Job 38

Berean Standard Bible · Compare translations · 2100 BC – 1800 BC · The patriarchs · Tap a verse to copy, share or highlight ·

41 verses · 609 words · ~3 min read · ~4 min listen

The LORD Challenges Job

¹Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

²“Who is this who obscures My counsel

by words without knowledge?

³Now brace yourself like a man;

I will question you, and you shall inform Me.

⁴Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?

Tell Me, if you have understanding.

⁵Who fixed its measurements? Surely you know!

Or who stretched a measuring line across it?

⁶On what were its foundations set,

or who laid its cornerstone,

⁷while the morning stars sang together

and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

⁸Who enclosed the sea behind doors

when it burst forth from the womb,

⁹when I made the clouds its garment

and thick darkness its blanket,

¹⁰when I fixed its boundaries

and set in place its bars and doors,

¹¹and I declared: ‘You may come this far, but no farther;

here your proud waves must stop’?

¹²In your days, have you commanded the morning

or assigned the dawn its place,

¹³that it might spread to the ends of the earth

and shake the wicked out of it?

¹⁴The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;

its hills stand out like the folds of a garment.

¹⁵Light is withheld from the wicked,

and their upraised arm is broken.

¹⁶Have you journeyed to the vents of the sea

or walked in the trenches of the deep?

¹⁷Have the gates of death been revealed to you?

Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?

¹⁸Have you surveyed the extent of the earth?

Tell Me, if you know all this.

¹⁹Where is the way to the home of light?

Do you know where darkness resides,

²⁰so you can lead it back to its border?

Do you know the paths to its home?

²¹Surely you know, for you were already born!

And the number of your days is great!

²²Have you entered the storehouses of snow

or observed the storehouses of hail,

²³which I hold in reserve for times of trouble,

for the day of war and battle?

²⁴In which direction is the lightning dispersed,

or the east wind scattered over the earth?

²⁵Who cuts a channel for the flood

or clears a path for the thunderbolt,

²⁶to bring rain on a barren land,

on a desert where no man lives,

²⁷to satisfy the parched wasteland

and make it sprout with tender grass?

²⁸Does the rain have a father?

Who has begotten the drops of dew?

²⁹From whose womb does the ice emerge?

Who gives birth to the frost from heaven,

³⁰when the waters become hard as stone

and the surface of the deep is frozen?

³¹Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades

or loosen the belt of Orion?

³²Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons

or lead out the Bear and her cubs?

³³Do you know the laws of the heavens?

Can you set their dominion over the earth?

³⁴Can you command the clouds

so that a flood of water covers you?

³⁵Can you send the lightning bolts on their way?

Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?

³⁶Who has put wisdom in the heart

or given understanding to the mind?

³⁷Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?

Or who can tilt the water jars of the heavens

³⁸when the dust hardens into a mass

and the clods of earth stick together?

³⁹Can you hunt the prey for a lioness

or satisfy the hunger of young lions

⁴⁰when they crouch in their dens

and lie in wait in the thicket?

⁴¹Who provides food for the raven

when its young cry out to God

as they wander about for lack of food?

Footnotes (7)

a v2 Cited in Job 42:3
b v3 Hebrew gird up your loins
c v3 Cited in Job 42:4
d v6 Or who set its core in place
e v32 Or bring forth Mazzaroth in its season
f v32 Or Leo or Arcturus
g v36 Or Who has given the ibis wisdom, that is, wisdom about the flooding of the Nile

Study notes on this chapter · 1

BackgroundWidely held reading

God answers Job from the whirlwind

After chapters of debate about why the righteous suffer, God answers Job not with an explanation but with a tour of creation's wildness — sea, stars, Leviathan — pressing the question of who governs it. Job repents of demanding an account; God restores him without endorsing his friends' theory that suffering always means sin.

When: Set in patriarchal times; the book's date is unknown.

Original passageJob 38:1–7Job 42:1–6

Echoed inRomans 11:33 — "How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!"

Ways people read this (2)

Many readers see the point as trust in God's wisdom rather than answers to why.
Others stress the ending's restoration as a sign that lament is heard, not punished.

Editorial note by BibleWay. Interpretations vary; dates are approximate scholarly estimates.

See all prophecy & fulfillment notes →

Job 38

The LORD Challenges Jobⓘ

Study notes on this chapter · 1

God answers Job from the whirlwind

The LORD Challenges Job