November 27, 2012 – Job 40

8 – Would you condemn God so that you might be Justified?  What an interesting question.  How often do we blame God for what is going on in our lives when we made the choices that led to it.  Imagine a teenage mother blaming God for her becoming pregnant, a smoker blaming God for their lung cancer.  How often do we blame God so that we justify our actions and try to escape blame. 

I thought it was important to put the footnote in here about what is described.  “Behemoth: a primeval monster of chaos; identified by some scholars as the hippopotamus, on which the description of Behemoth is partially based. The point of the Behemoth-Leviathan passages is that only the Lord, not Job, can control the cosmic evil which these forces symbolize.”  Not only does God ask Job to control nature, but then moves on to primeval monsters.  God started with something overwhelming, all the universe and nature.  We cannot control and didn’t create it.  Now God moves to something smaller, a large monster that is smaller than all of nature, but still too large for us to control or tame.  Yet God can and does and allows it to be.  I guess the next chapter would move to something smaller, the flower in the field, can you make it bloom.  Even the smallest things, Job still cannot really affect.  How do you dare question God then.