All Our Yesterdays
"To the last
syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays. . ." (Macbeth V.v.)
A series of brief articles
dealing with Human Pre-existence
by Arthur & Rosalind Eedle.
2. The Festival of Creation
Job
38:3-7 "Where were you when I laid earth's foundation?
Declare if you know and understand. Who fixed its measurements? (For presumably
you know!) Who set upon it the measuring line? On what were its foundations
sunk? Who laid its cornerstone? when the morning stars sang together, and all
the sons of God shouted for joy?"
A first
reading of this passage could easily produce the wrong intonation in the voice
of God. The whole purpose of the Lord's discourse with Job is not to
squash him underfoot with divine irony, or treat him with utter contempt for
his (apparently) high-handed attitude towards his three friends. We may safely
infer this by reading chapter 42:7, "After the Lord had spoken
these words to Job He said to Eliphaz the Temanite, 'My anger is roused against
you and your two friends, because you have not spoken what is right about my
servant Job.'"
Furthermore,
Job answered the Lord in this manner, (42:2-6) "I know that You can
do everything, and that no purpose is withheld from You. [You said] 'Who is this
who hides counsel without knowledge?' Therefore I declared what I did not
understand, things too wonderful for me that I did not comprehend. [I said in
my perplexity and pain] 'Hear me, and I will speak; I will ask You and You will
cause me to know.' I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye
has seen You. Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Instead
of answering Job's questions, the Lord gave him a most interesting and
absorbing natural history lesson, contained in 38:1 - 41:34. It achieved His
purpose.
Could it be
that the Lord was saying to Job, "Where were you when I created
the earth? All the rest were singing and shouting for joy. Were you not paying
attention?" My only justification for posing such a solution is contained
in the statement about the "stars" and the "sons of God."
How can stars "sing together"? Are they alive, with minds to know and
understand? A moment's reflection will crack the code. In Daniel
In
conclusion, two classes of people are mentioned here - "stars" and
"sons of God." If the stars are heavenly beings, then the sons of God
are pre-existent human beings. The sense is that we were all there at the
divine fiat of creation, and rendered high praise to God for what we saw. In
the next number we shall have to investigate this further.