Commentary - Job 40:6-14

Bird's-eye view

After Job’s brief and chastened response, the Lord speaks to him a second time, and this time the divine rebuke is intensified. The Lord is not content with Job’s simple retreat into silence; He intends to press the point home until Job moves from sullen submission to genuine repentance. This passage is the heart of that second speech, a direct and devastating cross-examination from the Creator. God challenges Job’s entire posture, which up to this point has been one of questioning God’s justice. The central issue is this: for Job to be right in his complaints, God must be wrong. And so, God confronts Job with the sheer absurdity of this position. He does this by inviting Job to take over the divine administration of the universe for a moment. If Job thinks he can run things better, let him try. The challenge is saturated with divine irony, designed to dismantle every last vestige of human pride and self-righteousness, clearing the ground for a true understanding of God’s sovereignty and man’s absolute need for a salvation he cannot provide for himself.

The argument unfolds as a series of rhetorical questions that are really thunderous assertions. Can Job annul God’s judgment? Does he possess an arm like God’s? Can he humble the proud and tread down the wicked? The questions are designed to expose the infinite chasm between God and man. The climax of the passage is the final verse, where God promises to praise Job if, and only if, Job can demonstrate that his own right hand can save him. This is the very nerve of the gospel. Man cannot save himself, and until he admits this, he is in no position to understand anything else aright. This is God cornering Job, and through Job, cornering all of us, forcing us to confront our creaturely limits and our desperate need for a righteousness that is not our own.

Outline

Context In Job

This passage is the thematic peak of God’s response to Job. The first speech (chapters 38-39) focused on God’s wisdom and power in creation, demonstrating Job’s ignorance. Job was asked a battery of questions about the natural world that he simply could not answer. This was meant to show him that if he could not grasp the workings of the physical cosmos, how could he possibly presume to understand and critique the moral governance of that same cosmos? Job’s initial reply was subdued (40:3-5). He put his hand over his mouth, acknowledging he had spoken rashly. But this was not enough. It was a retreat, but not yet a full-throated repentance. God therefore speaks again, this time moving from Job’s ignorance to his arrogance. The issue is no longer what Job doesn’t know, but what he has presumed to claim. He has, in effect, put God on trial. And so God turns the tables and puts Job in the dock. This section is the very heart of the Lord’s case against Job, and it lays the foundation for Job’s final, complete breakdown and confession in chapter 42.

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

v. 6 Then Yahweh answered Job out of the whirlwind and said,

The setting remains the same as God’s first speech. The whirlwind, or storm, is a classic biblical theophany. It signifies God’s immense power and the unsettling, terrifying nature of a direct encounter with the living God. This is not a gentle conversation. This is a confrontation. The fact that Yahweh answers again indicates that Job’s first, minimalist response was insufficient. The lesson was not yet learned. God is a thorough teacher, and He will not leave the job half-done. He loves Job too much to let him remain in his self-justifying misery.

v. 7 “Now gird up your loins like a man; I will ask you, and you make Me know.”

This is a direct echo of the opening of the first speech (38:3), but now it carries a sharper edge. “Gird up your loins” is a call to prepare for serious action, like a warrior preparing for battle or a laborer for a heavy task. God is telling Job to brace himself. The phrase “like a man” is dripping with divine irony. Job has been demanding his day in court, wanting to argue his case as an equal. God says, in effect, “Alright. You want to stand and argue? Then stand up. Be a man. Let’s see what you’ve got.” The roles are fixed: God will ask the questions, and Job is to provide the answers. This is not a debate between peers. This is a sovereign Creator catechizing His creature.

v. 8 “Will you really annul My judgment? Will you condemn Me that you may be justified?”

Here is the charge, laid bare. This is the central sin that undergirded all of Job’s complaints. To “annul My judgment” is to declare God’s verdict invalid. Job, in his agony, had essentially claimed that God had mismanaged his case. The second clause is even more pointed. The issue is one of justification. It is a zero-sum game. Either God is righteous and Job is a sinner, or Job is righteous and God is a cosmic tyrant. Job, in his desperation to maintain his own integrity, had backed himself into a corner where the only way out was to impugn the character of God. This is the root of all self-righteousness. For me to be seen as good, God must be portrayed as unjust, or at least mistaken. Paul deals with this same logic in Romans: “Let God be true but every man a liar” (Rom. 3:4). God is here forcing Job to see the blasphemous choice he has made.

v. 9 “Or do you have an arm like God, And can you thunder with a voice like His?”

The cross-examination now moves from the legal to the physical, from jurisprudence to raw power. An “arm” in the Old Testament is a symbol of strength and the ability to act, to save or to judge. God’s arm is what brought Israel out of Egypt. The question is simple: “Job, are you as strong as I am?” The implied answer is, of course, a resounding no. And if Job lacks God’s power, on what basis does he challenge God’s decisions? The voice of thunder is another symbol of divine authority and terror. Man’s voice is a squeak. God’s voice shakes the foundations of the earth. The point is to highlight the sheer incongruity of a creature calling the Creator to account.

v. 10 “Adorn yourself with exaltation and loftiness, And clothe yourself with splendor and majesty.”

The challenge is now issued. If Job wants to question the Judge of all the earth, he must first dress the part. God is saying, “Go ahead. Put on the royal robes of divinity. Deck yourself out in glory.” These are attributes that belong to God alone (Psalm 93:1, 104:1). This is a divine taunt, a holy sarcasm designed to make Job feel the full weight of his creatureliness. It’s like telling a toddler who is questioning his father’s financial decisions to go ahead and take over the family budget. The absurdity is the point.

v. 11 “Pour out the overflowings of your anger, And look on everyone who is proud, and make him low.”

Now we get to the practical job description of being God. The first task is to execute perfect justice. Job has been consumed with his own sense of being wronged, and he has been angry about it. So God says, “Fine. You have anger? Unleash it. But don’t just unleash it on your own behalf. Administer perfect wrath against all pride, everywhere.” The humbling of the proud is a fundamental characteristic of God’s rule (Isa. 2:12; Luke 1:52). Job is being challenged to do what only God can do: to see into every heart, to perfectly identify all arrogance, and to bring it low.

v. 12 “Look on everyone who is proud, and humble him, And tread down the wicked in their place.”

This verse repeats and intensifies the previous one. The task is not just to rebuke the proud, but to actively humble them, to crush them. “Tread down the wicked” is the language of a conqueror, of final judgment. Job has been complaining that the wicked prosper. God’s response is, “If you think you can do a better job of sorting it all out, be My guest. The position is open.” Of course, Job cannot even see all the wicked, let alone tread them down.

v. 13 “Hide them in the dust together; Bind their faces in the hidden place.”

This is the language of burial and imprisonment. The “dust” is the grave, and the “hidden place” is the underworld, Sheol. The challenge is for Job to execute the final sentence, to remove the wicked from the land of the living and consign them to their final punishment. This is the ultimate act of divine sovereignty over life and death. Job, who is struggling to keep himself out of the dust, is being asked to put all of God’s enemies there. The impossibility of the task is staggering.

v. 14 “Then I will also praise you, That your own right hand can save you.”

And here is the punchline. This is the point of the entire exercise. If Job can successfully perform all these divine tasks, if he can demonstrate divine power, wear divine majesty, and execute divine justice, then God Himself will confess that Job is his own savior. The “right hand” is the hand of power and action. If Job’s right hand is sufficient to govern the universe, then it is certainly sufficient to deliver him from his troubles. God is showing Job that the problem of evil and the problem of salvation are tied together. One cannot solve the latter on one’s own, and therefore one has no standing to critique God’s handling of the former. This verse is the Old Testament equivalent of Ephesians 2:8-9. Salvation is not of yourselves. Your own right hand cannot save you. And until a man knows this, he knows nothing. This is the lesson Job is finally about to learn.

Application

The whirlwind is not just for Job. God’s cross-examination comes to every one of us, particularly when we are tempted to think that God has somehow mishandled our lives. We may not say it as bluntly as Job, but the sentiment is common. We look at our circumstances, our sufferings, our unanswered prayers, and the little lawyer in our heart begins to draft a brief against the Almighty. We think, “If I were God, I would have done this differently.”

God’s response here is the necessary medicine for our pride. He doesn’t give Job a detailed explanation for his suffering. He gives Job Himself. He reveals His own majesty and sovereignty, and in so doing, He reveals Job’s finitude and folly. The application for us is straightforward. We must learn to stop condemning God in order to justify ourselves. Our desire for self-justification is a deep-seated sin, the very thing that drove Adam to hide in the garden. We want to be in the right, even if it means making God out to be in the wrong.

The gospel smashes this impulse. The gospel tells us that we are not in the right. We are sinners, and our only hope for justification is found outside of ourselves entirely, in the finished work of Jesus Christ. He is the one with an arm like God. He is the one who clothed Himself in majesty, who humbled the proud powers of sin and death, and who by His own right hand worked out salvation for His people. When we are tempted to question God’s judgment, we should look to the cross. There we see God’s judgment on sin poured out, and there we see His wisdom and justice displayed in a way we never could have conceived. The answer to our suffering is not a neat little formula, but a Person. The challenge to Job is a challenge to us: will we trust that His right hand can save, or will we foolishly continue to trust in our own?