Today we hear from the Lord, He answers Job out of the whirlwind and says,
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?Job 38.4-7
Until now we have not heard from God, although He has been spoken of many times. By asking this question, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?, God is simply showing that “if you cannot answer these things, you do not have a place to demand answers from Me” (Guzik).
Nobody was there when all this began. Nobody knows the minutiae of its measurements. Nobody knows on what its bases were sunk, or who laid its cornerstone. Nobody knows these things except Him who made all that we see and don’t see.
We often like to think we know far more than we really do, don’t we? We often like to think we know about how everything is made and how it all works. Could we ever even begin to comprehend how to make something so impeccably balanced and fine tuned as our world?
Would we have put the planet Jupiter in just the right place to act as a cosmic-vacuum cleaner, sheltering our planet from space debris?
Would be have created the Earth with a crust so precisely-thick that it allows just enough oxygen to be transferred through to support human life, but not too much?
How thankful we are that the Earth and everything therein belongs to, and was made by, the Lord (Psalm 24.1). How thankful we are that in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible (Colossians 1.16). How thankful we are that He made it all and we have the pleasure and privilege of enjoying it!
James Travis 