“Who makes provision for the raven
when his little ones
cry out to God
craning their necks in
search of food?”
--Job 38:41
This morning as I read chapter 38 in the book of Job, I was struck
by a few things and they made me reflect on how I read and why. The first thing that I underlined was this
passage above. I found that image of the
baby ravens, the “little ones,” crying “out to God” very delightful. The idea that the birds are calling out to
God, singing to God, delights me. In the
context of the book of Job, this is the voice of God calling out to Job from
the whirlwind, and challenging him to a kind of duel; or to a reconsideration
of his complaint, his position in the grand scheme of things. God keeps asking Job these wonderful
intensely primal questions:
Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
What supports its pillars at their bases?
Who laid its cornerstone?
Who pent up the sea?
Have you ever given orders to the morning?
Which is the way to the home of the light?
Where does darkness live?
Have you visited the place where the snow is stored?
(cf. 38:1-22ff)
Questions that Job clearly cannot answer. And yet God continues. And in the midst of all this there is this wonderful
question about the ravens and their “little ones [who] cry out to God...” I don’t have any deep insight into this, only
the urge to pause and ponder it. The
little ones of the raven cry out to God.
It reminds me of a line from Wallace Stevens’s wonderful “Sunday Morning.”
I love that idea: the birds testing the reality of the
morning or crying out to God for food.
It feels true to me. I believe in the truth of those birds crying out to
God and anxiously testing the reality of the dawn... That makes sense to
me. It is how I read not only a book or
a poem, but the world. I don’t know why
this is, but I think that all my life I have read with eyes that are constantly
looking for God. And finding Him –everywhere.
Here are two more passages that caught my eye; and not for
any spiritual reason, but because they gave me pause. First was verse 30. I read:
“when the waters grow hard as stone
and the surface of the deep congeals...”
And I had to stop and wonder: Does Israel ever freeze? What parts
of the Middle East experience this kind of cold; where a lake or a body of
water would freeze over “hard as stone?”
I checked the Internet and there are occasions when Israel experienced
deep cold snaps and had snow storms, but no mention of ponds or lakes freezing
over. So, then I wondered: does this
detail give scholars some geographical clue about the author’s homeland?
Clearly he or she was aware of such weather phenomenon’s as a hard freeze. Hmmm... makes me wonder.
Second, I was curious about 38:31-33:
“Can you fasten the harness of the Pleiades,
or untie Orion’s bands?
Can you guide the Crown season by season
and show the Bear and its cubs which way to go?
Have you grasped the celestial laws?”
This little celestial moment gave me a brief thrill. And it was especially that reference to the
bear and her cubs. According to the footnotes, the bear the author
refers to is Ursa Major and her main cub is Ursa Minor. Reading
that got me wondering about ancient peoples and the stars, and my first thought was to wonder if this “bear”
was an imposition of the translator. Did the ancient author actually refer to the constellation as a "bear?" (Biblehub.com is a good place to look for answers to questions like that. Find your verse, and click on the interlinear translation link. In this case the word translated as "the bear" is a feminine noun that could mean a female bear, but not necessarily. Much is being derived from the context.) Also, how do we know what ancient people saw in those constellations? But when I did a little
research I learned that several ancient cultures actually did see in this constellation the
shape of a bear[1]. Which, of course, gave me to wonder about Orion,
the hunter. Anyway, it was kind of fun
to research weather and constellations during my Bible study this morning. To
follow the text wherever it leads... And to ponder the cooing of the doves in
my backyard, and the cawing of the blue jays and to hear in them not random instinctive
sounds, but an early morning office; a call to prayer; a reminder that we are
all dependent upon that same beautiful love that laid the foundations for the
earth, that fills the storehouse of the snow and knows the home of the light
and where the darkness lives. Those
little ones crying out to God remind me that I should get down on my knees this
beautiful quiet morning and do the same –even if it is just to say a simple
thank you, because I have hot coffee and cold toast and a quiet house. And a “good book” to read.
And of course, tonight, when I go for a walk and gaze up at
the stars I will feel a new kinship with the world, even with a Hebrew poet who
lived perhaps 3000 years ago. Anyway,
that’s how I read... How about you?
