[Archive] Job and the Whirlwind

[How does God speak to us?]

Job sat on his trash heap, staring down at the piece of broken pottery in his hands. Around him sat four other men—Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and young Elihu—who had come to try and comfort Job in his suffering. They weren’t doing well. If he was honest, Job couldn’t really blame them. He wasn’t sure he would have known what to say had he been in their position. As he had been reminded by several well-meaning citizens, no one in Job’s city remembered anyone having a string of bad luck like what Job had had to endure. Not too long ago he had been a wealthy man with a large family to match. Then, all at once, it came crashing down.

In a single day, Job had lost all of his wealth to marauders and natural disasters, and all of his children to a great wind that destroyed the house in which they had gathered. Job didn’t really remember that day; it was a blur, a punctuation mark between two different lives: his old life as a happy family man, and his new life as a miserable pauper. Not long after that, Job’s bad luck had struck again: he developed painful, oozing sores all over his body. He had exiled himself from the city, and set himself up where he was now: sitting on the city’s trash heap, scratching his sores with a piece of broken pottery.

Job had been grateful when his friends came out to visit him. Even in the midst of his own pain Job could tell that it was difficult for them—not because they didn’t want to be there, but because they had no idea what to say. They had sat with him for an entire week without saying a word, and that was good. But when Job was eventually ready to talk, everything went downhill. Job knew that he was innocent—he wasn’t perfect, to be sure—but he knew he hadn’t done anything to deserve what God had done to him. What he wanted to know was simple: why was God letting this happen? This was what Job had tried to say when he finally began to speak—he had lamented his terrible suffering, and he begged God to explain to him why this was happening.

Job had been surprised by the reaction he got from his friends: they had tried to argue with him! Not only was this insensitive on its own—who argues with someone who’s just lost everything they have?—but it was made worse by the fact that Job knew he was right. Job had argued back, trying to convince his friends that he was innocent, that God was punishing him without cause, that he deserved an explanation for his sufferings. But neither side would give. Now the argument was winding down. Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar had given up, and now Elihu was pontificating on some point or other—by now Job was only half listening. As Elihu ran out of steam, an awkward silence fell over the men. Job’s friends sat silently and uncomfortably. They shared only fleeting glances as they waited for some kind of sign from Job, any kind of reaction. They were so focused on the awkwardness and suspense of the moment that none of them noticed the dark clouds that were beginning to roll in from across the plains below them.

The city outside of which the four men were sitting was built on a hill. It overlooked a broad, grassy plain that stretched out a long way before meeting the roots of distant purple mountains. From the base of the mountains ran a stream that meandered across the plain and past the city. On either side of the stream the vegetation was greener and thicker than elsewhere, creating a green-blue-green stripe that looked as if it had been painted there with a gentle, squiggling stroke. Apart from the shrubs that lined the stream, there was little else on in the plain. It was dotted with the odd tree or bush that stuck up out of the tall grass, which otherwise coated the ground as far as the eye could see. The sheer magnitude of the sight—the broad plain stretching away from the city, the massive mountains standing in the distance and reaching up into the sky—made the view from Job’s city impressive indeed. Job and his friends weren’t focused on the view, however. If they had been, they would have seen the dark shadows that were spreading over the grass and stretching toward the city gates where they sat.

It wasn’t until the first few raindrops began to fall that the suspense was broken between the men. The rain was slow and gentle, but enough to shake them out of their stalemate. Job’s friends raised their heads and looked around themselves as if they had just woken up, only now realizing how the weather had turned. Job, however, still refused to do anything but stare at his hands and the piece of pottery they held. The wind began to pick up and tease at the grass and tree branches in the valley, and the four men with Job realized that a storm was beginning to brew. They exchanged sad, helpless looks, gesturing silently to each other in a vain attempt to get someone to break the silence. Eventually they gave up the silent struggle between them and began to stand up and gather their things. With a final hesitation they started walking back towards the city gate, each man placing his hand on Job’s shoulder as he left but none able to think of anything to say. When they had gone, Job raised his head to look at the scene before him in the valley. Now it was just him and the storm.

Job had always enjoyed storms. He had loved to listen to them as a boy, even though they always scared his brothers and sisters. Job loved the noise they made, the way each element produced its own distinct sound that contributed to this kind of huge, cosmic symphony. Today there was no room in his heart for excitement or enjoyment, but the faintest hint of a melancholy smile played at the corner of his mouth as he closed his eyes to listen.  The first instrument to play was the wind—it was building in strength now, enough to blow tree branches back and forth and cover the surface of the stream below with hundreds of tiny ripples. Every once in a while it would gust for a moment, as if punctuating its soft melody and foreshadowing what was to come.  Then came the rain, as the heavens opened and the sprinkling became a sudden downpour. The roar of the rain provided a deeper voice in the symphony, a low roar that underlined the melody of the wind. In response the wind grew stronger, as if to make itself heard above the commotion of the rain, accompanied now by the sound of the leaves and branches being tormented in the wind.  

Job sat silently, eyes still closed, listening to the storm that raged around him. It was almost soothing to sit there in the chaos, listening for the melody the storm. Job could tell through his eyelids that it was quite dark by now. The cloud cover must have gotten thicker. But all of a sudden there was a great flash of red across Job’s vision. His eyes shot open, quick enough to catch a tiny glimpse of the sheet lightening that had rolled through the clouds. It seemed to Job that the storm fell silent, if only for the briefest of moments, as if creation itself was holding its breath, waiting for the peal of thunder. The roar of the thunder echoed up the valley, still a deafening crack as it reached Job’s ears. When the thunder had passed the sound of the storm returned, punctuated now by more thunder and lightning that added percussion to the elemental symphony. While he was still finding some odd comfort in the sound of the storm, Job could no longer ignore the impressive scene that surrounded him. He looked out across the darkened valley as the trees waved back and forth in the wind, the grasses rippling like green-brown waves, the surface of the stream roiling in the wind and rain. And then, every now and then there would be a terrible flash, and for a split second everything would be as bright as day, all across the valley—tiny snippets of daylight in the middle of darkness and chaos.

And then, in a great crescendo, the whole storm intensified. The wind grew stronger, ripping bushes out of the ground and branches off of trees, pelting Job with small projectiles and almost blowing him off of his trash heap. The rain, now mixed with hail, came harder and thicker than ever, falling almost sideways in the wind and stinging Job’s skin wherever it struck. The lightning, which had been rolling in the clouds, now began to strike ground in the valley. The sounds of deafening cracks and exploding trees shook the very air around Job, who was overcome by the sudden display of power. What had been reluctant interest before was quickly turning into genuine fear.

The wind was throwing larger and larger objects through the air; the hailstones were getting either bigger or faster, so that they stung even through Job’s cloak, which he had long since drawn over his head; and now the lightning strikes were getting closer and closer to the city. Eventually one bolt struck so close to Job that he threw himself face down on the ground without even thinking, not even noticing that his face was now buried in a trash heap. Job felt his body shaking, and after a moment realized that he had started weeping. In his terror the thought struck him: perhaps this was it. Perhaps this was how it would end. First God sent marauders to take his wealth, then a great wind to kill his children, and then a plague of sores to take his health. Now God had finally come for his life.

As Job lay there, shaking and weeping, fearing for his life, he suddenly noticed something odd. It was a change in the sound of the storm. Somehow, with all the commotion around him, Job could still hear it: a new instrument, somewhere out there, making a sound Job had never heard before. It was difficult to discern—it sounded so similar to the wind and rain around him—but it was definitely unique. As terrified as he had been, for some reason this sound completely captured Job’s attention. The fear didn’t leave him, but it was overcome by this odd, consuming curiosity. Even so, it was several minutes before Job was able to force himself up to stand up, and several more minutes before he could suppress the urge to duck at every lightning strike. At last he was able to look out into the valley at the spectacle that was playing out below him.

The valley was absolute chaos. The air was full of debris. Entire trees had been uprooted and tossed aside. The stream that had meandered through the valley had spilled its banks and now formed a muddy lake.  The grass was matted down now in odd, contorted shapes. Job searched the valley for the source of the sound, but now that his head was up he could tell that it was coming from farther off. He strained to see through the rain and debris that filled the air, searching back and forth. The sound grew louder and clearer, and as Job’s eyes followed the sound to its source he saw it come out around the edge of the mountain range and into the valley: an enormous, roaring whirlwind.  

In all his years Job had never witnessed a real whirlwind. Not like this, anyway. He had seen funnels before, little dust devils that he liked to chase as a child. But this was no dust devil—it dwarfed those twisters by unimaginable proportions. Job watched as it made its way across the valley below him with shocking speed. As it moved it picked up everything in its path—branches, trees, bushes, even stones—as if they were leaves and twigs. Behind it the whirlwind left nothing but carnage. It seemed to carve a pathway into the earth, a jagged stripe of dirt through the green valley.

As he watched, the whirlwind began to turn. It had been going across the valley in front of him, from the left side to the right. Now, just as it reached the middle of the valley, it turned and began moving toward the city, and Job. Totally mesmerized, Job couldn’t quite process the significance of this change of course. The whirlwind came closer, and Job could do nothing but stare up at it in facination. As it came within a hundred yards of where Job was sitting, he finally realized the danger he was in. And yet he found himself unable to move.  The whirlwind came within fifty yards, and Job could feel the power of the winds begin to pull him in. And then the whirlwind stopped.

The next few moments would remain in Job’s memory for the rest of his life. Time seemed to slow down, and as he gazed up at the funnel that now loomed above him Job forgot about everything else that was going on. For a moment, it was just him and the whirlwind. Job watched the twister as it turned slowly in front of him.  The funnel reached from the ground up to the rain-cloud ceiling that now covered the entire sky. It disappeared into the clouds in such a way that Job couldn’t be sure it didn’t just keep going, all the way into Heaven. I

n a way it reminded him of a hornet’s nest: it was colored with the same mixture of black and gray, and the larger pieces of debris circled the funnel like drones. A deep hum that came from the center of the whirlwind, betraying the energy and activity that was contained within. The effect of this impression was that, like a hornet’s nest, the whirlwind seemed to be a kind of hybrid between inanimate and alive—a soulless thing surrounded by life and filled with power.

As long as he looked up at the higher parts of the whirlwind, Job felt tiny and insignificant next to this towering thing. But when his eyes fell to the point where the funnel met the ground, his reaction changed. At its base, the whirlwind was a vortex of sheer destruction. As it spun it seemed to grind into the earth like a drill. Everything beneath it dissolved into dust that was kicked up into a dirty brown cloud billowing away like smoke. In the face of such fury Job felt powerless, helpless, completely overwhelmed. He imagined being caught in the path of that thing, being ripped to pieces as effortlessly as a child tears petals from a flower. There would be nothing he could do to stop it. He was nothing to this whirlwind, a speck in the path that could be consumed without even slowing down.  Humbled by the thought, Job bowed his head and resigned himself to his fate. Whatever was going to happen here, he could not more understand it than control it.  He might as well accept what was coming.  

Then, after what seemed to Job to be several hours but may been only several seconds, the whirlwind began moving away again. Job watched as it moved away, still confused and overwhelmed. When it had retreated another fifty yards again, Job let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.  Job’s body began to wobble as the tension in his muscles relaxed slightly. As he continued to watch the movements of the whirlwind, Job was oblivious to the storm that raged unabated around him. Finally, when the whirlwind reached the center of the valley again, Job began to weep. He fell to his hand and knees, staring down at the ground again, and amidst the sobs he began to pray. Only some of his words were audible amid the storm.

“I know that you can do all things.” he said, his voice weak from weeping, “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. My ears have heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

Job continued to pray as long as the storm lasted. After about an hour, the winds died down, the clouds parted, and the sun shone out over the devastation that covered the valley below. Job picked himself up, and looked out over the valley. In the scene of devastation he saw a mirror of his own soul. But as the sun burst through the clouds, the warmth he felt on his face reflected a warmth that was beginning to grow in his own heart. Job smiled, and as he turned around he picked up his broken piece of pottery, threw it back into the trash heap, and began walking back toward the city gates.

¹ Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said:
² ”Who is this that darkens my counsel
     with words without knowledge?
³ Brace yourself like a man;
     I will question you,
     and you shall answer me.

⁴ ”Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
     Tell me, if you understand.
⁵ Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
     Who stretched a measuring line across it?
⁶ On what were its footings set,
     or who laid its cornerstone—
⁷ while the morning stars sang together
     and all the angels shouted for joy?

⁸ ”Who shut up the sea behind doors
     when it burst forth from the womb,
⁹ when I made the clouds its garment
     and wrapped it in thick darkness,
¹⁰ when I fixed limits for it
     and set its doors and bars in place,
¹¹ when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
     here is where your proud waves halt’?

¹² ”Have you ever given orders to the morning,
     or shown the dawn its place,
¹³ that it might take the earth by the edges
     and shake the wicked out of it?
¹⁴ The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
     its features stand out like those of a garment.
¹⁵ The wicked are denied their light,
     and their upraised arm is broken.

¹⁶ ”Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
     or walked in the recesses of the deep?
¹⁷ Have the gates of death been shown to you?
     Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death ?
¹⁸ Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
     Tell me, if you know all this.

¹⁹ ”What is the way to the abode of light?
     And where does darkness reside?
²⁰ Can you take them to their places?
     Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
²¹ Surely you know, for you were already born!
     You have lived so many years!

²² ”Have you entered the storehouses of the snow
     or seen the storehouses of the hail,
²³ which I reserve for times of trouble,
     for days of war and battle?
²⁴ What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,
     or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
²⁵ Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,
     and a path for the thunderstorm,
²⁶ to water a land where no man lives,
     a desert with no one in it,
²⁷ to satisfy a desolate wasteland
     and make it sprout with grass?
²⁸ Does the rain have a father?
     Who fathers the drops of dew?
²⁹ From whose womb comes the ice?
     Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens
³⁰ when the waters become hard as stone,
     when the surface of the deep is frozen?

³¹ ”Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades?
     Can you loose the cords of Orion?
³² Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
     or lead out the Bear with its cubs?
³³ Do you know the laws of the heavens?
     Can you set up [God’s ] dominion over the earth?

³⁴ ”Can you raise your voice to the clouds
     and cover yourself with a flood of water?
³⁵ Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
     Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?
³⁶ Who endowed the heart with wisdom
     or gave understanding to the mind ?
³⁷ Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
     Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens
³⁸ when the dust becomes hard
     and the clods of earth stick together?

Job 38 (NIV)