Job Picture 13

"(Job 38:1-11:)
[1] Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
[2] Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
[3] Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.
[4] Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. [5] Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? [6] Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
[7] When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
[8] Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?
[9] When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling band for it,
[10] And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors,
[11] And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?"

In the Bible the whirlwind is a symbol of the immediate active Presence of the Lord. In 2 Kings 2:11 it's associated with a chariot of fire "and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven".

The whirlwind appears in Job 38 and 40. (For other instances turn to the Bible Gateway.)

Notice that Job and his wife are facing God while his three friends have their heads buried in the sand.

Edinger p. 50: "Job's encounter with Yahweh in the whirlwind taught him a basic lesson. In his innocence, like orthodox theologians of all creeds, Job has assumed that God's reality must correspond to his conception of it. [But] the living experience [of surviving the whirlwind] shatters that assumption." God is nothing like what we suppose!

No one has a complete God in their mind; they have only their vision of God, and their vision depends upon their experience (and every person's experience is unique!)

John 1:18
"No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him."