CHAPTER 9

The Mysterious Meeting

of Two Freedoms

ob's hope is not in vain: his desire to see God and

J speak to God is fulfilled. Its fulfillment comes in

unexpected ways, but it enables him to make
notable progress on the way that leads to correct
talk about God. This must take as its starting point a
recognition of God's plan and of the fact that because
of it the entire work of creation bears the trademark of
gratuitousness. It is under that aspect that Yahweh is
revealed to Job. Yahweh does not crush Job with divine
power but speaks to him of Yahweh's creative freedom
and tells him of the respect Yahweh has for human
freedom. Job's call for justice is legitimate, and
Yahweh is committed to justice. But if justice is to be
understood in its full meaning and scope, it must be set
in the context of God's overall plan for human history,
for it is there that God grants self-revelation. God now
waits for an answer from Job, of whose integrity God
has been so proud.

AT THE TURNING POINT OF THE

WORLD
The response given by the faith of the people was a
first approach to an answer. The spiritual struggle Job
has undergone has confirmed what is best in that
response, and it has enabled him to be critical of the
easy, unquestioning acceptance the popular outlook
may adopt. Job's confrontation with God, which is
presented to us in the Book of Job with a boldness
unmatched elsewhere in the Bible, contributes to our
fund of mystical language about God. The
confrontation will end in a full acknowledgment of the

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greatness and freedom of God. Spiritual struggle thus
proves to be a means by which Job comes to
understand more fully and deeply the language of
popular faith (Job, chaps. 1 and 2 ) with its riches and
ambiguities, and is helped to move on to contemplation
of the mystery of God (see chap. 42).
Job's last plea ended with a shout of challenge and a
dramatic call for an answer :
Will no one give me a hearing?
This is my signature! 1 Now let Shaddai
reply!
When my adversary has drafted his writ
against me
I shall wear it on my shoulder,
and bind it round my head like a royal turban.
I shall give him an account of my every step
and go as boldly as a prince to meet him
[31:35–37].
Job persists in regarding the Almighty as an
adversary. He wants the case to be set forth clearly;
therefore he expects the arguments against him to be
written down so that everyone can read them. Job also
betrays a feeling of anticipated victory (“I shall…go as
boldly as a prince to meet him”). Above all, he issues a
clear challenge: let God speak, the God who has
plunged him into poverty and suffering. When Job is
done speaking, the narrator says laconically: “End of
the words of Job” (31:40). And his statement is correct:
Job will not speak again except to say that henceforth
he will acknowledge the gratuitousness of God's love
and will know how to enter fully into it.
God then speaks (after the interlude of Elihu's
speeches, which we have already seen). There is no
one else there but Job. He will not again listen to the
satan, the three friends, and Elihu; their scolding and
clever remarks have faded away. Only Job and his God
remain. Here is the encounter Job has so feared but
also so awaited. In the person of Job, alone here before
God, are present all the innocent of this world who
suffer unjustly and ask “why?” of the God in whom
they believe.

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 God speaks, but in an unpredictable way—making no
reference to concrete problems and therefore not
responding to the distress and questions of Job. 2 This
does not seem correct. What God says is disconcerting
to the reader, but Job seems to understand it (see 40:3–
4, and 42:1–6). Our aim is to share this understanding.
God answers Job—because it is indeed a matter of
God's responding to Job's insistent plea—“from the
heart of the tempest.” This is a classic image used in
the Bible to highlight an important self-manifestation
of God. The phrase is used twice here (38:1; 40:6),
following the same pattern as at other key points in the
Book of Job. Furthermore, on both occasions—that is,
at the beginning of God's two speeches—the author
calls God “Yahweh”; this is the classical name of the
God of the covenant and has not been used since the
prologue.
Job has fearfully anticipated the way in which God
would speak to him: “He will crush me in the tempest
and wound me over and over without cause” (9:17). 3
This fear of God's self-manifestation is a common
theme in the Bible (see Exod. 20:18–20). But the fear
proves mistaken. God does not crush the addressee, but
returns to the theme of God's own greatness. Job had
referred to this several times (adding complaints, it is
true), and Elihu had made it the focus of the second
part of his speech. On the lips of God, however, the
subject takes on a special emphasis and has a different
purpose. The greatness of God is to be identified less
with power than with freedom and gratuitous love—
and with tenderness.
Job has succeeded in getting God to answer him. He
has demanded this response stubbornly and in different
ways. God speaks to him; God does not crush him or
rebuke him for his sins. Job had boldly challenged
God: “How many faults and crimes have I committed?
Tell me what my misdeed has been, what my sin?”
(13:23). God does not do so; God's answer follows a
different tactic. Job's friends are now proven wrong: in
their eyes he was guilty and therefore responsible for
the evils that had befallen him, but God says nothing of
any guilt and thus confirms his innocence.

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 I must emphasize the point, moreover, that although it
is important that God agrees to answer Job, this by
itself is not enough. Some interpreters of the Book of
Job are so disconcerted by the fact of God's speaking
that they pay too little attention to the content of the
speeches; they think what God says is less significant
than the fact of the speaking, the presence, of God. In
their view, the very presence of God satisfies the
deepest desires of Job who has been asking and even
demanding this presence. 4 I do not think that this is a
correct view, for the content of God's speeches specify
and concretize the response; the words of God give the
presence of God its full meaning. 5
Yahweh speaks twice (chaps. 38–39 and 40:7–41). 6
Each speech has its proper theme: the first emphasizes
the plan of God, which enfolds and gives meaning to
God's creative work; the second emphasizes God's just
government of the world. The literary beauty of these
chapters (the author reserves his best writing for the
speeches of Job and God) only underscores the power
of the message. At the same time, the poetic language
gives the text a forward movement that links topic to
topic, and invites the reader to enter more and more
deeply into the meaning.
The tone of challenge now comes from Yahweh:
“Who is this, obscuring my intentions with his ignorant
words?” (38:2). “Intentions” or “plans” translates the
Hebrew ‘ē āh (see Isa. 14:26; 19:17; 25:1; 28:29; Jer.
32:19–20; Prov. 19:21), which means a plan of action,
a project. After studying a good number of passages,
Lévêque comes to the conclusion that “one constant is
inescapable: the ‘ē āh of God always refers to God's
action in history , whether of the nations or of Israel or
of individuals.” 7 This is true of Job 38:2. In his
speeches Job has really been questioning the intentions
or plans of God. More specifically, in his suffering and
in his rejection of the explanation given of it by his
friends, he has expressed doubts about God's justice
(not about the government of the material world). He
has thus been “obscuring my intentions,” and Yahweh
will therefore seek to specify and clarify the meaning

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of the divine will in human history. This is what God
does; the interpretation of God's words depends on
keeping this purpose in mind. God's plan has its origin
in the gratuitousness of creative love.
The confrontational attitude continues, but now it is
found on the side of God who tells Job to ready himself
for the fight: “Brace yourself like a fighter; I am going
to ask the questions, and you are to inform me” (38:3).
“Brace yourself”—literally, “gird your loins”—was a
Hebrew expression signifying to ready oneself for a
difficult task, for a struggle. From the outset Yahweh
attacks Job's presupposition and prepares the way for
the main burden of the message. God asks ironically:
Where were you when I laid the earth's
foundation?
Tell me, since you are so well-informed!
Who decided its dimensions, do you know?
Or who stretched the measuring line across
it?
What supports its pillars at their bases?
Who laid its cornerstone
to the joyful concert of the morning stars
and unanimous acclaim of the sons of God?
Who pent up the sea behind closed doors
when it leaped tumultuous from the womb,
when I wrapped it in a robe of mist
and made black clouds its swaddling bands;
when I cut out the place I had decreed for it
and imposed gates and a bolt?
“Come so far,” I said, “and no further;
here your proud waves must break” [38:4–
11],
Yahweh goes directly to the source of all existing
things, to the place and time when everything began.
“The earth's foundation,” “its pillars at their bases,”
“cornerstone”—all are expressive images. The friends
and Job himself thought that the world had been made
in order to be immediately useful to human beings and
to be of service in temporal retribution: a reward for
the just, a punishment for sinners. This they regarded
as the reason for God's work, and therefore in their

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view God's action in history must take foreseeable
paths. But God attacks Job energetically on precisely
this point: Where were you when I set up the pillars of
creation? If Job is “so well informed” (“if you know
understanding” [Hebrew, bīnāh ] would be a literal
translation of v. 4)—that is, if he is capable of
discernment—let him answer.
Job in fact came later on the scene, after God had
contained the sea behind bolted doors; he is therefore
disqualified to say anything about the foundation of the
world. God who has been able to restrain the pride of
the sea now does the same for the excessive
pretensions of Job and his friends, who try to establish
limits and pathways for God's action in history.
At the very beginning of the speech, Yahweh
expresses willingness to reveal the plan or intention,
the ‘ē āh , of God. This revelation requires bīnāh on
Job's part—that is, understanding, discernment,
knowledge of the truth of things. 8 The revelation of
God's plan, when received with good judgment, will
show Job that the doctrine of retribution is not the key
to understanding the universe; this doctrine can give
rise only to a commonplace relationship of self-interest
with God and others. The reason for believing “for
nothing”—the theme set at the beginning of the book—
is the free and gratuitous initiative taken by divine
love. This is not something connected only indirectly
with the work of creation or something added on to it;
it is the very hinge on which the world turns. This is
the only motive for creation that can lead to a
communion of two freedoms. It must therefore be the
point from which we always start in order to make all
things new. The opening verses thus show the line that
will be followed in Yahweh's speeches.
Next comes a series of questions in which the theme
of the wicked appears, and the question of divine
justice and human freedom is hinted at:
Have you ever in your life given orders to the
morning
or sent the dawn to its post,

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 to grasp the earth by its edges
and shake the wicked out of it?
She turns it red as a clay seal,
she tints it as though it were a dress,
stealing the light from evil-doers
and breaking the arm raised to strike [38:12–
15].
Morning is the time of God's action (see Ps. 90:14;
5:3). It is the time for just action—unlike the night,
which favors evildoers—but it does not get rid of the
wicked; its light continues to shine on them. Is creation
therefore botched? I shall come back to this passage,
which puts forward in an unobtrusive way the central
theme of the second speech. For the moment, God
continues to overwhelm Job with questions which he
cannot answer but which build up a sense of beauty
and gratuitousness:
Have you been right down to the sources of
the sea
and walked about at the bottom of the Abyss?
Have you been shown the gates of Death,
have you seen the janitors of the Shadow
dark as death?
Have you an inkling of the extent of the earth?
Tell me all about it if you have!
Which is the way to the home of the Light,
and where does darkness live?—
You could then show them the way to their
proper places,
you could put them on the path home again!
[38:16–20].
After this broadside of questions, God pretends that
Job knows the answers, and says sarcastically: “You
must know, because you were born then and are very
old now” (38:21). 9 The verses that follow are marked
by the pleasure and joy God takes in the work of
creation, and they bring out the message of the
speeches: the gratuitousness of God's doings. This it is
that gives meaning to God's “justice”:

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 Who bores a channel for the downpour
or clears the way for the rolling thunder
so that rain may fall on lands where no one
lives,
and the deserts void of human dwelling,
to meet the needs of the lonely wastes
and make grass sprout on the thirsty ground?
[38:25–27].

In the Bible rain is often looked upon as a means of

rewarding human behavior and of punishing it as well:
although it gives life, it can also destroy. There is no
reference here to rain as an instrument of divine
justice; it is mentioned rather in connection with “lands
where no one lives” and “deserts void of human
dwelling.” What purpose does rain have in such
places? It contributes nothing but is lost fruitlessly in
the wilderness, in places empty of human history. Can
Job and his friends comprehend this? Or do we perhaps
find ourselves in a world of the arbitrary, the strange,
the self-willed? 10
The questions continue. The irony that also continues
is an important characteristic of God's speeches; it is
doubtless one of the achievements intended by the
author of the Book of Job. It enables him to treat in a
subtle way a theme that is both rich and full of
tensions. The main idea has now been established: in
the beginning was the gratuitousness of divine love; it
—not retribution—is the hinge on which the world
turns. It is significant that the poet places this emphatic
affirmation of gratuitousness in the mouth of Yahweh,
God of the covenant, who is just and requires justice.

THE FREEDOM OF GOD

God assails the pretended knowledge of Job and even
more than that of his friends, who regard everything as
foreseen and think they know for certain when and
how God has punished sinners. What God is criticizing
here is every theology that presumes to pigeonhole the
divine action in history and gives the illusory
impression of knowing it in advance. The outlook God

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is rejecting is obviously the one that Job's theologian
friends defend and, despite himself, Job shares at
bottom. God will bring him to see that nothing, not
even the world of justice, can shackle God; this is the
very heart of the answer. Let us examine it.
The justice of God has been the main subject of the
debate. For Eliphaz and his companions, whose
theology focuses on principles, the doctrine of
retribution expresses God's justice. In keeping with it,
God gives to individuals according to their deserts.
When seen in this perspective, Job's sufferings are the
result of his guilt. There is no room for doubt on this
point, for the ethical order is crystal clear. The only
recourse for Job, then, is to repent and ask forgiveness
of his sins. God, who is merciful, will receive him
back; this too is part of the order God has established.
Job for his part starts with his own experience. He
knows that he is indeed a sinner like every other human
being, but he declares himself innocent as far as his
sufferings are concerned. In the eyes of his three
friends and, with certain reservations, in the eyes of
Job himself, such a claim implies guilt on God's part.
According to the theologian friends, this is blasphemy.
For Job it is a blind alley, and this is why he wants to
debate the matter directly with God. 11
The theme of justice and gratuitousness is subtly
present in God's speeches; I have cited two of the most
important passages to illustrate this (see 38:12–15 and
25–27). But it must be remembered (this is one of the
reasons why the speeches disconcert some) that
chapters 38–41 deal seemingly with the world of
nature, not the world of history. Nonetheless we must
not forget that the first speech began with a reference to
the plan (‘ē āh ) of God in history. The references to
justice will therefore have to be seen as part of the
great cosmic fresco that the speeches create.
The speeches say that God indeed has a plan, but it is
not one that the human mind can grasp so as to make
calculations based on it and foresee the divine action.
God is free; God's love is a cause, not an effect that is,
as it were, handcuffed. 12 After God has spoken of the
inanimate world, symbolic reference is made to divine

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freedom in the fine verses on the various animals that
elude human control and whose “calves, having grown
big and strong, go off into the desert and never come
back to them” (39:4):
Who has given the wild donkey his freedom,
who has undone the harness of the brayer?
I have given him the wastelands as his home,
the salt plain as his habitat.
He scorns the turmoil of the town,
obeys no donkey-man's shouts.
The mountains are the pastures that he ranges
in quest of anything green.
Is the wild ox willing to serve you
or spend a night beside your manger?
If you tie a rope around his neck
will he harrow the furrows for you?
Can you rely on his massive strength
and leave him to do your heavy work?
Can you depend on him to come home
and pile your grain on your threshing-floor?
[39:5–12].
Here is the freedom of the donkey who roams wild in
the wastelands, the refusal of the wild ox to submit to
domestic tasks (later there will be references to the
hawk and the eagle who “make their eyrie in the
heights”; see 39:26–30). Is everything that exists in the
natural world really meant to be domesticated by
human beings and subjected to their service?
Furthermore, Job has said that to be free, one must be
far from God, in that dead place and place of the dead
that is Sheol. There, he said sorrowfully, “the slave is
free of his master” (3:19). Now in a new irony Yahweh
teaches him that, on the contrary, if the animals
described are free, it is because they keep far away
from human beings and because God takes delight in
them. 13
God's speeches are a forceful rejection of a purely
anthropocentric view of creation. Not everything that
exists was made to be directly useful to human beings;
therefore, they may not judge everything from their
point of view. The world of nature expresses the

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freedom and delight of God in creating. It refuses to be
limited to the narrow confines of the cause-effect
relationship.
The text goes on to point out an apparent incongruity
in creation—the ostrich, which is slow-witted yet
graceful:
The ostrich flaps its wings proudly,
its feathers are like the feathers of the stork.
14

She leaves her eggs on the ground

with only earth to warm them;
forgetting that a foot may tread on them
or a wild animal crush them.
Cruel to her chicks as if they were not hers,
little she cares if her labour goes for nothing.
God, you see, has deprived her of wisdom
and given her no share of intelligence.
Yet if she bestirs herself to use her height
she can make fools of horse and rider too
[39:13–18].
The possibility cannot be excluded that the
“bohemian God” (as Vallejo would say) who speaks in
these discourses is playing with Job. 15 This is
suggested by the insinuation that at times, as in the
case of the ostrich, God has forgotten to give animals
their share of understanding or wisdom (bīnāh ) (v.
17). This is an invitation to Job to learn from God's
plan and thus show that he is not lacking in
discernment. At the same time, however, the God who
is sarcastic and amused also reassures him: Job, like
the ostrich, may have lacked wisdom in his life, but he
is still pleasing to God the creator.
Next comes the finest bit of poetry in this chapter—
the verses on the horse:
Are you the one who makes the horse so brave
and covers his neck with a flowing mane?
Do you make him leap like a grasshopper?
His haughty neighing inspires terror.
Exultantly he paws the soil of the valley,
and charges the battle-line in all his strength.

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 He laughs at fear; he is afraid of nothing,
he recoils before no sword .
On his back the quiver rattles,
the flashing spear and javelin.
Trembling with impatience, he eats up the
miles;
when the trumpet sounds, there is no holding
him.
At each trumpet blast he neighs exultantly.
He scents the battle from afar,
the thundering of the commanders and the
war cry
[39:19–25].

All these passages on the animals breathe out an air

of freedom, vigor, and independence. God is pleased
with creation (see Gen. 1:31). The whole of this first
speech (chaps. 38–39) expresses the delight that the
created world gives God. If the rain falls on the bleak
moors, this is not because of any necessity but because
it pleases God. Utility is not the primary reason for
God's action; the creative breath of God is inspired by
beauty and joy. Job is invited to sing with Yahweh the
wonders of creation—without forgetting that the source
of it all is the free and gratuitous love of God.
The reasoning in God's discourse seems to be this:
what holds for the world of nature, holds with all the
greater reason for the world of history. There is
therefore an implied question: Must all that happens in
history, including God's action, necessarily fit hand in
glove with the theological categories that reason has
developed? The power of the argument is all the more
understandable in that for the Bible, with its unified
outlook in which nonetheless there is no confusion of
levels, creation is seen as a saving action of God. 16
This means that it is difficult and even impossible to
discover in detail the reasons for God's action, so as to
be able to foresee it and, as it were, manage it. Job's
friends, unlike Job himself, seek not so much to see
God as to foresee what God will do. They are
determined to lay hands on God instead of abandoning
themselves to God's embrace and, in the words of

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Deuteronomy, “cleaving to” God, thereby choosing life
(30:19–20). The speeches of God to Job, on the
contrary, are a reminder of “the incomprehensible
character of God,” which, as Christian Duquoc rightly
says, “indicates the freedom and gratuitousness of
God.” 17

HUMAN LITTLENESS AND RESPECT

FOR GOD
Yahweh ends the first speech with a direct and
explicit challenge: “Is Yahweh's opponent going to
give way? Has God's critic thought up an answer?”
(40:2). Contrary to those who claim that the Lord has
said nothing to Job about his problems, the author
believes that Yahweh has indeed said something that
Job can understand. Perhaps Job will now abandon his
protests, and therefore God asks him to speak. In any
case, Job now has the right to reply, and the conditions
for doing so have been met.
The flood of questions, the irony they reflect, the
difficulty of answering them, and the satisfaction
produced in him by God's presence—all these cause
Job to lose the self-assurance with which he had sought
this meeting. Conquered perhaps, but not convinced, he
attempts to retreat a step:
I feel my littleness: what reply shall I give? 18
I had better lay my hand over my mouth.
I have spoken once, I shall not speak again;
I have spoken twice, I have nothing more to
say
[40:4–5].
This is Job's first answer to the speeches of the Lord,
or, better, it is a statement that he will not give an
answer, a declaration that he will remain silent. He
acknowledges his littleness but does not admit he has
sinned; he expresses humility but not resignation. Job
feels himself to be little (literally: trivial, of little
weight)—that is, unimportant, of little value. His tone
is quite different now; earlier he had gone so far as to
assert his own importance (19:9; 29:20). The speeches

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of God have brought home the fact that human beings
are not the center of the universe and that not
everything has been made for their service.
Acknowledgment of his littleness may thus be an
important step toward the abandonment of his
anthropocentrism.
There is, however, no repentance. Job knows himself
to be innocent. He has said so over and over, and he
still thinks so; nor does God accuse him. 19 Henceforth
he will remain silent and place his hand over his
mouth, as his friends would have had to do if they had
listened to his arguments (see 21:5); and as did those
who in the good times used to marvel at his wisdom
(cf. 29:9).
Job now knows more about God, but he does not yet
know enough. The light has still not dawned fully for
him. His struggle has been too extensive and profound
for him to change his opinion easily. The poet shows
finesse in getting this resistance across to the reader.
Job is still full of his own problems; his answer is
given in the first person singular. It will take a costly
effort for him to go out of himself and his world. In his
proposal to withdraw, any reference to God is only
implicit.
Yahweh, however, will not let go. Yahweh refuses to
let Job withdraw from the debate; Yahweh has more to
say. Moreover, Job must get to the bottom of this
matter; he must drink to the full the cup of protest.
Motivated perhaps by Job's resistance, Yahweh begins
a new speech. This time, as I said earlier, the principal
theme is not the plan (‘ē āh ) of God with its basis in
gratuitousness, but God's just government of the world,
God's justice, judgment (mishpa ). This was the
question on which Job had focused more directly. To
approach it in a profitable way, however, it was
necessary to locate it in the context of God's overall
plan. That is what God did in the first speech. 20
Once more Yahweh answers Job “from the heart of
the tempest” and tells him a second time to “gird up his
loins”: “brace yourself as a fighter.” Once again he asks
Job to answer questions: “I am going to ask the

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questions, and you are to inform me!” (40:6–7). 21 God
does not want resigned silence that hides murmurs of
dissatisfaction. This time, however, the challenge will
be harder and more specific: Job must choose between
God and himself:
Do you really want to reverse my judgement,
put me in the wrong and yourself in the right?
[40:8].
The theme of justice is undoubtedly the one that
electrifies the air around Job and his God. In light of
what we saw in the first two sections of this chapter,
Yahweh's question amounts to saying: Do you persist
in staying locked into a world of easy explanations?
Are you going to dispute my right to control what
comes upon you? Are you trying to imprison my free
and gratuitous love in your theological concepts? Do
you want to make yourself judge of my actions?
In that kind of universe, God would not be God. It
must be said, moreover, that these words are addressed
not only to Job but to all those who, like Job's friends,
seek to domesticate God, subject God to their will,
decide whom God is to favor, and thus attempt to win a
privileged place for themselves in human society.
God will help Job—and in him all of us—to escape
from his prison by showing him that he will be in the
right only if he occupies the place that is properly his
as a human being and a believer. With profound irony
God asks:
Has your arm the strength of God's,
can your voice thunder as loud?
Come on, display your majesty and grandeur,
robe yourself in splendour and glory.
Let the fury of your anger burst forth,
humble the haughty at a glance!
Bury the lot of them in the ground,
shut them, every one, in the Dungeon.
And I shall be the first to pay you homage,
since your own right hand is strong enough to
save you [40:9–14].

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 That the words are ironic is clear. But this time there
is no mention of God's power or of God's delight in
creation or of God's sense of humor. Rather the Lord is
explaining, tenderly and, as it were, shyly, that the
wicked cannot simply be destroyed with a glance. God
wants justice indeed, and desires that divine judgment
(mishpa ) reign in the world; but God cannot impose
it, for the nature of created beings must be respected.
God's power is limited by human freedom; for without
freedom God's justice would not be present within
history. Furthermore, precisely because human beings
are free, they have the power to change their course
and be converted. The destruction of the wicked would
put an end to that possibility.
In other words, the all-powerful God is also a “weak”
God. The mystery of divine freedom leads to the
mystery of human freedom and to respect for it. The
Bible shows God's self-revelation in contrasting
situations (see Ps. 139). A theophany can occur in the
midst of fire (see Exod. 3:3–5) or when a storm erupts
in thunder and flashes of lightning (see Exod. 19:16).
But God also dispenses self-revelation shyly and
almost imperceptibly, with a gentle caress:
And [the Lord] said, “Go forth, and stand upon the
mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord
passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the
mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the
Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the
wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the
earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the
Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still
small voice. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped
his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the
entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a
voice to him, and said, “What are you doing here,
Elijah?” [1 Kings 19:11–13].
God is manifest not in the mighty wind or the
earthquake or the fire but very tactfully in the whisper
of a gentle breeze that is incapable of crushing or
burying anyone.

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 This respect for human freedom was only hinted at in
a passage to which I called attention earlier: 38:12–15.
22
It was said there in a beautiful image that the light of
dawn “grasps the earth by its edges and shakes the
wicked out of it,” preventing their misdeeds. But there
is also the implication that the wicked are not simply
annihilated. In fact, the image of morning succeeding
each night conveys the idea of an ongoing task
symbolized by the light of day: the task of establishing
justice. 23
On the other hand, there is this extremely important
point: just as we cannot speak of the wicked as if they
had always been such and must go on being such,
neither can we say that the just will never cease to be
just. Consequently, the respect God shows here for
human freedom is given equally to those who have
thus far been devout and moral individuals. It is given
therefore to Job no less than to others; God respects
him too and will not destroy him immediately if he acts
wrongly or wickedly.
Yahweh, the “I am,” the protector of life, urges Job to
acknowledge the divine mercy, even if he does not
fully understand it, and to address it as the author of the
Book of Wisdom does:
But thou art merciful to all, for thou canst do
all things,
and thou dost overlook men's sins, that they
may
repent.
For thou lovest all things that exist,
and hast loathing for none of the things which
thou hast
made,
for thou wouldst not have made anything if
thou hadst
hated it .
How would anything have endured if thou
hadst not
willed it?
Or how would anything not called forth by
thee have

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 been preserved?
Thou sparest all things, for they are thine, O
Lord who
lovest the living [11:23–26; see Hos. 11:9].
In his first answer to God, Job had spoken of his
littleness, his insignificance—that is, the littleness and
insignificance of any human being as compared with
God and God's creative work. Yahweh accepts this
acknowledgment with a corresponding expression of
humility: Yahweh too has limits, which are self-
imposed. Human beings are insignificant in Job's
judgment, but they are great enough for God, the
almighty, to stop at the threshold of their freedom and
ask for their collaboration in the building of the world
and in its just governance.
Is Job able to understand this hard and demanding,
but also friendly and respectful, message? Later on, in
his final answer, he will speak of “marvels that are
beyond my grasp” (42:3). The “marvels” refer both to
the works the mighty God has done in this world and to
those of the “weak” God who is heedful of human
freedom and its historical rhythm.
But what this God of grace and justice cannot do,
neither will Job succeed in doing. To claim otherwise
would be to seek to usurp God's place. We must reflect
on the scope of the last verse in the passage cited: “I
shall be the first to pay you homage, since your own
right hand is strong enough to save you” (40:14). The
words used are technical. The word translated
“homage” is used of the worship owed to God, 24 and it
is a classic theme of the Bible that only the right hand
of God is capable of saving. 25 In other words, God is
telling Job that if he can do what is impossible to God,
God will treat him as God.
The statement has the sarcastic edge that we saw
previously. Yet, in simple truth, the logic at work in a
knowledge that claims to know everything about the
Lord, to account fully for the Lord's actions, and to
foresee how the Lord will intervene, leads in the final
analysis to the replacement of God with self and to the
usurpation of God's place. It leads, in other words, to

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the denial of God. The god who subsequently asserts
itself will be in the final analysis a prefabricated,
domesticated god made by human hands (see Isa.
44:14–17). This is precisely what the Bible means by
idolatry, which is a permanent temptation for believers,
as many passages of the Bible warn us. The irony God
employs in this passage is therefore simply a means of
bringing home to Job the end result of a certain kind of
rational pride—the replacement of God by the human
person. 26
The reference is undoubtedly to the theology of Job's
friends. But as I have several times pointed out, Job
himself to some extent accepts the same outlook; he
has never succeeded in ridding himself of it completely
despite his sometimes savage attempts to criticize it.
Yahweh reinforces what has just been said in this key
passage by bringing two fanciful animals on the scene:
Behemoth and Leviathan. 27 The passage is a difficult
one, and many interpretations are given of the meaning
of the two fabulous beasts. 28 The most plausible
approach, in my view, is to regard them as a kind of
illustration of the opening verses of God's second
speech and, concretely, as symbols of the wicked.
Yahweh is using these animals to remind us that, like
everything that exists, the enormous forces of chaos
and disorder are subject to divine power, even if it does
not annihilate them.
From the opening words the emphasis is on the
creatureliness of these mighty beasts: “Look at
Behemoth, my creature, just as you are! ” (40:15). Job
has a trait in common with these animals: all have
come from God's hand. They are, as it were, holdovers
from the chaos out of which the world, the cosmos,
emerged. Because of his undeserved suffering, Job sees
existence as a chaos, a continuation of the original
disorder. God is trying to show Job that divine power
controls these chaotic forces, although at the same time
God says that they will not be destroyed. They
represent the wicked of whom God has just been
speaking (40:11–13); they are forces existing in the
world. The Lord does not forthwith put an end to these

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remnants of the original chaos (into which Job has felt
himself being thrust), but the Lord does control them.
There is evil in the world, but the world is not evil.
There are chaotic forces within the cosmos, but the
cosmos is not a chaos. 29
The text of 40:7–14 and the ensuing illustration of it
are thus an important part of God's argument. 30 The
still rather unconvinced Job of the first reply is brought
face to face here with the subject that has been
preoccupying him: justice. God's first speech was
focused on the revelation of the divine plan (‘ē āh ,
38:2); gratuitousness is the hinge on which the world
turns and the definitive seal set upon it. This is the
reality that embraces and gives meaning to everything.
Only in its light is it possible to understand correctly
the scope and meaning of the subject taken up in the
second speech : God's will that divine justice and
judgment (mishpa , 40:7) be established. 31
The correlate of the divine freedom God has revealed
to Job is human freedom. The first calls to and
establishes the second. The final chapters of the Book
of Job tell us of the meeting of these two freedoms.
Job's freedom finds expression in his complaints and
rebellion; God's freedom finds expression in the
gratuitousness of the divine love that refuses to be
confined within a system of predictable rewards and
punishments. Job's freedom reaches its full maturity
when he encounters without intermediaries the God in
whom he hopes; God's freedom comes to light in the
revelation that divine gratuitous love has been made
the foundation of the world and that only in light of
this fact can the meaning of divine justice be grasped.
When human freedom meets the divine freedom it also
penetrates to the depths of itself.
God's speeches are thus concerned directly in a very
coherent way with the subject that has been discussed
throughout the entire book. There could be no more
radical rejection of the theologian friends who have not
known how to speak correctly of God. Then come
God's final words :
Who can stand up to me?

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 Who will resist me and go away unscathed?
Everything under heaven is mine [41:2–3]. 32
These verses recall the last defiant words of Job in
chapter 31: “Here is my signature!” (v. 35). The Lord's
signature follows: “Everything under heaven is mine.”
Everything that is and happens bears in some way
God's trademark; that is why human beings do not
understand it completely.
Now Job speaks once again.

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