Where were you?

Listening to Max McLean read the Bible while I work. This is Job 38

The Lord answers from a whirlwind

1Then the LORD answered Job from the whirlwind:

2Who is this darkening counsel

with words lacking knowledge?

3Prepare yourself like a man;

I will interrogate you, and you will respond to me.

The establishing of order

4Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations?

Tell me if you know.

5Who set its measurements? Surely you know.

Who stretched a measuring tape on it?

6On what were its footings sunk;

who laid its cornerstone,

7while the morning stars sang in unison

and all the divine beings shouted?

8Who enclosed the Sea behind doors

when it burst forth from the womb,

9when I made the clouds its garment,

the dense clouds its wrap,

10when I imposed my limit for it,

put on a bar and doors

11and said, "You may come this far, no farther;

here your proud waves stop"?

12In your lifetime have you commanded the morning,

informed the dawn of its place

13so it would take hold of earth by its edges

and shake the wicked out of it?

14Do you turn it over like clay for a seal,

so it stands out like a colorful garment?

15Light is withheld from the wicked,

the uplifted arm broken.

The vast beyond

16Have you gone to the sea’s sources,

walked in the chamber of the deep?

17Have death’s gates been revealed to you;

can you see the gates of deep darkness?

18Have you surveyed earth’s expanses?

Tell me if you know everything about it.

19Where’s the road to the place where light dwells;

darkness, where’s it located?

20Can you take it to its territory;

do you know the paths to its house?

21You know, for you were born then;

you have lived such a long time!

22Have you gone to snow’s storehouses,

seen the storehouses of hail

23that I have reserved for a time of distress,

for a day of battle and war?

24What is the way to the place where light is divided up;

the east wind scattered over earth?

Meteorological facts

25Who cut a channel for the downpours

and a way for blasts of thunder

26to bring water to uninhabited land,

a desert with no human

27to saturate dry wasteland

and make grass sprout?

28Has the rain a father

who brought forth drops of dew?

29From whose belly does ice come;

who gave birth to heaven’s frost?

30Water hardens like stone;

the surface of the deep thickens.

31Can you bind Pleiades’ chains

or loosen the reins of Orion?

32Can you guide the stars

at their proper times,

lead the Bear with her cubs?

33Do you know heaven’s laws,

or can you impose its rule on earth?

34Can you issue an order to the clouds

so their abundant waters cover you?

35Can you send lightning so that it goes

and then says to you, "I’m here"?

36Who put wisdom in remote places,

or who gave understanding to a rooster?

37Who is wise enough to count the clouds,

and who can tilt heaven’s water containers

38so that dust becomes mud

and clods of dirt adhere?

Lion and raven

39Can you hunt prey for the lion

or fill the cravings of lion cubs?

40They lie in their den,

lie in ambush in their lair.

41Who provides food for the raven

when its young cry to God,

move about without food?