Old Testament · Poetry and wisdom

Job chapter 38

Then Yahweh Job out of the :Who is this, the with words that know nothing? like a . I will ask. You will tell me.Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand so much.Who decided how big it would be? Surely you know. Who stretched the across it?What were its footings sunk into? Who set its cornerstone,while the sang together and all the shouted?Who shut behind doors when it came bursting out of the womb,when I made the clouds its clothing and thick darkness ,when I marked out the limit it could not cross and set its bars and doors in place,and said, This far and no farther. Here is where your waves stop.Have you once in your life given the morning its orders, shown where to stand,so it could take the earth by the edges and ?The land turns under it like until everything stands up like the folds of a robe.The wicked are cut off from , and the arm raised to strike is snapped.Have you walked down to where the sea comes from, gone searching along the floor of ?Have the gates of death been opened to you? Have you seen the gates of ?Have you taken in how wide the earth is? Say so, if you know all of it.Which road goes to the place ? And darkness — where does it stay?Could you walk them home to their own borders? Do you know the path to the house where they live?. You were already born then. You have lived that many years.Have you gone into the storehouses of snow, or seen where the hail is kept,what I have for a hard season, for the day of fighting and war?Which road goes to the place where light is handed out, where the gets scattered over the earth?Who cut the channel for the downpour, the path for the crack of thunder,to bring rain down on land where , on desert with not one human being in it,to soak the waste and the ruin until the empty ground puts out grass?Does the rain have a ? Who fathered the drops of dew?Out of whose womb did the ice come? The frost of the sky — who gave birth to it?The water goes hard as stone. The face of the deep locks shut.Can you tie the cords of , or loosen ?Can you bring the constellations out in their season, or lead the Bear out with her cubs?Do you know the laws that run the sky? Could you set up its rule down here on earth?Can you raise your voice to the clouds and have a flood of water cover you?Can you send the lightning out and have it go, and have it say back to you, ?Who put wisdom in ? Who gave the mind its understanding?Who is wise enough to count the clouds? Who tips over the water jars of the skywhen the dust runs together into a hard mass and the clods stick fast?Do you hunt the kill for ? Do you fill the hunger of her youngwhen they crouch down in their dens, when they lie in the thicket waiting?Who gets the its food when its chicks to God and stagger around with nothing to eat?