And these are but the outer fringe of his works;
Job 26:14 NIV
how faint the whisper we hear of him!
Who then can understand the thunder of his power?”
The language of Job 26:5-13 can seem strange to us in our modern scientific age. Spreading out the northern skies over empty space, suspending the earth over nothing, filling the clouds with water, and cutting Rahab (a sea monster of chaos that caused storms) to pieces. This is poetic language describing how the ancients understood the world. There was much that was a mystery to them. And they attributed the mysterious workings of this world to God or whatever other gods they worshipped.
We have a much better understanding of these things than Job did, but his conclusion is just as true now as it was then. God is at work in all these things. We have some understanding of storms now and do not need to attribute them to sea monsters. And we know how clouds hold all their water without falling from the sky. But ultimately, God is behind it all. They work the way they do because of the natural laws he put into place when he created the universe.
But, as Job said, all of this is just a glimmer into the power and nature of God. The creation whispers to us of the power and majesty of God (Rom. 1:20). But he is vastly greater than the creation can reveal.
We are not limited, though, to the faint whisper of God heard through the creation. God reveals himself more clearly through the pages of the Bible. And even more through his Spirit’s presence within believers. His voice is still a whisper we can easily ignore. But, when we listen to that voice, we can more fully understand and experience the power of God and his love for us.
