Job 40:6 | KD | STEP | Then Jehovah answered Job out of the storm, and said: This second time also Jehovah speaks to Job out of the storm; not, however, in wrath, but in the profound condescension of His majesty, in order to deliver His servant from dark imaginings, and to bring him to free and joyous knowledge. He does not demand blind subjection, but free submission; He does not extort an acknowledgement of His greatness, but it is effected by persuasion. It becomes manifest that God is much more forbearing and compassionate than men. Observe the friends, the defenders of the divine honour, these sticklers for their own orthodoxy, how they rave against Job! How much better is it to fall into the hands of the living God, than into the hands of man! For God is truth and love; but men have at one time love without truth, at another truth without love, since they either connive at one or anathematize him. When a man who, moreover, like Job, is a servant of God, fails in one point, or sins, men at once condemn him altogether, and admit nothing good in him; God, however, discerns between good and evil, and makes the good a means of freeing the man from the evil. He also does not go rashly to work, but waits, like an instructor, until the time of action arrives. How long He listens to Job’s bold challenging, and keeps silence! And then, when He does begin to speak, He does not cast Job to the ground by His authoritative utterances, but deals with him as a child; He examines him from the catechism of nature, and allows him to say for himself that he fails in this examination. In this second speech He acts with him as in the well-known poem of Hans Sachs with St. Peter: He offers him to take the government of the world for once instead of Himself. Here also He produces conviction; here also His mode of action is a deep lowering of Himself. It is Jehovah, the God, who at length begets Himself in humanity, in order to convince men of His love.

‏ Job 40:6

Job 40:6 6 Then Jehovah answered Job out of the storm, and said:

This second time also Jehovah speaks to Job out of the storm; not, however, in wrath, but in the profound condescension of His majesty, in order to deliver His servant from dark imaginings, and to bring him to free and joyous knowledge. He does not demand blind subjection, but free submission; He does not extort an acknowledgement of His greatness, but it is effected by persuasion. It becomes manifest that God is much more forbearing and compassionate than men. Observe the friends, the defenders of the divine honour, these sticklers for their own orthodoxy, how they rave against Job! How much better is it to fall into the hands of the living God, than into the hands of man! For God is truth and love; but men have at one time love without truth, at another truth without love, since they either connive at one or anathematize him. When a man who, moreover, like Job, is a servant of God, fails in one point, or sins, men at once condemn him altogether, and admit nothing good in him; God, however, discerns between good and evil, and makes the good a means of freeing the man from the evil. He also does not go rashly to work, but waits, like an instructor, until the time of action arrives. How long He listens to Job’s bold challenging, and keeps silence! And then, when He does begin to speak, He does not cast Job to the ground by His authoritative utterances, but deals with him as a child; He examines him from the catechism of nature, and allows him to say for himself that he fails in this examination. In this second speech He acts with him as in the well-known poem of Hans Sachs with St. Peter: He offers him to take the government of the world for once instead of Himself. Here also He produces conviction; here also His mode of action is a deep lowering of Himself. It is Jehovah, the God, who at length begets Himself in humanity, in order to convince men of His love.