THE BIG BANG

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? . . .
Who laid its cornerstone,
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?” (38:4, 6-7)

The Lord begins His cross-examination of Job by inquiring as to his whereabouts at the time of the world’s creation. Did he have a hand in it, perchance? People like to ask where God came from. But has it ever entered our minds that He might one day pose the same question to us? It is a shock to have the tables turned and to discover that the Lord, too, can ask questions about the nature of our existence, and can express doubts about us just as we do about Him.

In the course of this bizarrely ironical line of questioning, God lets slip, almost as an afterthought, one of the most sensationally beautiful verses in all of Scripture. It is almost as though He Himself were to open up the first chapter of Genesis and to write some new words there. For as the creation unfolded the Lord God in His modesty observed simply, “It is good.” Yet meanwhile, according to Job 38:7, the Hosts of Heaven were letting out whoops and peals of joy! Note too that since the text specifically reports that “all the angels” (emphasis added) were celebrating, we can only presume that the happy throng must have included Lucifer and all his future demons. At the sight of the brand-new creation, even he who would become the Devil was jubilant—and why not? He had just been created himself. The paint was still fresh on his wings.

So this text takes us back to a time when the universe was united in perfect harmony, when the praise for God was so unanimous that in all of creation there was not one dissenting voice. It is as if the Lord were to say to Job, “You know, of course, that when everything was planned and set in motion, a cheer went up from one end of the cosmos to the other? I mean, I’m sure I don’t need to mention this to one as well-informed as you—but you do know, don’t you, that the secret of the universe is a shout of joy? You’re aware that ecstasy is the cornerstone and foundation of absolutely everything?” Scientists today like to talk about the Big Bang; but little do they realize that the echoes they detect may be the shouts of angels.

In Job this sudden mention of joy comes as something of an embarrassment—especially since elsewhere in the book nearly every other use of the word “joy” has a negative connotation. (Typical is 9:25 where Job moans, “My days fly away without a glimpse of joy.”) Even for a smiling, healthy Christian, the mere mention of joy in a sermon, along with the reminder that rejoicing goes hand in hand with true faith, may toll like a great sad bell in the heart. For real joy is so scarce among us. We humans, who are slaves to sin and so do everything out of neurotic necessity and deadly pragmatism, have a most difficult time laying hold of a spirit of pure, spontaneous celebration. As much as we may value spontaneity, we can no more “be spontaneous” than we can fly. The feat is beyond us. Ecstasy is so purely a divine quality that it comes to us only by surprise, as an unexpected gift. Acts of joyful abandonment are the rare exception with us rather than the rule, whereas for God they are simply His nature, His normal mode of operating. Elan is the air God breathes. He gets a bang out of everything He does.

It is fitting that the Lord should take Job back to the beginning of the world in order to point this out, to that time of the “earth’s foundation” when the very sea “burst forth from the womb” (38:4, 8). Isn’t a birth the most joyous of events? Even in this fallen old world, in which a woman’s “pains in childbearing” have been “greatly increased” (Gen. 3:16), what happiness can compare with that of the birth of a baby? Imagine then what it must have been like at the original birth of all things! Later in His speech the Lord returns to this theme when He asks Job, “Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn?” (39:1). This is, of course, the central mystery of all: where does life come from? Where does anything come from? It is God’s power as Creator of everything in the universe that first and foremost establishes His claim to be the only God. No one else can perform this feat of creation. No one else can make something out of nothing. Why not? Perhaps it is because no one else possesses the secret of pure joy.


Mason, M. (2002). The Gospel According to Job: An Honest Look at Pain and Doubt from the Life of One Who Lost Everything. Crossway.