Thirty-eight chapters into the story of Job, and this suddenly happens:
Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind...
— Job 38:1 NRSV
What. An. Awesome. Entrance.
And yet, the author of Job completely underplays the entire event. So much so that you find yourself several verses into God’s speech before you imagine the scene.
A whirlwind!
God finally answers Job, and he does it from within a raging tornado.
For Job, the approaching wind is the same destructive force that killed all ten of his children. It's also how he expects God to silence his accusations of injustice, as you can see in the following verses.
"Even if I summoned him and he responded,
I do not believe he would give me a hearing.
He would crush me with a storm
and multiply my wounds for no reason."
— Job in his third speech, Job 9:16-17 NIV
As the violent winds batter Job, I can hear him screaming at the top of his lungs for God to put an end to his suffering. But the whirlwind is not there to kill him. Neither is it there to multiply his wounds.
The whirlwind is instead a place of revelation.
A revelation that says, I’m not like that.
