; and third, that He controls them. Consider the whole range of lifeless things that make up the world, and the whole range of living creatures. God commands them all... The lesson for Job was this. It was far too great for him to try to get to the bottom of things and look for explanations. God in His counsels and actions is altogether too big for us.
Great Things and Small
God does not only crush Job with the size of the universe. He also takes up the smallest things He has made:
William KellyIt is clear that God is here bringing to nothing all the proud talk of Job. But He does not stop at showing man's littleness by what is vast. He takes up what we might think are small things... So it matters little whether we look at the greatest works of God or at the least. Everywhere we meet what is completely beyond man's understanding... Job had even claimed to judge the depths of God morally. But he could not face what God is in the least part of His universe, and he had not the slightest idea of it.
What Knowing More Does Not Solve
We can now describe how lightning works. That was never the question. God asked who sends it:
Samuel RidoutOutward knowledge has advanced, and we have discovered great laws and principles of nature. But can the scientist of today give truer and more satisfying answers to these divine questions than Job could long ago? After all, what is human knowledge but a knowledge of our own ignorance, as Socrates said?... 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 of account, and the sum of all science is a blank wall, beyond which the truth still lies hidden.
Storm Before Shower
The storm is not the end of the story. Rain follows it, and Job's trial has the same shape:
Samuel RidoutBut storms and storm-clouds are only the prelude to the rain. Here too God is seen, bringing refreshing after the storm. So with Job: the showers will follow his chastening. Who knows how to divide, to distribute, these refreshing showers? Man would distribute them unevenly, or at the wrong time. God knows when and how to send the welcome relief.
Summary
- Command. The verse asks who gives orders to the lightning. God designed it, made it and controls it, and it answers "Here we are" to Him alone.
- Confession. God asks not to gain information but to humble Job — to bring him to a true knowledge of himself, out of the pride of his heart.
- Coverage. Job is beaten at both ends of the scale. He cannot handle the vast heavens, and he cannot handle the least thing God makes.
- Consequence. A man who cannot explain a rainstorm is in no position to sit in judgment on God's moral dealings with him.
- Comfort. The storm comes before the rain. God alone knows how and when to send the showers of relief.