“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.” (Job 38:4)

In chapters 38–41 of Job is recorded a remarkable series of 77 questions about the creation—questions which God asked Job and his philosophizing friends, and which they were utterly unable to answer. At the end of the searching examination, Job could only confess: “Therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not” (Job 42:3). Modern evolutionists, despite all their arrogant pretensions, still are not able to answer them either, over 35 centuries later!

But there is one who can answer them, and His answers echo back from another ancient document, the marvelous eighth chapter of Proverbs. To God’s first question, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth,” comes His answer: “When he appointed the foundations of the earth: Then I was by him” (Proverbs 8:29-30). The speaker here is the divine wisdom. He is the Word of God, the pre-incarnate Son of God, soon to become the Son of man. In this amazing chapter, He echoes an answer to the most searching of God’s inscrutable questions to Job and his friends:

“Who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth?” (Job 38:8). “He set a compass [literally ‘sphericity’] upon the face of the depth: . . . When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment” (Proverbs 8:27, 29). “Hast thou commanded the morning . . . and caused the dayspring to know his place?” (Job 38:12). “When he prepared the heavens, I was there” (Proverbs 8:27).

Our Savior was there! “For by him were all things created” (Colossians 1:16). One more question: “Have the gates of death been opened unto thee?” (Job 38:17). Yes, and they have not prevailed! “For whoso findeth me findeth life, . . . all they that hate me love death” (Proverbs 8:35-36). HMM