[Sidenote:  Job 31:35-37]
Oh, that there was someone to hear me! 
See, here is my signature, let the Almighty answer me! 
And the indictment which my adversary has written! 
Surely I would carry it on my shoulder;
I would bind it to me as a crown;
I would declare to him the number of my steps,
As a prince would I draw near to him.

[Sidenote:  Job 38:2-7] Then Jehovah answered Job out of the storm, and said,

Who is this that darkeneth counsel
By words that lack knowledge? 
Gird up thy loins now like a man,
And let me ask of thee and inform thou me. 
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? 
Declare, if thou hast understanding. 
Who determined its measures that thou knowest? 
Or who stretched out the line upon it? 
On what were its foundations fastened? 
Or who laid its corner-stone,
When the morning stars sang together,
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?

[Sidenote:  Job 38:8-11]
Or who shut up the sea with doors,
When it broke forth, and issued out of the womb;
When I made clouds its garments,
And thick mists its swaddling-bands,
And marked out for it my bound,
And set bars and doors,
And said, Here shalt thou come, but no further;
And here shall thy proud waves stop?

[Sidenote:  Job 38:39-41]
Canst thou hunt the prey for the lioness,
Or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,
When they couch in their dens,
And abide in the covert to lie in wait? 
Who provideth at evening his prey,
When his young ones cry to God,
And wander to seek for food?

[Sidenote:  Job 40:8,9]
Will the fault-finder contend with the Almighty? 
He who argueth with God, let him answer it. 
Wilt thou even annul my judgment? 
Condemn me, that thou mayest be justified,
Or hast thou an arm like God? 
And canst thou thunder with a voice like him?

[Sidenote:  Job 42:1, 2, 3, 5, 6] Then Job answered Jehovah and said: 

I know that thou canst do all things,
And that no purpose of thine can be restrained. 
Therefore, I have uttered that which I did not understand;
Things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. 
I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear,
But now mine eye seeth thee,
Therefore I loath [my words],
And repent in dust and ashes.

I. The Structure of the Book of Job.  Like most of the books of the Old Testament, Job is, without reasonable doubt, the work of several different writers.  The prose introduction (1-2), with its corresponding conclusion (42:7-17), was probably once an independent story.  The words of Jehovah in the epilogue (42:7) clearly implies that, as in 1 and 2, Job had endured the test and had meekly submitted to the afflictions which Satan, with the divine approval, had sent upon him, and that on the other hand his friends, like his wife, had urged him to curse God and die.