Mark Tabata’s Weekday Devotionals:
Tuesday February 10 2026
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Job 38:1-Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:
Job was a righteous man who suffered greatly. In his grief and pain, he lashed out against God and said some very inaccurate things about Him.
Job 6:4-For the arrows of the Almighty are within me; My spirit drinks in their poison; The terrors of God are arrayed against me.
Job 7:13-21-When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me, My couch will ease my complaint,’ 14 Then You scare me with dreams And terrify me with visions, 15 So that my soul chooses strangling And death rather than my body. 16 I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone, For my days are but a breath. 17 “What is man, that You should exalt him, That You should set Your heart on him, 18 That You should visit him every morning, And test him every moment? 19 How long? Will You not look away from me, And let me alone till I swallow my saliva? 20 Have I sinned? What have I done to You, O watcher of men? Why have You set me as Your target, So that I am a burden to myself? 21 Why then do You not pardon my transgression, And take away my iniquity? For now I will lie down in the dust, And You will seek me diligently, But I will no longer be.“
Job 9:21-24-I am blameless, yet I do not know myself; I despise my life. 22 It is all one thing; Therefore I say, ‘He destroys the blameless and the wicked.’ 23 If the scourge slays suddenly, He laughs at the plight of the innocent. 24 The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He covers the faces of its judges. If it is not He, who else could it be?
Job 10:3-Does it seem good to You that You should oppress, That You should despise the work of Your hands, And smile on the counsel of the wicked?
Job 10:16-17-If my head is exalted, You hunt me like a fierce lion, And again You show Yourself awesome against me. 17 You renew Your witnesses against me, And increase Your indignation toward me; Changes and war are ever with me.
When God speaks to Job from the whirlwind (Job 38:1), my first inclination is that the Almighty is showing His power to the patriarch. It is as if God is saying, “Job, I’m gonna show you that you can’t talk about Me like this!” It seems that the Lord is going to silence Job by scaring him.
But that isn’t what is going on at all.
When we look at the imagery of God and storms in the Old Testament, we find something insightful and encouraging for the Lord’s people.
“As we will soon see, however, the way in which yhwh engages with the debate completely contradicts what both Job and his friends expect, and perhaps what the reader expects as well. But the surprising way in which God addresses Job in no way means that he fails to give a satisfying response…“The one difference between yhwh’s introduction and those of Job and the friends is that yhwh speaks ‘from the storm’ (sĕʿārâ; esv has ‘whirlwind’). While this word sometimes refers to purely natural storms (Pss 107: 25, 29; 148: 8), it more frequently refers to a storm within which God appears theophanically to battle against chaos and evil (Isa. 29: 6; Jer. 23: 19; Nah. 1: 3; Zech. 9: 14; cf. Ezek. 1: 4). With these other uses of the word in mind, the way yhwh finishes his second speech from this storm to Job by describing the chaos monster Leviathan takes on new significance. It looks as if the ancient Old Testament pattern of theophanic storm warfare is being activated. Elsewhere in the Old Testament, yhwh’s appearance in the storm, with thunder and lightning, is a way of presenting God’s victorious warfare against supernatural chaos and evil and the salvation of those who trust him (see Job 26: 11–14; Pss 18; 29; 74; 89; Isa. 27: 1; 51: 9–11; Joel 3: 15–18; Hab. 3: 3–15). 5 This connection between God’s appearance in the storm and his warfare on behalf of his people is easy for modern readers to miss, for the symbolic resonances of the storm in Old Testament poetry are very foreign to our context. It is probably easy for us to assume that yhwh’s thunder and lightning in these texts are a way of describing divine power in a general sense, yet fail to appreciate the full implications of God’s action in the storm. In the symbolic world of Old Testament poetry, however, the thunder and lightning of God’s storm have a dual function: they both repel the raging sea and the monsters in it and renew creation with rain after the battle. In other words, yhwh’s manifestation in the storm occurs not just as a display of divine power but specifically for the purposes of driving back darkness and chaos and restoring order, fertility and fullness of life. The same thunder and lightning that drive back the raging waters also bless and nourish creation. As modern readers, we must constantly remember that in this cultural and religious context, thunder and lightning are not just fireworks but divine weapons by which God saves and renews his people and all creation. 6 The exact manner of God’s appearance would have been very significant to Job as an ancient Semite. Even if the pattern of divine warfare from the storm does not take exactly the same form at the end of the book of Job as it does elsewhere in the Old Testament, it is no accident that after yhwh describes Leviathan and promises his defeat (41: 1–11), Job is restored to fullness of life before God (42: 7–17). Even if there is no battle in Job 38–41, there are indications that God’s appearance in the storm in 38: 1 should be read in line with other texts describing divine warfare–a very hopeful sign for someone who has repeatedly mourned how close he is to death, how dominated he is by darkness (e.g. 30: 26). All this is to say that God’s introduction in 38: 1, unassuming as it may appear at first glance, gives Job the best of both worlds: his long-lost divine friend speaks in a way perfectly intelligible to him, but God speaks (as it were) dressed in full battle armour, ready to defeat enemies no human can. Entirely contrary to Job’s complaint in 9: 17 that God is crushing him in the storm, 7 yhwh’s appearance in the storm here (so it is implied) shows he is ready to go to battle on Job’s behalf as his saviour.” (Eric Ortlund, Piercing Leviathan: God’s Defeat of Evil in the Book of Job (New Studies in Biblical Theology 56), 61-64 (Kindle Edition, emphasis added); Downers Grove, IL; InterVarsity Press)
This teaches me some very important lessons.
First, God’s silence does not mean His absence. God had been silent all through Job’s ordeal, but this shows us that God had been aware of everything which had transpired. We often despair because we don’t see the Lord answering our prayers when we think that He should. Sometimes it feels as if God is not present, or He does not care about what we are facing. Don’t be deceived into thinking that just because you don’t see God intervening in your situation, that He isn’t (or, that He won’t)!
2 Chronicles 16:9-For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.…
Second, even when your perception of God is inaccurate and your walk with Him is imperfect, God will not throw you aside and toss you out. Some Christians live in perpetual fear that the Lord is going to revoke His forgiveness of them if they are not perfect, or do not have a sinless life. Here is a beautiful reminder to us that the Lord does not turn away from us when we struggle and have doubt. Job certainly did not understand perfectly and he was not without transgression and weakness, yet he was determined to not lose his trust in the Lord.
Job 13:15-Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him…
Jesus is not going to drop you like a bad habit because you struggle.
John 6:37-All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.
Third, the Lord will come to your aid when you face enemies that you can’t win against by your own strength. There are many dangers that we face for which we are ill-equipped. Yet the Lord will show up to help us when we need Him.
Philippians 4:13-I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Philippians 4:19-And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Finally, please consider that God will often show up in our lives and work in ways that we may not fully understand or be prepared for. This is a good example here in Job. The patriarch fully expected God to show up for trial so that he could put the Almighty on the witness stand and make Him confess that He had treated Job unfairly. But instead, God shows up in a way that catches Job completely off guard! He shows up as Job’s long lost Friend, the One Who is going to go to battle for Job and defeat the enemies that Job cannot overcome alone. Don’t miss this point: sometimes the Lord will show up and work in our circumstances with methods that we do not expect.
It is cliche, but often true: God works in mysterious ways!
Can you think of some ways that God has helped you in circumstances that were too much for you to bear alone?
How are some ways that the Lord has worked in your life that you did not expect?
Lord, thank You for speaking to us from the whirlwind. We love You and praise You. Amen.