Job 38:12 - Meaning and Application

The Lord now asks Job many hard questions to show him how little he knows. In this way, God humbles Job for trying to tell God what to do. If we tested ourselves with questions like these, we would soon admit that what we know is small compared with what we do not know.

Job is challenged to explain six things. The first is the springs of the morning, the day-spring from on high (Job 38:12-15). Of all visible things, light is one of the most certain, yet also one of the hardest to describe. We are glad for the morning, but we did not make it, and it was long before us.

The morning was not brought in by us, or by any other human being. No one set the first place where the light should rise, shine, and appear. The regular cycle of day and night was never our plan. It shows God’s glory and his work, not ours (Psalm 19:1, Psalm 19:2).

We also cannot change that order. Job is asked, in effect, whether he has ever commanded the morning to come early, or moved the dawn to suit his own needs. Of course he has not. Then why should he think he can direct God’s plans, or expect Providence, God’s wise rule over life, to change for him?

God has fixed the dawn to visit the earth. Morning light spreads through the air quickly, just as clay takes the shape of a seal or stamp (Job 38:14). The earth seems to put on a new garment each morning, as light covers it like clothing.

This light is also a terror to evildoers. To most people, morning light is a comfort. It is pleasant to the eyes and useful for life and work, and it reaches the whole earth (Job 38:13). Yet God notes that those who do wrong hate the light because it exposes them. In this way, God uses light as a servant of both mercy and justice.

The morning is meant to shake the wicked out of the earth, like shaking dust and moths from a garment. Job had already observed that criminals fear daylight because it reveals them (Job 24:13 and following). God now points to that and asks whether Job deserves credit for it. The great Judge sends the rays of morning as messengers to uncover wrongdoers, so they may be exposed, brought to shame, and judged (Job 38:15). Their light is taken away, their strength is broken, and their power to do evil is ended.

Whether this picture of morning light was also meant to point ahead to the light of Christ’s gospel, I will not say. But it does remind us of the words spoken at the birth of Christ. Zechariah praised God because the day-spring from on high had visited us, to give light to those in darkness (Luke 1:78). Mary also praised God for scattering the proud and bringing down the mighty (Luke 1:51). In the gospel, God shows his strength by shining light that exposes evil and breaks its power.

The second thing Job is asked about is the springs of the sea (Job 38:16). Has he gone down to them, or walked through the depths? Does he know what lies at the bottom of the sea, or the treasures hidden in the sand? Can he explain where the sea’s waters come from? Vapors rise from the sea continually. Does he know how they are renewed? Rivers also flow into the sea all the time. Does he know how the sea keeps from overflowing the earth? Is he familiar with the hidden paths under the ground by which the waters move?

God’s rule over the world is said to be in the sea and the great waters (Psalm 77:19). That means his work there is hidden from us, and we are not meant to pry into it. The sea is a reminder that God governs much of creation in ways we cannot trace.

The third thing is the gates of death. Has Job seen them open to him? Death is a great mystery. We do not know in advance when, how, or by what means we or others will die. We do not know what sickness or accident will be the doorway into the place appointed for all living. Man does not know his time.

We also cannot explain what death itself is. We cannot fully say how the bond between body and soul is broken, or how the spirit of a person goes upward (Ecclesiastes 3:21). We are not sure what lies ahead, or how that unseen world is ordered. It is wise to make sure that the gates of heaven will be open to us on the other side of death. Then we need not fear the opening of death’s gates, though we pass through them only once.

We also have no contact with departed souls, and no real knowledge of their condition. They have gone to a hidden and undiscovered place. We cannot hear from them, and we cannot send to them. While we live in this world of the senses, we speak of the world of spirits as blind people speak of colors. When we reach that world ourselves, we will be amazed at how much we got wrong.

The fourth thing is the breadth of the earth (Job 38:18). Had Job understood that? This might seem easiest for him to answer, since he lives on the earth. God has given the earth to the children of men.

But who has ever surveyed the earth, or counted all its acres? Compared with the universe, it is only a tiny spot. Yet even this small world is hard for us to measure exactly. Job had never sailed around the world, and no one before him had done so. People knew so little about the earth’s breadth that only a few ages ago the great continent of America was discovered, after having been hidden from human knowledge since time beyond memory.

God’s greatness is longer than the earth and broader than the sea. So it is presumption for us, who cannot even measure the earth, to try to search out the depths of God’s purposes. The passage now turns to the place and path of light and darkness. Earlier, God had spoken of the dawn, and he returns to it again here. “Where is the way where light lives?” and again, “By what path is the light divided?” He is challenging Job to explain how light and darkness first began.

When God first spread darkness over the face of the deep, and then by his powerful word said, “Let there be light,” was Job there to see the order and the work? Can he tell where the sources of light and darkness are, or where those mighty powers keep their appointed places, while in one world they rule by turns? We may long for the sunrise or the evening shadows, but we do not know where to go to fetch them, or the paths to their home. We were not yet born, and our days are too few to describe the birth of that first part of creation, the light.

So should we try to speak about God’s eternal purposes, or find the path to their home in order to ask for changes? God takes honor in this, that he forms the light and creates the darkness. If we must accept both as they come, and not complain about either, then we must also learn to accept the peace and the trouble that God has made as well (Isaiah 45:7).

God also makes the coming and going of morning and evening to rejoice (Psalm 65:8). Their movement follows his order, not ours. We cannot even tell where they come from or where they go (Job 38:24). “By what way is the light divided?” In the morning, light suddenly spreads through every part of the air above the horizon, as if it were carried on the wings of an east wind. It drives away the darkness of night as the east wind scatters clouds. That is why Scripture speaks of the wings of the morning, because the light is carried to the farthest parts of the sea and spread over the earth (Psalm 139:9).

It is a wonderful change that passes over us every morning when the light returns, and every evening when darkness returns. Yet because we expect it, we are not startled or troubled by it. In the same way, if we learned to expect changes in our outward condition, we would not expect endless daylight in the brightest noon, or lose hope for morning in the darkest night. God has set one over against the other, like day and night, and we must learn to do the same (Ecclesiastes 7:14).

The passage then speaks of the treasures of the snow and hail (Job 38:22, 23). God asks, “Have you entered into these and examined them?” Snow and hail are formed in the clouds, and they come down in such abundance that it seems as if there were stored-up treasures above. In truth, they are made at the moment, suddenly, as needed, for the occasion.

At times they come just when God’s providence requires them, to help his people or to oppose their enemies. Then it seems as if they were kept in great storehouses, like supplies of arms, ammunition, and food, ready for the time of trouble, the day of battle and war. God may contend with the whole world, as he did in the flood, when the windows of heaven were opened and the waters were drawn from these treasures to drown a wicked world that was making war against heaven. Or he may fight against certain people or nations, as when he drew from these treasures great hailstones to fight for Israel against the Canaanites (Joshua 10:11).

How foolish it is to fight against God, since he is so well prepared for battle and war. How much better it is to make peace with him and keep ourselves in his love. God can fight just as effectively with snow and hail, if he chooses, as with thunder and lightning or with the sword of an angel.