As the Creator and Universal Sovereign,
Jehovah certainly deserves to be heard when he speaks. But how amazed we would
be if he were to speak to us mere humans here on earth! Suppose he spoke to
you, perhaps through an angel. Surely you would pay attention. The upright man
Job must have listened very attentively when God addressed him some 3,500 years
ago. What can we learn from God’s words to Job regarding the earth and the
material heavens?
Who Founded the
Earth, and Who Controls the Sea?
Out of a windstorm, God asks Job about the
earth and the sea. (Job 38:1-11) No human architect decided how big the earth
should be and then helped to form it. Comparing the earth to a building, God
asks Job: “Who laid its cornerstone?” Not man! God’s angelic sons looked on and
rejoiced as Jehovah created this planet.
The sea is an infant in relation to God, who
figuratively clothes it with garments. It “began to go forth as when it burst
out from the womb.” God confines the sea as if by bars and bolted doors, and
tides are regulated by lunar and solar attractions.
Says The World Book Encyclopedia: “The
wind causes most ocean waves, from small ripples to giant hurricane waves more
than 100 feet (30 meters) high. . . . After the wind stops, the
waves continue to move over the ocean surface and can travel great distances
from where they originated. They become smoother and longer. Finally, the waves
reach the shoreline, where they break and form the surf.” The sea obeys God’s
command: “This far you may come, and no farther; and here your proud waves are
limited.”
Who Makes the Dawn
Ascend?
God next asks Job about the effects of light
and other matters. (Job 38:12-18) No human can command the succession of night
and day. Morning light figuratively lays hold of the ends of the earth and
shakes out the wicked. Sinners may perform unrighteous acts in “evening
darkness.” (Job 24:15, 16) But dawn disperses many evildoers.
In God’s hand, morning light is as a seal
from which the earth gets a beautiful impression. Sunlight brings to view many
colors, so that the globe seems to be arrayed in splendid garments. Job had
nothing to do with this and had not walked about in the watery deep to take
inventory of its treasures. Why, to this day researchers have only limited
knowledge of oceanic life!
Who Has Storehouses
of Snow and Hail?
No man has escorted either light or darkness
to its home or has entered the storehouses of snow and hail that God keeps back
for “the day of fight and war.” (Job 38:19-23) When Jehovah used hail against
his foes at Gibeon, “there were more who died from the hailstones than those
whom the sons of Israel killed with the sword.” (Joshua 10:11) He may use
hailstones of undisclosed size to destroy wicked humans led by Gog, or Satan.—Ezekiel
38:18, 22.
Egg-size hailstones killed 25 people and
injured 200 others in central Henan Province, China, in July 2002.
Regarding a hailstorm in 1545, Italian sculptor Benvenuto Cellini wrote: “We
were one day distant from Lyons . . . when the heavens began to
thunder with sharp rattling claps. . . . After the thunder the
heavens made a noise so great and horrible that I thought the last day had
come; so I reined in for a moment, while a shower of hail began to fall without
a drop of water. . . . The hail now grew to the size of big lemons. . . .
The storm raged for some while, but at last it stopped . . . We
showed our scratches and bruises to each other; but about a mile farther on we
came upon a scene of devastation which surpassed what we had suffered, and
defies description. All the trees were stripped of their leaves and shattered;
the beasts in the field lay dead; many of the herdsmen had also been killed; we
observed large quantities of hailstones which could not have been grasped with
two hands.”—Autobiography (Book II, 50), Harvard Classics,
Volume 31, pages 352-3.
What will happen when Jehovah opens his
storehouses of snow and hail against his enemies? They cannot possibly survive
when snow or hail is used to carry out his will.
Whose Handiwork Are
Rain, Dew, Frost, and Ice?
Jehovah next asks Job about rain, dew, frost,
and ice. (Job 38:24-30) God is the great Rainmaker, and even “the wilderness in
which there is no earthling man” enjoys his blessing. Rain, ice, and frost have
no human father or originator.
The Nature Bulletin states: “The
strangest and perhaps the most important property [of ice] is that water
expands as it freezes . . . The blanket of ice that forms and floats
on a pond in winter makes it possible for aquatic plants and animals (fish,
etc.) to remain alive in the water underneath. If . . . water
contracted and became denser as it solidified, ice would be heavier than water
and sink to the bottom. More ice would form on the surface until the pond was
frozen solid. . . . In the cooler parts of the world the rivers,
ponds, lakes, and even the oceans would all be permanently frozen.”
How thankful we can be that bodies of water
do not freeze solid! And we certainly are grateful that as Jehovah’s handiwork,
rain and dew invigorate the earth’s vegetation.
Who Set the Statutes
of the Heavens?
God next asks Job about the heavens. (Job
38:31-33) The Kimah constellation is usually identified as the Pleiades, a
group consisting of seven large stars and a number of smaller ones some 380
light-years from the sun. Man cannot “tie fast the bonds of the Kimah
constellation,” binding that group in a cluster. No human can “loosen the very
cords of the Kesil constellation,” generally identified as the stellar group
called Orion. Whatever may be the present identification of the Mazzaroth and
Ash constellations, man cannot control and guide them. Humans cannot alter “the
statutes of the heavens,” the laws governing the universe.
God established the laws that guide the
heavenly bodies, which influence earth’s weather, tides, atmosphere, and the
very existence of life on this planet. Consider the sun. Concerning it, The
Encyclopedia Americana (1996 Edition) states: “The sun’s rays supply the
earth with heat and light, contribute to the growth of plant life, evaporate
water from the ocean and other bodies of water, play a role in the production
of winds, and perform many other functions that are vital to the existence of
life on earth.” The same reference work says: “To appreciate the vastness of
the power that is inherent in sunlight, one need only reflect that all the
power represented in the winds and in dams and rivers and all the power
contained in natural fuels such as wood, coal, and oil is nothing more than
sunlight that has been stored up by a tiny planet [the earth] 93 million
miles [150 million kilometers] away from the sun.”
Who Put Wisdom in the
Clouds?
Jehovah tells Job to consider the clouds.
(Job 38:34-38) Man cannot order a single cloud to appear and release its water.
But how dependent humans are on the water cycle that the Creator has
established!
What is the water cycle? One reference work
states: “The water cycle consists of four distinct stages: storage,
evaporation, precipitation, and runoff. Water may be stored temporarily in the
ground; in oceans, lakes, and rivers; and in ice caps and glaciers. It
evaporates from the earth’s surface, condenses in clouds, falls back to the
earth as precipitation (rain or snow), and eventually either runs into the seas
or reevaporates into the atmosphere. Almost all the water on the earth has
passed through the water cycle countless times.”—Microsoft Encarta Reference
Library 2005.
Rain-filled clouds are like water jars of
heaven. When Jehovah tips them, they may pour down so much rain that the dust
becomes mire and the clods cleave together. God can produce rain or hold it
back.—James 5:17, 18.
Rain is often accompanied by lightning, but
man cannot cause it to fulfill his wishes. Lightnings are represented as
reporting to God and saying, “Here we are!” Compton’s Encyclopedia
states: “Lightning produces significant chemical changes in the atmosphere. As
a stroke moves through the air, it generates tremendous heat that unites
nitrogen and oxygen to form nitrates and other compounds. These compounds fall
to the Earth with the rain. In this way, the atmosphere is able continually to
help replenish the supply of nutrients that soil needs to produce plants.” Full
knowledge of lightning remains a mystery to man but not to God.
Wonders of Creation
Bring God Praise
Creation’s wonders truly do exalt the Creator
of all things. (Revelation 4:11) How Job must have been impressed by Jehovah’s
words regarding the earth and celestial bodies in space!
The wonders of creation we have just
considered are not the only questions and descriptions presented to Job. Yet,
even those we have considered move us to exclaim: “Behold! God is more exalted
than we can know.”—Job 36:26.
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