Chapter 38 is the turning point of the book: until now, Iyov and his companions spoke, and from here on, the Holy One, Blessed is He, responds Himself. The response is not a direct answer to the question of suffering, but rather a guided tour through the wonders of creation: the Holy One, Blessed is He, leads Iyov from the very beginning of the world's formation, showing him the wisdom, planning, and precision in every single detail. The message: if you cannot understand the physical matters standing right before your eyes, how can you come to question the Creator's providence?
אֱזׇר־נָא כְגֶבֶר חֲלָצֶיךָ וְאֶשְׁאָלְךָ וְהוֹדִיעֵנִי׃ - Gird your loins now like a man, and I will question you, and you shall inform Me.
When Iyov asked for Hashem to speak with him, he set a condition: that He remove His rod from upon him, and only then would he speak with Him. In other words: I cannot converse with You as long as I am afflicted with such terrible and severe suffering; at least during the debate, remove from me the rod striking me, and then we will debate together. The Holy One, Blessed is He, says to him: "Gird your loins now like a man" - your loins, which were afflicted with boils, stand upon them now like a man. Hashem now removes from him the boils and the weakness, and continues: "And I will question you, and you shall inform Me" - I will question you, and ask that you tell Me.
אֵיפֹה הָיִיתָ בְּיׇסְדִי־אָרֶץ הַגֵּד אִם־יָדַעְתָּ בִינָה׃ - Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell, if you have understanding.
The Holy One, Blessed is He, says to him: Come, let Me show you My governance in the world. If you wish to comprehend Hashem's governance and the immense wisdom in all of creation, you must begin from the earlier to the later. As we have already discussed in previous chapters, any deduction drawn from the later to the earlier is flawed: I see a result and try to reconstruct from it what happened at the start - and that is not necessarily correct, being prone to many errors. But if I want to know something in its true essence, I must grasp it from the earlier to the later: where it all began, what the root is, how it developed - from there, I can truly know.
And so it is with everything. A person is ill, he has a wound, and the doctor asks: How did this start? I was walking and suffered a blow; then I touched something dirty and may have contracted an infection; and then I did not bandage it properly, and pus formed. When one knows the order from earlier to later, it is possible to know the truth. But when I suddenly arrive and see a large buildup of pus, I do not know if it came from a snakebite, a cut, a stone, or an iron blade, and I am forced to guess and deduce from the later to the earlier.
Hashem says to him: To understand the wisdom of Hashem, one must comprehend from the earlier to the later, and this requires going back to the beginning of creation, to the start of physical reality - how the Holy One, Blessed is He, brought forth the world from void and chaos, all with boundless and immeasurable power and wisdom. Therefore: "Where were you when I founded the earth?" - Can you know anything about this world if you were not there at the beginning? Can you know how matters are governed here if you lack the understanding of what occurred at the onset of the world's creation?
The Midrash in Shemot Rabbah (Parashat Ki Tisa, Chapter 40) expounds on the verse "See, I have called by name Bezalel": "'That which has been, its name was already called' - the Holy One, Blessed is He, said: The one whom I prepared from the start to construct the Mishkan, I already called him by name." Even before Hashem commanded the building of the Mishkan, I had already named him "Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur," having prepared him in advance for this purpose. And what is the meaning of "and it is known that he is man"? While Adam HaRishon lay as an unformed mass, the Holy One, Blessed is He, showed him every single righteous person destined to descend from him: some are suspended from Adam's head, some from his hair, some from his forehead, some from his eyes, some from his nose, some from his mouth, some from his ear, and some from the "melitin" - the place of the earring.
The Midrash continues: Know that when Iyov sought to debate with the Holy One, blessed be He, saying, "Oh, that I knew where I might find Him, that I might arrange my case before Him," the Holy One, blessed be He, answered him: You wish to dispute with Me? "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations?" And what is "eifoh"? Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said: The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: Iyov, tell Me - where was your eiphah? An eiphah is a unit of measure, as in "a tenth of an eiphah." Where was your eiphah situated in Adam HaRishon - in his head, in his forehead, in which limb? If you know where your measure was, then dispute with Me. That is to say: This is what is meant by "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations?" - where was your eiphah, from which part of Adam HaRishon did it originate? If you do not even know that, how can you already be raising questions?
This can be understood better in light of the teachings of the Kabbalists. The Gemara in Masechet Shabbat states that the Son of David will not come until all the souls in the Guf are depleted. What are the "souls in the Guf"? The body of Adam HaRishon was an immense repository of souls. When Adam HaRishon sinned and ate from the Tree of Knowledge, all the souls within his body were blemished. The holy Ari explains that some souls left him before the sin, and they are truly unblemished, but generally speaking, all souls - aside from those rare exceptions - were affected. And the higher the place from which a person's soul was hewn within Adam HaRishon, the greater its refinement, stature, and elevation.
Rabbi Chaim Vital - from where was he hewn within Adam HaRishon? From the hair of the shoulder. The Arizal told him: If you only knew how high and immense your stature is, and what the source of your soul's root is - the entire purpose of my coming into the world was solely to teach you; I am here for you. And indeed, that was his primary mission and focus, and that is what he did constantly. The others merely joined the lessons and listened; he taught him, and this was the main reason for his coming into this world, for he possessed an exceptionally lofty soul.
And why are the final generations so degraded? Because what is their source? The holy Zohar says regarding the verse, "And His feet shall stand on that day upon the Mount of Olives": "Until feet touch feet" - the souls of the feet, the lowest ones, will arrive in the generation of Ikvesa D'Meshicha. This is why we see people in the street about whom it is said, "He is likened to the beasts that perish," a descent step after step the likes of which was never seen in any previous generation and was never heard of before. How did they reach such a state? These are the lowest souls, which stem directly from the feet.
It was once explained that these souls stem from the heel of Adam HaRishon, which is the meaning of Ikvesa D'Meshicha - the souls that emerge literally from the heel, which are the lowest of all. And why is it called a heel? Because the heel is the hardest skin on the human body, the skin with the least sensitivity. This also explains why it is so difficult for a person today to be aroused and to feel - we lack sensitivity; we lack feeling. In earlier generations, a person would hear something and immediately burst into tears, instantly moved. People still recall chazzanim who would step up to lead the prayers - not great tzaddikim, just ordinary cantors - and would immediately weep. Today, if only we could manage to cry during Ne'ilah; to shed a single tear - the source of our tears has dried up. We lack so much emotion because we are from the ikvesa, from the heel, from the callous skin that feels nothing.
According to this, the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Iyov: If you do not know where you originate in Adam HaRishon, how can you know your purpose and path? Not all limbs were blemished to the same degree. The throat of Adam HaRishon was not damaged to the same extent as his finger. Who tasted the Tree of Knowledge? Who experienced direct pleasure from it? The throat. Therefore, its rectification is far greater and harder than that of other limbs that were more distant from the sin. The Holy One, blessed be He, says to him: Your eiphah, your portion in Adam HaRishon, you do not know. "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations?" - where was that eiphah? From the moment I founded the earth, you do not know where you were, so how can you come and argue with Me?
מִי־שָׂם מְמַדֶּיהָ כִּי תֵדָע אוֹ מִי־נָטָה עָלֶיהָ קָּו׃ - Who fixed its dimensions, if you know? Or who stretched a measuring line upon it?
All the subsequent verses will deal with the immense wonder of the creation of the world, and the Holy One, blessed be He, says to Iyov: These physical, material phenomena you cannot comprehend - so how can you come and question Hashem's governance? From this point onward, the Holy One, blessed be He, shows him His Divine Providence from the beginning of Creation: everything I created in the world was done with wondrous design and astounding precision, all under complete supervision - so how can you claim that I do not oversee the world?
When the earth was created, the Holy One, blessed be He, began to establish its foundations (mechoneha). Before building a house, what is done first? Surveyors are brought in to measure the site and determine where the house should stand and in what orientation. A story is told of someone passing by a plot of land where an abandoned shelter had stood on private property for years. When asked why nothing was being built there, the answer was: Don't ask what happened! Several brothers set out to build a home, had blueprints, began construction, poured the concrete foundation and built the shelter - only to discover that they had been holding the blueprints upside down! The front of the house, instead of facing the road, was facing the opposite direction. They were stuck with the shelter, everything had to be redesigned, and the project has been stalled ever since. One must also know how to hold the blueprints - that, too, is essential.
The Holy One, blessed be He, says: "Who determined its dimensions?" (Mi sam memadeha) - who hired the craftsmen to measure the place where the earth would stand? After all, it stands at an exact location among all the other planets, at a precisely calculated distance from each of them. "Or who stretched a measuring line across it?" (O mi nata aleha kav) - after surveying, a builder stretches a line over the house, aligning the building in length, width, and height, using a level and ensuring that the beams stand straight. This is called 'stretching a line,' and this, so to speak, the Holy One, blessed be He, did Himself.
Notice the distinction: "Who determined its dimensions" refers to summoning the surveying craftsmen, whereas "who stretched a line" refers to the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself. The surveying is attributed to other craftsmen whom Hashem merely summoned, while stretching the line itself is attributed to Him, blessed be He. Why? Because the measurement determines how far each celestial sphere is from the others, which essentially dictates the force of gravity; all the celestial bodies operate in harmony, and through this, the precise position of the earth is established. But the actual construction of the earth was performed by Hashem Himself - not through gravity, nor through any other force or craftsman; He Himself fashioned the earth.
עַל־מָה אֲדָנֶיהָ הׇטְבָּעוּ אוֹ מִי־יָרָה אֶבֶן פִּנָּתָהּ׃ - "Upon what were its pedestals sunk, or who laid its cornerstone?"
Here Scripture depicts the earth like the Mishkan, where the planks were sunk and socketed into the bases (adanim). Hotba'u ("sunk") means that the base has a hollowed socket into which the plank inserts. "Upon what were its pedestals sunk?" - who sank these foundations? Hotba'u comes from the root for sinking or minting, like a coin (matbea). Who fashioned it this way? Indeed, everything was made solely by Hashem's desire and will.
"Or who laid its cornerstone?" What is this cornerstone? The entire world was built and unfolded from a single stone, from a single source. Just like an embryo, whose formation begins from the navel, and from the navel the development spreads to the rest of the body in its mother's womb, so too with the entire world. And what is the navel of the earth? Jerusalem, and within it the Beis HaMikdash, the Holy of Holies, and the Foundation Stone (Even HaShtiyah). Why is it called the Even HaShtiyah? Because from it the world was founded (hushtat). It is situated inside the Holy of Holies, and upon it rested the Ark of the Covenant. This is the meaning of "who laid its cornerstone" - who placed and cast that foundational cornerstone from which the entire world would expand and develop?
בְּרׇן־יַחַד כּוֹכְבֵי בֹקֶר וַיָּרִיעוּ כׇּל־בְּנֵי אֱלֹהִים׃ - "When the morning stars sang together, and all the divine beings shouted for joy."
When earthly kings lay a cornerstone to establish a tower or a palace where the king wishes to dwell, what is done? A ceremony - a cornerstone-laying ceremony. Bands and choirs are brought in, singing and playing music. Says the Holy One, blessed be He: When I laid the cornerstone - "when the morning stars sang together," all the morning stars burst into song, "and all the divine beings shouted for joy" - all the angels raised their voices in praise.
This serves as an allegory for the force of gravity: all the stars possess a constant gravitational pull toward the earth, and this gravitational pull is like the strings of a musical instrument. The earth is the musical instrument, with strings extending from it to all the celestial bodies. This demonstrates the necessary principle that the earth sits at the focal center, and all these forces are like an instrument with many strings, all arranged in exact proportion relative to the center, the earth. All of this reflects the immense wisdom and Divine Providence of the Creator of the universe - so how can you argue, Iyov, that Hashem no longer exercises providence?
וַיָּסֶךְ בִּדְלָתַיִם יָם בְּגִיחוֹ מֵרֶחֶם יֵצֵא׃ - "Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it burst forth, issuing from the womb?"
After describing how He founded the earth, the verse turns to describe how this place was made fit for human habitation. In the beginning, the earth was entirely covered with water, before the Holy One, blessed be He, said, "Let the waters be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear." And what does "entirely covered with water" mean? The Malbim explains: all the way up to the atmosphere. Everything was covered with water.
And by virtue of what was the earth covered in water? The Malbim explains: initially, the reality of the water was that it was mixed with air and with earth. And what happens to water mixed with air? It turns into vapor, into humidity. When you walk down the street and hear that there is ninety percent humidity, and you immediately begin to sweat and feel that everything is damp - where does that come from? From air entering the water. As soon as air enters the water, it lifts it, for water is heavy; how can water fly in the air? The moisture absorbs the air entering it and rises. What we feel today is only a tiny fraction of the humidity present during the creation of the world, when water filled the entire universe. Why did it not descend downward? Because air filled it. Consequently, the entire world up to the atmosphere - which the Malbim terms the "sphere of respiration" - was entirely water, as all the water rose due to the air within it.
This is what is meant by "And the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters": since the wind and air were within the waters, water filled the entire world. What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He caused the wind to hover over the face of the waters, meaning a separation and distinction between the air and the water. And what happened to the water then? It condensed and turned into actual liquid water. What had previously been massive humidity encompassing the whole world up to the heavens condensed and gathered downward, because the air was separated from it. And how was the air separated? "And the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters" - it separated and detached from the water, and then "let the dry land appear."
And this is the order: "Let there be light," then "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters," and then "Let the waters be gathered." This is also what the verse says: "Who wraps Himself in light like a garment" - first He created the light; "Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain" - this is the atmosphere, as we explained; and then "Who lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters." What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He created two distinct states: there is a state where water is condensed as liquid, and a state where water is evaporated. But it is not a permanent state that air is bound up with water such that the entire world is filled with water because it all rises; rather, under normal conditions water remains condensed, without the air and without the wind of God bound inside it.
And after Hashem separated them - what resulted from this? "Let the dry land appear." The dry land appears because the water begins to gather into one place. Then the Holy One, blessed be He, set boundaries for the sea so that it would not flood the world. He is called Shaddai - because He said to His world, "Dai" (enough) - and He likewise set boundaries for the sea as it began to spread out. And what are these boundaries? They are the mountains surrounding the sea, the higher shoreline, so that the ocean does not return to flood the dry land. "You set a boundary that they may not pass over, that they return not to cover the earth" - a boundary had to be set. And this is "And God called the dry land Earth": the Holy One, blessed be He, called the dry land Earth, for here the waters would no longer come.
"Or who shut up the sea with doors" - after the Holy One, blessed be He, separated the air component from the water, He enclosed and shut the sea behind doors so that it would not rise over the face of the earth again. And when was this? "When it burst forth, issuing from the womb" - when the newborn emerged from the womb. And what is this newborn? The dry land beginning to emerge from the water. At that moment, the water had to be held back so it would not return and cover the dry land: the dry land emerging from the womb must remain dry, rather than returning into the womb and being submerged once again in water.
בְּשׂוּמִי עָנָן לְבֻשׁוֹ וַעֲרָפֶל חֲתֻלָּתוֹ׃ - "When I made a cloud its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band."
And this was similar to a child who is wrapped in swaddling cloths and dressed, as it is written: "Nor were you swaddled at all." The cloud and thick darkness that existed then, from the abundant vapors that rose from the water, were like a swaddling cloth and a garment with which I swaddled this child emerging from the womb. The clouds are now a separate entity hovering above the child emerging from the womb, like a swaddling cloth enveloping the newborn. The newborn is the dry land; "bursting forth from the womb" refers to the waters. When a woman gives birth, what happens first? The breaking of the waters. And then, "let the dry land appear" - the newborn is revealed and emerges. And what is done to it afterward? It is swaddled - and these are the clouds, existing as a distinct entity above the dry land.
וָאֶשְׁבֹּר עָלָיו חֻקִּי וָאָשִׂים בְּרִיחַ וּדְלָתָיִם׃ - And I broke My decree upon it, and set bars and doors.
The sea is like a mother giving birth to the dry land from the womb. And when the sea came to the birthstool (mashber) to give birth to the offspring - that is, during the initial stages when the dry land began to appear - what broke through and brought about the birth? "My decree" (chuki). The law that Hashem embedded in the nature of vapors, causing them to rise upward rather than remain below and flood the entire dry land. Through this, the waters that the Holy One, blessed be He, sought to separate from the dry land ascended upward.
And through what law? Through the law that overturned the previous law and the previous reality. What existed previously? Air was trapped inside the water, and the water remained below. Now, Hashem instilled a new law into the water, whereby when air enters it, it ascends to the heights and turns into clouds. In this way, the lower waters were divided from the upper waters, with the upper waters rising and remaining suspended in the atmosphere. This is the meaning of what is written, that the Holy One, blessed be He, divided between the waters and the waters - between the lower waters and the upper waters: the upper waters separated and ascended, whereas before they would remain below, and the air within them had caused the entire atmosphere to be saturated with water and humidity.
The Holy One, blessed be He, says: "And I broke My decree upon it" - to bring the sea to the birthstool (the mashber, the place where a woman sits in labor) and to give birth to the land, it was My decree, the law I established in the nature of water to ascend. This is what caused and created the condition of birth, so that the dry land became visible and the waters were separated and receded from the earth. And through this - "and set bars and doors": I placed a bar upon the waters of the sea, locking it in so that it would not breach its boundary and once again cover the earth.
וָאֹמַר עַד־פֹּה תָבוֹא וְלֹא תֹסִיף וּפֹא־יָשִׁית בִּגְאוֹן גַּלֶּיךָ׃ - And I said: Thus far shall you come, but no further; and here shall your proud waves be halted.
And what is that bar which I placed? It is the word of Hashem, the Divine command - what I commanded the sea, saying to it, "Thus far shall you come, but no further," as it is written, "Who have placed the sand as a boundary for the sea... and it cannot pass over it." The bar is the command of the Holy One, blessed be He.
"And here shall your proud waves be halted" - nevertheless, the Holy One, blessed be He, says, I made allowance for a state of "your proud waves," where the waves surge and rise. I did not entirely eliminate the possibility that the waters might breach their boundaries. Under ordinary, constant conditions they indeed remain locked behind doors, yet I still allowed the possibility that occasionally, according to My will, the waters might exceed those doors and bars I set for them. And even this is strictly regulated: I placed doors and declared, "You shall not go out from here," and that is the permanent order; yet I also permitted the possibility of an occasional massive tsunami, or that the ocean might rise and flood all the people of the generation of Enosh. I allowed for such an occurrence, yet even then it is not limitless - "and here shall your proud waves be halted." I set a boundary and declared: when a tsunami occurs, it will reach only this far and not pass beyond this point.
Thus, there is a primary boundary, which is the standard limit that the sea does not cross, and there is also the possibility for the sea to exceed its bounds on occasion - and even that is limited, extending up to a certain point and no further. And for what purpose did I establish this? This too was intended to exact retribution from the wicked. I created a circumstance where the sea surges, rises, and breaks through its confines in order to punish the wicked, and afterward it returns to its place.
In this chapter, the Holy One, blessed be He, begins answering Iyov, opening by removing the boils from his loins - "Gird up your loins like a man" - and immediately posing the fundamental question: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" One can only comprehend Hashem's governance chronologically, from the very beginning of creation; yet Iyov does not even know his own "where" - from which part of Adam Harishon his soul was hewn - and consequently does not know his personal purpose or his soul's rectification. From there, Scripture leads Iyov through the foundational wonders: the measures that determined the precise location of the earth and the plumb line stretched upon it by the Creator Himself; the sockets and the cornerstone, which is the Even Hashetiyah in the Holy of Holies; the cornerstone ceremony in which the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy - like strings of gravitational pull drawn to the center. Then, transforming the earth into a human habitation: the separation of wind from water, the ascent of vapors, the birth of the dry land from the womb of the sea, the clouds that serve as its swaddling band, and the bars and doors behind which the sea is confined - with a boundary even set within that boundary for moments of overflow, in times of retribution against the wicked. And all this forms a single argument: If you cannot grasp the wonders of the physical realm, how can you presume to question Divine Providence?