Job 26
McGeeCHAPTERS 2631THEME: Job’s eighth answerThis is Job’s longest speech. It includes chapters 26 through 31. Job professes his faith in God his Creator, and we begin to see his real problem.
Job 26:1
“Bildad, you don’t have an answer for me. Zophar, you didn’t have the answer. Eliphaz, your answers didn’t help me. You all had a lot of talk but no answers.” They all have said many things that were good, but they were of no direct meaning nor did they communicate anything to Job, because none of them could answer the question of the why of Job’s suffering.
Job 26:4
“To whom hast thou uttered words?” You have finally come up with the right question, Bildad, but you have no answer; so who has been helped by all this talk? Now Job really launches into his discourse. In it he will lay his soul bare. He has a lot to say, and some of it is really great. He moves into the area of the Creation and God as the Creator.
Job 26:5
Much has been made of the fact that He “stretcheth out the north over the empty place.” Folk have attempted to point out that there is a void in the north, that there are no stars in a certain place in the north. In fact, it was called a “hole in the north.” However, since we have these very powerful telescopes, and especially the radio telescopes, we find that we cannot point a telescope in any direction in God’s universe without finding it filled with starsother universes. Job is saying that God reached out in space and covered itHe can cover the empty place. Also space is a creation of God. Here is one star which God has created. Billions and billions of light years over yonder is another star, and God has also created that one. What keeps them from rubbing together or banging into each other like cars do on our freeways today? Well, God put space between them. What is space? Maybe some people would answer, “Nothing.” Friend, it is something. I don’t know what it is, but it is something, and God created it to hold heavenly bodies apart. It is like a lubricant that He uses to keep the universes from banging into each other. Listen to the apostle Paul. “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present [that’s time], nor things to come [that’s future], Nor height, nor depth [that’s space], nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom_8:38-39). “Nor any other creature” is literally “nor any other created thing.” Space is one of God’s creations. Friend, that gives us something to turn over in our minds. What is space? It takes a long time to go to the moon. What is all this expanse between the earth and the moon? Don’t tell me it is nothing, because it is something. What is it? I don’t know; I’m no authority on that. I simply know that we call it space, God created it, and it is out there serving His purpose. He “hangeth the earth upon nothing.” Who in the world told Job that? Remember that Job lived back in the age of the patriarchs, and yet this man knew that this earth is hanging out in space. That God suspends the huge ball of earth in space with nothing to support it but His own fixed laws was a concept unknown to ancient astronomers. Job understood that He “hangeth the earth upon nothing.” There is no foundation under it. If it fell, what direction would it go? We talk about gravity, but that is a pulling down toward the center of the earth. When you get out far enough into space, there is nothing pulling on anything. So where is down and where is up? And what keeps it hanging there in space? We get an answer in Col_1:17: “And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” The word consist is the Greek sunistemi, meaning “to hold together.” By Christ it all is held together. We are moving now into a great section of the Book of Job. Job had a tremendous view of God as the Creator. Out there on the ash heap he was able to look at the stars at night, and he had spent time doing that in the past.
Job 26:13
God has garnished the heavens with stars. Probably the “crooked serpent” that Job mentions is a constellation out in the heavens. He is calling attention to the greatness of God as He is revealed in the heavens by His wonderful creation. We see that Job knew God as a Creator; Job understood Him as a Redeemer; but Job did not know God as a Sustainer and the One who loved him. He did not understand that God would not let anything happen to him unless it would minister to him.