What happens when God appears?

A significant link occurs between Job 25:6 (“man . . . is a maggot, / and the son of man . . . is a worm”) and 38:1-3 (“Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind / . . . ‘Gird up your loins like a man, / I will question you, and you shall declare to me’”). It would appear that the stupefying address of God to Job, though it appears to be irrelevant in the extreme, confers great dignity upon Job. He is neither a maggot nor a worm, but is called forth by God and made to stand upon his feet, covered in boils as he is. He is also summoned to “declare,” to speak back to God. To be sure, it would be easy to see this summons as bullying, since Job’s only “declarations” range from “I lay my hand on my mouth” to “I melt away; I repent in dust and ashes,” but in the conceptual universe of the Old Testament, such a conclusion would be a mistake. The wonder is that Job is addressed by God man to man, as it were; he is not a pitiable victim, but one who, being made in the image of God, actually corresponds to God and receives God’s revelation — an honor that we are meant to recognize as remarkable. We may truly speak of a theophany, a showing-forth of God himself Job appears to realize this, and it seems not only to satisfy him but also to reorient him altogether.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 446 (emphasis original)