Job 38:9

"Or who shut in the sea with doors, when it burst out from the womb? When I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band." Well, it was a very bold child, this new creature that came into existence and would not be controlled! And so He speaks about covering it up and swaddling it. "And I marked out for it the limit I had decreed, and set bars and doors, and said, Thus far shall you come, and no farther; and here shall your proud waves be stayed" — for who can control the ocean?

Left to itself it would have covered everything. But its Maker was its Master, and He set bounds to it. He broke the land, as it were, into great mountain chains to make a place for the sea, barred and closed so nothing could escape. In His almighty hands its storms and fury are only the wailing of a newborn baby. He wraps it in the swaddling clothes of clouds and thick darkness, and hushes it to rest.

"Who shut in the sea with doors?" (v. 8). God is not speaking here of the original creation. He is speaking of His separating the waters above from the waters beneath (Gen. 1:6-7). At first the earth was covered with water. Then He separated the waters and the dry land appeared. As the Word of God caused the appearance of the land, so His Word caused the waters to be gathered "into one place" (Gen. 1:9).

God's first move is to overwhelm the man who claimed to sit in judgment on His moral ways. He makes Job feel his complete ignorance and powerlessness in the smallest works of divine power, even in creation. Where was Job when Jehovah founded the earth?… And where when He set limits to the sea? A man left baffled by such a question was in no position to judge God's deep things. Angels were there to shout for joy when the sea was born and wrapped in clouds and thick darkness. Its wild lawlessness fought to rise against God's restraint, but He set bars and doors.

It is the same with the ocean of evil — the pride of Satan that burst out in rebellion against God, when the angels did not keep their first place. God's restraining hand holds all in check. The wicked, like the foaming sea, seem to rise higher and higher in their violence and pride, but God says to them, "Thus far shall you come, and no farther." Job watched wickedness that seemed to be winning. He looked into the dark surging of his own self-willed heart. He might well have been appalled. Who but God can control evil?

Had they considered that He was the Creator of the universe, would they have felt a moment's alarm? Was it not He who, ages before, shut in the sea with doors and made clouds its garment? Was it not He who said, "Thus far shall you come, and no farther; and here shall your proud waves be stayed"? Would, or could, the sea swallow its own Lord and God?