New Discoveries

As I have been working on my term paper, I found some more interesting things. I'll be honest and admit that I never completely finished the book of Job. But it is one of the focuses of my term paper so I figured I'd better at least read it from beginning to end. Doing so, I came across a passage that I found, in a sense, spellbinding. It's one of Elihu's many ramblings. And I know we're not supposed to like him as he's one of Job's "frenemies," but I can't help but love the metaphors of this particular passage. It's his speech in Job 36:26-37:13. I'd recommend that you read it, but it may not speak to you the way it does to me.

In it Elihu praises God's wondrous power to control the atmosphere. "Listen to the roar of his voice, to the rumbling that comes from his mouth" (Job 37:2). For Elihu, and for most of us, this is the closest we will ever come to actually hearing God's voice. He does not speak directly to us any longer, like the God of the Old Testament. I think it's a wonderful metaphor Elihu makes for God's voice; the thunder of the skies seems like the best substitute (at least for the limited mental capacity of our human minds) for such a majestic being.

In Revelation, John attempts to describe a physical manifestation of the Son's second coming:

"His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters." (Revelation 1:14-15)

I'd like to see you try to describe a man like this in today's day and age, "I'm telling you, man! His voice was like the sound of rushing waters! Rushing freakin' waters!!" You'd pretty much sound crazy. But I'm sure that "rushing waters" don't even come close to what God's voice would really sound like to our human ears.

Elihu's speech puts it into perspective how powerful God is, just in the fact that we can't even illustrate by metaphor how truly awesome he is, because our human standards simply cannot comprehend...