The Gates of Death

“Have you entered into the springs of the sea

Or walked in the recesses of the deep?

Have the gates of death been revealed to you,

Or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?

Have you understood the expanse of the earth?

Tell Me, if you know all this.

Where is the way to the dwelling of light?

And darkness, where is its place,

That you may take it to its territory

And that you may discern the paths to its home?

You know, for you were born then,

And the number of your days is great!” (Job 38:16-21)

Job had lost his family and his health and he was beginning to lose his belief in God’s love. God’s response to Job’s flagging faith was sarcasm. God asked him a series of questions that he knew Job would not be able to answer. Why did God respond to Job’s suffering by heaping sarcasm and insults upon him?

God wondered why Job’s inability to fathom an explanation for his suffering was any different from Job’s inability to explain where light lived or where the gates of death might be. Job had concluded that there was no good reason for his pain so God must hate him or be bad or unreasonable. Job’s conclusion made as much sense as it would for him to conclude God was bad or unreasonable or hated him because Job couldn’t explain where light came from. Job learned that God wouldn’t necessarily answer all the questions he wondered about. In fact, the answers he got might not even be to the questions he was asking. He learned that too often he didn’t even know what the right questions might be.

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