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Job 40
1Moreover the LORD answered Job,
2“Shall he who argues contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.”
3Then Job answered the LORD,
4“Behold, I am of small account. What will I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth.
5I have spoken once, and I will not answer; Yes, twice, but I will proceed no further.”
6Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind:
7“Now brace yourself like a man. I will question you, and you will answer me.
8Will you even annul my judgment? Will you condemn me, that you may be ?
9Or do you have an arm like God? Can you thunder with a voice like him?
10“Now deck yourself with excellency and dignity. Array yourself with honor and majesty.
11Pour out the fury of your anger. Look at everyone who is proud, and bring him low.
12Look at everyone who is proud, and humble him. Crush the wicked in their place.
13Hide them in the dust together. Bind their faces in the hidden place.
14Then I will also admit to you that your own right hand can save you.
15“See now behemoth, which I made as well as you. He eats grass as an ox.
16Look now, his strength is in his thighs. His force is in the muscles of his belly.
17He moves his tail like a cedar. The sinews of his thighs are knit together.
18His bones are like tubes of bronze. His limbs are like bars of iron.
19He is the chief of the ways of God. He who made him gives him his sword.
20Surely the produce food for him, where all the animals of the field play.
21He lies under the lotus trees, in the covert of the reed, and the marsh.
22The lotuses cover him with their shade. The willows of the brook surround him.
23Behold, if a river overflows, he doesn’t tremble. He is confident, though the Jordan swells even to his mouth.
24Shall any take him when he is on the watch, or pierce through his nose with a snare?
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Questions this passage answers
Why does God allow suffering?
Scripture never gives one tidy reason for all suffering. It says that pain entered a good world through sin, that God is neither its author nor its prisoner, that he uses it without approving of it, and that he entered it himself in Christ rather than explaining it from a distance. The Bible answers the question with a person before it answers it with an argument.
Why does God seem silent?
God's apparent silence is felt by some of the most faithful people in Scripture, not only by the weak in faith. David, Job and Habakkuk all cried out into what felt like empty air. Scripture never rebukes them for asking. It records their words as prayer, answers them in its own time, and teaches that God's silence is never his absence.