The Grammar of the Whirlwind Text: Job 37:14-20
Introduction: The Arrogance of the Creature
We come now to the final words of Elihu, the young man who appears on the scene after Job's three "friends" have exhausted their tidy, wooden, and ultimately false syllogisms. These friends operated on a simple and brutal equation: suffering equals specific sin. They were detectives, not comforters, and their goal was to extract a confession from Job to make their theological ledgers balance. Job, for his part, knew he was not guilty of the things they laid to his charge, but in his righteous defense, he careened into the opposite ditch. He began to impugn the justice of God Himself. He put God in the dock. He demanded that the Almighty answer his charges.
And so, after the three friends fall silent, and after Job has made his final, defiant appeal, Elihu speaks. He is not perfect, but he is a significant improvement. He does not accuse Job of specific, secret sins. Rather, he rebukes Job for his self-righteousness and his audacity in questioning the Creator. Elihu's role is to prepare the way for God. He is the opening act for the whirlwind. His entire speech is designed to get Job to shut his mouth, to look up, and to consider the infinite chasm between himself, a creature of the dust, and the God who is perfect in knowledge.
This is the great Creator/creature distinction, the bedrock of all sane theology. When this distinction is forgotten, men either become tyrants, thinking they are gods, or they become despairing nihilists, thinking God is a cosmic tyrant. Elihu's argument is simple: you cannot even understand the weather. You do not know how God hangs the clouds, aims the lightning, or spreads the sky like a mirror. If you are incompetent to grasp the workings of the physical world that you inhabit, what kind of madness is it to think you can stand in judgment over the moral government of the One who made it all? Elihu is calling Job, and us, to a profound intellectual and spiritual humility. He is calling us to stop talking and to listen.
The Text
"Give ear to this, O Job, Stand and carefully consider the wondrous deeds of God. Do you know how God establishes them, And makes the lightning of His cloud to shine? Do you know about the layers of the thick clouds, The wonders of one perfect in knowledge, You whose garments are hot, When the land is quiet because of the south wind? Can you, with Him, spread out the skies, Strong as a molten mirror? Make us know what we shall say to Him; We cannot arrange our case because of darkness. Shall it be recounted to Him that I would speak? If a man says a word, will He indeed be swallowed up?"
(Job 37:14-20 LSB)
Stop, Look, and Listen (v. 14)
Elihu begins with a direct and forceful command to Job.
"Give ear to this, O Job, Stand and carefully consider the wondrous deeds of God." (Job 37:14)
Job has been talking for a long time. He has been defending himself, lamenting his condition, and demanding answers from God. Elihu tells him, in effect, to be quiet. "Give ear." Stop formulating your next rebuttal and listen. "Stand." Stop wallowing in the ash heap of your own arguments and stand at attention. This is a summons. Court is about to be in session, but the roles are about to be reversed. Job thought he was the plaintiff, but he is about to be reminded that he is a creature, and creatures do not cross-examine their Creator.
And what is he to do? "Carefully consider the wondrous deeds of God." The word for consider here means to place oneself in a position to understand. Elihu is directing Job's attention away from his own suffering, his own righteousness, his own case, and toward God's resume. The evidence for God's wisdom and justice is not found, in the first instance, in the inscrutable details of your personal providence. It is plastered all over the creation. Before you demand that God explain your circumstances, you must first demonstrate that you understand His most basic operations in the world. This is a call to humility through doxology. The beginning of wisdom is not a tidy explanation for your pain; it is a right appreciation of God's majesty.
Do You Know? (v. 15-18)
Elihu now unleashes a series of rhetorical questions designed to expose the depth of Job's ignorance.
"Do you know how God establishes them, And makes the lightning of His cloud to shine? Do you know about the layers of the thick clouds, The wonders of one perfect in knowledge, You whose garments are hot, When the land is quiet because of the south wind? Can you, with Him, spread out the skies, Strong as a molten mirror?" (Job 37:15-18 LSB)
The refrain is simple: "Do you know?" Job, for all his speeches, knows nothing. He doesn't know the first thing about meteorology from the divine perspective. How does God lay down the laws for the clouds? How does He command the lightning? We might be able to describe the physics of electrical charges in the atmosphere, but that is like describing the chemistry of ink on a page without being able to read the poem. We describe the "how" of the mechanism; Elihu asks about the "how" of the sovereign decree. Do you know how God ordains it?
He points to the "layers of the thick clouds," calling them the "wonders of one perfect in knowledge." The clouds are not just random water vapor; they are a testimony to the intricate, perfect wisdom of God. He knows every drop, every molecule, and He balances them with effortless perfection. The argument is from the greater to the lesser. If God's knowledge is perfect in the balancing of the clouds, is it not also perfect in the balancing of your life? If you trust Him to keep the atmosphere from collapsing, can you not trust Him with the details of your suffering?
Elihu then gets personal. "You whose garments are hot, When the land is quiet because of the south wind?" This is a masterful touch. Job, you are a man who gets uncomfortably warm when the wind blows from the south. You are a creature subject to the weather. You are affected by a change in barometric pressure. And you, in your sweat-soaked garments, presume to lecture the One who commands that south wind? This is the absurdity of creaturely arrogance.
The final question in this section is the pinnacle: "Can you, with Him, spread out the skies, Strong as a molten mirror?" The ancients conceived of the sky as a great, solid dome, hammered out and polished like bronze. The point is not about their primitive cosmology. The point is about power. Job, were you there? Did you help God stretch out the heavens? Did you hold a corner? The sheer scale and strength of the sky is a daily, overwhelming testimony to the power of the one who made it. And Job can do nothing but stare at it. He cannot add one cubit to its height or polish one patch of its surface. This is the unbridgeable gap. God is the Creator; Job is the created. And there is an infinite distance between the two.
The Silence of Dust (v. 19-20)
Having established Job's profound ignorance, Elihu now drives home the logical conclusion: Job has no case to make.
"Make us know what we shall say to Him; We cannot arrange our case because of darkness. Shall it be recounted to Him that I would speak? If a man says a word, will He indeed be swallowed up?" (Job 37:19-20 LSB)
Verse 19 is dripping with sarcasm. "Make us know what we shall say to Him." Since you are so wise, Job, since you are so confident in your own righteousness, please, instruct us. Give us the talking points for our audience with the Almighty. What is the proper protocol for suing your Maker? The answer is obvious. There is nothing to say. "We cannot arrange our case because of darkness." This is not the darkness of injustice, but the darkness of ignorance. Our minds are finite. We are in the dark about His purposes, His wisdom, and His ways. To try and arrange a legal case against God is like a blind man trying to describe a sunrise. It is impossible and absurd.
Elihu concludes with a sobering warning. "Shall it be recounted to Him that I would speak?" Is it really a good idea to demand a hearing with God? Do you want your words, your accusations, your arrogant demands, to be entered into the official court record? The final line is terrifying: "If a man says a word, will He indeed be swallowed up?" The Hebrew here is stark. If a man speaks in this way, he will be consumed, annihilated. To stand before the living God and speak as His equal, as His accuser, is to invite utter destruction. It is to be swallowed up by the sheer reality of His holiness and majesty.
This is the endpoint of all creaturely pride. When a man puffs himself up to challenge God, he is not demonstrating his strength; he is demonstrating his insanity. He is a soap bubble challenging a hurricane. The proper posture for the creature before the Creator is not a list of demands, but silent, trembling adoration.
Conclusion: The Gospel in the Storm
Elihu's speech is a necessary and bracing dose of theological reality. He reminds us that God is God and we are not. He is infinite in wisdom and power; we are finite, fragile, and foolish. And when we are confronted with the raw majesty of God in creation, the only sane response is to put a hand over our mouth, just as Job will soon do.
But this is not the end of the story. This display of God's unapproachable majesty is meant to crush our pride, yes, but not to crush us. It is meant to drive us out of ourselves and our own imaginary righteousness, and to drive us to the one Mediator who can stand in that gap between the Creator and the creature.
Elihu asks, "If a man says a word, will He indeed be swallowed up?" The answer is yes. Unless. Unless another Man, the God-man, speaks on his behalf. We cannot arrange our case because of darkness. But Jesus Christ is the light of the world, and He is our advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1). He did not get swallowed up, though He entered the whirlwind of God's wrath on the cross. He absorbed it. He exhausted it.
The terror of God's majesty that Elihu describes is meant to make us tremble. But the gospel tells us that because of Christ, we can now come boldly to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16). The God who balances the clouds and spreads the skies as a molten mirror is the same God who, in Christ, calls us His children. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, because it is what drives us out of the dead-end street of our own self-justification and into the arms of the only one who is our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption.
Therefore, when you are tempted, like Job, to question God's justice in your life, the first step is to do what Elihu commanded. Stop. Stand. Consider the wondrous deeds of God. Look at the clouds, the sky, the lightning. Let the sheer grandeur of the creation rebuke your arrogance. And then, in that humble silence, turn your eyes to the cross, where the Creator of all that majesty was swallowed up for you, so that you, a creature of dust, might be welcomed into His presence forever.