Geologists have discovered a massive deposit of precious metals in an area known as “The Duluth Complex.” This area, running across northeastern Minnesota from Virginia to Ely-Babbitt, represents the largest untapped non-ferrous metals resource in the world. Experts have already identified enough deposits of nickel, copper and platinum to mine for 100 years. Potentially, the mining operations of these deposits could rival that of iron ore during its heyday.
The Bible contains a wealth of precious ore and gems just waiting to be mined by anyone willing to put forth the effort and dig. And Job chapter 23 contains one of the richest veins within the massive deposit of God’s Word. We could read through this chapter 100 times and the 101st time we would discover something new.
23:1 Then Job replied, 2 “Even today my complaint is rebellion; His hand is heavy despite my groaning.”
It’s easy to dissect these passages and forget that there is a real person with terrible pain in a wretched ash heap existence around which these verses are wrapped. Job is continually racked with fever and his blackened skin flakes off. Perhaps Job is saying here that, “You (Eliphaz/Bildad/Zophar) may interpret my complaining as rebellion (and I may be complaining a lot), but it in no way matches the depth of my pain.”
23:3 “Oh that I knew where I might find Him, That I might come to His seat! 4 I would present my case before Him and fill my mouth with arguments. 5 I would learn the words which He would answer, and perceive what He would say to me. 6 Would He contend with me by the greatness of His power? No, surely He would pay attention to me. 7 There the upright would reason with Him; and I would be delivered forever from my Judge.”
“Oh that I knew where I might find Him!” Job had lost everything, but His greatest loss was God’s presence. Francis I. Anderson writes, “His consuming desire is to come face to face with God.” Job’s great longing is to meet God in a legal setting. When you read through these verses from different versions, courtroom-style language abounds with such words as dispute, argue, convict, present his case, and rebuttal.
The New Living Translation puts verse 4 this way, “I would lay out my case and present my arguments.” And notice vs. 6 from The New International Version, “Would he oppose me with great power? No, he would not press charges against me.”
23:8 “Behold, I go forward but He is not there, And backward, but I cannot perceive Him; 9 when He acts on the left, I cannot behold Him; He turns on the right, I cannot see Him. 10 But He knows the way I take; When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold."
As I mentioned at the outset, this is one of the greatest chapters in the Bible, and these are three of the most memorized verses. For all appearances, it seems that God has utterly forsaken Job. Notice Job’s struggle:
I go forward, I go backward, I turn left and I turn right.
Forward to the east…He is not there.
Backward toward the west…I cannot perceive Him.
On my left toward the north…I cannot behold Him.
And on my right toward the south…I cannot see Him.
No matter where I look, I cannot perceive Him, I cannot behold Him, and I cannot see Him. Grace seems to have ended; God’s presence has vanished from Job’s life. He used to sing, “When darkness hides His lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace…” But the hymn now just seems so hollow. Darkness was not only hiding the face of God, it was enveloping Job.
But….
He knows! He knows my journey, my path, and my struggles. He knows intimately the way that I take, and when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold!
God’s goal for Job was not maggots and destruction and pain and darkness and despair. The goal is gold! In the previous chapter Eliphaz had wrongly accused Job of greedily clinging to his gold and riches as one of the reasons for his awful plight. God would heal him, so said Eliphaz, if Job would just give up his lust for gold. But Job replies, “My character is my gold! And the fire will only result in the proof of my integrity.” The emphasis in this passage is not so much on the removing of dross as it is on the revealing of the precious metal. You’ve heard the saying, “Garbage in, garbage out.” (You only get out what you put in). Job seems to be saying, “Gold in, gold out!” Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar and the rest of the community of Uz may view Job as the dross – the useless leftovers of the refining process – but Job sees it differently.
When God tests or tries us, the motive isn’t, "Let's see how much this guy can endure.” It’s always done out of the motivation of love with a view to the end result. Job had no idea that the first storm of trial was coming in chapters 1-2, and he has no idea that the second storm of blessing is coming in chapter 37.
23:11 "My foot has held fast to His path; I have kept His way and not turned aside.”
This is a very interesting verse. It’s sort of the idea of putting my feet into the imprints of God’s footsteps (like following someone’s footsteps in the snow). But that’s not the total idea. “Held fast” has the idea of grasping. In many societies in the world today, the toes are almost as nimble as the fingers. In the West we wrap our feet in little containers called shoes almost from birth. But in some societies where shoes are not constantly worn, people become quite good at grasping with their toes. We would normally stoop to pick up an object; they may however just grasp it with their toes and then lift it up to their hand. So Job seems to be saying, “I not only put my foot into His footsteps, I hold tenaciously to Him…I grasp God with my toes!”
23:12 "I have not departed from the command of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.”
In the previous chapter Eliphaz had urged Job to “get into the Word.” But Job answers Eliphaz’s implied charge, “I not only hold firm to God’s path, I also hold fast to God’s Word!”
23:13 "But He is unique and who can turn Him? And what His soul desires, that He does. 14 for He performs what is appointed for me, and many such decrees are with Him.”
Francis I. Anderson writes, “And how different Job’s God is from the domesticated God of his friends.” The God of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar has been tamed by their theology; they’ve corralled God! But Job’s God is unique: majestic in His power and matchless in His wisdom and planning. What a tragedy it is when our God is no larger than what our intellect can comprehend.
23:15 “Therefore, I would be dismayed at His presence; when I consider, I am terrified of Him. 16 It is God who has made my heart faint, and the Almighty who has dismayed me, 17 but I am not silenced by the darkness, nor deep gloom which covers me.”
Job feels as if he is hemmed in by darkness and gloom. Hartley has some interesting things to say concerning the latter portion of this chapter, “(Job) cannot detect God’s grace anywhere…His struggle for faith reaches its severest test when his confidence in God collides with his fear of God…The ever-present God, from whom the troubled Psalmist cannot flee in Psalm 139, is hidden from Job…God’s distancing himself from Job’s consciousness reflects his trust in Job.”
Many people today face their own Job-like situations. A former coworker emailed a couple of us this past week and asked us to pray for her brother. I said that I would and asked for her permission to share her email on this blog. She gave her permission, but I have changed the names and circumstances around to keep it anonymous:
Hello –
As you both know, my brother lost his wife in a car accident 10 years ago. He is remarried, and two years ago his wife Barb’s oldest daughter died unexpectedly. Recently they had a grandson who has major health issues – he has already spent several months in the hospital and Barb has taken a lot of time off from work to care for their granddaughters while the parents are with their son in the hospital. Barb’s employer would not give her any more time off and forced her to quit. My brother has been unemployed for two years now. He has now trained in a new career area, but is finding no job opportunities.
To say he is depressed is a gross understatement. He is suicidal and has told me that he is ready to kill himself. He no longer believes in God. He will not listen to me or anyone.
I fear for him as well as his family, who are all struggling. Please keep them in your prayers if you would.
Blessings,
Tracey
Please remember to pray for this family.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
Job, If You Would Just Pry Your Fingers Off Your Gold Bars, You Just Might Get Healed (Job Chapter 22)
Hoping that Job would get the hint, up to this point Eliphaz has argued with Job in rather general terms about the horrible fate of the wicked. But in his third and final speech, Eliphaz stops dancing around the issue and lays the charge directly before Job: “You are (as “The Message” translates it) a first-class moral failure!” You are simply a recalcitrant, chronic sinner whose sinning knows no bounds!
(Obviously Eliphaz misplaced his mission statement business card. The front read [in bold size 48 font], “COMFORTERS INCORPORATED.” And the back read simply, “We Always Tries….To Empathize.”)
He is astounded that, throughout this entire dialogue, Job has held onto his innocence so obstinately. Kindly Eliphaz comes to the conclusion that Job is nothing more than an intractable, obstinate sinner who deserves all of the excruciating pain and torment that God is hurling his way.
22:1-3, “Then Eliphaz the Temanite responded, 2 ‘Can a vigorous man be of use to God, or a wise man be useful to himself? 3 Is there any pleasure to the Almighty if you are righteous, or profit if you make your ways perfect?
In answering Eliphaz’s second question ("Is there any pleasure to the Almighty if you are righteous? [vs. 3a]), we could well reply with a resounding, “Yes!” According to chapter one, God admired Job’s character and brought it directly to the attention of Satan himself.
22:4 "Is it because of your reverence that He reproves you, that He enters into judgment against you?”
Someone has written, “It is so unfathomable to the three that this IS why he is suffering!” Job’s reverence and his integrity are directly related to his suffering; his renowned piety and devotion to God became the focus of attention in the heavenly court in chapters one and two. And that cosmic confrontation resulted in this titanic struggle of Job’s faith.
22:5 “Is not your wickedness great, and your iniquities without end?”
Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar cannot see any other possibility then the fact that Job is a persistent, wicked sinner whose iniquities are infinite. The word “wickedness” in this verse is the same word for “evil” in chapters one and two. But God’s summary of Job’s life was just a little different than Eliphaz’s; twice God testified by saying that Job “eschewed (turned away from) evil.”
22:6 “For you have taken pledges of your brothers without cause, and stripped men naked. 7 to the weary you have given no water to drink, and from the hungry you have withheld bread. 8 but the earth belongs to the mighty man, and the honorable man dwells in it. 9 You have sent widows away empty, and the strength of the orphans has been crushed.”
Eliphaz heard a rumor that while Job was at the University of Uz (UU), he had botched “Compassion 101.” And he came to believe the gossip that Job was ruthless and cruel and anything but kind to the weary, the hungry, the widows and the orphans. Read verses 6-9 from the New Living Translation: “For example, you must have lent money to your friend and demanded clothing as security. Yes, you stripped him to the bone. You must have refused water for the thirsty and food for the hungry. You probably think the land belongs to the powerful and only the privileged have a right to it! You must have sent widows away empty-handed and crushed the hopes of orphans.”
Did you catch Eliphaz’s assumptions? Three times it’s, “You must have…” None of the three had any empirical or concrete evidence of ANY wrongdoing on the part of Job. They simply assumed he was guilty.
I am guessing that just about everyone has heard this riddle, “Fred lies dead in a pool of water on the floor surrounded by broken glass. The window is open and the curtain is flapping in the breeze. How did Fred die?”
The assumption is made that Fred is human.
He’s not.
He’s a goldfish…the wind blew the curtain against the goldfish bowl and thus Fred met an untimely demise.
Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar see Job’s horrific suffering and their theology leaves room for only one assumption: Job is wicked. Only the wicked suffer…Job is suffering…thus Job is wicked. Hartley writes, “No other cause than Job’s sin can account for his suffering, according to the tenets of Eliphaz’s theology.”
22:10 “Therefore snares surround you, and sudden dread terrifies you, 11 or darkness, so that you cannot see, and an abundance of water covers you.”
In chapter one the Satan complained that God had “surrounded” Job with a hedge. The same word is used in verse 10 when Eliphaz says that Job is “surrounded” by traps. As a result of Job’s assumed wickedness, an unexpected and sickening dread terrifies Job; darkness overwhelms him and despair and misery engulf him.
22:12 “Is not God {in} the height of heaven? Look also at the distant stars, how high they are! 13 You say, "What does God know? Can He judge through the thick darkness? 14 Clouds are a hiding place for Him, so that He cannot see; and He walks on the vault of heaven.”
Eliphaz wrongly inferred (he wasn’t listening well) from one of Job’s statements that he (Job) believed that God, from His exalted position, couldn’t see through the thick clouds and thus was not able to notice the affairs of mankind on this little orb called earth. Eliphaz believed that Job believed that El-Shaddai didn’t have ground penetrating radar. But that wasn’t what Job believed. Job believed that God not only has ground penetrating radar, He has heart penetrating radar as well (plus some pretty cool night vision goggles). Hartley states, “In Eliphaz’s opinion Job’s view is heretical, being close to what is classified today as modern deism or practical atheism.”
22:15 "Will you keep to the ancient path which wicked men have trod, 16 Who were snatched away before their time, whose foundations were washed away by a river? 17 They said to God, ‘Depart from us!' And ‘What can the Almighty do to them?' 18 Yet He filled their houses with good {things ;} but the counsel of the wicked is far from me. 19 The righteous see and are glad, and the innocent mock them, 20 {Saying} ‘Truly our adversaries are cut off, and their abundance the fire has consumed.'”
When you go to certain verses of Job in either Barnes’ Commentary or Matthew Henry’s Commentary or Adam Clarke’s Commentary, it will say something like, “No (and then fill in the name of the commentator) Commentary on this/these verse(s).
Guess what? There is no Vander Ark Commentary on these verses. :>)
The last words of Eliphaz in the book of Job are in the form of an altar call. Its quite good actually…and quite moving. It’s sort of Billy Graham-ish. But the problem is that they don’t apply to Job.
22: 21 "Yield now and be at peace with Him; Thereby good will come to you.”
The first part of verse 21 is variously translated as “acquaint yourself with God” or “give in to God” or “submit yourself to God” or “reconcile yourself with God” or “put yourself in a right relationship with God.” To Eliphaz, Job is simply backslidden.
22:22 "Please receive instruction from His mouth and establish His words in your heart.”
Translation? “If you would just turn off the TV and read the Bible, you wouldn’t be in this awful mess.”
(But then again it probably wouldn’t hurt us to turn off the TV a little more and ask God to help us fall more deeply in love with His Word).
22:23 "If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored; if you remove unrighteousness far from your tent, 24 And place {your} gold in the dust, and {the gold of} Ophir among the stones of the brooks, 25 Then the Almighty will be your gold and choice silver to you.”
In reading through this wonderful book, several times you get the distinct feeling that Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar were more than just a little envious of Job’s prominence in society and his immense wealth. And this is one of those places. To paraphrase Eliphaz, “Job, if you would just pry your greedy mitts off from your gold bars and throw them into the river, you’d get healed in a moment!”
22:26 “For then you will delight in the Almighty and lift up your face to God. 27 You will pray to Him, and He will hear you; and you will pay your vows. 28 You will also decree a thing, and it will be established for you; and light will shine on your ways. 29 When you are cast down, you will speak with confidence, and the humble person He will save. 30 He will deliver one who is not innocent, and he will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands (your intercessory prayer)."
Hartley writes a fitting summary to this chapter, “It needs to be remembered that God wants his followers to call people to repentance out of love purified by intercessory prayer. Then they will bring comfort to a troubled heart as they lead a person from guilt to forgiveness. In ministering, one’s theology must be elastic enough to be applied to a particular situation, since rigid applications of a dogma hinders the dynamic, spontaneous expression of God’s grace. Correctness of expression too often crowds out the authenticity of experience.”
(Obviously Eliphaz misplaced his mission statement business card. The front read [in bold size 48 font], “COMFORTERS INCORPORATED.” And the back read simply, “We Always Tries….To Empathize.”)
He is astounded that, throughout this entire dialogue, Job has held onto his innocence so obstinately. Kindly Eliphaz comes to the conclusion that Job is nothing more than an intractable, obstinate sinner who deserves all of the excruciating pain and torment that God is hurling his way.
22:1-3, “Then Eliphaz the Temanite responded, 2 ‘Can a vigorous man be of use to God, or a wise man be useful to himself? 3 Is there any pleasure to the Almighty if you are righteous, or profit if you make your ways perfect?
In answering Eliphaz’s second question ("Is there any pleasure to the Almighty if you are righteous? [vs. 3a]), we could well reply with a resounding, “Yes!” According to chapter one, God admired Job’s character and brought it directly to the attention of Satan himself.
22:4 "Is it because of your reverence that He reproves you, that He enters into judgment against you?”
Someone has written, “It is so unfathomable to the three that this IS why he is suffering!” Job’s reverence and his integrity are directly related to his suffering; his renowned piety and devotion to God became the focus of attention in the heavenly court in chapters one and two. And that cosmic confrontation resulted in this titanic struggle of Job’s faith.
22:5 “Is not your wickedness great, and your iniquities without end?”
Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar cannot see any other possibility then the fact that Job is a persistent, wicked sinner whose iniquities are infinite. The word “wickedness” in this verse is the same word for “evil” in chapters one and two. But God’s summary of Job’s life was just a little different than Eliphaz’s; twice God testified by saying that Job “eschewed (turned away from) evil.”
22:6 “For you have taken pledges of your brothers without cause, and stripped men naked. 7 to the weary you have given no water to drink, and from the hungry you have withheld bread. 8 but the earth belongs to the mighty man, and the honorable man dwells in it. 9 You have sent widows away empty, and the strength of the orphans has been crushed.”
Eliphaz heard a rumor that while Job was at the University of Uz (UU), he had botched “Compassion 101.” And he came to believe the gossip that Job was ruthless and cruel and anything but kind to the weary, the hungry, the widows and the orphans. Read verses 6-9 from the New Living Translation: “For example, you must have lent money to your friend and demanded clothing as security. Yes, you stripped him to the bone. You must have refused water for the thirsty and food for the hungry. You probably think the land belongs to the powerful and only the privileged have a right to it! You must have sent widows away empty-handed and crushed the hopes of orphans.”
Did you catch Eliphaz’s assumptions? Three times it’s, “You must have…” None of the three had any empirical or concrete evidence of ANY wrongdoing on the part of Job. They simply assumed he was guilty.
I am guessing that just about everyone has heard this riddle, “Fred lies dead in a pool of water on the floor surrounded by broken glass. The window is open and the curtain is flapping in the breeze. How did Fred die?”
The assumption is made that Fred is human.
He’s not.
He’s a goldfish…the wind blew the curtain against the goldfish bowl and thus Fred met an untimely demise.
Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar see Job’s horrific suffering and their theology leaves room for only one assumption: Job is wicked. Only the wicked suffer…Job is suffering…thus Job is wicked. Hartley writes, “No other cause than Job’s sin can account for his suffering, according to the tenets of Eliphaz’s theology.”
22:10 “Therefore snares surround you, and sudden dread terrifies you, 11 or darkness, so that you cannot see, and an abundance of water covers you.”
In chapter one the Satan complained that God had “surrounded” Job with a hedge. The same word is used in verse 10 when Eliphaz says that Job is “surrounded” by traps. As a result of Job’s assumed wickedness, an unexpected and sickening dread terrifies Job; darkness overwhelms him and despair and misery engulf him.
22:12 “Is not God {in} the height of heaven? Look also at the distant stars, how high they are! 13 You say, "What does God know? Can He judge through the thick darkness? 14 Clouds are a hiding place for Him, so that He cannot see; and He walks on the vault of heaven.”
Eliphaz wrongly inferred (he wasn’t listening well) from one of Job’s statements that he (Job) believed that God, from His exalted position, couldn’t see through the thick clouds and thus was not able to notice the affairs of mankind on this little orb called earth. Eliphaz believed that Job believed that El-Shaddai didn’t have ground penetrating radar. But that wasn’t what Job believed. Job believed that God not only has ground penetrating radar, He has heart penetrating radar as well (plus some pretty cool night vision goggles). Hartley states, “In Eliphaz’s opinion Job’s view is heretical, being close to what is classified today as modern deism or practical atheism.”
22:15 "Will you keep to the ancient path which wicked men have trod, 16 Who were snatched away before their time, whose foundations were washed away by a river? 17 They said to God, ‘Depart from us!' And ‘What can the Almighty do to them?' 18 Yet He filled their houses with good {things ;} but the counsel of the wicked is far from me. 19 The righteous see and are glad, and the innocent mock them, 20 {Saying} ‘Truly our adversaries are cut off, and their abundance the fire has consumed.'”
When you go to certain verses of Job in either Barnes’ Commentary or Matthew Henry’s Commentary or Adam Clarke’s Commentary, it will say something like, “No (and then fill in the name of the commentator) Commentary on this/these verse(s).
Guess what? There is no Vander Ark Commentary on these verses. :>)
The last words of Eliphaz in the book of Job are in the form of an altar call. Its quite good actually…and quite moving. It’s sort of Billy Graham-ish. But the problem is that they don’t apply to Job.
22: 21 "Yield now and be at peace with Him; Thereby good will come to you.”
The first part of verse 21 is variously translated as “acquaint yourself with God” or “give in to God” or “submit yourself to God” or “reconcile yourself with God” or “put yourself in a right relationship with God.” To Eliphaz, Job is simply backslidden.
22:22 "Please receive instruction from His mouth and establish His words in your heart.”
Translation? “If you would just turn off the TV and read the Bible, you wouldn’t be in this awful mess.”
(But then again it probably wouldn’t hurt us to turn off the TV a little more and ask God to help us fall more deeply in love with His Word).
22:23 "If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored; if you remove unrighteousness far from your tent, 24 And place {your} gold in the dust, and {the gold of} Ophir among the stones of the brooks, 25 Then the Almighty will be your gold and choice silver to you.”
In reading through this wonderful book, several times you get the distinct feeling that Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar were more than just a little envious of Job’s prominence in society and his immense wealth. And this is one of those places. To paraphrase Eliphaz, “Job, if you would just pry your greedy mitts off from your gold bars and throw them into the river, you’d get healed in a moment!”
22:26 “For then you will delight in the Almighty and lift up your face to God. 27 You will pray to Him, and He will hear you; and you will pay your vows. 28 You will also decree a thing, and it will be established for you; and light will shine on your ways. 29 When you are cast down, you will speak with confidence, and the humble person He will save. 30 He will deliver one who is not innocent, and he will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands (your intercessory prayer)."
Hartley writes a fitting summary to this chapter, “It needs to be remembered that God wants his followers to call people to repentance out of love purified by intercessory prayer. Then they will bring comfort to a troubled heart as they lead a person from guilt to forgiveness. In ministering, one’s theology must be elastic enough to be applied to a particular situation, since rigid applications of a dogma hinders the dynamic, spontaneous expression of God’s grace. Correctness of expression too often crowds out the authenticity of experience.”
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Speak Once, Listen Twice (Job 21:1-34)
Francis I Anderson sums up Zophar’s speech from the previous chapter with these words, “It is worth pointing out, as a sign of the narrowness of Zophar's beliefs, that his speech contains no hint that the wicked might repent, make amends and regain the favour of God. Zophar has no compassion and his god has no mercy.”
Job seeks in chapter 21 to demolish the retribution theology of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. His basic argument? “Neither is prosperity a proof of men’s innocence, nor adversity a mark of their wickedness.” (Trapp)
21:1 Then Job answered, 2 “Listen carefully to my speech, and let this be your way of consolation. 3 Bear with me that I may speak; then after I have spoken, you may mock. 4 As for me, is my complaint to man? And why should I not be impatient?” 5 Look at me, and be astonished, and put your hand over your mouth. 6 Even when I remember, I am disturbed, and horror takes hold of my flesh.”
The speech begins literally “Hear! Hear!” (Hebrew “Shama shama). It’s translated variously as “Listen diligently!” or “Listen closely!” or “Keep Listening!”
“…and let this attention of yours be your comfort & consolation.” Job simply wanted the three to stop mocking him (“mock” is intensive and implies the strongest derision). And he wanted them to listen – really listen – which apparently they haven’t been doing for quite some time.
Remember these two verses from chapter 2? “When they saw Job from a distance, they scarcely recognized him. Wailing loudly, they tore their robes and threw dust into the air over their heads to show their grief. 13 Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and nights. No one said a word to Job, for they saw that his suffering was too great for words” (2:12-13). Somewhere along the road from chapter 2 to chapter 21 it seems that the three comforters had taken their eyes off from their friend who was desperately sick and had gotten lost in their compassionless and dogmatic theology. Job implored in verse 5, “Look at me!” In those three words you get a sense of Job’s pain and deep struggle.
Someone has said that “silence is a form of communication.” EBZ would have been much farther ahead if they had merely been quiet, straightened up the ash heap every now and then, and offered to change Job’s bandages.
The bulk of chapter 21 is simply Job’s reply to Zophar’s speech. In actuality, it’s a total demolition of the comforter’s world view.
21:7 “Why do the wicked still live, Continue on, also become very powerful?”
Contrast this with 20:11 where Zophar contends that the wicked die prematurely. But Job rightly reasons that they often reach old age, improve in health and complete their life span. Keil & Delitzsch write, “…the ungodly, far from being overtaken by the punishment of their godlessness, continued in the enjoyment of life…the wicked acquire constantly increasing possessions.”
21:8 “They get to see their children succeed, get to watch and enjoy their grandchildren.”
Far from being in misery, Job says that sometimes the wicked will have large and happy families! (The thought of the laughter of children and grandchildren had to fill Job with a great sense of sadness.)
21:9 “Their homes are peaceful and free from fear; they never experience God’s disciplining rod.”
Translation: The rod of God hasn't struck them with a single blow, and yet I have a spear sticking out my back! (20:25)
21:10 “Their bulls breed with great vigor and their cows calve without fail. 11 They send their children out to play and watch them frolic like spring lambs. 12 They make music with fiddles and flutes; have good times singing and dancing. 13 They have a long life on easy street, and die painlessly in their sleep.”
You are probably familiar with Norman Rockwell’s paintings of the idyllic (and often humorous) American family. And perhaps you have seen some of Terry Redlin’s paintings with the wonderful warm scenes of autumn in the country. Both artists convey a sense of simplicity and serenity about life. Zophar contends that the wicked would never find themselves in such depictions, but Job counters that there are times when the wicked do enjoy a Norman Rockwell type of life – they have both a serene life and a serene death. Hartley writes, “A serene death means that the joy of the wicked is as full as possible. Suffering has never impressed on their mind the horrors of death.”
21:14 “They say to God, ’Depart from us! We do not even desire the knowledge of Your ways. 15 Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him, and what would we gain if we entreat Him?’”
FI Anderson writes, “In their experience, prayer is a waste of time!” One writer calls the wicked, “Stalwart sinners who order God around -- they see themselves as masters of their own world.” (The poem “Invictus” would be their motto.)
21:16 “Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand; the counsel of the wicked is far from me. 17 How often is the lamp of the wicked put out, or does their calamity fall on them? Does God apportion destruction in His anger? 18 Are they as straw before the wind, And like chaff which the storm carries away? 19 You say, ’God stores away a man’s iniquity for his sons.’ Let God repay him so that he may know it. 20 Let his own eyes see his decay, and let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty. 21 for what does he care for his household after him, when the number of his months is cut off? 22 Can anyone teach God knowledge, In that He judges those on high?”
Note verse 19 from The Message, “You might say, ‘God is saving up the punishment for their children.’ I say, ‘Give it to them right now so they’ll know what they’ve done!’” The basic theology of the comforters is simply, “The wicked will suffer; if you are suffering it is proof that you are wicked (either secretly or overtly). And if it’s obvious you are wicked and aren’t suffering, then God is simply storing up punishment for your children. End of story. No exceptions. Period!” But Job destroys both their theology and their theology’s escape clause (the kids will get it). Francis I Anderson writes, “Job considers this to be monstrous, encouraging a further depravity, ‘We can sin, our children will pay!’…this theory of the friends, that God is saving up their iniquity for their sons, is a blatant evasion…"
21:23 “Some people die in the prime of life, with everything going for them— 24 fat and sassy. 25 Others die bitter and bereft, never getting a taste of happiness. 26 They’re laid out side by side in the cemetery, where the worms can’t tell one from the other.”
FI Anderson says this, “Death always has the final say, and it says the same thing to everyone!”
Hartley comments, “The prominent prosperous person dies in full vigor, wholly at ease and contented. His life, free from tension and bitterness, is replete with pleasure…another person has the opposite experience. At every turn he faces obstacles and losses. Disappointed and frustrated, he becomes hardened and bitter...his body becomes frail thin and wrinkled as he fades away to nothing…these two types of people are not classified as good and bad, righteous and wicked, but as fortunate and unfortunate.”
Job seems to be simply saying, “There is no formula and there is no pattern. Life is more complicated than that!”
21:27 "I’m not deceived. I know what you’re up to, the plans you’re cooking up to bring me down. 28 Naively you claim that the castles of tyrants fall to pieces, that the achievements of the wicked collapse. 29 Have you ever asked world travelers how they see it? Have you not listened to their stories 30 Of evil men and women who got off scot-free, who never had to pay for their wickedness? 31 Did anyone ever confront them with their crimes? Did they ever have to face the music? 32 Not likely—they’re given fancy funerals with all the trimmings, 33 Gently lowered into expensive graves, with everyone telling lies about how wonderful they were.”
Quoted by Hartley, C. Westermann writes, “(The wicked) seem to have blessedness without blessing, divine favor without God, salvation without a Savior!”
If there is simply one instance of the wicked prospering without suffering, then the theology of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar would come tumbling down like a house of cards. All the Comforters need do is ask world travelers (vs. 29) and they would find ample evidence to validate Job’s argument.
21:34 “How then will you vainly comfort me, for your answers remain full of falsehood?"
Job desperately wanted his friends to look at him and listen to him. He wanted their derision and mockery to stop. FI Anderson writes, “A more fitting response to such a sight would be to be appalled and to be silent as they were at first!”
There is an interesting verse found in Psalm 62:11, “Once God has spoken; twice I have heard this…” Speak once, listen twice!” Perhaps I’ve taken that verse a little out of context, but it’s nevertheless true that listening can be a lost art. (We often speak twice and listen once.)
Perhaps you feel compelled to say something, anything to help alleviate a friend’s pain. But remember, silence is a form of communication. It just may be that the most comforting thing you can say….is nothing.
Job seeks in chapter 21 to demolish the retribution theology of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. His basic argument? “Neither is prosperity a proof of men’s innocence, nor adversity a mark of their wickedness.” (Trapp)
21:1 Then Job answered, 2 “Listen carefully to my speech, and let this be your way of consolation. 3 Bear with me that I may speak; then after I have spoken, you may mock. 4 As for me, is my complaint to man? And why should I not be impatient?” 5 Look at me, and be astonished, and put your hand over your mouth. 6 Even when I remember, I am disturbed, and horror takes hold of my flesh.”
The speech begins literally “Hear! Hear!” (Hebrew “Shama shama). It’s translated variously as “Listen diligently!” or “Listen closely!” or “Keep Listening!”
“…and let this attention of yours be your comfort & consolation.” Job simply wanted the three to stop mocking him (“mock” is intensive and implies the strongest derision). And he wanted them to listen – really listen – which apparently they haven’t been doing for quite some time.
Remember these two verses from chapter 2? “When they saw Job from a distance, they scarcely recognized him. Wailing loudly, they tore their robes and threw dust into the air over their heads to show their grief. 13 Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and nights. No one said a word to Job, for they saw that his suffering was too great for words” (2:12-13). Somewhere along the road from chapter 2 to chapter 21 it seems that the three comforters had taken their eyes off from their friend who was desperately sick and had gotten lost in their compassionless and dogmatic theology. Job implored in verse 5, “Look at me!” In those three words you get a sense of Job’s pain and deep struggle.
Someone has said that “silence is a form of communication.” EBZ would have been much farther ahead if they had merely been quiet, straightened up the ash heap every now and then, and offered to change Job’s bandages.
The bulk of chapter 21 is simply Job’s reply to Zophar’s speech. In actuality, it’s a total demolition of the comforter’s world view.
21:7 “Why do the wicked still live, Continue on, also become very powerful?”
Contrast this with 20:11 where Zophar contends that the wicked die prematurely. But Job rightly reasons that they often reach old age, improve in health and complete their life span. Keil & Delitzsch write, “…the ungodly, far from being overtaken by the punishment of their godlessness, continued in the enjoyment of life…the wicked acquire constantly increasing possessions.”
21:8 “They get to see their children succeed, get to watch and enjoy their grandchildren.”
Far from being in misery, Job says that sometimes the wicked will have large and happy families! (The thought of the laughter of children and grandchildren had to fill Job with a great sense of sadness.)
21:9 “Their homes are peaceful and free from fear; they never experience God’s disciplining rod.”
Translation: The rod of God hasn't struck them with a single blow, and yet I have a spear sticking out my back! (20:25)
21:10 “Their bulls breed with great vigor and their cows calve without fail. 11 They send their children out to play and watch them frolic like spring lambs. 12 They make music with fiddles and flutes; have good times singing and dancing. 13 They have a long life on easy street, and die painlessly in their sleep.”
You are probably familiar with Norman Rockwell’s paintings of the idyllic (and often humorous) American family. And perhaps you have seen some of Terry Redlin’s paintings with the wonderful warm scenes of autumn in the country. Both artists convey a sense of simplicity and serenity about life. Zophar contends that the wicked would never find themselves in such depictions, but Job counters that there are times when the wicked do enjoy a Norman Rockwell type of life – they have both a serene life and a serene death. Hartley writes, “A serene death means that the joy of the wicked is as full as possible. Suffering has never impressed on their mind the horrors of death.”
21:14 “They say to God, ’Depart from us! We do not even desire the knowledge of Your ways. 15 Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him, and what would we gain if we entreat Him?’”
FI Anderson writes, “In their experience, prayer is a waste of time!” One writer calls the wicked, “Stalwart sinners who order God around -- they see themselves as masters of their own world.” (The poem “Invictus” would be their motto.)
21:16 “Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand; the counsel of the wicked is far from me. 17 How often is the lamp of the wicked put out, or does their calamity fall on them? Does God apportion destruction in His anger? 18 Are they as straw before the wind, And like chaff which the storm carries away? 19 You say, ’God stores away a man’s iniquity for his sons.’ Let God repay him so that he may know it. 20 Let his own eyes see his decay, and let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty. 21 for what does he care for his household after him, when the number of his months is cut off? 22 Can anyone teach God knowledge, In that He judges those on high?”
Note verse 19 from The Message, “You might say, ‘God is saving up the punishment for their children.’ I say, ‘Give it to them right now so they’ll know what they’ve done!’” The basic theology of the comforters is simply, “The wicked will suffer; if you are suffering it is proof that you are wicked (either secretly or overtly). And if it’s obvious you are wicked and aren’t suffering, then God is simply storing up punishment for your children. End of story. No exceptions. Period!” But Job destroys both their theology and their theology’s escape clause (the kids will get it). Francis I Anderson writes, “Job considers this to be monstrous, encouraging a further depravity, ‘We can sin, our children will pay!’…this theory of the friends, that God is saving up their iniquity for their sons, is a blatant evasion…"
21:23 “Some people die in the prime of life, with everything going for them— 24 fat and sassy. 25 Others die bitter and bereft, never getting a taste of happiness. 26 They’re laid out side by side in the cemetery, where the worms can’t tell one from the other.”
FI Anderson says this, “Death always has the final say, and it says the same thing to everyone!”
Hartley comments, “The prominent prosperous person dies in full vigor, wholly at ease and contented. His life, free from tension and bitterness, is replete with pleasure…another person has the opposite experience. At every turn he faces obstacles and losses. Disappointed and frustrated, he becomes hardened and bitter...his body becomes frail thin and wrinkled as he fades away to nothing…these two types of people are not classified as good and bad, righteous and wicked, but as fortunate and unfortunate.”
Job seems to be simply saying, “There is no formula and there is no pattern. Life is more complicated than that!”
21:27 "I’m not deceived. I know what you’re up to, the plans you’re cooking up to bring me down. 28 Naively you claim that the castles of tyrants fall to pieces, that the achievements of the wicked collapse. 29 Have you ever asked world travelers how they see it? Have you not listened to their stories 30 Of evil men and women who got off scot-free, who never had to pay for their wickedness? 31 Did anyone ever confront them with their crimes? Did they ever have to face the music? 32 Not likely—they’re given fancy funerals with all the trimmings, 33 Gently lowered into expensive graves, with everyone telling lies about how wonderful they were.”
Quoted by Hartley, C. Westermann writes, “(The wicked) seem to have blessedness without blessing, divine favor without God, salvation without a Savior!”
If there is simply one instance of the wicked prospering without suffering, then the theology of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar would come tumbling down like a house of cards. All the Comforters need do is ask world travelers (vs. 29) and they would find ample evidence to validate Job’s argument.
21:34 “How then will you vainly comfort me, for your answers remain full of falsehood?"
Job desperately wanted his friends to look at him and listen to him. He wanted their derision and mockery to stop. FI Anderson writes, “A more fitting response to such a sight would be to be appalled and to be silent as they were at first!”
There is an interesting verse found in Psalm 62:11, “Once God has spoken; twice I have heard this…” Speak once, listen twice!” Perhaps I’ve taken that verse a little out of context, but it’s nevertheless true that listening can be a lost art. (We often speak twice and listen once.)
Perhaps you feel compelled to say something, anything to help alleviate a friend’s pain. But remember, silence is a form of communication. It just may be that the most comforting thing you can say….is nothing.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Zorro’s Younger Brother Zophar Drives Home His Point (All The Way Through Job) Chapter 20:1-29
Pastor Zophar was asked by the hospital chaplain if he would like to hold a church service for the small group of patients in hospice. “Sure,” replied Zophar, “I would be glad to!”
That next Sunday Pastor Zophar approached the makeshift pulpit in the family waiting area of the hospice wing. About 20 patients plus their families were gathered to hear something that might give them hope.
Zophar opened his Bible and then gave what might be considered by the Guinness Book of World Records to be the shortest sermon ever given.
“You people,” Zophar said tersely, “are getting what you deserve!”
And then he left.
Those seven words of Zophar’s fictional sermon are chapter twenty in a nutshell.
By the time we get to the end of the chapter we begin to realize why, in chapter 42, God is angry enough with the Comforters to wipe them out.
20:1 Then Zophar the Naamathite answered, 2 “Therefore my disquieting thoughts make me respond, even because of my inward agitation. 3 I listened to the reproof which insults me, and the spirit of my understanding makes me answer.”
You get the sense that Zophar, the third of the comforters to speak, hardly listens at all to what Job has had to say. He is almost grinding his teeth in anger and agitation; he just wants to get on with his theological sword fight and make his point – irrespective of what Job has had to say. One version puts the last part of verse three, “…and your answers to me are wind without wisdom.” Job you aint’ the wind beneath my wings…you’re just wind without wisdom.
20:4 Do you know this from of old, from the establishment of man on earth, 5 that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless momentary? 6 Though his loftiness reaches the heavens, and his head touches the clouds, 7 He perishes forever like his refuse; those who have seen him will say, 'where is he?'
As I have mentioned in previous chapters, not everything that Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar say is wrong. Some of what follows is true (the fate of the wicked); it’s just that it doesn’t apply to Job.
In Zophar’s mind, the theology he presents is so elementary that it’s probably something Adam knew. That theology? The triumph of the wicked is short and momentary; their mirth is just temporary.
The wicked may become so lofty that they “bump their head on the clouds;” yet they perish like a cow-pie. (These words have to be so “comforting” for Job; he must be just rolling his eyes at Zophar’s sermonizing.)
20:8 He flies away like a dream, and they cannot find him; even like a vision of the night he is chased away. 9 The eye which saw him sees him no more, and his place no longer beholds him. 10 His sons favor the poor, and his hands give back his wealth. 11 His bones are full of his youthful vigor, but it lies down with him in the dust.
Even though Zophar never names names in this sermon, Job knows exactly who he is alluding to. Much of the language is similar to the tragedies and calamities of chapters 1-2. The wicked (i.e. you Job) are like disappearing dung, dissolving dreams and vanishing visions. The Message puts verse 9 this way, "Though once notorious public figures, now they’re nobodies, unnoticed, whether they come or go.” In verse 10 Zophar implies that Job’s wealth was a result of stealing from the poor. And in verse 11 Pastor Zophar says that the wicked will be cut down in the prime of life and find themselves on the dust (Job’s ash heap?).
20:12 Though evil is sweet in his mouth, {and} he hides it under his tongue, 13 {Though} he desires it and will not let it go, but holds it in his mouth, 14 {Yet} his food in his stomach is changed to the venom of cobras within him. 15 He swallows riches, but will vomit them up; God will expel them from his belly. 16 He sucks the poison of cobras; the viper's tongue slays him.
Note the word “evil” in verse 12. In chapters one and two God testified to Satan that Job “turned away from evil” (he “eschewed evil” as the King James puts it); but Zophar implies that far from turning away from evil, Job desires it like some luscious piece of candy. Instead of spitting it out, he rolls it around in his mouth to savor it and then hides it under his tongue for safe-keeping. (Remember that the Comforter’s basic premise was that Job was a secret sinner – he had hidden his wickedness and God was now bringing the real Job to light).
The word “desire” in verse 13 means to “comfort” or “take care of.” Zophar continues: Job not only enjoyed his sin, he pampered it the way a mother would do for her newborn!
But the sweet food turns to venomous poison (vs. 15). And instead of snakes on a plane, its snakes in his stomach! From venom to vomit: Job’s wickedness may seem sweet, but with agonizing cramps he will one day vomit up what he has swallowed. The sweet evil will turn to the poison of cobras.
20:17 He does not look at the streams, the rivers flowing with honey and curds. 18 He returns what he has attained and cannot swallow {it ;} as to the riches of his trading, He cannot even enjoy {them.} 19 For he has oppressed {and} forsaken the poor; He has seized a house which he has not built.
The Message puts these three verses this way, “No quiet picnics for them beside gentle streams with fresh-baked bread and cheese, and tall, cool drinks. They spit out their food half-chewed, unable to relax and enjoy anything they’ve worked for. And why? Because they exploited the poor, took what never belonged to them.”
Note these intense verbs in verse 19 – oppressed, forsaken, and seized. JFB writes concerning the word “seized”: “This root has in its meaning the violence that goes beyond mere stealing or taking another’s belongings but includes robbing by force, a tearing off.”
20:20 Because he knew no quiet within him He does not retain anything he desires. 21 Nothing remains for him to devour, therefore his prosperity does not endure. 22 In the fullness of his plenty he will be cramped; the hand of everyone who suffers will come {against} him. 23 When he fills his belly, {God} will send His fierce anger on him and will rain {it} on him while he is eating.
Pastor Zophar continues to grind away at Job. “The wicked," he says, “are never satisfied in their greed – it always eats away at them (vs. 20), there is no rest for them in their cravings.”
Vs 21 – They (you Job) have raped the land…there is nothing left to devour.
Vs 22 – But when it seems they (you Job) don’t have a care in the world, they (you Job) will suddenly be surrounded by cares. Instead of rich abundant food, it’s a smorgasbord of misery.
Vs 23 – This is Zophar’s summary of Job chapters 1-2; the language is similar to the blizzard of quails in Numbers 11. (While Zophar is giving his sermon, the background music softly plays a variation of the chorus “Its Beginning to Rain”: “It’s beginning to rain….feel the wrath of the Father…”)
20:24 He may flee from the iron weapon, {but} the bronze bow will pierce him. 25 It is drawn forth and comes out of his back, even the glittering point from his gall. Terrors come upon him…
When Zophar wasn’t cutting it in sword school (get it?), Zorro counseled his younger brother, “Yo bro, ummmmm, you realize you’ve pierced through a couple of your classmates don’t you? Maybe this sword fighting thing ain’t working out for you. Have you ever thought about becoming a pastor? Maybe instead of the sword of Zophar you could try the Sword of the Lord.”
But alas, Zophar’s adeptness at spiritual sword fighting proved to be just as fatal. When the Sunday services were done, instead of being healed and comforted, the sheep left with Sword wounds. And with Job he makes his point alright…and it’s sticking out Job’s back!
“Job you can run, but you can’t hide!” Zophar pictures Job in hand-to-hand combat with God.
“Maybe you can escape the iron weapon, but Sniper God can hit you from 100 miles away.”
There are two verses in this chapter that highlight Zophar’s total lack of pastoral empathy: Verse 7 “He perishes like his dung;” and here in verse 25, “The bloody point of God’s sword of judgment is sticking out your back!”
20:26 Complete darkness is held in reserve for his treasures, and unfanned fire will devour him; it will consume the survivor in his tent.
Complete darkness and unfanned fire…the unfanned fire is certainly an allusion to the tragedies of chapter one.
20:27 The heavens will reveal his iniquity, and the earth will rise up against him. 28 The increase of his house will depart; {His possessions} will flow away in the day of His anger. 29 This is the wicked man's portion from God, even the heritage decreed to him by God.
Job wants Heaven to be a witness to his integrity, but Zophar says that Heaven will be a witness to Job’s exceedingly great sin. “Look around Job! This (the desolation and destruction) is your inheritance!”
Zophar closes his message by saying, “None of this was by chance Job. From the disintegrated sheep to the death of your kids to your disease infected body – this is all by divine decree!”
In his commentary on Job, Chuck Swindoll quotes J. Oswald Sanders, “This is the last time we hear from Zophar and we will not miss him.”
Hopefully that is never written of our counsel and comfort.
That next Sunday Pastor Zophar approached the makeshift pulpit in the family waiting area of the hospice wing. About 20 patients plus their families were gathered to hear something that might give them hope.
Zophar opened his Bible and then gave what might be considered by the Guinness Book of World Records to be the shortest sermon ever given.
“You people,” Zophar said tersely, “are getting what you deserve!”
And then he left.
Those seven words of Zophar’s fictional sermon are chapter twenty in a nutshell.
By the time we get to the end of the chapter we begin to realize why, in chapter 42, God is angry enough with the Comforters to wipe them out.
20:1 Then Zophar the Naamathite answered, 2 “Therefore my disquieting thoughts make me respond, even because of my inward agitation. 3 I listened to the reproof which insults me, and the spirit of my understanding makes me answer.”
You get the sense that Zophar, the third of the comforters to speak, hardly listens at all to what Job has had to say. He is almost grinding his teeth in anger and agitation; he just wants to get on with his theological sword fight and make his point – irrespective of what Job has had to say. One version puts the last part of verse three, “…and your answers to me are wind without wisdom.” Job you aint’ the wind beneath my wings…you’re just wind without wisdom.
20:4 Do you know this from of old, from the establishment of man on earth, 5 that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless momentary? 6 Though his loftiness reaches the heavens, and his head touches the clouds, 7 He perishes forever like his refuse; those who have seen him will say, 'where is he?'
As I have mentioned in previous chapters, not everything that Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar say is wrong. Some of what follows is true (the fate of the wicked); it’s just that it doesn’t apply to Job.
In Zophar’s mind, the theology he presents is so elementary that it’s probably something Adam knew. That theology? The triumph of the wicked is short and momentary; their mirth is just temporary.
The wicked may become so lofty that they “bump their head on the clouds;” yet they perish like a cow-pie. (These words have to be so “comforting” for Job; he must be just rolling his eyes at Zophar’s sermonizing.)
20:8 He flies away like a dream, and they cannot find him; even like a vision of the night he is chased away. 9 The eye which saw him sees him no more, and his place no longer beholds him. 10 His sons favor the poor, and his hands give back his wealth. 11 His bones are full of his youthful vigor, but it lies down with him in the dust.
Even though Zophar never names names in this sermon, Job knows exactly who he is alluding to. Much of the language is similar to the tragedies and calamities of chapters 1-2. The wicked (i.e. you Job) are like disappearing dung, dissolving dreams and vanishing visions. The Message puts verse 9 this way, "Though once notorious public figures, now they’re nobodies, unnoticed, whether they come or go.” In verse 10 Zophar implies that Job’s wealth was a result of stealing from the poor. And in verse 11 Pastor Zophar says that the wicked will be cut down in the prime of life and find themselves on the dust (Job’s ash heap?).
20:12 Though evil is sweet in his mouth, {and} he hides it under his tongue, 13 {Though} he desires it and will not let it go, but holds it in his mouth, 14 {Yet} his food in his stomach is changed to the venom of cobras within him. 15 He swallows riches, but will vomit them up; God will expel them from his belly. 16 He sucks the poison of cobras; the viper's tongue slays him.
Note the word “evil” in verse 12. In chapters one and two God testified to Satan that Job “turned away from evil” (he “eschewed evil” as the King James puts it); but Zophar implies that far from turning away from evil, Job desires it like some luscious piece of candy. Instead of spitting it out, he rolls it around in his mouth to savor it and then hides it under his tongue for safe-keeping. (Remember that the Comforter’s basic premise was that Job was a secret sinner – he had hidden his wickedness and God was now bringing the real Job to light).
The word “desire” in verse 13 means to “comfort” or “take care of.” Zophar continues: Job not only enjoyed his sin, he pampered it the way a mother would do for her newborn!
But the sweet food turns to venomous poison (vs. 15). And instead of snakes on a plane, its snakes in his stomach! From venom to vomit: Job’s wickedness may seem sweet, but with agonizing cramps he will one day vomit up what he has swallowed. The sweet evil will turn to the poison of cobras.
20:17 He does not look at the streams, the rivers flowing with honey and curds. 18 He returns what he has attained and cannot swallow {it ;} as to the riches of his trading, He cannot even enjoy {them.} 19 For he has oppressed {and} forsaken the poor; He has seized a house which he has not built.
The Message puts these three verses this way, “No quiet picnics for them beside gentle streams with fresh-baked bread and cheese, and tall, cool drinks. They spit out their food half-chewed, unable to relax and enjoy anything they’ve worked for. And why? Because they exploited the poor, took what never belonged to them.”
Note these intense verbs in verse 19 – oppressed, forsaken, and seized. JFB writes concerning the word “seized”: “This root has in its meaning the violence that goes beyond mere stealing or taking another’s belongings but includes robbing by force, a tearing off.”
20:20 Because he knew no quiet within him He does not retain anything he desires. 21 Nothing remains for him to devour, therefore his prosperity does not endure. 22 In the fullness of his plenty he will be cramped; the hand of everyone who suffers will come {against} him. 23 When he fills his belly, {God} will send His fierce anger on him and will rain {it} on him while he is eating.
Pastor Zophar continues to grind away at Job. “The wicked," he says, “are never satisfied in their greed – it always eats away at them (vs. 20), there is no rest for them in their cravings.”
Vs 21 – They (you Job) have raped the land…there is nothing left to devour.
Vs 22 – But when it seems they (you Job) don’t have a care in the world, they (you Job) will suddenly be surrounded by cares. Instead of rich abundant food, it’s a smorgasbord of misery.
Vs 23 – This is Zophar’s summary of Job chapters 1-2; the language is similar to the blizzard of quails in Numbers 11. (While Zophar is giving his sermon, the background music softly plays a variation of the chorus “Its Beginning to Rain”: “It’s beginning to rain….feel the wrath of the Father…”)
20:24 He may flee from the iron weapon, {but} the bronze bow will pierce him. 25 It is drawn forth and comes out of his back, even the glittering point from his gall. Terrors come upon him…
When Zophar wasn’t cutting it in sword school (get it?), Zorro counseled his younger brother, “Yo bro, ummmmm, you realize you’ve pierced through a couple of your classmates don’t you? Maybe this sword fighting thing ain’t working out for you. Have you ever thought about becoming a pastor? Maybe instead of the sword of Zophar you could try the Sword of the Lord.”
But alas, Zophar’s adeptness at spiritual sword fighting proved to be just as fatal. When the Sunday services were done, instead of being healed and comforted, the sheep left with Sword wounds. And with Job he makes his point alright…and it’s sticking out Job’s back!
“Job you can run, but you can’t hide!” Zophar pictures Job in hand-to-hand combat with God.
“Maybe you can escape the iron weapon, but Sniper God can hit you from 100 miles away.”
There are two verses in this chapter that highlight Zophar’s total lack of pastoral empathy: Verse 7 “He perishes like his dung;” and here in verse 25, “The bloody point of God’s sword of judgment is sticking out your back!”
20:26 Complete darkness is held in reserve for his treasures, and unfanned fire will devour him; it will consume the survivor in his tent.
Complete darkness and unfanned fire…the unfanned fire is certainly an allusion to the tragedies of chapter one.
20:27 The heavens will reveal his iniquity, and the earth will rise up against him. 28 The increase of his house will depart; {His possessions} will flow away in the day of His anger. 29 This is the wicked man's portion from God, even the heritage decreed to him by God.
Job wants Heaven to be a witness to his integrity, but Zophar says that Heaven will be a witness to Job’s exceedingly great sin. “Look around Job! This (the desolation and destruction) is your inheritance!”
Zophar closes his message by saying, “None of this was by chance Job. From the disintegrated sheep to the death of your kids to your disease infected body – this is all by divine decree!”
In his commentary on Job, Chuck Swindoll quotes J. Oswald Sanders, “This is the last time we hear from Zophar and we will not miss him.”
Hopefully that is never written of our counsel and comfort.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Goosebumps At The Ash Heap (I Know My Redeemer Lives!) Job 19:19-27)
The caregiver in hospice asked Job, “Is there anything I can get for you?”
Job, an almost ghost-like figure, responded, “Do you mind getting my Nicole C. Mullen CD, ‘My Redeemer Lives’ and turning on my CD player?”
The presence of God still seemed to be a million miles away and for a long time Heaven gave the impression that a “No More Prayers Will Be Answered!” sign had been hung outside the pearly gates. Yet, fighting back tears and feelings of bitterness and abandonment, in faith Job raised his hands to worship God. His disease ridden body struggling for any amount of energy, Job began to sing, “I know my Redeemer lives!...”
19:19 "All my associates abhor me, and those I love have turned against me. 20 My bone clings to my skin and my flesh, and I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth. 21 Pity me, pity me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has struck me. 22 Why do you persecute me as God does, and are not satisfied with my flesh?”
Job’s abandonment by family and friends and his physical suffering seemed to be all encompassing. Hartley writes, “Just as his alienation is total, so too his physical suffering is complete.” In verse 20 Job marvels that he is still alive (“…I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth”). The Message puts verse 20 this way, “I’m nothing but a bag of bones; my life hangs by a thread.” While lying on his ash-heap hospital bed, he asks his friends to have just a little pity upon him (the imperative tense implies a sense of urgency in his request to the comforters). Everyone who has ever been close to him seems to abhor (abominate) him. The New Living Translation puts the last part of verse 22 this way, “…Haven’t you chewed me up enough?”
19:23 "Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! 24 That with an iron stylus and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!”
Job despairs of receiving justice from his generation. Fearing that his life would soon be over and that there would be no record of his desire for vindication and no one to defend his innocence, he asks that his words might be forever inscribed in a stone monument. Such memorials were often used in that portion of the world to permanently record events, laws, and boundaries. (Note that in 13:26 Job laments, “Thou dost write bitter things against me!” Now he wants his turn to do some writing.)
The interesting thing is…his words are written! They have been forever recorded in God’s Word to provide comfort for countless generations. Job, suffering through such ignominy (shame) and destitution, could never have imagined how his reaction to his trial would become known world-wide – and how he would be considered such a hero of faith! (We often have a wrong view of what a hero is. Sometimes they are simply average and unknown people, going through their own ash heap trial. And while circumstances are so contrary, they still cling tenaciously to a belief that God indeed is a God of love.)
19:25 As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth. 26 Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God; 27 Whom I myself shall behold, And whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me!”
To paraphrase Hartley, it’s far better to have a Living Redeemer than a cold stone memorial!
I don’t know about you, but I get goose bumps when I read these verses. Against such a black and bleak background of misery and abandonment, there is a sudden rocket-burst of brilliant light. Job’s famous words have been read, commented on, and sung about for centuries.
Let’s briefly unpack a portion of these verses…
“As for me…”: You and I will probably come to such a decision point in our life.
“I know…”: The Hebrew word is “yada” and indicates an intimate knowledge. Job’s “I know” wasn’t just a mental assent to a creed, but rather something that was embedded in his heart and gave purpose to his life.
“My Redeemer lives!” Listen to what Hartley has to say, “This magnificent verse then means that Job is beseeching the God in Whom he has faith to help him against the God Who is punishing him! While this view seems irrational, this paradox lies at the core of Job’s struggle…” Despite everything being so desperately contrary, Job believes that the God who seems to be punishing him will vindicate him!
“And at the last He will take His stand on the earth…”: In the context of Job’s struggle, this could very well be translated, “At the end of my trial God is going to show up out here at my ash heap.” The word “earth” that is used here is the same word for “dust” in 2:12 and more than 20 other places in the book of Job. Also note that three times in vss 26 and 27 Job refers to “seeing God.” As gloomy and dismal as things are at the Landfill of Uz, Job expects to see God at the town dump!
Let me try to illustrate Job's faith: Imagine yourself having to face the horror of a WWII concentration camp such as Auschwitz. Now imagine that, while surrounded by such despair, that you begin to hear the sound of someone singing. And as you strain to hear more clearly, you recognize the song and realize that one of the prisoners is singing the old church hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness!” With death all around, the emaciated inmate softly sings, “Great is Thy faithfulness, Oh God my Father, There is no shadow of turning with Thee; Thou changedst not, Thy compassions they fail not; As Thou has been, Thou forever will be!” (I don’t know when the hymn "Great Is Thy Faithfulnees" was written and even if it was sung in the churches of Europe prior to WWII, but this little vignette illustrates Job’s faith during those awful ash heap days.)
Conclusion:
Job didn’t utter the words of verse 25 "I know that my Redeemer lives..." while sitting on a comfortable pew in an air conditioned church. They were uttered while life was at the lowest ebb.
With the music of Nicole C. Mullen’s song filling his hospice room, Job worshipped…
May we also, during our darkest struggles, sing these same words…
***********************************************
You can click on the link (below the calendar) to listen to Nicole Mullen's song "My Redeemer Lives!"
Who taught the sun where to stand in the morning
Who told the ocean you an only come this far?
Who showed the moon where to hide 'til evening
Whose words alone can catch a falling star?
Well I know my Redeemer lives
I know my Redeemer lives
All of creation testify
This life within me cries
I know my Redeemer lives
The very same God that spins things in orbit
He runs to the weary, the worn and the weak
And the same gentle hands that hold me when I'm broken
They conquered death to bring me victory
Now I know my Redeemer lives
I know my Redeemer lives
Let all creation testify
Let this life with in me cry
I know my Redeemer, He lives
To take away my shame
And He lives forever I'll proclaim
That the payment for my sin
Was the precious life He gave
But now He's alive
And there's an empty grave.
And I know my Redeemer, He lives
I know my Redeemer lives
Let all creation testify
This life within me cries
I know my Redeemer lives
Job, an almost ghost-like figure, responded, “Do you mind getting my Nicole C. Mullen CD, ‘My Redeemer Lives’ and turning on my CD player?”
The presence of God still seemed to be a million miles away and for a long time Heaven gave the impression that a “No More Prayers Will Be Answered!” sign had been hung outside the pearly gates. Yet, fighting back tears and feelings of bitterness and abandonment, in faith Job raised his hands to worship God. His disease ridden body struggling for any amount of energy, Job began to sing, “I know my Redeemer lives!...”
19:19 "All my associates abhor me, and those I love have turned against me. 20 My bone clings to my skin and my flesh, and I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth. 21 Pity me, pity me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has struck me. 22 Why do you persecute me as God does, and are not satisfied with my flesh?”
Job’s abandonment by family and friends and his physical suffering seemed to be all encompassing. Hartley writes, “Just as his alienation is total, so too his physical suffering is complete.” In verse 20 Job marvels that he is still alive (“…I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth”). The Message puts verse 20 this way, “I’m nothing but a bag of bones; my life hangs by a thread.” While lying on his ash-heap hospital bed, he asks his friends to have just a little pity upon him (the imperative tense implies a sense of urgency in his request to the comforters). Everyone who has ever been close to him seems to abhor (abominate) him. The New Living Translation puts the last part of verse 22 this way, “…Haven’t you chewed me up enough?”
19:23 "Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! 24 That with an iron stylus and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!”
Job despairs of receiving justice from his generation. Fearing that his life would soon be over and that there would be no record of his desire for vindication and no one to defend his innocence, he asks that his words might be forever inscribed in a stone monument. Such memorials were often used in that portion of the world to permanently record events, laws, and boundaries. (Note that in 13:26 Job laments, “Thou dost write bitter things against me!” Now he wants his turn to do some writing.)
The interesting thing is…his words are written! They have been forever recorded in God’s Word to provide comfort for countless generations. Job, suffering through such ignominy (shame) and destitution, could never have imagined how his reaction to his trial would become known world-wide – and how he would be considered such a hero of faith! (We often have a wrong view of what a hero is. Sometimes they are simply average and unknown people, going through their own ash heap trial. And while circumstances are so contrary, they still cling tenaciously to a belief that God indeed is a God of love.)
19:25 As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth. 26 Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God; 27 Whom I myself shall behold, And whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me!”
To paraphrase Hartley, it’s far better to have a Living Redeemer than a cold stone memorial!
I don’t know about you, but I get goose bumps when I read these verses. Against such a black and bleak background of misery and abandonment, there is a sudden rocket-burst of brilliant light. Job’s famous words have been read, commented on, and sung about for centuries.
Let’s briefly unpack a portion of these verses…
“As for me…”: You and I will probably come to such a decision point in our life.
“I know…”: The Hebrew word is “yada” and indicates an intimate knowledge. Job’s “I know” wasn’t just a mental assent to a creed, but rather something that was embedded in his heart and gave purpose to his life.
“My Redeemer lives!” Listen to what Hartley has to say, “This magnificent verse then means that Job is beseeching the God in Whom he has faith to help him against the God Who is punishing him! While this view seems irrational, this paradox lies at the core of Job’s struggle…” Despite everything being so desperately contrary, Job believes that the God who seems to be punishing him will vindicate him!
“And at the last He will take His stand on the earth…”: In the context of Job’s struggle, this could very well be translated, “At the end of my trial God is going to show up out here at my ash heap.” The word “earth” that is used here is the same word for “dust” in 2:12 and more than 20 other places in the book of Job. Also note that three times in vss 26 and 27 Job refers to “seeing God.” As gloomy and dismal as things are at the Landfill of Uz, Job expects to see God at the town dump!
Let me try to illustrate Job's faith: Imagine yourself having to face the horror of a WWII concentration camp such as Auschwitz. Now imagine that, while surrounded by such despair, that you begin to hear the sound of someone singing. And as you strain to hear more clearly, you recognize the song and realize that one of the prisoners is singing the old church hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness!” With death all around, the emaciated inmate softly sings, “Great is Thy faithfulness, Oh God my Father, There is no shadow of turning with Thee; Thou changedst not, Thy compassions they fail not; As Thou has been, Thou forever will be!” (I don’t know when the hymn "Great Is Thy Faithfulnees" was written and even if it was sung in the churches of Europe prior to WWII, but this little vignette illustrates Job’s faith during those awful ash heap days.)
Conclusion:
Job didn’t utter the words of verse 25 "I know that my Redeemer lives..." while sitting on a comfortable pew in an air conditioned church. They were uttered while life was at the lowest ebb.
With the music of Nicole C. Mullen’s song filling his hospice room, Job worshipped…
May we also, during our darkest struggles, sing these same words…
***********************************************
You can click on the link (below the calendar) to listen to Nicole Mullen's song "My Redeemer Lives!"
Who taught the sun where to stand in the morning
Who told the ocean you an only come this far?
Who showed the moon where to hide 'til evening
Whose words alone can catch a falling star?
Well I know my Redeemer lives
I know my Redeemer lives
All of creation testify
This life within me cries
I know my Redeemer lives
The very same God that spins things in orbit
He runs to the weary, the worn and the weak
And the same gentle hands that hold me when I'm broken
They conquered death to bring me victory
Now I know my Redeemer lives
I know my Redeemer lives
Let all creation testify
Let this life with in me cry
I know my Redeemer, He lives
To take away my shame
And He lives forever I'll proclaim
That the payment for my sin
Was the precious life He gave
But now He's alive
And there's an empty grave.
And I know my Redeemer, He lives
I know my Redeemer lives
Let all creation testify
This life within me cries
I know my Redeemer lives
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones….(Job 19:1-22)
…but your words have crushed me! Far from bringing comfort and consolation, the Comforters Three have only succeeded in crushing the spirit of Job. In the face of such an overwhelming lack of pity, Job’s faith shines even more brilliantly.
19:1 Then Job responded, 2 “How long will you torment me and crush me with words? 3 These ten times you have insulted me; you are not ashamed to wrong me. 4 Even if I have truly erred, my error lodges with me. 5 If indeed you vaunt yourselves against me and prove my disgrace to me, 6 Know then that God has wronged me and has closed His net around me.”
Read those same verses from The Message, "How long are you going to keep battering away at me, pounding me with these harangues? Time after time after time you jump all over me. Do you have no conscience, abusing me like this? Even if I have, somehow or other, gotten off the track, what business is that of yours? Why do you insist on putting me down, using my troubles as a stick to beat me? Tell it to God—He’s the one behind all this, He’s the one who dragged me into this mess.” (19:2-6)
Adam Clarke writes this in his commentary, “Not one of them seems to have been touched with a feeling of tenderness towards him, nor does a kind expression drop at any time from their lips! They were called friends; but this term, in reference to them must be taken in the sense of cold-blooded acquaintances.”
In their commentary Keil & Delitzsch state that the united strength of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar only serves to torture Job’s spirit by stretching him upon the rack of their so-called “comfort”!
“Know then that God has wronged me…” (vs. 6) It is the greatest reversal of fortunes. The first part of verse 6 is literally “He has turned me upside down!” Job’s chapter-one world is turned upside down and inside out.
In the second part of verse 6 Job states that “God has closed His net around me…” The word “closed” is the same as “destroy” in verse 26; when you connect the two verses it seems that Job is implying that God’s maggot army has him surrounded.
19:7 “Behold, I cry, ’Violence!’ but I get no answer; I shout for help, but there is no justice. 8 He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass, and He has put darkness on my paths. 9 He has stripped my honor from me and removed the crown from my head. 10 He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone; and He has uprooted my hope like a tree. 11 He has also kindled His anger against me and considered me as His enemy. 12 His troops come together, and build up their way against me and camp around my tent.”
Notice Job’s complaint:
He has walled up my way
He has put darkness on my path
He has stripped my honor
He has removed my crown
He breaks me down
He uproots my hope
He kindles His anger against me
He considers me His enemy
He camps against me
You sense Job’s intense turmoil and agony of spirit when you closely examine verses 10-12. Notice the words “every side” in vs. 10. In chapter one the precise Hebrew words are used by Satan in his complaint to God (You’ve made a hedge about him on every side!). Verse 11 from one version reads “I am to Him as one of His haters.” And verse 12 from another translation reads, “…they have cast up their siege ramp against me and encamp around my tent.” In ancient times armies would take months or years to lay siege against a fortified city in order to conquer it; all the while building mammoth ramps of earth and timber against the city walls (i.e. Masada). Job is saying that God’s entire army is building an enormous siege work against his puny worm infested tent! And verse 12 from The Message reads, “He has launched a major campaign against me, using every weapon He can think of, coming at me from all sides at once.” It seemed that Job suffered continuously under a relentless and divinely ordained “Shock and Awe” campaign.
Job was in the valley (the darkest of valleys), and for all practical purposes it seemed that God had abandoned him. But He hadn’t.
19: 13 "He has removed my brothers far from me, and my acquaintances are completely estranged from me. 14 My relatives have failed, and my intimate friends have forgotten me. 15 Those who live in my house and my maids consider me a stranger. I am a foreigner in their sight. 16 I call to my servant, but he does not answer; I have to implore him with my mouth. 17 My breath is offensive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own brothers. 18 Even young children despise me; I rise up and they speak against me. 19 All my associates abhor me, and those I love have turned against me. 20 My bone clings to my skin and my flesh, and I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth. 21 Pity me, pity me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has struck me. 22 Why do you persecute me as God does, and are not satisfied with my flesh?”
In chapter one God characterized Job as a man of integrity, a whole man. That meant that not only was he complete in his relationship with God, but that he was also “whole” in his relationships with his family, friends and associates. Job was no “holy hermit” – earthly relationships were vital to him. So when Job suffered, it was not only physically (the loss of his health) and spiritually (the loss of communion with God), but also in his interactions with people. To put it simply, he was abandoned by everyone. Notice all of the people groups described in verses 13-22:
My brothers and acquaintances
My relatives and kinsfolk
My relations, those living in my house
My close friends and everyone who knows me
My houseguests
My intimate friends
My family, neighbors, and kinsman
Sojourners in my house
My maids and those who live temporarily in my house
My guests
My servants
My attendants
My wife and my blood brothers
My own family
The street urchins
The young children
The little boys
Those I love
My circle of friends
Every one I have been close to
The men of my inner counsel (the most trusted business associates)
And notice the reactions and the treatment recorded in these verses by those people:
Estranged
Alienated
Removed
Stayed far away
Failed and forgotten
Avoided and counted me a stranger
Considered me an alien or a bum off the streets
Don’t answer
My breath is offensive to them
They scorned, ridiculed, taunted, and jeered
They turned their backs
They detested and abhorred
They abominate me (vandals spray painted his house: The Abominable Job Man!)
The city council voted unanimously to put up this one-word neon flashing sign over Job’s ash heap: ABANDONED!
No wonder he was in such despair. It is against this dark backdrop that Job’s faith and character shines so brilliantly.
Conclusion:
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”
Yes they do. Words are very powerful. The Bible says that “life and death are in the power of the tongue.” We meet people every day that are in need of encouragement – some words that will bring hope to their despair.
A listening ear and a kind word can make a genuine difference in someone’s life this week.
19:1 Then Job responded, 2 “How long will you torment me and crush me with words? 3 These ten times you have insulted me; you are not ashamed to wrong me. 4 Even if I have truly erred, my error lodges with me. 5 If indeed you vaunt yourselves against me and prove my disgrace to me, 6 Know then that God has wronged me and has closed His net around me.”
Read those same verses from The Message, "How long are you going to keep battering away at me, pounding me with these harangues? Time after time after time you jump all over me. Do you have no conscience, abusing me like this? Even if I have, somehow or other, gotten off the track, what business is that of yours? Why do you insist on putting me down, using my troubles as a stick to beat me? Tell it to God—He’s the one behind all this, He’s the one who dragged me into this mess.” (19:2-6)
Adam Clarke writes this in his commentary, “Not one of them seems to have been touched with a feeling of tenderness towards him, nor does a kind expression drop at any time from their lips! They were called friends; but this term, in reference to them must be taken in the sense of cold-blooded acquaintances.”
In their commentary Keil & Delitzsch state that the united strength of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar only serves to torture Job’s spirit by stretching him upon the rack of their so-called “comfort”!
“Know then that God has wronged me…” (vs. 6) It is the greatest reversal of fortunes. The first part of verse 6 is literally “He has turned me upside down!” Job’s chapter-one world is turned upside down and inside out.
In the second part of verse 6 Job states that “God has closed His net around me…” The word “closed” is the same as “destroy” in verse 26; when you connect the two verses it seems that Job is implying that God’s maggot army has him surrounded.
19:7 “Behold, I cry, ’Violence!’ but I get no answer; I shout for help, but there is no justice. 8 He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass, and He has put darkness on my paths. 9 He has stripped my honor from me and removed the crown from my head. 10 He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone; and He has uprooted my hope like a tree. 11 He has also kindled His anger against me and considered me as His enemy. 12 His troops come together, and build up their way against me and camp around my tent.”
Notice Job’s complaint:
He has walled up my way
He has put darkness on my path
He has stripped my honor
He has removed my crown
He breaks me down
He uproots my hope
He kindles His anger against me
He considers me His enemy
He camps against me
You sense Job’s intense turmoil and agony of spirit when you closely examine verses 10-12. Notice the words “every side” in vs. 10. In chapter one the precise Hebrew words are used by Satan in his complaint to God (You’ve made a hedge about him on every side!). Verse 11 from one version reads “I am to Him as one of His haters.” And verse 12 from another translation reads, “…they have cast up their siege ramp against me and encamp around my tent.” In ancient times armies would take months or years to lay siege against a fortified city in order to conquer it; all the while building mammoth ramps of earth and timber against the city walls (i.e. Masada). Job is saying that God’s entire army is building an enormous siege work against his puny worm infested tent! And verse 12 from The Message reads, “He has launched a major campaign against me, using every weapon He can think of, coming at me from all sides at once.” It seemed that Job suffered continuously under a relentless and divinely ordained “Shock and Awe” campaign.
Job was in the valley (the darkest of valleys), and for all practical purposes it seemed that God had abandoned him. But He hadn’t.
19: 13 "He has removed my brothers far from me, and my acquaintances are completely estranged from me. 14 My relatives have failed, and my intimate friends have forgotten me. 15 Those who live in my house and my maids consider me a stranger. I am a foreigner in their sight. 16 I call to my servant, but he does not answer; I have to implore him with my mouth. 17 My breath is offensive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own brothers. 18 Even young children despise me; I rise up and they speak against me. 19 All my associates abhor me, and those I love have turned against me. 20 My bone clings to my skin and my flesh, and I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth. 21 Pity me, pity me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has struck me. 22 Why do you persecute me as God does, and are not satisfied with my flesh?”
In chapter one God characterized Job as a man of integrity, a whole man. That meant that not only was he complete in his relationship with God, but that he was also “whole” in his relationships with his family, friends and associates. Job was no “holy hermit” – earthly relationships were vital to him. So when Job suffered, it was not only physically (the loss of his health) and spiritually (the loss of communion with God), but also in his interactions with people. To put it simply, he was abandoned by everyone. Notice all of the people groups described in verses 13-22:
My brothers and acquaintances
My relatives and kinsfolk
My relations, those living in my house
My close friends and everyone who knows me
My houseguests
My intimate friends
My family, neighbors, and kinsman
Sojourners in my house
My maids and those who live temporarily in my house
My guests
My servants
My attendants
My wife and my blood brothers
My own family
The street urchins
The young children
The little boys
Those I love
My circle of friends
Every one I have been close to
The men of my inner counsel (the most trusted business associates)
And notice the reactions and the treatment recorded in these verses by those people:
Estranged
Alienated
Removed
Stayed far away
Failed and forgotten
Avoided and counted me a stranger
Considered me an alien or a bum off the streets
Don’t answer
My breath is offensive to them
They scorned, ridiculed, taunted, and jeered
They turned their backs
They detested and abhorred
They abominate me (vandals spray painted his house: The Abominable Job Man!)
The city council voted unanimously to put up this one-word neon flashing sign over Job’s ash heap: ABANDONED!
No wonder he was in such despair. It is against this dark backdrop that Job’s faith and character shines so brilliantly.
Conclusion:
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”
Yes they do. Words are very powerful. The Bible says that “life and death are in the power of the tongue.” We meet people every day that are in need of encouragement – some words that will bring hope to their despair.
A listening ear and a kind word can make a genuine difference in someone’s life this week.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
When God is Merely a Factor in A Formula (Job 18)
“You are a two-faced hypocrite who is under the judgment of God!”
Those are not words from Job chapter 18, those were words spoken to me a couple of months ago. I haven’t been pastoring for about three years, and it was the conclusion of this individual that this was why I wasn’t shepherding a church. But they simply didn’t know the facts.
Bildad didn’t know the facts either (or the heart of Job), but that sure didn’t keep him from sermonizing and from an explosion of misguided and cruel conclusions. The “You are a two-faced hypocrite who is under the judgment of God” is the CliffsNotes version of the Comforters’ theology over these 18 chapters.
Whereas Eliphaz shows (at times) a more kindly and pastoral concern for Job, Bildad just blasts away and becomes downright brutal and cruel. Remember chapter two? “And they (Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar) made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and comfort him….they sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.” (2:11 & 13). But they got more than a little off track – somewhere they totally lost sight of their objective to bring encouragement to Job.
FI Anderson writes this about these first few verses, “Bildad is more concerned for his own reputation than for meeting Job’s needs…Bildad continues to do what Job has rightly complained about, he kicks a man when he is down.” The Comforters apply their theories & theology instead of applying ointment and bandages. May that indictment never be said of our churches.
18:1 Then Bildad the Shuhite responded, 2 “How long will you hunt for words? Show understanding and then we can talk. 3 “Why are we regarded as beasts, as stupid in your eyes? 4 O you who tear yourself in your anger-- for your sake is the earth to be abandoned, or the rock to be moved from its place?”
“How long, Job?” Job’s sores irritated him constantly, but Bildad was irritated with Job’s words. Bildad started his first speech (chapter 8) with the same words (How long…). That was the chapter in which he implied that Job’s kids got what they deserved. You get the feeling Bildad is more than a little peeved with Job for even insinuating that their theology (when devastation comes, it proves you are a sinner) could be wrong.
I love the words of Chuck Swindoll in his commentary on Job, “But, like some folks to this day, Bildad’s theology doesn’t have room for mystery. Everything is black and white.” “Bildad’s theology doesn’t have room for mystery.” Bildad didn’t believe “His Name shall be called Wonder-full.” To him, Jehovah is the “Figured-Out God,” the God Who doesn’t do things beyond the comprehension of Bildad.
18:5 “Indeed, the light of the wicked goes out, and the flame of his fire gives no light. 6 The light in his tent is darkened, and his lamp goes out above him. 7 His vigorous stride is shortened, and his own scheme brings him down.
FI Anderson translates the first part of verse 7 this way, “His athletic pace becomes a shuffle…”
18:8 “For he is thrown into the net by his own feet, and he steps on the webbing. 9 A snare seizes {him} by the heel, {and} a trap snaps shut on him. 10 A noose for him is hidden in the ground, and a trap for him on the path.”
Sometimes preachers go overboard with their illustrations. Bildad sure did! There are SIX different Hebrew words for “trap” in these 3 verses – two in each verse. A couple of illustrations would have sufficed, but six? And just what is Bildad trying to say? Just this (as per Hartley), “…it is impossible for any wicked person to escape the heavenly trapper.”
18:11 “All around terrors frighten him, and harry him at every step. 12 His strength is famished, and calamity is ready at his side. 13 His skin is devoured by disease; the first-born of death devours his limbs. 14 He is torn from the security of his tent, and they march him before the king of terrors."
“Terrors frighten him…” Is Bildad referring to chapter 3:25 where Job lamented, “"For what I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me.” Probably. The “first born of death” would refer to the plagues of chapter one. Note the words terror, calamity, disease, death, devour, and “king of terrors.” How would you like to sit through that encouraging sermon? To Bildad, “Job’s emaciated body is the convicting evidence of his wrongdoing.” (Hartley)
18:15 “There dwells in his tent nothing of his; brimstone is scattered on his habitation.”
Translation: “Hey Job, unless you repent, fire and brimstone are coming; you are on your way to hell!” Bildad is obviously, in a not so subtle way, referring to the events of chapters one and two.
18:16 “His roots are dried below, and his branch is cut off above.”
Translation: Job, you want to know why devastation hit you and your family? Because the “Below Job” (the root, the hidden and spiritual side of Job) didn’t match the “Above Job” (the fruit or branch, the Job seen by the world). “You’re a hypocrite…you cut yourself off from God (the Root), pretended to be righteous, but your branch withered.”
18:17 “Memory of him perishes from the earth, and he has no name abroad.”
Translation: You get just an unmarked grave; no ornate sepulcher and no fancy granite headstone engraved with “Here was a truly wonderful person.”
18:18 "He is driven from light into darkness, and chased from the inhabited world. 19 He has no offspring or posterity among his people, nor any survivor where he sojourned.”
Again, a not too subtle implication as to the underlying cause for the death of Job’s kids.
18:20 “Those in the west are appalled at his fate, and those in the east are seized with horror. 21 Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him who does not know God."
Do you see those last words, “…this is the place of him who does not know God?” You just shake your head at Bildad’s ironclad theology. His speech is the same song as chapter 8, just the second verse. Wait until we get to the 3rd verse of Bildad’s song, it’s even more appalling!
Against the awful backdrop of such heartbreak, devastation and sadness (and the cruelty of the comforters), there is, threaded throughout this magnificent book, the theme that “There IS a God of Wonders, Who is far beyond our galaxy, Who does great things, things which our imagination cannot even comprehend.“
I would like to close with a paragraph from FI Anderson’s commentary (page 190), “Bildad’s description of the fate of the wicked is academic. He does not think how horrible it must be to be God, doing such things to helpless men, however justly. He does not stop to think how horrible it must be to be a man suffering such things, whether justly or unjustly. Bildad recounts the disasters as the outworking of moral laws which control the movements of men around the central God as gravitation governs the movements of planets around the sun. God’s justice consists of His maintenance of these laws, natural and moral. This is a common opinion of philosophers, whose god is a factor in a formula.”
Has the life of Jesus within us given way to merely an academic discussion of “I wonder why that person is hurting?” And has the Incomprehensible God of Glory simply become a factor in one of our theological formulas?
Those are not words from Job chapter 18, those were words spoken to me a couple of months ago. I haven’t been pastoring for about three years, and it was the conclusion of this individual that this was why I wasn’t shepherding a church. But they simply didn’t know the facts.
Bildad didn’t know the facts either (or the heart of Job), but that sure didn’t keep him from sermonizing and from an explosion of misguided and cruel conclusions. The “You are a two-faced hypocrite who is under the judgment of God” is the CliffsNotes version of the Comforters’ theology over these 18 chapters.
Whereas Eliphaz shows (at times) a more kindly and pastoral concern for Job, Bildad just blasts away and becomes downright brutal and cruel. Remember chapter two? “And they (Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar) made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and comfort him….they sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.” (2:11 & 13). But they got more than a little off track – somewhere they totally lost sight of their objective to bring encouragement to Job.
FI Anderson writes this about these first few verses, “Bildad is more concerned for his own reputation than for meeting Job’s needs…Bildad continues to do what Job has rightly complained about, he kicks a man when he is down.” The Comforters apply their theories & theology instead of applying ointment and bandages. May that indictment never be said of our churches.
18:1 Then Bildad the Shuhite responded, 2 “How long will you hunt for words? Show understanding and then we can talk. 3 “Why are we regarded as beasts, as stupid in your eyes? 4 O you who tear yourself in your anger-- for your sake is the earth to be abandoned, or the rock to be moved from its place?”
“How long, Job?” Job’s sores irritated him constantly, but Bildad was irritated with Job’s words. Bildad started his first speech (chapter 8) with the same words (How long…). That was the chapter in which he implied that Job’s kids got what they deserved. You get the feeling Bildad is more than a little peeved with Job for even insinuating that their theology (when devastation comes, it proves you are a sinner) could be wrong.
I love the words of Chuck Swindoll in his commentary on Job, “But, like some folks to this day, Bildad’s theology doesn’t have room for mystery. Everything is black and white.” “Bildad’s theology doesn’t have room for mystery.” Bildad didn’t believe “His Name shall be called Wonder-full.” To him, Jehovah is the “Figured-Out God,” the God Who doesn’t do things beyond the comprehension of Bildad.
18:5 “Indeed, the light of the wicked goes out, and the flame of his fire gives no light. 6 The light in his tent is darkened, and his lamp goes out above him. 7 His vigorous stride is shortened, and his own scheme brings him down.
FI Anderson translates the first part of verse 7 this way, “His athletic pace becomes a shuffle…”
18:8 “For he is thrown into the net by his own feet, and he steps on the webbing. 9 A snare seizes {him} by the heel, {and} a trap snaps shut on him. 10 A noose for him is hidden in the ground, and a trap for him on the path.”
Sometimes preachers go overboard with their illustrations. Bildad sure did! There are SIX different Hebrew words for “trap” in these 3 verses – two in each verse. A couple of illustrations would have sufficed, but six? And just what is Bildad trying to say? Just this (as per Hartley), “…it is impossible for any wicked person to escape the heavenly trapper.”
18:11 “All around terrors frighten him, and harry him at every step. 12 His strength is famished, and calamity is ready at his side. 13 His skin is devoured by disease; the first-born of death devours his limbs. 14 He is torn from the security of his tent, and they march him before the king of terrors."
“Terrors frighten him…” Is Bildad referring to chapter 3:25 where Job lamented, “"For what I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me.” Probably. The “first born of death” would refer to the plagues of chapter one. Note the words terror, calamity, disease, death, devour, and “king of terrors.” How would you like to sit through that encouraging sermon? To Bildad, “Job’s emaciated body is the convicting evidence of his wrongdoing.” (Hartley)
18:15 “There dwells in his tent nothing of his; brimstone is scattered on his habitation.”
Translation: “Hey Job, unless you repent, fire and brimstone are coming; you are on your way to hell!” Bildad is obviously, in a not so subtle way, referring to the events of chapters one and two.
18:16 “His roots are dried below, and his branch is cut off above.”
Translation: Job, you want to know why devastation hit you and your family? Because the “Below Job” (the root, the hidden and spiritual side of Job) didn’t match the “Above Job” (the fruit or branch, the Job seen by the world). “You’re a hypocrite…you cut yourself off from God (the Root), pretended to be righteous, but your branch withered.”
18:17 “Memory of him perishes from the earth, and he has no name abroad.”
Translation: You get just an unmarked grave; no ornate sepulcher and no fancy granite headstone engraved with “Here was a truly wonderful person.”
18:18 "He is driven from light into darkness, and chased from the inhabited world. 19 He has no offspring or posterity among his people, nor any survivor where he sojourned.”
Again, a not too subtle implication as to the underlying cause for the death of Job’s kids.
18:20 “Those in the west are appalled at his fate, and those in the east are seized with horror. 21 Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him who does not know God."
Do you see those last words, “…this is the place of him who does not know God?” You just shake your head at Bildad’s ironclad theology. His speech is the same song as chapter 8, just the second verse. Wait until we get to the 3rd verse of Bildad’s song, it’s even more appalling!
Against the awful backdrop of such heartbreak, devastation and sadness (and the cruelty of the comforters), there is, threaded throughout this magnificent book, the theme that “There IS a God of Wonders, Who is far beyond our galaxy, Who does great things, things which our imagination cannot even comprehend.“
I would like to close with a paragraph from FI Anderson’s commentary (page 190), “Bildad’s description of the fate of the wicked is academic. He does not think how horrible it must be to be God, doing such things to helpless men, however justly. He does not stop to think how horrible it must be to be a man suffering such things, whether justly or unjustly. Bildad recounts the disasters as the outworking of moral laws which control the movements of men around the central God as gravitation governs the movements of planets around the sun. God’s justice consists of His maintenance of these laws, natural and moral. This is a common opinion of philosophers, whose god is a factor in a formula.”
Has the life of Jesus within us given way to merely an academic discussion of “I wonder why that person is hurting?” And has the Incomprehensible God of Glory simply become a factor in one of our theological formulas?
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Deus Absconditus – The Hiddenness of God (Job 17)
The familiar chorus goes,
“Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place.
I can feel His mighty power and His grace.
I can hear the brush of angels’ wings.
I see glory on each face.
Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place.”
Job used to sing that chorus with his family during church services. But those days were just a distant memory. He would now rather sing, “Deus Absconditus” (When God Moves…And Doesn’t Leave a Forwarding Address”).
“Deus Absconditus” is a Latin phrase that loosely translated means, “God is departed and hidden.” To “abscond” means “to depart in a sudden and secret manner, to withdraw and hide oneself.” In a legal sense it means “to evade the legal process of a court by hiding.” (Remember that in this book, Job has essentially wanted to take God to court, but God has apparently evaded the summons to appear!)
The bulk of the verses of chapter 17 will be found at the end of this devotional, but lets take a look at just a few of them from the version called “The Message.” This speech of Job expresses the agitation of his heart; Francis I Anderson says the words of this chapter “crowd together in brief, jumbled sentences…”
17:1 "My spirit is broken (or ruined), my days used up, my grave dug and waiting. 17:11 My life’s about over. All my plans are smashed, all my hopes are snuffed out.”
My spirit…my days…my grave…my life…my plans…my hopes. Hartley writes concerning verse 1, “With great emotion Job expresses the depth of his despair in three short lines. His spirit, the desire for life in him, has been broken. Depression is robbing his inner resources for bearing his shame. His days are about to run out. The graveyard awaits him. Completely disgraced, he will be buried in a common grave instead of receiving honorable interment in a noble sepulcher.”
It doesn’t seem like righteousness and depression should occupy the same person at the same time, but at this point in Job they do. He is a man of unequalled integrity, but he is also a very depressed man. Chuck Swindoll uses four key words to describe Job’s state of mind in chapters 16 & 17:
Job is disgusted, distressed, depressed and despondent.
For all practical purposes, it seemed that it was “Deus Absconditus”: God has hidden not only His blessings from Job, but He has hidden Himself!
Verse 11 may be the lowest of lows for Job. Hartley writes, “(His desires), namely to be respected and accomplish good for others, are turned to ashes.”
17:6 "God, you’ve made me the talk of the town—people spit in my face…”
Job has “seemingly” been deserted by God and the theology of the Comforters hasn’t changed one bit. You would think that as the passers-by are repulsed by the site of Job and spit in his face (which is perhaps the most disgusting sign of rejection and revolt), that Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar (EBZ) would show some compassion and offer to clean off the spittle. But they don’t! They stand aloof, rubbing their chin with their hand as they contemplate Job’s hypocrisy and hidden sin, and conclude, “Well, if God has rejected him, we shouldn’t help.” (To them the ONLY reason God is hidden is because Job is hiding his sin!)
EBZ (Comforters Inc) have sided with the scoffers and the spitters!
17:8 “Decent people can’t believe what they’re seeing; the good-hearted wake up and insist I’ve given up on God. 17:9 But principled people hold tight, keep a firm grip on life, sure that their clean, pure hands will get stronger and stronger! 17:10 Maybe you’d all like to start over, to try it again, the bunch of you. So far I haven’t come across one scrap of wisdom in anything you’ve said.”
Read the same words from the New Living Translation: 17:8 “The virtuous are horrified when they see me. The innocent rise up against the ungodly. 17:9 The righteous keep moving forward, and those with clean hands become stronger and stronger. 17:10 As for all of you, come back with a better argument, though I still won’t find a wise man among you.”
The German commentator Delitzsch compares verse 9 to a “rocket burst of light.” Job is a pitiful concentration-camp shadow of a man, and yet he clings to the thought that “he who has clean hands will grow stronger and stronger!” To paraphrase Job’s tenacious faith, we could put it this way, “My skin testifies against me, my ‘friends’ don’t stand beside me, my neighbors spit at me, and its ‘Deus Absconditus’, yet I know that in the end the righteous will grow stronger and stronger!” Hartley writes, “In Job’s case his righteousness gives him the fortitude to hold to the true way no matter how powerful the opposition. Nothing separates him from God, neither pain nor abuse nor insults nor death.”
17:13 “If all I have to look forward to is a home in the graveyard, if my only hope for comfort is a well-built coffin, 17:14 If a family reunion means going six feet under, and the only family that shows up is worms, 17:15 Do you call that hope? Who on earth could find any hope in that? 17:16 No. If hope and I are to be buried together, I suppose you’ll all come to the double funeral!"
Chapter 17 doesn’t exactly end on high note; there is just a grim despondency to Job’s final words in this chapter. In every aspect (socially, emotionally, physically and theologically) life seems to be against Job. God has apparently marshaled all of the forces of the universe against one man in the obscure land of Uz.
Conclusion: Frankly, it’s a little tough to find some really uplifting devotional thoughts from this chapter (and some of the others in the middle of this book). How do you encourage people when you are talking about maggots and misery?!?
But let me off just a couple of thoughts:
1. Don’t be too quick to offer superficial remedies to hurting people. God hadn’t moved and Job hadn’t moved and yet there was a terrible darkness.
2. Your broken circumstances and “dreams turned to ashes” may seem to be of no benefit to anyone. Life may seem futile. But God can turn brokenness and ashes into blessings! He did it for Job and He can do it for you!
3. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty helping people out. Wiping the spit off from Job may have been a little repulsive, yet it would have been far more of a blessing than what the professional Comforters had offered.
Chapter 38 (the UnHiddenness of God) is coming….eventually :>)
*********************************************************
Job Chapter 17 (from the version called "The Message"):
1 "My spirit is broken, my days used up, my grave dug and waiting.
2 See how these mockers close in on me? How long do I have to put up with their insolence?
3 "O God, pledge your support for me. Give it to me in writing, with your signature. You’re the only one who can do it!
4 These people are so useless! You know firsthand how stupid they can be. You wouldn’t let them have the last word, would you?
5 Those who betray their own friends leave a legacy of abuse to their children.
6 "God, you’ve made me the talk of the town—people spit in my face;
7 I can hardly see from crying so much; I’m nothing but skin and bones.
8 Decent people can’t believe what they’re seeing; the good-hearted wake up and insist I’ve given up on God.
9 "But principled people hold tight, keep a firm grip on life, sure that their clean, pure hands will get stronger and stronger!
10 "Maybe you’d all like to start over, to try it again, the bunch of you. So far I haven’t come across one scrap of wisdom in anything you’ve said.
11 My life’s about over. All my plans are smashed, all my hopes are snuffed out—
12 My hope that night would turn into day, my hope that dawn was about to break.
13 If all I have to look forward to is a home in the graveyard, if my only hope for comfort is a well-built coffin,
14 If a family reunion means going six feet under, and the only family that shows up is worms,
15 Do you call that hope? Who on earth could find any hope in that?
16 No. If hope and I are to be buried together, I suppose you’ll all come to the double funeral!"
“Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place.
I can feel His mighty power and His grace.
I can hear the brush of angels’ wings.
I see glory on each face.
Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place.”
Job used to sing that chorus with his family during church services. But those days were just a distant memory. He would now rather sing, “Deus Absconditus” (When God Moves…And Doesn’t Leave a Forwarding Address”).
“Deus Absconditus” is a Latin phrase that loosely translated means, “God is departed and hidden.” To “abscond” means “to depart in a sudden and secret manner, to withdraw and hide oneself.” In a legal sense it means “to evade the legal process of a court by hiding.” (Remember that in this book, Job has essentially wanted to take God to court, but God has apparently evaded the summons to appear!)
The bulk of the verses of chapter 17 will be found at the end of this devotional, but lets take a look at just a few of them from the version called “The Message.” This speech of Job expresses the agitation of his heart; Francis I Anderson says the words of this chapter “crowd together in brief, jumbled sentences…”
17:1 "My spirit is broken (or ruined), my days used up, my grave dug and waiting. 17:11 My life’s about over. All my plans are smashed, all my hopes are snuffed out.”
My spirit…my days…my grave…my life…my plans…my hopes. Hartley writes concerning verse 1, “With great emotion Job expresses the depth of his despair in three short lines. His spirit, the desire for life in him, has been broken. Depression is robbing his inner resources for bearing his shame. His days are about to run out. The graveyard awaits him. Completely disgraced, he will be buried in a common grave instead of receiving honorable interment in a noble sepulcher.”
It doesn’t seem like righteousness and depression should occupy the same person at the same time, but at this point in Job they do. He is a man of unequalled integrity, but he is also a very depressed man. Chuck Swindoll uses four key words to describe Job’s state of mind in chapters 16 & 17:
Job is disgusted, distressed, depressed and despondent.
For all practical purposes, it seemed that it was “Deus Absconditus”: God has hidden not only His blessings from Job, but He has hidden Himself!
Verse 11 may be the lowest of lows for Job. Hartley writes, “(His desires), namely to be respected and accomplish good for others, are turned to ashes.”
17:6 "God, you’ve made me the talk of the town—people spit in my face…”
Job has “seemingly” been deserted by God and the theology of the Comforters hasn’t changed one bit. You would think that as the passers-by are repulsed by the site of Job and spit in his face (which is perhaps the most disgusting sign of rejection and revolt), that Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar (EBZ) would show some compassion and offer to clean off the spittle. But they don’t! They stand aloof, rubbing their chin with their hand as they contemplate Job’s hypocrisy and hidden sin, and conclude, “Well, if God has rejected him, we shouldn’t help.” (To them the ONLY reason God is hidden is because Job is hiding his sin!)
EBZ (Comforters Inc) have sided with the scoffers and the spitters!
17:8 “Decent people can’t believe what they’re seeing; the good-hearted wake up and insist I’ve given up on God. 17:9 But principled people hold tight, keep a firm grip on life, sure that their clean, pure hands will get stronger and stronger! 17:10 Maybe you’d all like to start over, to try it again, the bunch of you. So far I haven’t come across one scrap of wisdom in anything you’ve said.”
Read the same words from the New Living Translation: 17:8 “The virtuous are horrified when they see me. The innocent rise up against the ungodly. 17:9 The righteous keep moving forward, and those with clean hands become stronger and stronger. 17:10 As for all of you, come back with a better argument, though I still won’t find a wise man among you.”
The German commentator Delitzsch compares verse 9 to a “rocket burst of light.” Job is a pitiful concentration-camp shadow of a man, and yet he clings to the thought that “he who has clean hands will grow stronger and stronger!” To paraphrase Job’s tenacious faith, we could put it this way, “My skin testifies against me, my ‘friends’ don’t stand beside me, my neighbors spit at me, and its ‘Deus Absconditus’, yet I know that in the end the righteous will grow stronger and stronger!” Hartley writes, “In Job’s case his righteousness gives him the fortitude to hold to the true way no matter how powerful the opposition. Nothing separates him from God, neither pain nor abuse nor insults nor death.”
17:13 “If all I have to look forward to is a home in the graveyard, if my only hope for comfort is a well-built coffin, 17:14 If a family reunion means going six feet under, and the only family that shows up is worms, 17:15 Do you call that hope? Who on earth could find any hope in that? 17:16 No. If hope and I are to be buried together, I suppose you’ll all come to the double funeral!"
Chapter 17 doesn’t exactly end on high note; there is just a grim despondency to Job’s final words in this chapter. In every aspect (socially, emotionally, physically and theologically) life seems to be against Job. God has apparently marshaled all of the forces of the universe against one man in the obscure land of Uz.
Conclusion: Frankly, it’s a little tough to find some really uplifting devotional thoughts from this chapter (and some of the others in the middle of this book). How do you encourage people when you are talking about maggots and misery?!?
But let me off just a couple of thoughts:
1. Don’t be too quick to offer superficial remedies to hurting people. God hadn’t moved and Job hadn’t moved and yet there was a terrible darkness.
2. Your broken circumstances and “dreams turned to ashes” may seem to be of no benefit to anyone. Life may seem futile. But God can turn brokenness and ashes into blessings! He did it for Job and He can do it for you!
3. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty helping people out. Wiping the spit off from Job may have been a little repulsive, yet it would have been far more of a blessing than what the professional Comforters had offered.
Chapter 38 (the UnHiddenness of God) is coming….eventually :>)
*********************************************************
Job Chapter 17 (from the version called "The Message"):
1 "My spirit is broken, my days used up, my grave dug and waiting.
2 See how these mockers close in on me? How long do I have to put up with their insolence?
3 "O God, pledge your support for me. Give it to me in writing, with your signature. You’re the only one who can do it!
4 These people are so useless! You know firsthand how stupid they can be. You wouldn’t let them have the last word, would you?
5 Those who betray their own friends leave a legacy of abuse to their children.
6 "God, you’ve made me the talk of the town—people spit in my face;
7 I can hardly see from crying so much; I’m nothing but skin and bones.
8 Decent people can’t believe what they’re seeing; the good-hearted wake up and insist I’ve given up on God.
9 "But principled people hold tight, keep a firm grip on life, sure that their clean, pure hands will get stronger and stronger!
10 "Maybe you’d all like to start over, to try it again, the bunch of you. So far I haven’t come across one scrap of wisdom in anything you’ve said.
11 My life’s about over. All my plans are smashed, all my hopes are snuffed out—
12 My hope that night would turn into day, my hope that dawn was about to break.
13 If all I have to look forward to is a home in the graveyard, if my only hope for comfort is a well-built coffin,
14 If a family reunion means going six feet under, and the only family that shows up is worms,
15 Do you call that hope? Who on earth could find any hope in that?
16 No. If hope and I are to be buried together, I suppose you’ll all come to the double funeral!"
Sunday, August 22, 2010
When God Becomes My Satan (Job 16:1-22)
“Job, you’re a wicked windbag! “
“And a hypocritical wicked windbag to boot!”
That’s Eliphaz’s chapter 15 sermon-of-encouragement in a nutshell.
Charles Swindoll says, “People who are graceless and insulting don’t get a clue unless you are equally strong in return…truth hurts is a familiar saying…there are times its unvarnished direct blows are needed.” Job decided to strike the Comforters with some direct and unvarnished blows of his own.
16:1 Then Job answered, 2 “I have heard many such things; Sorry comforters are you all. 3 Is there {no} limit to windy words? Or what plagues you that you answer?”
In a paradoxical statement, “Comforters who bring (increase) misery” is how Job characterizes his friends. They simply cannot fathom how an emaciated and scab encrusted person like Job could be innocent. It doesn’t fit their theology. So Job just throws their own words back at them. In Job 15:35 Eliphaz says, “The wicked (that’s you Job) conceive misery and give birth to emptiness..." But Job erupts, “You are comforters whose theology produces misery!" (The word “sorry” in 16:2 is the same as “misery” in 15:35). Hartley writes, “But in his present plight, pious platitudes serve only to increase his misery.” Pious platitudes. The word “platitude” is defined as “a flat, dull, commonplace, or trite remark; especially one uttered as if it were fresh or profound.” When friends ask us for wisdom or guidance or encouragement, have we ever been guilty of tossing out “pious platitudes” or superficial Scripture that doesn’t really help at all?
“Is there no limit to windy words?” In Job 15:2 eloquent Eliphaz counseled, "Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge, and fill himself with the east wind?” But again, Job just throws Eliphaz’s own words back at him: “Your sermon is just a bunch of windy words.” Job also wonders why Eliphaz is so irritated with him: “What plagues you that you answers this way?”
16:4 “I too could speak like you, if I were in your place. I could compose words against you, and shake my head at you. 5 I could strengthen you with my mouth, and the solace of my lips could lessen {your pain.} 6 If I speak, my pain is not lessened, and if I hold back, what has left me?”
The middle part of verse 4 is literally, “…if only your soul were in my soul…” That is such a cool statement. I may be changing it just a bit, but Job’s desperate cry to his friends is this, “If only you were in my shoes! If only you were in my soul and could see my heart! You wouldn’t treat me like this!!!” It is a wonderful thing that today the Holy Spirit can give us insight into people’s problems and can help us “get into their soul.” It is also incredibly helpful (and healing) to know that we have a High Priest (Jesus) Who knows us even better than we know ourselves! (Hebrews 4:12-16).
Both my wife and I love watching NCIS. But I always turn away when Ducky, the medical examiner, does his autopsy thing. I can’t watch that graphic stuff so Kay will just let me know when it’s ok to look again.
You may want to turn your head away from the next few verses, because in them Job describes God’s attack in a very graphic way (Job’s reaction to his trial may turn your theological stomach). It’s simply Job’s heart laid bare…but God can take it! And He continues to love His servant through this barrage or raw emotions. And by the way, God can take it from us when we are tried to our very core and face our own “dark night of the soul.”
16:7 “O God, you have ground me down and devastated my family.” (NLT) There is nothing but a smoking crater where my family once stood.
16:8 “And Thou hast shriveled me up, it has become a witness; and my leanness rises up against me, it testifies to my face.” (NASV) “Both my wrinkled raisin appearance and my skinny emaciated body testify that I am a sinner.” Hartley pens, “His body has become a painful cage.” Job’s friends and family and members of his community won’t believe his verbal testimony because all the while his skin is testifying that he is wicked!
16:9 “He tears me in His wrath, Who hates me: He gnashes upon me with His teeth; mine enemy sharpens His eyes upon me.” God sharpens both His teeth and His eyes! He rips me apart with His teeth and burns holes in me with His eyes. (Not really the “His eye is on the sparrow” sentiment.) And notice the word “hate.” It means to “pursue with animosity.” The Hebrew is “satam” and is very similar to the Hebrew word “Satan” (Adversary) of chapter one. Job is saying this: God has become my Satan!
16:10 “People take one look at me and gasp. Contemptuous, they slap me around and gang up against me.” (MSG) Hartley writes, “Since a person gets much of his identity and personal worth from his society, this loss of dignity is just as agonizing for Job as the excruciating physical pain.”
16:11 "God hands me over to ruffians, and tosses me into the hands of the wicked.” And they give me a blanket party!
16:12 “I was contentedly minding my business when God beat me up. He grabbed me by the neck and threw me around. He set me up as his target.” (MSG) “I was at ease.” Probably a reference to the pre-disaster days of chapter 1.
16:13 “And now His archers surround me. His arrows pierce me without mercy. The ground is wet with my blood.” God’s sharpshooters had apparently hit one of Job’s vital organs: death seemed very close for Job
16:14 "He breaks through me with breach after breach; He runs at me like a warrior.” Job pictures his disease as an army with a mighty warrior as its General. And this “disease army” attacks one member of Job’s body after another.
16:15 "I have sewed sackcloth over my skin, and thrust my horn in the dust.” In his commentary, Delitzsch surmises that Job’s clothes had to be resown because he was so hideously distorted through the disease of elephantiasis!
16:16 "My face is flushed from weeping, and deep darkness is on my eyelids…” Not only is Job’s pain intense, so are his emotions. Note the term “deep darkness – it’s used 17 times in the Old Testament, but 9 of those are in Job. And it’s used in a very familiar verse in Psalm 23, “Yeah though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil…” Job seems to be saying essentially this, “How can I walk through the valley of the shadow of death? I AM the shadow of death!"
16:17 “Although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.” Job holds tenaciously to the fact that he is guilty of no grave fault; while his friends hold stubbornly to their position that Job must be a sinner. Francis I Anderson writes, “It is infinitely painful to Job that God is now inexplicably acting like an enemy. Eliphaz’s words do not even begin to touch on this awful fact.”
16:18 "O earth, do not cover my blood, and let there be no {resting} place for my cry.” Job expects that very soon his friends and wife will be attending his funeral. But his hope is that his cry will not be given a funeral!
16:19 “Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my advocate is on high. 20 My friends are my scoffers; my eye weeps to God. 21 O that a man might plead with God as a man with his neighbor! 22 For when a few years are past, I shall go the way of no return.”
There is an awful chronic pain that accompanies Job’s disease; and there is a raw and intense emotion to Job’s speeches. But there is also a depth to his faith that few people have matched. Note the two words, “Even now...” Hartley writes, “Since Job’s earthly friends have failed him, God will take their place by defending his accused friend, even before Himself. No wonder these great thoughts cause Job’s eyes to flow with tears!”
“My eyes pour out tears to God…” This was almost the lowest of lows for Job. And it didn’t seem that God cared about him. But God did! And God was paying special attention to Job’s tears. Revelation 7:17 reminds us, “…for the Lamb in the center of the throne shall be their Shepherd, and shall guide them to springs of the water of life; and God shall wipe every tear from their eyes." There was a time coming for Job when God would wipe away all of his tears. And if you are going through “a dark night of the soul,” know that God cares for you and is paying attention to your tears!
“And a hypocritical wicked windbag to boot!”
That’s Eliphaz’s chapter 15 sermon-of-encouragement in a nutshell.
Charles Swindoll says, “People who are graceless and insulting don’t get a clue unless you are equally strong in return…truth hurts is a familiar saying…there are times its unvarnished direct blows are needed.” Job decided to strike the Comforters with some direct and unvarnished blows of his own.
16:1 Then Job answered, 2 “I have heard many such things; Sorry comforters are you all. 3 Is there {no} limit to windy words? Or what plagues you that you answer?”
In a paradoxical statement, “Comforters who bring (increase) misery” is how Job characterizes his friends. They simply cannot fathom how an emaciated and scab encrusted person like Job could be innocent. It doesn’t fit their theology. So Job just throws their own words back at them. In Job 15:35 Eliphaz says, “The wicked (that’s you Job) conceive misery and give birth to emptiness..." But Job erupts, “You are comforters whose theology produces misery!" (The word “sorry” in 16:2 is the same as “misery” in 15:35). Hartley writes, “But in his present plight, pious platitudes serve only to increase his misery.” Pious platitudes. The word “platitude” is defined as “a flat, dull, commonplace, or trite remark; especially one uttered as if it were fresh or profound.” When friends ask us for wisdom or guidance or encouragement, have we ever been guilty of tossing out “pious platitudes” or superficial Scripture that doesn’t really help at all?
“Is there no limit to windy words?” In Job 15:2 eloquent Eliphaz counseled, "Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge, and fill himself with the east wind?” But again, Job just throws Eliphaz’s own words back at him: “Your sermon is just a bunch of windy words.” Job also wonders why Eliphaz is so irritated with him: “What plagues you that you answers this way?”
16:4 “I too could speak like you, if I were in your place. I could compose words against you, and shake my head at you. 5 I could strengthen you with my mouth, and the solace of my lips could lessen {your pain.} 6 If I speak, my pain is not lessened, and if I hold back, what has left me?”
The middle part of verse 4 is literally, “…if only your soul were in my soul…” That is such a cool statement. I may be changing it just a bit, but Job’s desperate cry to his friends is this, “If only you were in my shoes! If only you were in my soul and could see my heart! You wouldn’t treat me like this!!!” It is a wonderful thing that today the Holy Spirit can give us insight into people’s problems and can help us “get into their soul.” It is also incredibly helpful (and healing) to know that we have a High Priest (Jesus) Who knows us even better than we know ourselves! (Hebrews 4:12-16).
Both my wife and I love watching NCIS. But I always turn away when Ducky, the medical examiner, does his autopsy thing. I can’t watch that graphic stuff so Kay will just let me know when it’s ok to look again.
You may want to turn your head away from the next few verses, because in them Job describes God’s attack in a very graphic way (Job’s reaction to his trial may turn your theological stomach). It’s simply Job’s heart laid bare…but God can take it! And He continues to love His servant through this barrage or raw emotions. And by the way, God can take it from us when we are tried to our very core and face our own “dark night of the soul.”
16:7 “O God, you have ground me down and devastated my family.” (NLT) There is nothing but a smoking crater where my family once stood.
16:8 “And Thou hast shriveled me up, it has become a witness; and my leanness rises up against me, it testifies to my face.” (NASV) “Both my wrinkled raisin appearance and my skinny emaciated body testify that I am a sinner.” Hartley pens, “His body has become a painful cage.” Job’s friends and family and members of his community won’t believe his verbal testimony because all the while his skin is testifying that he is wicked!
16:9 “He tears me in His wrath, Who hates me: He gnashes upon me with His teeth; mine enemy sharpens His eyes upon me.” God sharpens both His teeth and His eyes! He rips me apart with His teeth and burns holes in me with His eyes. (Not really the “His eye is on the sparrow” sentiment.) And notice the word “hate.” It means to “pursue with animosity.” The Hebrew is “satam” and is very similar to the Hebrew word “Satan” (Adversary) of chapter one. Job is saying this: God has become my Satan!
16:10 “People take one look at me and gasp. Contemptuous, they slap me around and gang up against me.” (MSG) Hartley writes, “Since a person gets much of his identity and personal worth from his society, this loss of dignity is just as agonizing for Job as the excruciating physical pain.”
16:11 "God hands me over to ruffians, and tosses me into the hands of the wicked.” And they give me a blanket party!
16:12 “I was contentedly minding my business when God beat me up. He grabbed me by the neck and threw me around. He set me up as his target.” (MSG) “I was at ease.” Probably a reference to the pre-disaster days of chapter 1.
16:13 “And now His archers surround me. His arrows pierce me without mercy. The ground is wet with my blood.” God’s sharpshooters had apparently hit one of Job’s vital organs: death seemed very close for Job
16:14 "He breaks through me with breach after breach; He runs at me like a warrior.” Job pictures his disease as an army with a mighty warrior as its General. And this “disease army” attacks one member of Job’s body after another.
16:15 "I have sewed sackcloth over my skin, and thrust my horn in the dust.” In his commentary, Delitzsch surmises that Job’s clothes had to be resown because he was so hideously distorted through the disease of elephantiasis!
16:16 "My face is flushed from weeping, and deep darkness is on my eyelids…” Not only is Job’s pain intense, so are his emotions. Note the term “deep darkness – it’s used 17 times in the Old Testament, but 9 of those are in Job. And it’s used in a very familiar verse in Psalm 23, “Yeah though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil…” Job seems to be saying essentially this, “How can I walk through the valley of the shadow of death? I AM the shadow of death!"
16:17 “Although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.” Job holds tenaciously to the fact that he is guilty of no grave fault; while his friends hold stubbornly to their position that Job must be a sinner. Francis I Anderson writes, “It is infinitely painful to Job that God is now inexplicably acting like an enemy. Eliphaz’s words do not even begin to touch on this awful fact.”
16:18 "O earth, do not cover my blood, and let there be no {resting} place for my cry.” Job expects that very soon his friends and wife will be attending his funeral. But his hope is that his cry will not be given a funeral!
16:19 “Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my advocate is on high. 20 My friends are my scoffers; my eye weeps to God. 21 O that a man might plead with God as a man with his neighbor! 22 For when a few years are past, I shall go the way of no return.”
There is an awful chronic pain that accompanies Job’s disease; and there is a raw and intense emotion to Job’s speeches. But there is also a depth to his faith that few people have matched. Note the two words, “Even now...” Hartley writes, “Since Job’s earthly friends have failed him, God will take their place by defending his accused friend, even before Himself. No wonder these great thoughts cause Job’s eyes to flow with tears!”
“My eyes pour out tears to God…” This was almost the lowest of lows for Job. And it didn’t seem that God cared about him. But God did! And God was paying special attention to Job’s tears. Revelation 7:17 reminds us, “…for the Lamb in the center of the throne shall be their Shepherd, and shall guide them to springs of the water of life; and God shall wipe every tear from their eyes." There was a time coming for Job when God would wipe away all of his tears. And if you are going through “a dark night of the soul,” know that God cares for you and is paying attention to your tears!
Sunday, August 8, 2010
You Ain't Nothin' But A Windbag, Lyin' All The Time (15:1-35)
Most of us have heard the song, “Hound Dog” by Elvis Presley. The first line goes, "You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time.” But did you know that Elvis just adapted that song from one written by his ancestor Eliphaz Presley? Archeologists just recently discovered some lyrics written by Eliphaz to his friend Job. They went this way, “You ain’t nothin' but a windbag, lyin' all the time!”
Ok…so maybe I stretched that just a little. But that lyric does exactly express what Eliphaz was feeling toward Job.
15:1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite responded, 2 “Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge and fill himself with the east wind? 3 Should he argue with useless talk, or with words which are not profitable?”
FI Anderson writes, “As Job becomes more vehement, his friends become more severe.” You get the feeling that Eliphaz’s pride was just a little wounded. He probably thought that after his first speech (chapters 4-5) and those of the other two comforters that Job would have buckled under their eloquence, “Yep you guys are right – I am wicked and that’s why I’m going through all of this maggot misery.” Notice the words “windy knowledge” and “east wind” and “useless talk” and “words which are not profitable.” He is calling Job an empty suit, a lightweight (the wind has no weight). The searing east wind of Uz was dreaded – the stifling heat brought days of irritability and listlessness. And so did the words of Job. But Eliphaz actually gets a little vulgar and hints that Job’s theology is nothing more than the passing of gas!
15:4 “Indeed, you do away with reverence and hinder meditation before God. 5 For your guilt teaches your mouth, And you choose the language (tongue) of the crafty. 6 Your own mouth condemns you, and not I; And your own lips testify against you.”
“You are on a dangerous road Job, you are gonna lose your salvation if you keep this up!” writes Eliphaz. Note the word “crafty” – it’s the same word that describes Satan in Genesis 3.
To paraphrase Eliphaz, “We can’t pinpoint exactly what you’ve done, but you certainly are guilty! And your words prove it!” Note that “mouth” and “tongue” and “lips” – all the organs of speech – are used to describe the craftiness and guilt of Job. Eliphaz expressly contradicts the tribute to Job in 2:10, “In all of this Job did not sin with his lips.”
15:7 “Were you the first man to be born, Or were you brought forth before the hills? 8 Do you hear the secret counsel of God, and limit wisdom to yourself? 9 What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that we do not? 10 Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us, Older than your father.”
FI Anderson points out that the comforters cling to two sources of knowledge: antiquity (the knowledge of the ancients) and the secret council of God (remember Eliphaz’s spooky encounter with a spirit in chapter 4?). And Job had neither – both the graybeards and the supernatural revelations were on the side of Comforters Incorporated.
15:11 "Are the consolations of God too small for you, even the word spoken gently with you? 12 Why does your heart carry you away? And why do your eyes flash, 13 that you should turn your spirit against God And allow such words to go out of your mouth?”
Do you see those words, “…the word spoken gently with you…”? The comforters have accused Job’s kids of getting what they deserved and have hinted more than once that “Job, somewhere there has to be sin in your life!” Their theology oozed harshness. And they call their counsel “words spoken gently”?!?! Unfortunately we can use the Word as a club to try to win a political or theological argument rather than an instrument to bring hope and healing.
15:14 “What is man, that he should be pure, or he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? 15 Behold, He puts no trust in His holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in His sight; 16 How much less one who is detestable (abominable) and corrupt, Man, who drinks iniquity like water!"
Eliphaz is reiterating some of the words from his middle of the night spirit-encounter (chapter 4). He adamantly states that it is impossible for a virtuous man or woman to exist (contradicting God’s summary of Job’s character in chapters 1 and 2). Job has never claimed to be sinless and Eliphaz simply goes to far when he calls Job the “The Abominable Sinner Man.”
As a pastor there was only one guest speaker that I ever regretted inviting to speak to our church. He made this statement, “There are some people so far from God that I wouldn’t let them sleep in my doghouse.” Really? I think Eliphaz would have said the same thing. But you know what? Even though my guest speaker may not have allowed them in his doghouse, Jesus sure would have! In fact the Son of Man would have welcomed them into his house and given them the master bedroom!
Hartley writes, “Eliphaz evaluates Job’s claim of innocence to be a strong delusion. In fact, he sees in Job’s bearing the very reasons why God is punishing Job and will continue to punish him until his attitude changes.” In a nutshell – Job, your attitude stinks!
15:17 "I will tell you, listen to me; And what I have seen I will also declare; 18 What wise men have told, And have not concealed from their fathers, 19 To whom alone the land was given, And no alien passed among them.”
When Eliphaz states, “…no alien passed among them…” he is implying that there hasn’t been any foreign influence in their theology. He is perhaps also implying that Job’s theology has been watered down through his extensive world-wide travels.
15:20 “The wicked man writhes in pain all his days, and numbered are the years stored up for the ruthless. 21 Sounds of terror are in his ears; while at peace the destroyer comes upon him. 22 He does not believe that he will return from darkness, and he is destined for the sword. 23 He wanders about for food, saying, ’Where is it?’ He knows that a day of darkness is at hand. 24 Distress and anguish terrify him; they overpower him like a king ready for the attack, 25 because he has stretched out his hand against God and conducts himself arrogantly against the Almighty. 26 He rushes headlong at Him with his massive shield. 27 For he has covered his face with his fat and made his thighs heavy with flesh.”
Eliphaz’s gentle words continue…
"The wicked man writhes”…that’s you Job!
"Numbered are the years of the ruthless”…that’s you Job!
“He is destined for the sword”…that’s you Job!
“Distress and anguish terrify him”…that’s you Job!
“While at peace the destroyer comes”…that’s you also Job!
Think about this one for a moment: Eliphaz and his friends attribute the horrors of that day of destruction TOTALLY TO SOME HIDDEN SIN IN JOB’S LIFE. No wonder Job’s eyes flash! [vs. 12]. How cruel “religious” people can be.
15:28 “He has lived in desolate cities, in houses no one would inhabit, which are destined to become ruins. 29 He will not become rich, nor will his wealth endure; and his grain will not bend down to the ground. 30 He will not escape from darkness; the flame will wither his shoots, and by the breath of His mouth he will go away. 31 Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself; for emptiness will be his reward. 32 It will be accomplished before his time, and his palm branch will not be green. 33 He will drop off his unripe grape like the vine, and will cast off his flower like the olive tree. 34 For the company of the godless is barren, And fire consumes the tents of the corrupt. 35 They conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity, and their mind prepares deception."
Eliphaz began this chapter by reproving Job for his “wind-bagginess.” But Eliphaz himself doesn’t lack for verboseness. Notice all of the metaphors crammed into this portion: grain, flame, shoots, palm branches, unripe grapes, vines, fire, flowers, olive trees, tents, and the natural process of conception and birth. Eliphaz goes overboard in emphasizing his “You, Job, are only reaping what you’ve sown” theology.
Hartley states, “Job’s blessings were ephemeral (momentary and fleeting), a disguise that concealed his profane (blasphemous) behavior.” “INFLEXIBILITY” could be the title to Eliphaz’s systematic theology. In these first 15 chapters, there has never been a hint from the three of, “Job, we simply don’t know why you are going through this.” Compassion was needed – not an eloquent sermon. They not only jumped to conclusions, they pounced! If they are in heaven, perhaps Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar have taken time to read I Corinthians 13:4, “Love is patient…and love is kind…”
Ok…so maybe I stretched that just a little. But that lyric does exactly express what Eliphaz was feeling toward Job.
15:1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite responded, 2 “Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge and fill himself with the east wind? 3 Should he argue with useless talk, or with words which are not profitable?”
FI Anderson writes, “As Job becomes more vehement, his friends become more severe.” You get the feeling that Eliphaz’s pride was just a little wounded. He probably thought that after his first speech (chapters 4-5) and those of the other two comforters that Job would have buckled under their eloquence, “Yep you guys are right – I am wicked and that’s why I’m going through all of this maggot misery.” Notice the words “windy knowledge” and “east wind” and “useless talk” and “words which are not profitable.” He is calling Job an empty suit, a lightweight (the wind has no weight). The searing east wind of Uz was dreaded – the stifling heat brought days of irritability and listlessness. And so did the words of Job. But Eliphaz actually gets a little vulgar and hints that Job’s theology is nothing more than the passing of gas!
15:4 “Indeed, you do away with reverence and hinder meditation before God. 5 For your guilt teaches your mouth, And you choose the language (tongue) of the crafty. 6 Your own mouth condemns you, and not I; And your own lips testify against you.”
“You are on a dangerous road Job, you are gonna lose your salvation if you keep this up!” writes Eliphaz. Note the word “crafty” – it’s the same word that describes Satan in Genesis 3.
To paraphrase Eliphaz, “We can’t pinpoint exactly what you’ve done, but you certainly are guilty! And your words prove it!” Note that “mouth” and “tongue” and “lips” – all the organs of speech – are used to describe the craftiness and guilt of Job. Eliphaz expressly contradicts the tribute to Job in 2:10, “In all of this Job did not sin with his lips.”
15:7 “Were you the first man to be born, Or were you brought forth before the hills? 8 Do you hear the secret counsel of God, and limit wisdom to yourself? 9 What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that we do not? 10 Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us, Older than your father.”
FI Anderson points out that the comforters cling to two sources of knowledge: antiquity (the knowledge of the ancients) and the secret council of God (remember Eliphaz’s spooky encounter with a spirit in chapter 4?). And Job had neither – both the graybeards and the supernatural revelations were on the side of Comforters Incorporated.
15:11 "Are the consolations of God too small for you, even the word spoken gently with you? 12 Why does your heart carry you away? And why do your eyes flash, 13 that you should turn your spirit against God And allow such words to go out of your mouth?”
Do you see those words, “…the word spoken gently with you…”? The comforters have accused Job’s kids of getting what they deserved and have hinted more than once that “Job, somewhere there has to be sin in your life!” Their theology oozed harshness. And they call their counsel “words spoken gently”?!?! Unfortunately we can use the Word as a club to try to win a political or theological argument rather than an instrument to bring hope and healing.
15:14 “What is man, that he should be pure, or he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? 15 Behold, He puts no trust in His holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in His sight; 16 How much less one who is detestable (abominable) and corrupt, Man, who drinks iniquity like water!"
Eliphaz is reiterating some of the words from his middle of the night spirit-encounter (chapter 4). He adamantly states that it is impossible for a virtuous man or woman to exist (contradicting God’s summary of Job’s character in chapters 1 and 2). Job has never claimed to be sinless and Eliphaz simply goes to far when he calls Job the “The Abominable Sinner Man.”
As a pastor there was only one guest speaker that I ever regretted inviting to speak to our church. He made this statement, “There are some people so far from God that I wouldn’t let them sleep in my doghouse.” Really? I think Eliphaz would have said the same thing. But you know what? Even though my guest speaker may not have allowed them in his doghouse, Jesus sure would have! In fact the Son of Man would have welcomed them into his house and given them the master bedroom!
Hartley writes, “Eliphaz evaluates Job’s claim of innocence to be a strong delusion. In fact, he sees in Job’s bearing the very reasons why God is punishing Job and will continue to punish him until his attitude changes.” In a nutshell – Job, your attitude stinks!
15:17 "I will tell you, listen to me; And what I have seen I will also declare; 18 What wise men have told, And have not concealed from their fathers, 19 To whom alone the land was given, And no alien passed among them.”
When Eliphaz states, “…no alien passed among them…” he is implying that there hasn’t been any foreign influence in their theology. He is perhaps also implying that Job’s theology has been watered down through his extensive world-wide travels.
15:20 “The wicked man writhes in pain all his days, and numbered are the years stored up for the ruthless. 21 Sounds of terror are in his ears; while at peace the destroyer comes upon him. 22 He does not believe that he will return from darkness, and he is destined for the sword. 23 He wanders about for food, saying, ’Where is it?’ He knows that a day of darkness is at hand. 24 Distress and anguish terrify him; they overpower him like a king ready for the attack, 25 because he has stretched out his hand against God and conducts himself arrogantly against the Almighty. 26 He rushes headlong at Him with his massive shield. 27 For he has covered his face with his fat and made his thighs heavy with flesh.”
Eliphaz’s gentle words continue…
"The wicked man writhes”…that’s you Job!
"Numbered are the years of the ruthless”…that’s you Job!
“He is destined for the sword”…that’s you Job!
“Distress and anguish terrify him”…that’s you Job!
“While at peace the destroyer comes”…that’s you also Job!
Think about this one for a moment: Eliphaz and his friends attribute the horrors of that day of destruction TOTALLY TO SOME HIDDEN SIN IN JOB’S LIFE. No wonder Job’s eyes flash! [vs. 12]. How cruel “religious” people can be.
15:28 “He has lived in desolate cities, in houses no one would inhabit, which are destined to become ruins. 29 He will not become rich, nor will his wealth endure; and his grain will not bend down to the ground. 30 He will not escape from darkness; the flame will wither his shoots, and by the breath of His mouth he will go away. 31 Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself; for emptiness will be his reward. 32 It will be accomplished before his time, and his palm branch will not be green. 33 He will drop off his unripe grape like the vine, and will cast off his flower like the olive tree. 34 For the company of the godless is barren, And fire consumes the tents of the corrupt. 35 They conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity, and their mind prepares deception."
Eliphaz began this chapter by reproving Job for his “wind-bagginess.” But Eliphaz himself doesn’t lack for verboseness. Notice all of the metaphors crammed into this portion: grain, flame, shoots, palm branches, unripe grapes, vines, fire, flowers, olive trees, tents, and the natural process of conception and birth. Eliphaz goes overboard in emphasizing his “You, Job, are only reaping what you’ve sown” theology.
Hartley states, “Job’s blessings were ephemeral (momentary and fleeting), a disguise that concealed his profane (blasphemous) behavior.” “INFLEXIBILITY” could be the title to Eliphaz’s systematic theology. In these first 15 chapters, there has never been a hint from the three of, “Job, we simply don’t know why you are going through this.” Compassion was needed – not an eloquent sermon. They not only jumped to conclusions, they pounced! If they are in heaven, perhaps Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar have taken time to read I Corinthians 13:4, “Love is patient…and love is kind…”
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Hope Erosion (Job 14:1-22)
Dead stumps, dried up lakes, and worn down mountains. In this chapter Job weaves together all three metaphors as he tries to convey his “hope erosion.”
14:1 “Man, who is born of woman, is short-lived and full of turmoil. 2 Like a flower he comes forth and withers. He also flees like a shadow and does not remain. 3 You also open Your eyes on him and bring him into judgment with Yourself. 4 Who can make the clean out of the unclean? No one! 5 Since his days are determined, the number of his months is with You; and his limits You have set so that he cannot pass.”
There are four different Hebrew words for “man” in this chapter:
“adam” (vss. 1 & 10) – originally meaning “ruddy [red, man created from red clay?]” or “from the ground”; it refers to mankind in general, man as being created in God’s image.
“geber” (vss. 10 & 14) – warrior man, mighty and noble man.
“iysh” (vs. 12) – man as an individual, man in his manliness, husband man.
“enosh” (vs. 19) – man as weak and mortal and vulnerable.
Each word points to a different quality of man. The implication is that the sufferings Job touched every area of his life.
God’s design for man (vs. 1) was that he would be “full of days” and “short of turmoil.” But Job intentionally reverses it…he finds that his life is “short of days” and “full of turmoil.” His short-of-days life withers like a wildflower and is as fleeting as a shadow (vs. 2).
When you are young life doesn’t seem to be fleeting. My shop teacher in Junior High placed a sign below the clock in the back of the class. If you turned around to look at it (wondering how many eons it would be till the end of shop class), the little sign reminded you that “Time will pass…will you?” And when you are old life doesn’t seem to be very long at all. As the famous philosopher Grant Gonyo (our 75 year old Sunday School teacher) loved to state, “Man is too soon old and too late smart.”
In verse 5 Job reminds us that mortals have a limited life span, “You have decided the length of our lives. You know how many months we will live, and we are not given a minute longer.” (New Living Translation)
14:6 “Turn Your gaze from him that he may rest, until he fulfills his day like a hired man. 7 For there is hope for a tree, when it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and its shoots will not fail. 8 Though its roots grow old in the ground and its stump dies in the dry soil, 9 at the scent of water it will flourish and put forth sprigs like a plant. 10 But man dies and lies prostrate. Man expires, and where is he? 11 as water evaporates from the sea, and a river becomes parched and dried up, 12 So man lies down and does not rise. Until the heavens are no longer, He will not awake nor be aroused out of his sleep.”
A missionary told the story of how his dad, wanting to rid the yard of a tree stump, decided to blast it out with dynamite. Kaboooom! For several seconds it rained wood. But part of it hit a transformer on a power line (which took out the electricity) and part of it went through their roof! It seems however that some trees, even if they are blasted into eternity, will keep sprouting (bamboo?). Hartley notes, “Even though a stump may be dormant for a long time, a good soaking rain often spurs new growth.” “But man dies…” writes Job in verse 10. Job is not like a tree that could grow again if a supply of water became available; he is more like a dried up lake than a dead tree stump. If you Google “dried up lakes in the Sahara,” you will find some interesting articles about how the Sahara (or at least parts of it) at one time was lush and green. Immense lakes covered vast portions of this arid area. But they dried up. And that is how Job feels – his water (the presence of God) has completely vanished and his life seems to be nothing but arid ashes.
14:13 "Oh that You would hide me in Sheol, That You would conceal me until Your wrath returns to You, that You would set a limit for me and remember me! 14 If a man dies, will he live again? All the days of my struggle I will wait until my change comes. 15 You will call, and I will answer You; You will long for the work of Your hands."
Job frantically and desperately wants to find a refuge from the storm and from the hideous monster he has become. Since it seems that his ash heap residence and life on earth will afford no relief from his misery, he asks that God would hide him in Sheol, the underworld, the Old Testament designation for the abode of the dead. (In most instances it is incorrect to translate this word as simply “the grave.”). But because Sheol is “the land of no return and the place where one is forgotten” (Hartley), something has to be done to remind God that Job is in the netherworld! The words “remember me” are the same words that Joseph cried out to his cellmate (a former prominent servant to Pharaoh) when Joseph was wrongly thrown into prison, “When you get out of here, remember me and mention me to Pharaoh and get me outta here!” (Genesis 40:14).
The end of verse 13 states, “…that You would set a limit for me and remember me!” The New Living Translation has it, “But mark your calendar to think of me again!” God, don’t forget that you’ve temporarily hidden me down here; set up a reminder in Outlook, and let it keep popping up until you come down to Sheol and get me out!
Verse 14b reads, “…until my change (or renewal) comes.” The word “change” comes from the same word as “sprout” in verse 7. Job may not “sprout” again like a tree from a dried up stump, but he does believe that he will live again! It’s not a full-blown New Testament type of resurrection that he has in view, but nevertheless these are words of tremendous faith.
The words “long for” (desire, yearn) in verse 15 come from a word meaning “to grow pale.” It implies that God will one day again “long for” His servant Job with such intensity that He will grow pale! (God does “long for” Job at the present time, but Job is unaware of it).
14:16 “For now You number my steps, You do not observe my sin. 17 My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and You wrap up my iniquity."
To gain a sense of what Job is saying here, let me quote Hartley a little more extensively, “The picture could be that of storing valuables like gems or silver coins in a bag. Such valuables were put into a bag, which was fastened or daubed with wax, and pressed with a seal. The bag could not be opened without breaking the seal. Or the picture could be that of an old accounting practice in which a stone was placed in a bag to represent one item of a commodity, e.g. a sheep. Whenever a sheep was added or deleted from the flock, a stone was added or removed from the bag. The basic question of interpretation is, does God seal Job’s sins in a bag in order to put an end to Job’s accountability for them, or does He store them in a bag in order that He might open that bag at the final judgment and execute a full sentence against Job for all his sins?”
From the context it seems to me that the latter is in view here (“that He might open that bag at the final judgment and execute a full sentence against Job).
14:18 "But the falling mountain crumbles away, And the rock moves from its place; 19 Water wears away stones, its torrents wash away the dust of the earth; so You destroy man’s hope. 20 You forever overpower him and he departs; You change his appearance and send him away. 21 His sons achieve honor, but he does not know it; or they become insignificant, but he does not perceive it. 22 But his body pains him, and he mourns only for himself."
“Water wears away stones…” Hope doesn’t just suddenly disappear; more often than not it gradually wears away. Hope erodes. In the version “The Message,” Eugene Peterson translates verses 18 and 19 this way, "Meanwhile, mountains wear down and boulders break up, stones wear smooth and soil erodes, as You relentlessly grind down our hope.” An unrelenting grinding down of hope. Each fresh jab of pain, each sleepless night, each taunt and jeer from a neighbor caused Job’s hope to wither.
Perhaps hope has eroded in your life. You didn’t just determine one day to give up, but the ongoing difficulties, the chronic illness or the “one thing after another” storms have eroded your faith and resolve and hope. Job’s difficulties will intensify in the next few chapters and his hope will erode even further. But God came to Job, and God will come to you! Don’t give up hope!
14:1 “Man, who is born of woman, is short-lived and full of turmoil. 2 Like a flower he comes forth and withers. He also flees like a shadow and does not remain. 3 You also open Your eyes on him and bring him into judgment with Yourself. 4 Who can make the clean out of the unclean? No one! 5 Since his days are determined, the number of his months is with You; and his limits You have set so that he cannot pass.”
There are four different Hebrew words for “man” in this chapter:
“adam” (vss. 1 & 10) – originally meaning “ruddy [red, man created from red clay?]” or “from the ground”; it refers to mankind in general, man as being created in God’s image.
“geber” (vss. 10 & 14) – warrior man, mighty and noble man.
“iysh” (vs. 12) – man as an individual, man in his manliness, husband man.
“enosh” (vs. 19) – man as weak and mortal and vulnerable.
Each word points to a different quality of man. The implication is that the sufferings Job touched every area of his life.
God’s design for man (vs. 1) was that he would be “full of days” and “short of turmoil.” But Job intentionally reverses it…he finds that his life is “short of days” and “full of turmoil.” His short-of-days life withers like a wildflower and is as fleeting as a shadow (vs. 2).
When you are young life doesn’t seem to be fleeting. My shop teacher in Junior High placed a sign below the clock in the back of the class. If you turned around to look at it (wondering how many eons it would be till the end of shop class), the little sign reminded you that “Time will pass…will you?” And when you are old life doesn’t seem to be very long at all. As the famous philosopher Grant Gonyo (our 75 year old Sunday School teacher) loved to state, “Man is too soon old and too late smart.”
In verse 5 Job reminds us that mortals have a limited life span, “You have decided the length of our lives. You know how many months we will live, and we are not given a minute longer.” (New Living Translation)
14:6 “Turn Your gaze from him that he may rest, until he fulfills his day like a hired man. 7 For there is hope for a tree, when it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and its shoots will not fail. 8 Though its roots grow old in the ground and its stump dies in the dry soil, 9 at the scent of water it will flourish and put forth sprigs like a plant. 10 But man dies and lies prostrate. Man expires, and where is he? 11 as water evaporates from the sea, and a river becomes parched and dried up, 12 So man lies down and does not rise. Until the heavens are no longer, He will not awake nor be aroused out of his sleep.”
A missionary told the story of how his dad, wanting to rid the yard of a tree stump, decided to blast it out with dynamite. Kaboooom! For several seconds it rained wood. But part of it hit a transformer on a power line (which took out the electricity) and part of it went through their roof! It seems however that some trees, even if they are blasted into eternity, will keep sprouting (bamboo?). Hartley notes, “Even though a stump may be dormant for a long time, a good soaking rain often spurs new growth.” “But man dies…” writes Job in verse 10. Job is not like a tree that could grow again if a supply of water became available; he is more like a dried up lake than a dead tree stump. If you Google “dried up lakes in the Sahara,” you will find some interesting articles about how the Sahara (or at least parts of it) at one time was lush and green. Immense lakes covered vast portions of this arid area. But they dried up. And that is how Job feels – his water (the presence of God) has completely vanished and his life seems to be nothing but arid ashes.
14:13 "Oh that You would hide me in Sheol, That You would conceal me until Your wrath returns to You, that You would set a limit for me and remember me! 14 If a man dies, will he live again? All the days of my struggle I will wait until my change comes. 15 You will call, and I will answer You; You will long for the work of Your hands."
Job frantically and desperately wants to find a refuge from the storm and from the hideous monster he has become. Since it seems that his ash heap residence and life on earth will afford no relief from his misery, he asks that God would hide him in Sheol, the underworld, the Old Testament designation for the abode of the dead. (In most instances it is incorrect to translate this word as simply “the grave.”). But because Sheol is “the land of no return and the place where one is forgotten” (Hartley), something has to be done to remind God that Job is in the netherworld! The words “remember me” are the same words that Joseph cried out to his cellmate (a former prominent servant to Pharaoh) when Joseph was wrongly thrown into prison, “When you get out of here, remember me and mention me to Pharaoh and get me outta here!” (Genesis 40:14).
The end of verse 13 states, “…that You would set a limit for me and remember me!” The New Living Translation has it, “But mark your calendar to think of me again!” God, don’t forget that you’ve temporarily hidden me down here; set up a reminder in Outlook, and let it keep popping up until you come down to Sheol and get me out!
Verse 14b reads, “…until my change (or renewal) comes.” The word “change” comes from the same word as “sprout” in verse 7. Job may not “sprout” again like a tree from a dried up stump, but he does believe that he will live again! It’s not a full-blown New Testament type of resurrection that he has in view, but nevertheless these are words of tremendous faith.
The words “long for” (desire, yearn) in verse 15 come from a word meaning “to grow pale.” It implies that God will one day again “long for” His servant Job with such intensity that He will grow pale! (God does “long for” Job at the present time, but Job is unaware of it).
14:16 “For now You number my steps, You do not observe my sin. 17 My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and You wrap up my iniquity."
To gain a sense of what Job is saying here, let me quote Hartley a little more extensively, “The picture could be that of storing valuables like gems or silver coins in a bag. Such valuables were put into a bag, which was fastened or daubed with wax, and pressed with a seal. The bag could not be opened without breaking the seal. Or the picture could be that of an old accounting practice in which a stone was placed in a bag to represent one item of a commodity, e.g. a sheep. Whenever a sheep was added or deleted from the flock, a stone was added or removed from the bag. The basic question of interpretation is, does God seal Job’s sins in a bag in order to put an end to Job’s accountability for them, or does He store them in a bag in order that He might open that bag at the final judgment and execute a full sentence against Job for all his sins?”
From the context it seems to me that the latter is in view here (“that He might open that bag at the final judgment and execute a full sentence against Job).
14:18 "But the falling mountain crumbles away, And the rock moves from its place; 19 Water wears away stones, its torrents wash away the dust of the earth; so You destroy man’s hope. 20 You forever overpower him and he departs; You change his appearance and send him away. 21 His sons achieve honor, but he does not know it; or they become insignificant, but he does not perceive it. 22 But his body pains him, and he mourns only for himself."
“Water wears away stones…” Hope doesn’t just suddenly disappear; more often than not it gradually wears away. Hope erodes. In the version “The Message,” Eugene Peterson translates verses 18 and 19 this way, "Meanwhile, mountains wear down and boulders break up, stones wear smooth and soil erodes, as You relentlessly grind down our hope.” An unrelenting grinding down of hope. Each fresh jab of pain, each sleepless night, each taunt and jeer from a neighbor caused Job’s hope to wither.
Perhaps hope has eroded in your life. You didn’t just determine one day to give up, but the ongoing difficulties, the chronic illness or the “one thing after another” storms have eroded your faith and resolve and hope. Job’s difficulties will intensify in the next few chapters and his hope will erode even further. But God came to Job, and God will come to you! Don’t give up hope!
Sunday, July 11, 2010
El-Shaddai Goes Leaf Chasing (Job 13:1-28)
13:1 Behold, my eye has seen all this, My ear has heard and understood it. 2 What you know I also know. I am not inferior to you. 3 But I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue with God.
Against the insinuations of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar (EBZ), Job very strenuously defends his spiritual insight. In his pre-disaster, pre-sickness days, Job had well understood the theology of the ancients and the tradition of the fathers. But instead of following the remedy offered by EBZ (“Repent and plead for mercy"), he earnestly desires to meet God in court.
The Amplified version translates verse 3 in an interesting way, “Surely I wish to speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue and reason my case with God that He may explain the conflict between what I believe of Him and what I see of Him." There have probably been many times when we have wanted God to explain “the conflict between what we believe of Him and what we see of Him.”
13:4 But you smear with lies; you are all worthless physicians. 5 O that you would be completely silent, and that it would become your wisdom! 6 Please hear my argument, and listen to the contentions of my lips.
“You are putting a Band-Aid on a broken leg!” is what Job thinks of the theological salve offered by EBZ. Instead of “smear with lies” the King James has “But you are forgers of lies…” (Umbreit puts it this way, "...artful twisters of vain speeches"). EBZ so misinterpret Job's plight and so contort both the character of Job and God that Job says their arguments mirror the sign over the old blacksmith's shop, “All kinds of fancy twistings and turnings done here.”
In verses 5-6 note the words “silence” and “hear” and “listen”. We will come back to this when we look at verse 17.
The Message puts the second part of verse 6 this way, “Consider my side of things!” The problem is that in EBZ’s theological box there is no side labeled “The paradox of Job.”
13:7 Will you speak what is unjust for God, and speak what is deceitful for Him? 8 Will you show partiality for Him? Will you contend for God? 9 Will it be well when He examines you? Or will you deceive Him as one deceives a man? 10 He will surely reprove you, if you secretly show partiality. 11 Will not His majesty terrify you, and the dread of Him fall on you?
Note the words “show partiality” in verses 8 and 10. It is literally “accept faces.” It is the opposite of what the Pharisees commended Jesus for, “You are not a respecter of persons…” The New Living Translation puts verse 10, “No, you will be in trouble with Him if you secretly slant your testimony in His favor.” Judges are not to pay attention to wealth or poverty or to a person’s power or lack thereof. True justice applies the law equally.
13:12 Your memorable sayings are proverbs of ashes, your defenses are defenses of clay. 13 Be silent before me so that I may speak; then let come on me what may. 14 Why should I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hands? 15 Though He slay me, yet I will hope in Him. Nevertheless I will argue my ways before Him.
Various versions put the beginning of verse 13 this way:
Your wise sayings are only dust
Your memorable sayings are proverbs of ashes
Your remembrances are like unto ashes
Your memorable sayings are proverbs of ashes
Your maxims are proverbs of ashes
Your wise sayings are knickknack wisdom
Your platitudes are as valuable as ashes
Hartley points out that it is probably not coincidental that Job refers to the easily-recited platitudes of EBZ as “proverbs of ashes” while he himself is sitting on a heap of ashes! Hartley also writes, “Maxims are popular and pithy sayings that are easily remembered…Job refers to them as ‘answers of clay’: before the truth their wisdom will crumble like a ceramic pot.”
We will comment on verse 15 at the end, but note again the legal language at the end of the verse (and throughout this chapter).
13:16 This also will be my salvation, for a godless man may not come before His presence. 17 Listen carefully to my speech, and let my declaration {fill} your ears. 18 Behold now, I have prepared my case; I know that I will be vindicated. 19 Who will contend with me? For then I would be silent and die.
There is an art to listening well, but unfortunately a lot of us are not very good at it. We at times have already formulated a response before the person speaking is even finished. Or half way into the conversation we tune out the other individual and wonder when they will be finished (so that we can tell them our story). Listening well takes energy and implies that we value the individual. I think Jesus loved listening (really listening) to people and their stories and their problems. That’s probably one of the reasons why they found Him so different from the other religious teachers of the day.
Notice the cry of Job’s heart in these verses:
13:5 O that you would be completely silent, and that it would become your wisdom!
13:6 Please hear my argument, and listen to the contentions of my lips.
13:13 Be silent before me so that I may speak; then let come on me what may.
13:17 Listen carefully to my speech, and let my declaration {fill} your ears.
In verse 17 he ardently pleads, Listen DILIGENTLY (carefully, closely, attentively are words used in other versions). Hartley writes, “(Job wants them to listen) without missing a single word. He knows that partial attention leads to misunderstanding and wrong conclusions.”
Determine to genuinely listen to someone today. Don’t talk about your problems; just listen thoughtfully to their difficulties. You can bring a great blessing to someone’s life by being a genuine listener.
13:20 Only two things do not do to me, then I will not hide from Thy face: 21 Remove Thy hand from me, and let not the dread of Thee terrify me. 22 Then call, and I will answer; or let me speak, then reply to me. 23 How many are my iniquities and sins? Make known to me my rebellion and my sin. 24 Why dost Thou hide Thy face, and consider me Thine enemy? 25 Wilt Thou cause a driven leaf to tremble? Or wilt Thou pursue the dry chaff? 26 For Thou dost write bitter things against me, and dost make me to inherit the iniquities of my youth. 27 Thou dost put my feet in the stocks, and dost watch all my paths; Thou dost set a limit for the soles of my feet, 28 While I am decaying like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.
The crux of the entire book is found in the first part of verse 24, “Why dost Thou hide Thy face (from me)…” The word “face” is found more than 70 times in this remarkable book, 6 times in this chapter alone. Hartley states, “A person’s countenance reveals his basic attitude toward another person.” And Francis I Anderson writes, “It is the hiddenness of God that is horrifying him.”
In verse 25 Job asks, “Wilt Thou cause a driven leaf to tremble?” Many years ago I had the opportunity of going out into the woods in the fall to go leaf hunting for our daughters’ school projects. We pursued leaves! But Job wonders why the God of the universe would pursue him (a dried up leaf) so unrelentingly!
The chapter doesn’t exactly finish on a high note, “While I am decaying like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.” Translation? “In the end he lived miserably ever after.”
But in the midst of the misery and maggots a faith explosion takes place! In verse 15 Job’s heart shines brilliantly before our eyes, “Though He slay me, yet I will hope in Him!!!” It is one of the most famous verses found in this wonderful book (and perhaps in the entire Bible).
Though He slay me (and it certainly looks like He will), yet I will hope in Him! In our Christian life we can either have an “If/Then” or a “Though/Yet” attitude. In Genesis chapter 28 God had just made a breathtaking promise to Jacob. The patriarch then responded to this promise by saying, "IF God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear, and I return to my father's house in safety, THEN the LORD will be my God (Genesis 28:20-21).
IF….THEN. If God does A & B & C for me, then I will do X & Y & Z for Him. But Job’s attitude was exceedingly different, “Though he slay me, yet I will hope in him!” The prophet Habakkuk had that same spirit, “THOUGH the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines, {though} the yield of the olive should fail, and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stalls, YET I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. (Habakkuk 3:17-18).
Determine to be a “Though/Yet” Christian.
Against the insinuations of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar (EBZ), Job very strenuously defends his spiritual insight. In his pre-disaster, pre-sickness days, Job had well understood the theology of the ancients and the tradition of the fathers. But instead of following the remedy offered by EBZ (“Repent and plead for mercy"), he earnestly desires to meet God in court.
The Amplified version translates verse 3 in an interesting way, “Surely I wish to speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue and reason my case with God that He may explain the conflict between what I believe of Him and what I see of Him." There have probably been many times when we have wanted God to explain “the conflict between what we believe of Him and what we see of Him.”
13:4 But you smear with lies; you are all worthless physicians. 5 O that you would be completely silent, and that it would become your wisdom! 6 Please hear my argument, and listen to the contentions of my lips.
“You are putting a Band-Aid on a broken leg!” is what Job thinks of the theological salve offered by EBZ. Instead of “smear with lies” the King James has “But you are forgers of lies…” (Umbreit puts it this way, "...artful twisters of vain speeches"). EBZ so misinterpret Job's plight and so contort both the character of Job and God that Job says their arguments mirror the sign over the old blacksmith's shop, “All kinds of fancy twistings and turnings done here.”
In verses 5-6 note the words “silence” and “hear” and “listen”. We will come back to this when we look at verse 17.
The Message puts the second part of verse 6 this way, “Consider my side of things!” The problem is that in EBZ’s theological box there is no side labeled “The paradox of Job.”
13:7 Will you speak what is unjust for God, and speak what is deceitful for Him? 8 Will you show partiality for Him? Will you contend for God? 9 Will it be well when He examines you? Or will you deceive Him as one deceives a man? 10 He will surely reprove you, if you secretly show partiality. 11 Will not His majesty terrify you, and the dread of Him fall on you?
Note the words “show partiality” in verses 8 and 10. It is literally “accept faces.” It is the opposite of what the Pharisees commended Jesus for, “You are not a respecter of persons…” The New Living Translation puts verse 10, “No, you will be in trouble with Him if you secretly slant your testimony in His favor.” Judges are not to pay attention to wealth or poverty or to a person’s power or lack thereof. True justice applies the law equally.
13:12 Your memorable sayings are proverbs of ashes, your defenses are defenses of clay. 13 Be silent before me so that I may speak; then let come on me what may. 14 Why should I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hands? 15 Though He slay me, yet I will hope in Him. Nevertheless I will argue my ways before Him.
Various versions put the beginning of verse 13 this way:
Your wise sayings are only dust
Your memorable sayings are proverbs of ashes
Your remembrances are like unto ashes
Your memorable sayings are proverbs of ashes
Your maxims are proverbs of ashes
Your wise sayings are knickknack wisdom
Your platitudes are as valuable as ashes
Hartley points out that it is probably not coincidental that Job refers to the easily-recited platitudes of EBZ as “proverbs of ashes” while he himself is sitting on a heap of ashes! Hartley also writes, “Maxims are popular and pithy sayings that are easily remembered…Job refers to them as ‘answers of clay’: before the truth their wisdom will crumble like a ceramic pot.”
We will comment on verse 15 at the end, but note again the legal language at the end of the verse (and throughout this chapter).
13:16 This also will be my salvation, for a godless man may not come before His presence. 17 Listen carefully to my speech, and let my declaration {fill} your ears. 18 Behold now, I have prepared my case; I know that I will be vindicated. 19 Who will contend with me? For then I would be silent and die.
There is an art to listening well, but unfortunately a lot of us are not very good at it. We at times have already formulated a response before the person speaking is even finished. Or half way into the conversation we tune out the other individual and wonder when they will be finished (so that we can tell them our story). Listening well takes energy and implies that we value the individual. I think Jesus loved listening (really listening) to people and their stories and their problems. That’s probably one of the reasons why they found Him so different from the other religious teachers of the day.
Notice the cry of Job’s heart in these verses:
13:5 O that you would be completely silent, and that it would become your wisdom!
13:6 Please hear my argument, and listen to the contentions of my lips.
13:13 Be silent before me so that I may speak; then let come on me what may.
13:17 Listen carefully to my speech, and let my declaration {fill} your ears.
In verse 17 he ardently pleads, Listen DILIGENTLY (carefully, closely, attentively are words used in other versions). Hartley writes, “(Job wants them to listen) without missing a single word. He knows that partial attention leads to misunderstanding and wrong conclusions.”
Determine to genuinely listen to someone today. Don’t talk about your problems; just listen thoughtfully to their difficulties. You can bring a great blessing to someone’s life by being a genuine listener.
13:20 Only two things do not do to me, then I will not hide from Thy face: 21 Remove Thy hand from me, and let not the dread of Thee terrify me. 22 Then call, and I will answer; or let me speak, then reply to me. 23 How many are my iniquities and sins? Make known to me my rebellion and my sin. 24 Why dost Thou hide Thy face, and consider me Thine enemy? 25 Wilt Thou cause a driven leaf to tremble? Or wilt Thou pursue the dry chaff? 26 For Thou dost write bitter things against me, and dost make me to inherit the iniquities of my youth. 27 Thou dost put my feet in the stocks, and dost watch all my paths; Thou dost set a limit for the soles of my feet, 28 While I am decaying like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.
The crux of the entire book is found in the first part of verse 24, “Why dost Thou hide Thy face (from me)…” The word “face” is found more than 70 times in this remarkable book, 6 times in this chapter alone. Hartley states, “A person’s countenance reveals his basic attitude toward another person.” And Francis I Anderson writes, “It is the hiddenness of God that is horrifying him.”
In verse 25 Job asks, “Wilt Thou cause a driven leaf to tremble?” Many years ago I had the opportunity of going out into the woods in the fall to go leaf hunting for our daughters’ school projects. We pursued leaves! But Job wonders why the God of the universe would pursue him (a dried up leaf) so unrelentingly!
The chapter doesn’t exactly finish on a high note, “While I am decaying like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.” Translation? “In the end he lived miserably ever after.”
But in the midst of the misery and maggots a faith explosion takes place! In verse 15 Job’s heart shines brilliantly before our eyes, “Though He slay me, yet I will hope in Him!!!” It is one of the most famous verses found in this wonderful book (and perhaps in the entire Bible).
Though He slay me (and it certainly looks like He will), yet I will hope in Him! In our Christian life we can either have an “If/Then” or a “Though/Yet” attitude. In Genesis chapter 28 God had just made a breathtaking promise to Jacob. The patriarch then responded to this promise by saying, "IF God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear, and I return to my father's house in safety, THEN the LORD will be my God (Genesis 28:20-21).
IF….THEN. If God does A & B & C for me, then I will do X & Y & Z for Him. But Job’s attitude was exceedingly different, “Though he slay me, yet I will hope in him!” The prophet Habakkuk had that same spirit, “THOUGH the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines, {though} the yield of the olive should fail, and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stalls, YET I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. (Habakkuk 3:17-18).
Determine to be a “Though/Yet” Christian.
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