Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Finally, God speaks.

I don't know if you read the headings in your Bible or not, but when I saw the heading of chapter 38 that said,

The Lord answers Job, I was so relieved. This is who I wanted to hear speak, not Job's friends.

You probably felt the same way. And if so, we can rest assured that Job definitely wants to hear

God speak even more than we do. Honestly, I hardly want to touch a recap on

these chapters. I kind of just want to enjoy them, but I will point out a few things in God's

reply to Job. First of all, you may have noticed that when God responds to Job, the word Lord

is in all caps. And you may remember what we learned about the word Lord in all caps on day one when we read

Genesis 1 through 3. This is God's personal name, Yahweh, Jehovah. So right out of the gate here,

we see that God is being very personal with Job. This flies in the face of what Job's friend said

would happen next. They said Job would continue

to get God's silence and even more harsh consequences if he didn't repent. Well, Job didn't repent,

but here God is, speaking to Job directly and intimately. When God first starts speaking to Job,

you might have noticed it has nothing to do with Job's

problems. God doesn't answer any of Job's questions. He actually starts out by establishing

who he is. That's because everything else is secondary to who God is. He establishes himself

as the creator and commander of everything. He initiates, sustains, and fulfills everything in accordance with his plan.

And he makes it clear that his attention isn't just to the things we consider to be of utmost importance.

He even ordains and orders the predator prey food chain in the animal kingdom.

The lion hunts at his command. He is the one who

feeds the raven. He tells the eagles where to build their nests. Speaking of straw, I think we

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