Daily Lesson for September 18, 2018

And the Lord said to Job:

“Can you draw out Leviathan with a fish-hook,

   or press down its tongue with a cord? 

2 Can you put a rope in its nose,

   or pierce its jaw with a hook? 

3 Will it make many supplications to you?

   Will it speak soft words to you? 

4 Will it make a covenant with you

   to be taken as your servant for ever? 

5 Will you play with it as with a bird,

   or will you put it on a leash for your girls? 

6 Will traders bargain over it?

   Will they divide it up among the merchants? 

7 Can you fill its skin with harpoons,

   or its head with fishing-spears? 

8 Lay hands on it;

   think of the battle; you will not do it again! 

9 Any hope of capturing it will be disappointed;

   were not even the gods overwhelmed at the sight of it? 

10 No one is so fierce as to dare to stir it up.

   Who can stand before it? 

11 Who can confront it and be safe?

   —under the whole heaven, who?”

God continues to speak to Job from the whirlwind. This unsettled and unsettling problem of evil, justice of God, mystery of life and death and being is elusive — too elusive for human comprehension. The LORD compares it all to the Leviathan — the great sea beast of the ocean. Such a creature simply will not be domesticated or tamed. It is too wild and too free and too deep.

We can never place a leash around the mystery of life.  There are some things simply too great for human comprehension.  To wonder why is human; to know why is divine. The storehouse of knowledge remains hidden beyond the veil.

The Leviathan has been seen from the shores at times. It both delights and also strikes fear. It reminds us of the leagues and leagues and leagues beyond us. It reminds us of our home on shore, even as we wonder and marvel at its home somewhere out there in the depths.

And she who understands the distance between the two is the one we call wise.