In chapter 7, and in other passages in the book such as 13: 3 ('I want to argue my case with him [God]') and 23: 3-5 ('How 1 wish I knew where to find him, and knew how to go where he is. 1 would state my case before him and present all my arguments in my favour. 1 want to know what he would say and how he would answer me') Job has demanded an explanation from God of what has gone wrong in his life. From his attitude in these passages we get the impression that Job never let go of his belief that the faithfulness he had shown to God in his life would somehow be vindicated, however inadequate his knowledge of God's nature was. In holding on to his faith that somehow God would provide the key to the meaning of his life and his afflictions, even if God seemed to be his enemy and oppressor, Job was not finally broken by the testing which Satan had inflicted upon him. Satan did not succeed in making Job deny the reality and sovereignty of God; in fact, his testing of Job resulted in Job's greater understanding of God's nature (42: 1-6).

In Job 38-41, God reveals himself to Job. What follows in these chapters may be different from what we expect. God does not give Job an explanation of why he has been afflicted; instead, he gives Job the opportunity to compare his own human wisdom and understanding with that of God. In 7: 12-21, Job had questioned God; now God questions Job. God's questions make Job realize that he has never understood the God he has worshipped all his life, but he now begins to know who it is who has come to him and speaks to him. In God's words to Job, the Creator's wisdom and moral goodness and power are affirmed and these affirmations are an adequate answer to Job's remonstrations with God, although the mystery of suffering remains.

38: 1-3. God's question to Job is a challenge. Can the creature criticize his Creator, on whom his existence depends? God makes it quite clear to Job that they are in a Creator-creature relationship, and it is from that situation that Job must listen to God's question. God tells the man he has created to stand up before him and find the answers to the questions which God will ask him. God does not accuse Job in the way that his friends had but leads Job into new understanding of his relationship to God.

38: 4-38. In this great passage, God presents Job with question after question, first about the creation of the universe and then about the way in which life in it and its environment are sustained, Job does not answer even one question because he cannot. God alone can answer the questions which he puts to Job. He alone is Creator and sustainer of the universe.

38: 39-39: 30. God then asks question after question about the animals he has created and whose life he sustains. The wild animals are no concern of man; he cannot tame them and they hide from him, yet they are the concern of God who cares for them and sustains them. God has -his own reasons for creating them, in all their different and strange kinds. 'Then God commanded, "Let the earth produce all kinds of animal life; domestic and wild, large and small"-and it was done. So God made them all, and he was pleased with what he saw. (Genesis 1:24-25). In  verses 19-25, the extraordinary ability of horses to be trained for battle because of the intelligence which God has put in them is described.

40: 1-2. Job has still not answered even one question and God now asks him to speak.

40:3-5. Job knows now that he cannot answer any of God's questions and he admits humbly to God that he had spoken foolishly in his earlier criticisms of God (Job'7).

40: 7-14. God then takes up Job's earlier criticisms of him, in which Job had called God unjust. God challenges Job to take over the moral rule of the world. Job may only criticize God's ru1e of the world if he can equal God's power in judging the wicked. To be equal with God was what Adam and Eve had wanted (Genesis 3).

40: 15-41: 34. God then shows Job his total inability to control even two of the creatures which God has created, let alone control the world. Chapter 40: 15-24 is an obvious description of a great hippopotamus. The Hebrew word behemoth refers to a great beast, untameable by man. Chapter 41: 1-34 is a brilliant poetic description of a great crocodile. What man has ever tamed it giant crocodile'! 'When he rises up, the strongest are frightened; they are helpless with fear.' The word 'Leviathan' refers to a sea monster symbolizing demonic and chaotic powers in the world which only God can hold in check. The point of chapter 41 is that if Job cannot control a great crocodile, how would he. control the demonic and chaotic powers in the universe?