Shall it be told him that I speak? if a man speak, surely he shall be swallowed up.
The verse belongs to a portrayal of God's mighty and wondrous works in nature that lays bare the limits of human understanding. It points to His unsearchable greatness, which no mind can fully grasp. Before those works people are called to stand still and recognize that His ways cannot be fully understood.
Human darkness makes it impossible to order speech aright before Him. His power and righteousness inspire fear, and His infinite wisdom and majesty overwhelm all human speech. Speech that presumes to stand before such greatness cannot contain or withstand it.
No one can presume to speak to Him as if to tell Him something or inform Him as though He needed to be informed. No one can presume to answer to His majesty, to instruct Him, or to speak as though able to explain Him. Nor can anyone presume to speak about Him in that same presumptuous way. Whoever speaks in such presumption will be overwhelmed and swallowed up by the greatness of what is being considered.
The verse therefore calls for fear and reverence before God. It calls for praise and reverence rather than speculative claims about Him. Instead of attempting to explain Him, human beings are to revere His majesty and acknowledge that their speech fails before His infinite wisdom.
The verse belongs to a portrayal of God's mighty and wondrous works in nature that lays bare the limits of human understanding. It points to His unsearchable greatness, which no mind can fully grasp. Before those works people are called to stand still and recognize that His ways cannot be fully understood.
Human darkness makes it impossible to order speech aright before Him. His power and righteousness inspire fear, and His infinite wisdom and majesty overwhelm all human speech. Speech that presumes to stand before such greatness cannot contain or withstand it.
No one can presume to speak to Him as if to tell Him something or inform Him as though He needed to be informed. No one can presume to answer to His majesty, to instruct Him, or to speak as though able to explain Him. Nor can anyone presume to speak about Him in that same presumptuous way. Whoever speaks in such presumption will be overwhelmed and swallowed up by the greatness of what is being considered.
The verse therefore calls for fear and reverence before God. It calls for praise and reverence rather than speculative claims about Him. Instead of attempting to explain Him, human beings are to revere His majesty and acknowledge that their speech fails before His infinite wisdom.