dress and answer... like a man.

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

“Dress for action like a man;

I will question you, and you make it known to me."

Job 40:6-7

The LORD puts Job's objections to his pain to the holy scrutinty of God's wisdom, power, and justice. Job has already admitted he cannot answer God in argument (Job 40:3-5). He promises silence as God continues to reveal His power to Job. As God continues explaining Job's own weakness to him by describing even greater power over the natural world, Job can only stay silent and take in the truth of God's revelation in contemplative worship.

God warns Job that this is no easy take to "hear from God". It would require all of Job's strength, courage, and manly vigor to engage in this exercise. Just like Jacob wrestled with God in his tent throught the ngiht, God would now contend in conversation with Job. But he needed to "man up" and get ready for the effort. This was going to be quite a work out. God just asked Job to put on his big boy britches. Job had questions for God no more. But now God would take Job to school with questions of his own.

As God continued to pummel Job with hard hitting instances of the power of the natural world that the Lord had made, Job's own place in the scheme of God's created world became more apparent. Job's weakness was as woefully insufficient as God's creative and sustaining power was great. The God Who made and controlled the greatest beasts on earth and creatures of the deep sea vastly eclipsed Job's power. Job learned about the majesty of God's power as God kept questioning him with instances that showed Job's human frailty. And that faith that Job needed to maintain kept maturing to a repentance that acknowledged his own wrongs in demanding answers from the Almighty. GOD was the answer. GOD was all that Job needed. Like a man, he could not prevail against God, but was blessed in humble, submissive, repentant worship.