Wonders of Creation Exalt Jehovah

JEHOVAH GOD is more exalted than imperfect humans can imagine. His creative works on earth and in the heavens bring him praise and fill us with awe.​—Psalm 19:1-4.

As the Creator and Universal Sovereign, Jehovah certainly deserves to be heard when he speaks. But how amazed we would be if he were to speak to us mere humans here on earth! Suppose he spoke to you, perhaps through an angel. Surely you would pay attention. The upright man Job must have listened very attentively when God addressed him some 3,500 years ago. What can we learn from God’s words to Job regarding the earth and the material heavens?

Who Founded the Earth, and Who Controls the Sea?

Out of a windstorm, God asks Job about the earth and the sea. (Job 38:1-11) No human architect decided how big the earth should be and then helped to form it. Comparing the earth to a building, God asks Job: “Who laid its cornerstone?” Not man! God’s angelic sons looked on and rejoiced as Jehovah created this planet.

The sea is an infant in relation to God, who figuratively clothes it with garments. It “began to go forth as when it burst out from the womb.” God confines the sea as if by bars and bolted doors, and tides are regulated by lunar and solar attractions.

Says The World Book Encyclopedia: “The wind causes most ocean waves, from small ripples to giant hurricane waves more than 100 feet (30 meters) high. . . . After the wind stops, the waves continue to move over the ocean surface and can travel great distances from where they originated. They become smoother and longer. Finally, the waves reach the shoreline, where they break and form the surf.” The sea obeys God’s command: “This far you may come, and no farther; and here your proud waves are limited.”

Who Makes the Dawn Ascend?

God next asks Job about the effects of light and other matters. (Job 38:12-18) No human can command the succession of night and day. Morning light figuratively lays hold of the ends of the earth and shakes out the wicked. Sinners may perform unrighteous acts in “evening darkness.” (Job 24:15, 16) But dawn disperses many evildoers.

 In God’s hand, morning light is as a seal from which the earth gets a beautiful impression. Sunlight brings to view many colors, so that the globe seems to be arrayed in splendid garments. Job had nothing to do with this and had not walked about in the watery deep to take inventory of its treasures. Why, to this day researchers have only limited knowledge of oceanic life!

Who Has Storehouses of Snow and Hail?

No man has escorted either light or darkness to its home or has entered the storehouses of snow and hail that God keeps back for “the day of fight and war.” (Job 38:19-23) When Jehovah used hail against his foes at Gibeon, “there were more who died from the hailstones than those whom the sons of Israel killed with the sword.” (Joshua 10:11) He may use hailstones of undisclosed size to destroy wicked humans led by Gog, or Satan.​—Ezekiel 38:18, 22.

Egg-size hailstones killed 25 people and injured 200 others in central Henan Province, China, in July 2002. Regarding a hailstorm in 1545, Italian sculptor Benvenuto Cellini wrote: “We were one day distant from Lyons . . . when the heavens began to thunder with sharp rattling claps. . . . After the thunder the heavens made a noise so great and horrible that I thought the last day had come; so I reined in for a moment, while a shower of hail began to fall without a drop of water. . . . The hail now grew to the size of big lemons. . . . The storm raged for some while, but at last it stopped . . . We showed our scratches and bruises to each other; but about a mile farther on we came upon a scene of devastation which surpassed what we had suffered, and defies description. All the trees were stripped of their leaves and shattered; the beasts in the field lay dead; many of the herdsmen had also been killed; we observed large quantities of hailstones which could not have been grasped with two hands.”​—Autobiography (Book II, 50), Harvard Classics, Volume 31, pages 352-3.

What will happen when Jehovah opens his storehouses of snow and hail against his enemies? They cannot possibly survive when snow or hail is used to carry out his will.

Whose Handiwork Are Rain, Dew, Frost, and Ice?

Jehovah next asks Job about rain, dew, frost, and ice. (Job 38:24-30) God is the great Rainmaker, and even “the wilderness in which there is no earthling man” enjoys his blessing. Rain, ice, and frost have no human father or originator.

The Nature Bulletin states: “The strangest and perhaps the most important property [of ice] is that water expands as it freezes . . . The blanket of ice that forms and floats on a pond in winter makes it possible for aquatic  plants and animals (fish, etc.) to remain alive in the water underneath. If . . . water contracted and became denser as it solidified, ice would be heavier than water and sink to the bottom. More ice would form on the surface until the pond was frozen solid. . . . In the cooler parts of the world the rivers, ponds, lakes, and even the oceans would all be permanently frozen.”

How thankful we can be that bodies of water do not freeze solid! And we certainly are grateful that as Jehovah’s handiwork, rain and dew invigorate the earth’s vegetation.

Who Set the Statutes of the Heavens?

God next asks Job about the heavens. (Job 38:31-33) The Kimah constellation is usually identified as the Pleiades, a group consisting of seven large stars and a number of smaller ones some 380 light-years from the sun. Man cannot “tie fast the bonds of the Kimah constellation,” binding that group in a cluster. No human can “loosen the very cords of the Kesil constellation,” generally identified as the stellar group called Orion. Whatever may be the present identification of the Mazzaroth and Ash constellations, man cannot control and guide them. Humans cannot alter “the statutes of the heavens,” the laws governing the universe.

God established the laws that guide the heavenly bodies, which influence earth’s weather, tides, atmosphere, and the very existence of life on this planet. Consider the sun. Concerning it, The Encyclopedia Americana (1996 Edition) states: “The sun’s rays supply the earth with heat and light, contribute to the growth of plant life, evaporate water from the ocean and other bodies of water, play a role in the production of winds, and perform many other functions that are vital to the existence of life on earth.” The same reference work says: “To appreciate the vastness of the power that is inherent in sunlight, one need only reflect that all the  power represented in the winds and in dams and rivers and all the power contained in natural fuels such as wood, coal, and oil is nothing more than sunlight that has been stored up by a tiny planet [the earth] 93 million miles [150 million kilometers] away from the sun.”

Who Put Wisdom in the Clouds?

Jehovah tells Job to consider the clouds. (Job 38:34-38) Man cannot order a single cloud to appear and release its water. But how dependent humans are on the water cycle that the Creator has established!

What is the water cycle? One reference work states: “The water cycle consists of four distinct stages: storage, evaporation, precipitation, and runoff. Water may be stored temporarily in the ground; in oceans, lakes, and rivers; and in ice caps and glaciers. It evaporates from the earth’s surface, condenses in clouds, falls back to the earth as precipitation (rain or snow), and eventually either runs into the seas or reevaporates into the atmosphere. Almost all the water on the earth has passed through the water cycle countless times.”​—Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2005.

Rain-filled clouds are like water jars of heaven. When Jehovah tips them, they may pour down so much rain that the dust becomes mire and the clods cleave together. God can produce rain or hold it back.​—James 5:17, 18.

Rain is often accompanied by lightning, but man cannot cause it to fulfill his wishes. Lightnings are represented as reporting to God and saying, “Here we are!” Compton’s Encyclopedia states: “Lightning produces significant chemical changes in the atmosphere. As a stroke moves through the air, it generates tremendous heat that unites nitrogen and oxygen to form nitrates and other compounds. These compounds fall to the Earth with the rain. In this way, the atmosphere is able continually to help replenish the supply of nutrients that soil needs to produce plants.” Full knowledge of lightning remains a mystery to man but not to God.

Wonders of Creation Bring God Praise

Creation’s wonders truly do exalt the Creator of all things. (Revelation 4:11) How Job must have been impressed by Jehovah’s words regarding the earth and celestial bodies in space!

The wonders of creation we have just considered are not the only questions and descriptions presented to Job. Yet, even those we have considered move us to exclaim: “Behold! God is more exalted than we can know.”​—Job 36:26.

[Picture Credit Line on page 14]

Snowflake: snowcrystals.net

[Picture Credit Lines on page 15]

Pleiades: NASA, ESA and AURA/Caltech; fish: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Washington, D.C./William W. Hartley