Rhyming Job, Chapter 38

Rhyming Job, Chapter 38

Then he, the LORD, spoke to Job from the storm.

He said: “Who is this that, my plans, obscures
with words that have no knowledge? Brace yourself
just like a man; I’ve come to question you,
and to my questions, answer me, you shall.

“Where were you when I laid it, that, the earth’s,
foundation. Tell me, if you understand.
Who, its dimensions, marked? You know its girth!
A line to measure, ‘cross it, who expands?
Upon what were its deepest footings sank,
or who, the person, laid its cornerstone —
while all the morning stars, together, sang
and all the angels shouted out for joy?

“Who shut the sea up in its doors so quick,
when from the womb, it burst forth, when I made
the clouds its garment and in darkness, thick,
I wrapped it in; I, limits, for it placed,
its doors and bars are what I firmly fixed,
when I said, ‘Here is where, your proudest waves
the place they’ll halt, this is their further-est’?

“Have you e’er, orders, to the morning, gave,
or shown the dawn the place where it will go,
that it might, by its edges, earth, up, take,
the wicked, clean, from out of it, o’erthrown?
Like clay beneath a seal, the earth takes shape,
its features stand out like those of a garb.
The wicked are denied their light, upraised,
their arm that is, it’s broken off, a nub.

“Have you into the sea’s springs, journeyed there
or walked ‘mongst the recesses of the deep?
Have they been shown to you, the gates of death?
The deepest darkness, its gates, have you seen?
Its vast expanses, comprehend the earth’s,
have you? If you know all of this, tell me.

“What is the way to the abode of light?
And where the darkness presently resides?
Can you take them, their place, specifically?
Do you know paths that to their dwellings, lead?
For you, already born, you know for sure!
For certain you have lived so many years!

“The snow’s storehouses, have you entered them,
or seen storehouses where’s kept all the hail,
that I reserve for times of trouble, and
for days of war and battle? What, the way,
unto that place where, scattered o’er the earth,
the east winds are? Who makes the crevices,
for rain, its torrents, thunderstorm, its paths
to water a land where nobody lives,
a desert that is uninhabited,
a des’late wasteland, satisfy, it would
and sprout with grass? Does rain, distributed,
a father, have? Who fathers drops of dew?
From whose womb comes the ice? Birth, to the frost,
who gives that, from the heavens, hard as stone,
when they, the waters, stillness, what is caused,
when, it, the surface of the deep is froze?

“Can you, up in the Pleiades, bind chains?
Can you, it, loosen, star-Orion’s belt?
The constellations, in their seasons, can
you bring them forth, or with its cubs, compel
the Bear? Do you know all its laws for sure,
those of the heav’ns? Can you for me, assert,
dominion, God’s, establish, o’er the earth?

”Your voice into the clouds, can it, you raise,
with water’s flood, yourself, then, cover o’er?
Do you send bolts of lightning on their way?
Do they report to you, ‘Hey, here we are!’?
Who gives the ibis wisdom, or who gives
the rooster understanding? Count the clouds,
who has the wisdom such a task requires?
Who pours the water jars in heaven out
when dust becomes hard, dry upon the earth,
and they will stick, together, clods of dirt?

“Do you hunt prey for her, the lioness,
the hunger of the lions, satisfy,
they crouch in thickets, when they’re in their dens,
in wait, they lie? Who, food, this bird, provides,
the raven, black, when its young cry to God
and wander all about for lack of food?