“Behold, these are the fringes of His ways,
and how faint a word we hear of Him!
But His mighty thunder, who can understand?”
Job 26:14 (NASB)
I was sitting in my husband’s Job class recently and a very strange thing happened. As I was following along in Job chapter 26 I read a phrase that literally leaped off the page in verse 14, “Behold, these are the fringes of His ways.”
Chapter 26 of the book of Job describes the greatness of God—including “He hangs the earth on nothing”; “He wraps up the waters in His clouds”; “He obscures the face of the full moon and spreads His cloud over it”; and “He has inscribed a circle on the surface of the waters, at the boundary of light and darkness.” These acts are described as but “fringes” of His ways!
A fringe is an ornamental cloth trim applied to the edge of a textile item, such as drapery, a flag, or epaulettes. Fringe originated as a way of preventing a cut piece of fabric from unraveling when a hemming was not used. Several strands of weft threads would be removed, and the remaining warp threads would be twisted or braided together to prevent unraveling. The use of fringe is ancient, and early fringes were generally made of unspun wool (rather than twisted threads).
Job summed it up that these awe-inspiring activities of God are at the fringes (edges of; extremities; corners; outermost; far ends) of Who God really is and what He can do. Compared to what God is capable of, they are like whispers compared to crashing thunder. No human can comprehend God’s greatness or the ways in which He operates. Further, Job has described upper, lower, and horizontal dimensions to the observable world, and the boundaries of the outermost reaches of those dimensions were impenetrable to the ancients.
Poof! I suddenly realized I had the perfect title, Fringes of His Ways, for an entire collection of my blogposts. Now all I have to do is gather them altogether into a volume—nearly 300 in total—to pass on to my family—my sons, their wives and my grandsons and granddaughters.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, for generously sharing Your many fringe whisperings with me!