Astronomy questions

Life is marked by events of suffering, both great and small. At present there is great suffering in Turkiye (earthquake) and the Ukraine (war). Some are the products of a natural disaster impacting entire communities with grief and loss. Others are the fruit of human evil that has a profound effect on the world. Still others are private, affecting a person of a family. In all these cases people struggle to understand why it happens. And they question God’s goodness or His justice.

Job 1-37 describes the intense suffering of Job, which causes him to question God. Then God asks Job lots of science questions. Here are the astronomy questions.

“Can you [Job] direct the movement of the stars—
binding the cluster of the Pleiades
or loosening the cords of Orion?
Can you [Job] direct the constellations through the seasons
or guide the Bear with her cubs across the heavens?
Do you [Job] know the laws of the universe?
Can you [Job] use them to regulate the earth?”
(Job 38:31-33NLT)

Pleiades, Orion, and the Bear were constellations of stars that were known by the patriarchs who lived after the flood (after about 2,350 B.C.). God asks “can you direct the movement of the stars” in the sky whose position changes according to the seasons? The answer is “No”, only God can do that.

God also asks, “Do you know the laws of the universe?”. The answer is “No”, although Job would have understood the annual movement of the constellations, he didn’t understand “the laws of the universe”. Even today astronomers don’t understand all the laws of the universe.

Lesson for us

The lesson for Job and for us is that if God can control the stars, we can trust Him for the future.

Acknowledgement:

This post is based on “The mystery of suffering”, Our Daily Bread, January 2023 topic.

Posted, February 2023