Skip to main content

Job 41:1-7 What in the world is a Leviathan?

Good morning saints,

Almost to the end of Job.  But not to the end of wisdom or of God.  

Blessings

Jeff

The Lord finishes His questioning with "Leviathan".  Exactly what this creature is is unknown.  Sounds like a cross between an alligator and a hippo to me.  As Jonathan spoke last Sunday about the reality of hell being far worse than the fires that symbolize it, so this may also be symbolic.  The most threatening sea creature you can imagine is nothing compared to the reality of the LORD.

This is what makes wisdom literature different from historical narrative.  Take words as far as you can and then realize how poorly they describe what you are thinking of.  In mathematics, the concept of infinity comes close to this.  No matter how big a number you can think of, there is always another number that is one more.  Sand on the seashore is not infinite.  Given enough time, each grain could be counted.  It is a very large number but not infinite.  Then think about how many numbers are there between 1 and 2.  Well that is infinite as well.  Words and numbers can only go so far.  

There is the infinitely large and the infinitely small.  God condescends to use language to picture what He is like.  But it does not mean that what He says fully explains the topic.  

Instruction - What does God expect from me?  Accept the limitations of language in trying to understand Him.  Even inspired writers are limited in a way.  All they say is true, but they cannot say all that is true.  Be content with the truth revealed through them.

Thanksgiving - The One who fills all things in all ways.  As vast as the cosmos is, He is outside of space and time.  Beyond our ability to comprehend.

Confession - Trying to confine God within the limits of human understanding.  The finite cannot hold the infinite.

Petition - Let us make little of ourselves and much of You.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leviticus 18:21 - Partial restoration of creation order

Dear Friends, Some times we forget that Moses wrote Genesis.  Obviously, he did not have first hand knowledge of the events of creation.  But God did and revealed them to Moses.  The "story arc" is clear to Moses despite the millenia of history between Genesis and Leviticus.  The plan for ultimate restoration is hazy, but God is at work repairing some of the damage. Blessings, Jeff What is the prohibition on child sacrifice doing in the list of prohibited sexual relations? Be fruitful and multiply - First commandment in Genesis.  God made the world to be inhabited.   Having children is how this  was to happen.  So child sacrifice was a direct violation of this first command to Adam and Eve. Marriage is one man and one woman is the creation order. Seems simple enough.  I can imagine men thinking, Yeah but God didn't say which woman.  I will do the one woman thing if she is my sister, or aunt or …..  So God gives all these examples of unlawful unions.  To this day, man stil
Post a Comment
Read more

1 Chronicles 24:1-6 How about those Levites! Day 332

Good morning friends, Good foundations are important.  Our author turns to the religious life of the returning exiles. Blessings, Jeff We have seen the emphasis on the Davidic line in the  political life of Israel.  The other area of emphasis is the Aaronic priesthood and Levitical workers. In this passage we have a quick review of the somewhat sanitized picture of the start of Aaron's line.  The returning exiles would have known that Nadab and Abihu did not just "die before their father without children".  They rebelled against God by offering unauthorized fire and were themselves consumed by fire from the Lord. Leviticus 10.  The case of Abiathar  son of Ahitub son of Ahimelech, who was faithful to David, but later rebelled with Adonijah is also not mentioned. But the passage points to the importance of the Aaronic line to the rebuilding of the temple by the exiles.  The history of the northern kingdom which was without the Levites from the beginning could not be repeat
Post a Comment
Read more

Revelation 22:3-5 Final and eternal restoration - Day 365

Dear saints in the Lord, Congratulations!  You made it.  We have been through much turmoil in the last year ('20-'21).  But God is faithful to His promises.  I trust that you have been blessed in your reading and have drawn closer to God.   Since we didn't get the blog up and running at the beginning of the challenge, I am going to go back and post entries to cover that first month or so.   Blessings, Jeff Nothing accursed in the city of God, the new Jerusalem.  The presence of sin will be gone.  I am working on memorizing Westminster Shorter Catechism and currently on question 82.  Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God? No mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God but does daily break them in thought, word and deed. I think our passage today points to the truth of this question.  Do you notice how this answer is not exactly the same as the question. "Any man" becomes "no mere man since the fall
Post a Comment
Read more