Bible Commentary - Job 32

Bible Commentary - Job 31

In this chapter, Job denies for once and for all that he has sinned in any way.

This chapter is the epic conclusion of Job’s monologue, and it’s also the last time in the book that Job himself has any substantial role (though he does share a few brief words in two later chapters).

Having spoken about the precious value of wisdom, and about his own former blessed life and his present suffering, Job now denies with a curse that he has ever sinned against God in the ways that his friends described and even in some ways they haven’t mentioned yet.  Job goes through whole categories of sins, denying them one by one, and each time declaring a curse upon himself if he has ever done otherwise.

In verses 1-12, Job denies any kind of sexual sin (as well as possibly deceit in business, v. 4-5).  This is an interesting passage.  First of all, it is clear that the bible describes a gradual evolution in sexual ethics over time.  Beginning with Abraham and the patriarchs, it was reasonably common for men to have multiple wives and concubines.  Similarly in the later kingdom period, David, Solomon and various other kings down the line had many wives, numbering in the hundreds.  I don’t know exactly when the shift happened, it is not well-described in the biblical text, but by the time we get to Paul and Jesus, we have both Paul and Jesus making various direct and indirect statements in support of simple monogamy: one husband and one wife.

Within this context, our challenge is twofold: to an extent, we need to try to place Job somewhere on this timeline between polygamy and monogamy, and then secondly we need to figure out the nature of the sin based on that context.

Given the historical setting of the book and the general language, it seems likely that Job is on the older side.  As I mentioned in my introduction, Job is possibly the oldest book in the OT, even though it is very hard to give an exact date.  From this point of view, it seems unlikely that Job would view polygamy (a man having multiple wives) as a sin.  It is clear that adultery (defined in this context as having sex with a married woman) has always been considered a sin, however.

From the text in verses 1-12, it isn’t clear to me exactly what Job thinks is the sin here.  Verse 1 specifically says “gaze at a virgin”, which implies an unmarried woman.  From this verse, it would seem that Job thinks sex with anyone besides his wife is a sin, which would be consistent with later monogamy traditions that are historically unlikely at the point when Job was written.  On the other hand, verse 9 equates being “enticed by a woman” with “lurked at my neighbor’s doorway”.  This implies that the woman is a married woman, i.e. the wife of the aforementioned “neighbor” whose doorway he was visiting.  This shifts the sin to adultery, which has been universally condemned in the bible at every point.

Taking the entire passage as a whole, I suspect that Job may be broadly indicating a range of sexual sins and probably not referencing just adultery, but he’s certainly including adultery, and the remainder of the passage is quite vague about what transgressions he might have in mind.  It’s notable that Job is described as having only one wife, in spite of his relative wealth and prestige, so it’s possible that Job was indeed advocating for monogamy and considered polygamy a sin.  The evidence is pretty thin, but it seems within the realm of possibility.

The next section, from verse 13-23, moves on to the much more common social justice concerns that we have seen dominate the narrative so far.  Both Job and his friends have raised social justice concerns as a primary category of sin and evil, describing vulnerable categories as the poor and needy, widows and orphans.  This passage follows the same formula, listing “male and female slaves”, “the poor”, “widows”, “orphans”, “the needy”, and “the orphan” (again) as vulnerable persons who Job swears he has never abused.  Rather, Job asserts (as he did in chapter 29) that he has always served and helped the vulnerable, using his position of power to bless and support those in need.

Here he does the same, listing many ways that he has financially helped others, providing food, clothing and shelter to those in need.  He also mentions that he has never used his privilege and position of honor to abuse others, “because I saw I had support at the gate”.  As my reader my recall, chapter 29 described how Job was greatly honored at the city gate, where civil disputes would be adjudicated.  Because of his great honor he could have abused others and presumed that the legal process would vindicate him even if he did wrong.  Here in verse 21, Job insists that he has never used this position to his advantage, though he could have done so if he wished.  Also, Job gives an insightful justification for social justice concerns, stating that it is derived from the equal created status of all men before God (v. 15)

The remainder of the chapter, from verse 24-40, covers a variety of topics with no particular theme but still in the same vein with Job describing sins and calling down curses upon himself if he has ever committed them.  These include putting confidence in his personal wealth, worshiping the sun or moon (and thus denying God), cursing his enemies or rejoicing over their downfall, abusing the poor (social justice concerns again), and either stealing land or abusing his servants somehow (v. 38-39).

Out of these, perhaps the most interesting is that Job considers it a sin to worship the sun or moon (v. 26-28).  Certainly to a Jewish mind worshiping anything besides God is a terrible sin, but to a non-Jewish Job this would be much less clear.  Indeed, this is the first time idolatry as a subject has been raised by anyone in the book of Job.  I have to wonder whether this is taken from the original Job story or if this is an interpolation or addition from the Jewish author/transcriber.  One could raise a similar question about the personal ethics described throughout Job, whether they are from the authentic source material or the Jewish author who re-wrote the Job parable into his own framework.  So far I have not been able to find any commentary on that subject though I’m sure scholars have looked at it.

Lastly, my readers should notice how in several cases Job calls down curses upon himself that fit the same topic and the general nature of the sin he is denying.  For instance, if he has committed adultery in v. 9, then let his wife have sex with another man in v. 10.  Here at the end of the chapter, if he has sinned with regards to his land (v. 38-39), then he invites weeds and briars to grow on his land in punishment (v. 40).

In the next chapter, Job’s fourth, unmentioned friend Elihu speaks for the first time.

Bible Commentary - Job 30

In this chapter, Job describes his present suffering, which is compared to his previous blessing.

The main purpose of this chapter is to compare and contrast his present suffering with his previous blessing.  I think it’s clear that chapters 29 and 30 are very closely tied in this way and we should really be reading them together when analyzing Job’s speech.  It’s also clear that Job is trying to show a reversal of fortunes, where he was previously blessed but now he is suffering (or cursed, if you prefer a stronger term).  This heightens the contrast between his past and present circumstances, and it also frames his life in terms of divine, sovereign intervention.  For a reference point, we saw numerous reversals of fortune in the book of Esther, and in that case a reversal of fortune was considered the hallmark of God’s activity.  In this passage, both Job and his friends directly attribute his suffering to God, so I think the reversal of fortune is more likely a literary device used to highlight the differences between his past and present.

More specifically, the previous chapter established Job’s blessings in the sense that he was deeply respected at the city gates and everyone would wait silently to hear his words, like they were waiting “for the spring rain” (Job 29:23).  Job was also blessed through his “friendship” with God, who “was yet with me” everywhere he went (Job 29:4-5).  We saw Job living in tremendous prosperity and ease as God’s hand was over him to protect and uplift him (Job 29:6).

In Job’s present life, all of these blessings are reversed.  While before he was honored by nobles and princes, the highest men in society, Job describes his present dishonor at great length.  Verses 1-15 describe how the scum of the earth now mock him and spit at him.  These young men “are driven from the community” (v. 5) and are living out in the desert.  Now they are preying on Job like vultures, “profiting from my destruction” (v. 13), though it’s not clear to me how.  Job has already lost everything so I don’t know how much more can be stolen from him at this point, but from the text it seems that Job feels assailed by these despised men.  While he was previously honored by the greatest men, he is now despised and mocked by the least.

Secondly, Job also feels like his friendship with God has turned into enmity.  In verses 19-23, Job cries out to God for help, but instead finds God both “cruel” and a “persecutor”.  God has transformed from the light shining over his paths and the friendship covering his tent to his persecutor, attacking him like a hostile army.  This is the root cause for all of Job’s suffering, but he calls it out specifically (both in the past and present narratives).

Thirdly, Job was previously blessed with prosperity, riches and food (Job 29:6), and now suffering with disease and poverty (v. 23-31).  He doesn’t specifically mention poverty but I think it can be reasonably implied from context in the rest of the book and the general tone of Job’s discourse.

In Esther we saw reversals of fortune that were deserved and a reflection of divine justice, such as the downfall of Haman or the blessing and uplifting of Mordecai.  In Job, we see a reversal of fortune that defies logic.  The righteous Job is reduced from blessings to curses, from good things to bad, and he is struggling to understand why.  As Job himself puts it, “when I expected good, then evil came” (v. 26).  This is the fundamental paradox of the book of Job, and in this chapter we see Job himself struggling with it, trying to understand why everything has gone so wrong when he has done nothing evil to deserve it.

In a sense we could say that Job already answered the question back in chapter 28 when he asserted that wisdom was to fear the Lord and avoid evil, so it’s not like Job is asking for counsel here.  Rather, Job is simply lamenting his present suffering and everything he has lost.  That was all he was trying to do originally back in chapter 3, but his friends took it as a challenge to their theology so they criticized and rebuked him as a consequence.  Since he has responded to their criticism and rejected their rebukes, Job has returned to his original thought, which was to simply lament over his suffering as anyone would.

In the next chapter, Job concludes his statement by calling down curses upon himself if he has ever sinned in the ways that his friends have accused him.

Bible Commentary - Job 29

In this chapter, Job talks about how he was honored and the good things he did for the needy before catastrophe struck him.

This chapter is straightforward in a lot of ways.  Job is simply reminiscing, as so many people do, about how good his life used to be before tragedy overtook him and drowned him in the sorrows that have since filled his life.

This is no longer an argument with his friends.  Job is simply remembering, in a deeply emotional way, what he has lost, and he is experiencing once again the pain of that loss.  In some ways it reminds me of chapter 3, because that was the last time Job was not arguing against one of his friends.  Even though the content of chapter 3 is quite different from this chapter, the sentiment is similar; in both chapters Job is lamenting his loss in one way or another.

The purpose of this chapter, then, is to exemplify Job’s loss by describing the good things that previously filled his life.  Job’s bright and cheerful past is described using three central themes.

The first is that Job perceived God’s favor and light shining down in his life.  This is described in verses 2-6.  Job was a “friend” of God and experienced God’s friendship through blessing, protection and prosperity.  Verse 6 describes it in peculiar terms, with his steps “bathed in butter” and “streams of oil” pouring out of rocks.  This is a vivid description of prosperity, with abundant food and wealth surrounding his every step.

The second theme is that Job was highly respected by all people, both young and old, nobles and princes.  There are two sections covering this idea: verses 7-11 and verses 21-25.  The city gate is where the town elders would sit to judge controversies.  Basically if any two people had a conflict or disagreement, they would go to the city gate, meet the elders there and explain each respective side.  Then the elders would judge who was in the right and issue a decision.  It was basically like a primitive legal system to handle civil disputes.  We’ve seen this appear in the biblical text a couple times, but one obvious example is when Abraham went to buy the field of Ephron in Genesis 23.  We see both Gen 23:10 and 23:18 specifically point out that Abraham negotiated and signed the deal “before all who went in at the city gate”.  That is, when Abraham wanted to buy a property he did so at the city gate, so that all the elders could serve as witnesses and confirm the deal.  Another place where we see men sitting outside a city gate to judge issues is Mordecai in Esther 2:21, Esther 3:2, et al.  From this we can similarly discern that Mordecai was a respected leader of the community.

With this context, we can see in verse 7 that Job was taking his seat beside the city gate, as an elder who was expected to judge disputes and seal contracts, etc.  Not only was Job a respected elder, we see old men standing to honor him (v. 8) and princes and nobles silencing themselves in order to hear his words.  When people heard Job’s words, they “called me blessed” because they acknowledged Job’s wisdom in judgment.  Verses 21-25 continue on a similar theme, with Job sitting as the foremost judge, like “a king among the troops”.

The third theme is that Job was a righteous man who used his position to strengthen the poor and helpless and to strike down the wicked.  This is very similar to the social justice concepts of chapter 22, when Eliphaz accused Job of oppressing the widows and orphans, amongst various other groups (Job 22:5-9).  In this chapter, Job claims the opposite, specifically mentioning both orphans and widows as the subjects of his charity (v. 12-13).  This chapter defines righteousness (v. 14) as the protection of vulnerable groups in society (v. 12-17).  This is the same framework as how Job’s friends described righteousness and wickedness, and it shows that they have similar ideas about what is right and wrong.  However, Job continues to insist that he has done what is right and he does not admit to his guilt like his three friends are asking for.

From this, we can see that Job and his friends are at an impasse.  Job’s friends cannot believe that a righteous man would ever suffer, while Job refuses to admit his guilt.  From what we saw in Job 1:8, Job truthfully is a righteous man, so he doesn’t have any real guilt to admit, but this is a situation that Job’s friends cannot theologically accept.

In the next chapter, Job continues the thought by describing his present life contrasted against his past.

Bible Commentary - Job 28

In this chapter, Job praises the supreme value of wisdom over all things.

This chapter is both beautiful and profound, so this will be one of my longer commentaries for the book of Job.

This chapter contains three parts.  The three parts are neatly divided by a repeated verse, first in verse 12 and then second in verse 20.  Job asks the question, where does wisdom come from?  And then having spoken to some length, he asks the question a second time.  The heart of this chapter is Job’s search for wisdom, and his conclusion is a short but powerful attempt to find it.

The first section is from verses 1-11, and it is a fascinating explanation of ancient mining techniques.  I would capture Job’s sentiment as this: people do lots of hard, dangerous work to try to accumulate material wealth.  People love beautiful gemstones, and they will go to great lengths to find them, even treading under the earth where no animals or birds ever go (v. 7-8).  We see that people are capable of great determination, and when we exercise that determination we are capable of uncovering secret things, hidden things.

Then in verse 12 there is the turn; while men go underground to find gems and gold, where do we go to find wisdom?  Where is the place we need to mine to dig up understanding?

The second section, from verses 13-19, says that gold and gems cannot be exchanged for wisdom.  This sets up a beautiful contrast between the subject of the previous section and Job’s real target.  While people may work hard for material wealth, it cannot be exchanged for wisdom.  People go to dangerous lengths to mine gems out of the earth, but where do we go to get wisdom?  We cannot trade money for wisdom, we have to find it.

So Job raises the question a second time: where can we go to find wisdom?

In the third section, from verses 21-27, Job is basically saying that God knows and understands all things, and that wisdom comes from God, and that the place of understanding is in God’s presence.  If we want to find wisdom, we must find it in God.

Lastly, verse 28 answers the question: wisdom is found in God, to fear him, and to avoid evil.  While our pursuit of wealth may end in the bowels of the earth, our pursuit of wisdom must end in the presence of God, from whom all wisdom flows.

In so many ways, this chapter is the answer to the book of Job.  As I stated previously, the book of Job is asking the question, why do bad things happen to good people?  The answer, as given here and later reiterated by God himself, is that God has created all things in the world, including many marvelous and mysterious things, and that God possesses a wisdom that exceeds human comprehension.  Therefore we should all trust in God’s wisdom, honor and fear him, and avoid evil.

For so much of my life, this was an answer that I did not understand or particularly like.  I always viewed it as an argument from authority, that Job was telling us we should just take it for granted there is an answer because God is so powerful, but without actually telling us the answer.  I have heard Job criticized as the book that commands us to blind faith, trusting God in the midst of suffering without knowing why or having good reason to do so.  I didn’t really know how to refute those arguments even while I continued to believe in God’s goodness.

It was only reading this chapter just a few days ago that I think I’m finally beginning to understand this answer.  The basic logic in Job, which we see in verses 21-28, is that God has created things in the natural realm that are beyond human understanding.  God has created lightning and thunder, and he shapes the path of each thunderbolt.  God has measured out every drop of water in all the oceans in the world.  God moves each gust of wind in every moment, in every place, everywhere that wind can be found.

These natural marvels exceed human wisdom, understanding and power.  In every way God is on an entirely different plane of existence from human beings, and the extent of his knowledge and wisdom exceeds even the possibilities of human thought.  Bringing this back to the topic at hand, how can God permit suffering in the lives of righteous people?  Basically what Job says (both here and in the book as a whole) is that God has such exceedingly great wisdom and understanding in the physical world, that he is equally great and equally wise in matters of justice, morality and human experience.

The physical world symbolically represents the spiritual world of justice and righteousness, and demonstrating God’s power and wisdom through natural creation proves it everywhere.  We see the nature of the creator infused in the things he has created, and the mystery and splendor of the natural world stands as a signpost for us to perceive the transcendent reality of the eternal God.

The reason why I always struggled to understand Job is that I didn’t instinctively connect with Job’s wonder at the mystery of creation.  From childhood until now, I have always been a scientist at heart, seeking to understand the natural world in greater and greater ways.  While there are many good things about science and exploration, I think my pursuit of a greater understanding of the natural world stripped me of that sense of wonder at the unknown.  To someone like Job, lightning is a strange thing, both mysterious and powerful, and an apt symbol of the nature of God.  To me, lightning is a handful of electrons traveling through a voltage potential at relativistic speeds.  More understanding, but less wonder.

More generally, the philosophies of modern naturalism generally claim that the universe is understandable; human comprehension will continue to increase and there are no secrets that God can hide from us.  From this point of view, Job’s analogies to natural wonder as an explanation of human suffering make even less sense, because we find ourselves understanding (or claiming to understand) the natural world, but still at a loss to explain human suffering.  Taken to the extreme, it renders Job’s argument almost a non-sequitur, because we simply don’t see the world the same way that Job and his compatriots saw it.

If we look at the world truthfully, claiming human mastery over the universe is pure hubris.  The world is filled with unexplained mysteries and will continue to be mysterious for long after everyone reading this is dead.  Natural creation is a strange and glorious place, and while the natural sciences have produced incredible insights into creation, we should acknowledge that the world yet remains unsolved by human inquisition.  This is a mystery that we should respect, even while seeking greater understanding.

In a similar way, God also has a wisdom that guides human lives and justice, and when we do not understand it, we should respect the mystery even while seeking God’s answers and God’s wisdom.

To be clear, I’m not saying (and I don’t think Job is saying) that respecting the mysteries means that we have to leave them unchallenged, untouched, and passively accept ignorance.  This is another criticism commonly leveraged by modern naturalists against religion in general and Christianity in particular.  The extreme view of naturalists is that every mystery solved, every natural law promulgated and proven, shrinks the space of God’s workings in the universe.  It’s as though the universe were divided between “understood” and “not understood” spaces, and that God were somehow relegated to working miracles in the “not understood” space but absent from the “understood” space, since the natural laws somehow render God redundant or obsolete.

This argument usually mixes in some historical narrative, such as the (generally accurate) point that many historical religions appear to have been constructed to “explain” natural phenomena.  For instance, you can look at the Greek and Roman pantheons as being a collection of gods organized around distinct aspects of nature.  If it is thundering, that’s because Zeus is mad; if the sea is churning with big waves, then something is going on with Poseidon.  From this point of view, explaining lightning as a natural phenomenon means that we don’t “need” Zeus to explain it anymore.  Secular naturalists are only too happy to extend this argument to Christianity, likewise implying that Christianity was invented to explain natural phenomena and then claiming that every natural law or discovery shrinks the realm of God’s operation.  This is the “rationality replacing religion” argument.

I have heard several people make this argument almost verbatim, and though it enjoys considerable support amongst secular constituencies, it falls apart under any meaningful inspection.  The simple and obvious counterpoint is that it presupposes God cannot be involved with natural laws, which has no rational basis.  I could just as well say that God is the driving force behind every natural law, and all of a sudden God fills both the “understood” and “not understood” spaces, just as he has from the beginning.  It is a necessary contradiction of this argument that there must be some kind of power that is enforcing all of the natural laws, and yet that force cannot be God, must be from within the natural realm, and is logically impossible to explain.  It is such a profound contradiction in scientific naturalism that it usually goes completely ignored and unthought, because such a thought would be terribly dangerous to the entire naturalistic enterprise.

Furthermore, it is also dubious to claim that Christianity bears any particular resemblance to the Greek and Roman habit of organizing their conceptions of the divine around natural phenomena.  When Jesus was on earth, one of the first things he did was start going around doing completely extraordinary, almost flamboyant, miracles like turning water into wine or walking on water.  These miracles do not “explain” natural phenomena.  They would freak people out, and raise even more questions than they answered.  Jesus did not speak to explain natural phenomena, he spoke to explain the human condition, the love of God and God’s purpose and intent for our lives.

The miracles of Jesus all beg for explanations rather than offer explanations, and the matters of love and purpose will never be solved by natural sciences and are totally immune to scientific exploration.  While some secular scholars fruitlessly try to prove that Jesus’s miracles can be explained by natural phenomena, absolutely nobody ever tried to do the opposite, using Jesus’s miracles to explain natural phenomena, which was the fundamental premise of the “rationality replacing religion” argument made above.  There is no world in which someone could say, “tidal motion is caused by the moon’s orbit, and therefore we don’t need Jesus walking on water to explain the tides anymore”.  Jesus walking on water never “explained” anything, so finding a secular alternative cannot render that miracle “obsolete” or “redundant”.

Bringing it back to Job, Job is not trying to explain natural phenomena either.  He is appealing to our sense of wonder and our sense of majesty at the natural creation.  The existence of natural laws does not diminish this if we understand that God is the power behind every natural law, and that our understanding of nature does not diminish God’s role in creating and maintaining the natural world.  Ultimately, when we look at the natural world we are really seeing the nature of God, and when we understand that God is great in all things, even the matters of our lives and of our suffering, and we will be contented in his justice and under his protection.

In the next chapter, Job describes the glory and honor of his earlier life.

Bible Commentary - Job 27

In this chapter, Job insists that he remains righteous and declares the fate of the wicked.

Having read through this chapter, I would divide it into two main thoughts.  In the first, Job insists that he has not done anything wrong, and in the second he talks about how God punishes the wicked.  For the second section, it is possible that one could divide it into finer pieces based on subtle nuance or minor variations in theme or topic, but at a high level I think we can reasonably group it all together, so that is the path that I am taking.

Verses 2-6 establish Job’s continued righteousness and his refusal to admit otherwise.  Basically what he’s saying is that he believes he is still righteous: “my heart does not reproach any of my days” (v. 6).  He simply doesn’t believe he’s done anything wrong.  Because of that, he refuses to admit his guilt, because that would constitute a lie: “far be it from me that I should declare you right” (v. 5).

In essence, Job’s friends have been asking him over and over to admit his guilt, repent before the LORD and be restored by God to his former glory.  However, the first part of that has always been for Job to admit that he has done wrong and to ask God for forgiveness.  This is the part where Job refuses, because he simply doesn’t think he has done wrong, and to admit guilt where he has not sinned would be a lie and violate his “integrity”.  Of course, Job has been insisting on his innocence this whole time, and his friends have continued to accuse him, so this is a continuation of the same pattern.

Now that I mentioned the word accuse, I wonder if this is a larger pattern in the book of Job.  If we think back to Job chapters 1 and 2, my readers may recall that this whole story began with Satan accusing Job before God of fearing God in exchange for material blessings.  The word “satan” itself means accuser.  Since then, Job’s friends have been insisting over and over (with varying levels of directness) that Job has been sinning against God, that he needs to repent, and that this is the reason God is punishing him.  In a broad sense I wonder if Job’s friends are playing some kind of satan-like role, accusing Job of wrongs that he hasn’t committed (in much the same way that Satan wrongly accused Job of having ulterior motives for worshiping God).  I can’t really think of any strong parallels besides that, but it does suggest that “facing accusations” or false accusations could be a major theme of Job.

The remainder of this chapter, in verses 7-23, describes the fate of the wicked, which in Job’s formulation is unswervingly negative.  In general, I feel like “God punishes the wicked” is the most commonly stated philosophy in Job.  From that point of view, this chapter contributes little new material to the overall narrative.  On the other hand, the last time Job spoke about the wicked he was asking the opposite question: why do the wicked not suffer during their lifetimes?  In both chapters 21 and 24, Job is emphasizing that the wicked do not live to see their punishment, and yet here in chapter 27 it feels very much like he is contradicting himself, that Job does think the wicked are “overtaken” by terrors, swept away like by a flood or a gust of wind (v. 20), with the obvious implication that their punishment is not deferring and that they do see the wrath of God within their lifetimes.

I really don’t know what to think about this.  Is there some subtle nuance in which these two positions can be reconciled?  Am I misinterpreting Job’s intent?  Or is a contradiction genuinely intended here, with some kind of purpose or meaning that I cannot yet fathom?  I’ve tried reading two separate commentaries on Job (Rashi, and my NIV study bible) and neither of them offers a good answer here, so I don’t think I will either.

In the next chapter, Job continues his discourse and speaks about wisdom.

Bible Commentary - Job 26

In this chapter, Job describes the authority of God over all creation.

This is only the beginning of Job’s response to Bildad, and it’s a long one.  Actually Job’s response is going to stretch over the next six chapters, which makes it different from the previous section in both length and style.  Stylistically, the previous section was dominated by the tit-for-tat responses between Job and his friends, variously rebuking and criticizing each other.  Job’s response here transitions to a monologuing style, where Job (later following by Elihu and then finally God) offer lengthy, unrebutted statements.  In addition, the content of this chapter is subtly but definitely distinct from the previous half of the book.  In the past, most of Job was dedicated to arguments about good and evil, why good people suffer, how God punishes the wicked, and questions of justice and righteousness.  Beginning with Job’s response, and accelerating into Elihu’s and God’s sections, the focus will shift much more to statements about God’s glory and creative power.  There was one brief section that seems to convey a similar attitude (Job 9:5-10), but the vast majority of Job chapters 1-25 only speak about God inasmuch as it relates to human affairs like blessing the righteous and punishing the wicked (or from Job’s perspective, God’s indifference to human affairs).

Verses 2-3 share the usual sarcastic criticism of his friends for belittling and rebuking him.  It’s relatively short and perfunctory, so I won’t add anything here I haven’t said before either.

The rest of the chapter, verses 4-14, are dedicated to proclaiming the glory of God, describing his powers and wonder.  What makes this part so different from the first half of this book is how Job is emphasizing God’s manifest power and glory in creation.  In the past it seemed like Job and his friends simply took it for granted that God was glorious and powerful and his nature was not the subject of conversation.  In this chapter, while I would not say that God’s glory is the subject of debate here, it certainly becomes the central focus of the narrative.

Job looks at God’s power in several different ways.  The first is that God has power over death and “departed spirits” (v. 5-6).  Note that once again Job shows signs of a life-after-death theology, without giving away many details about what he thinks existence after death actually entails.  God has power over “Sheol” and “Abaddon”, both of which are poorly defined Hebrew words.  Indeed, the challenge of defining these two words is why so many translations don’t even try to translate them and just transliterate the Hebrew word into English.  The relevant theology here is that God is the supreme power not just over life on earth, but also supreme over the “departed spirits”, possessing full knowledge and authority over the realms of post-life existence, but without offering any additional insights into the nature or purpose of that existence.

Verses 7-10 raise much more familiar, though equally wondrous topics, such as how God traps water in the clouds and how the earth “hangs on nothing”.  This is the marvelling-at-creation section, where Job describes a series of natural wonders that are both beautiful, poorly understood or otherwise majestic, and uses them as examples to illustrate God’s power.

Verses 11-13 continue to an extent with the theme of natural wonders.  I’m not sure how verse 11 fits in, but verses 12-13 are clearly talking about God’s power to calm storms at sea.  We see a poetic parallel between the first half of each verse: “He quieted the sea with his power”, “by his breath the heavens are cleared” (i.e. clouds are dispersed).  The second of of these two verses are also parallels, when God both “shattered Rahab” and “pierced the fleeing serpent”.  Given the context of quieting sea storms, it is possible that Rahab and “the serpent” are referring to possibly-allegorical sea monsters that either inhabit or symbolize such storms.  Note that Rahab is the Hebrew word for “proud”, and Rashi suggests that it is a reference to the Egyptians (who God “smashed” when he drowned them in the Red Sea).  Rahab is also the name of the prostitute from Joshua 2, though it’s obvious from context that Job is not referring to the person Rahab.  Regardless of what Rahab is supposed to signify, it is clear that this is intended to be a measure of God’s strength and power.

Throughout this chapter, we see God’s power demonstrated through several different realms of creation.  He has authority and power over the afterlife, the clouds and the sky, the heavens and the sea.  The afterlife is usually envisioned as being “under the earth”, so I also think this chapter could be framed as a progression, from the underworld to the earth, and from there to the sky and heavens.  I don’t think the text follows this progression in a clean or precise way, but it does seem to be the overall theme.  The conclusion is that God has power over all of creation, and even this is only “the fringes of his ways” (v. 14).

In the next chapter, Job insists that he will never forsake his righteous life even until the day he dies.

Bible Commentary - Job 25

In this chapter, Bildad claims that nobody is righteous before God.

This is the shortest chapter in the book of Job and it’s straightforward to read.  It is also the last time any of the three friends speak in this book.  The remainder of the book is speeches by Job, a fourth and yet unmentioned friend, and the LORD’s response which more or less concludes the book.

Bildad only says two things.  In verses 2-3, he says that God is great and powerful.  In verses 4-6, he says that in comparison to God mankind is like a maggot or worm, and therefore nobody is righteous before God.

This is not a new argument.  I’m not sure I can find an exact parallel to this passage, but a very close analogue is Job 15:14-16, which similarly claims that there is no such thing as a righteous man.  The only thing that I see different about this chapter is that it frames the argument as a contrast between God’s holiness and glory and man’s weakness and… not-glory?  It’s interesting because the contrast Bildad lays out is between mankind and the moon and the stars (which have “no brightness” or “purity” in the sight of God).  Bildad is setting up a contrast between celestial bodies and human bodies, implying that we are much less glorious than they are, and that even the celestial bodies are not glorious or pure in comparison to God.

This is interesting to me because of how Bildad is using glory or brightness as a substitute or replacement for “just” or “clean” (v. 4), so i.e. righteousness.  I’m not sure how much of this is supposed to be causative and how much of this is simply an illustrative metaphor.  In other words, does Bildad think mankind is unrighteous because we are not glorious like the moon and stars, or is it just a colorful metaphor to illustrate the point?  To what extent do a glorious appearance and a pure, clean and righteous heart go together?

In the new testament, this kind of rule is firmly broken with the arrival of Jesus into the world, when the almighty God (who embodies all glory) takes on the form of a man (the “maggot” and “worm” of Bildad’s conception).  However, one could reasonably ask if Bildad’s thought pattern is reflected elsewhere in the OT.

In my opinion, I don’t think we can strongly correlate glorious appearance and a righteous heart even in the OT.  While God is usually described having a glorious appearance, 1 Samuel 16:7 establishes that “man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart”.  To further the point, there are many kings of Babylon, Israel, Judah, etc. that are described as glorious in appearance and possessing great wealth, but without a righteous heart.  David, on the other hand, was a lowly shepherd boy who nonetheless was chosen by God to become the first truly great king of Israel.

From this perspective, it seems like Bildad’s emphasis on outward appearance is exactly what “man looks at”in 1 Sam 16:7, rather than the true reality of the heart that God looks for.  This is not to say that man can be righteous before God in a perfect way, but that it is not our mortal,  physical bodies that render us impure or sinful in God’s eyes; rather it is the sin and destruction that lies within the human heart that makes people unclean.

In the next chapter, Job responds to Bildad for the last time.

Bible Commentary - Job 24

In this chapter, Job describes the path of the wicked and the suffering of their innocent victims.

This is definitely a tricky chapter.  In this chapter Job is blending together several different narratives, which is pretty confusing because he uses a lot of pronouns that are changing referents from one verse to another.  The overall effect is disorienting, but I’ll do my best to sort it out, on behalf of my wonderful readers.

Verse 1 sets the tone of this chapter pretty nicely.  It asks, “why do those who know him not see his days?”  This is an enigmatic statement, and represents the chapter well for that reason.  However, I’m pretty sure this is Job’s point for the whole chapter.  Basically what the “days” are talking about, is God bringing revenge or vengeance upon the wicked.  When Job asks why those who know him do not see his days, it means why do the righteous (those who know God) not see the appointed day of vengeance upon the wicked?

This verse in particular and this chapter in general is a restatement of Job’s arguments from chapter 21.  He is once again arguing that the wicked do evil things all the time, and that most of the time the wicked are not punished until after they are dead, at which point the righteous are also gone and do not get to see “God’s days”.  I think it’s reasonable to say that this is the point Job wants to make, though he doesn’t say it clearly.

Verses 2-4 describe the activity of the wicked.  Once again we see an emphasis on social injustice, with the wicked preying upon orphans, widows, “the needy” and “the poor”.  In the Pentateuch, the vulnerable groups were usually listed as orphans, widows and foreigners (e.g. Deut 27:19, Exodus 22:21-22).  Job dropped the “foreigners” from his list of vulnerable groups, and it’s hard to say exactly why, but the overall point is the same; Job views the activity of evil men as primarily being the exploitation of the weak and defenseless.  This is consistent with earlier passages in Job and seems to be a particular area of emphasis for Job.

In verses 5-8, Job smoothly transitions from speaking about abusers to speaking about the abused.  He is describing the plight of the orphans and widows, who are scavenging in the desert to find bread for their children (v. 5), gleaning from the vineyards of the wicked.  Gleaning is the process of picking up the grapes that the harvesters missed, so it’s like basically the moral equivalent of modern-day dumpster diving, picking through the garbage to try to find food that others threw away.

Verses 9-10 shift back to abusers again, who are taking away the clothing and food from the poor, sometimes as pledges (i.e. a collateral deposited for a loan).

Verses 11-12 shift back to the victims narrative, who are producing oil and treading wine, yet they cannot drink the wine that they press, because they are working for the wicked who share nothing with them.  Verse 12 also reiterates Job’s central point, that “God does not pay attention to folly”.  The wicked are free to sin and God does not punish them.

Verses 13-17 describes the wicked as “those who rebel against the light”, which is an unusual expression that I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere else in the bible.  In context, it clearly means they are rebelling against what is good and honorable, but it also reiterates the contrast between light and darkness that we find in Job.  Earlier in Job we saw darkness used as a metaphor for death or suffering.

In this chapter it seems like Job shifts the focus of light and dark to become a good/evil kind of thing.  In verse 13, the wicked are rebels against the light.  In verses 14 and 15 we see evil dwelling in the darkness, with both thieves and adulterers finding their primetime in the darkness when honorable people are asleep.  In verse 16 we see “digging into houses” in the dark, referring to the practice of digging a hole into someone’s house so that you can break in and rob them without having to go through the front door.  Presumably these were mud or brick houses which permit such digging.  More strongly, verse 16 also tells us that the wicked “shut themselves up” during the day hours, since they pursue all of their activities in the darkness when they are harder to catch and most good people are asleep.

Verses 18-20 continue to describe the wicked, with an emphasis on how the wicked are cursed and will disappear from the earth.  They are “insignificant on the surface of the water… they do not turn towards the vineyards” (v. 18).  I don’t know what that means.  However, when we combine this with v. 19-20, it seems that Job is trying to express how the wicked will be wiped out somehow.

Verse 21 says once again that the wicked oppress widows and childless women.

Verses 22-24 conclude the chapter by asserting that God does, in fact, uproot the wicked.  Even though God permits them to live for a while, he is always watching them (v. 23) and in the end will cut them off like when grain is harvested from the fields (v. 24).

I’m struggling to analyze this last part because I feel like Job is contradicting himself a bit.  In verse 1 Job seems to think that God’s judgment is delayed or absent; in chapter 21 he made the same point at greater length.  Yet here at the end, in v. 22-24 he is emphasizing how God destroys the wicked and uproots them, etc.

I guess it leaves me wondering what is Job’s point with this whole chapter.  This chapter is filled with expressions about how the wicked oppress the poor and vulnerable people in society, and it seemed like Job was building up for a “God does nothing” kind of conclusion, like a cynical pattern that seems consistent with Job’s earlier statements.  Instead, the conclusion feels almost like a non sequitur to me.  Instead of building up to a conclusion that injustice fills the world, Job concludes that God is watching and the wicked will be swept away.  I don’t really know what to think about that.

In the next chapter, Bildad speaks for the final time.

Bible Commentary - Job 23

In this chapter, Job says that even if he argued his case before God, that God would still do whatever he wants.

This chapter has three parts that form a single logical thought, which I will lay out in order.

In the first part, verses 2-9 describe Job’s desire to argue his case before the LORD.  He wishes that he could find the place of God and argue before him, even though he ultimately recognizes the futility of seeking God because God is impossible to find in the natural world (v. 8-9).  In this sense he is stymied by the invisible nature of God; even if you want to find God, you cannot travel and find him.

Interestingly, this pattern is somewhat broken during the OT era because the temple in Jerusalem becomes a “house” for God’s dwelling place, and many generations of Israelites would travel there to go meet with God.  Of course, this was not always a manifest reality because the visible cloud of glory was rarely present in day to day situations.  I’m not sure how ancient Israelites would have understood Job’s comments in these verses.  Perhaps the most accurate way to read it is that whenever we travel around from day to day, we know that God is active and moving all around us but we are not aware of his presence in a physical way.  Even though we could travel to th temple in Jerusalem to “meet” with God, we don’t see him in our local village or city or whatever even if we theologically recognize that God is the one who causes the sun to shine, rain to fall, etc.

So anyway, Job desires to present his arguments before God, but is not able to find a place where he can stand before God and argue.  Verses 10-12 continue the thought, with Job claiming that if God did judge him, God would realize that Job is a righteous man who has not strayed from the path of goodness.  Connecting it to the previous thought, it means that if Job could argue his case before God, he thinks that he would win the case.

In the final section, verses 13-16 says that even if Job found some way to argue his case, and even if Job were living righteously before God, that God does whatever he wants and nobody is capable of “turning” him (v. 13) or changing his mind.  This means that in practical terms, everything Job was just talking about is pointless.  It doesn’t matter if Job can find God, and it doesn’t matter if he was living righteously.  God is the strong one here, God does whatever he pleases, and Job’s arguments and rhetoric can accomplish nothing.

This whole chapter is largely consistent with everything Job has said before.  In fact I would say it hardly addresses Eliphaz’s commentary in any meaningful way, other than to continue insisting upon Job’s righteousness and that he hasn’t committed any of the crimes of which Eliphaz accuses him.  Instead, Job is reiterating the same basic point that he considers himself righteous, that God is mistreating him, but that it’s impossible to bring God before a neutral arbiter and get an injunction against God’s mistreatment.  Job has said the same thing in many ways before, and this is little different.  In verse 17 Job insists he will continue to speak and argue his case, but it also feels like Job recognizes the pointlessness of his task.

In the next chapter, Job concludes his speech.

Bible Commentary - Job 22

In this chapter, Eliphaz accuses Job of committing evil and pleads for him to return to God.

Reading through this chapter, I mentally divide it into three parts.  The first part is verses 2-11, the second part is 12-20, and the third part is 21-30.

The overall flow of this chapter is relatively straightforward.  Eliphaz is doubling down on the idea that Job is suffering because he is wicked.  In fact, Eliphaz goes further than any of the friends so far by directly accusing Job of wickedness.  That is the contents of the first section; Eliphaz is saying that Job is personally responsible for withholding food and water from the needy, oppressing widows and orphans, and committing the litany of crimes that we find regularly chastised in OT moral prohibitions.  It is a deep concern for social justice that is commonly tied to the notion of “ungodliness”.  The reasoning being, it is ungodly men who are unconcerned with the justice of the Almighty, that commit crimes against other people and thus incur the wrath of God.

This is a persistent theme of Job that we have seen many times previously, though I have not previously commented on it.  One example is Job 18:21, which confirms a poetic equivalence between “the dwellings of the wicked” and “the place of him who does not know God”.  Chapter 20 also lays out a strong social justice concern, with the central evil of a wicked man being “he has oppressed and forsaken the poor” (Job 20:19).  This logical connection between godlessness and wickedness is an unquestioned assumption throughout the OT, to the point that godless and wicked are treated as virtual synonyms, and while it is present in Job it is not unique to Job.

Injustice is viewed as a derivative product of godlessness inasmuch as fear of God is the primary motivator of righteousness, whether because of a fear of punishment or because of an innate desire to do “what is right”.  Godless people are considered “unrestrained” in the bible, freely choosing to do whatever evil things they want out of an indifference to God’s commands or threats.  It is another unquestioned assumption that “unrestrained” people naturally tend towards doing what is evil, as an inevitable byproduct of human nature.  Righteousness in the bible is the restraint of those natural impulses due to a greater concern for God’s law.

As far as righteousness is concerned, the usual hallmarks of righteousness in the OT are a dedicated religious life (i.e. devotion to God), concern for the defenseless people of society, and fairness or justice (i.e. treating other people the way they deserve; impartiality).  Eliphaz is challenging Job primarily on the basis of his concern (or lack of concern) for helpless members of society (v. 7, 9).

This is the first time any of the friends have accused Job directly, while they have been implying it nonstop.  Given everything we know about Job, I suspect that these accusations are baseless.  Or more to the point, Eliphaz is accusing Job of wickedness only because Job is suffering and Eliphaz views this as evidence of immorality.  My suspicion is that Eliphaz is, shall we say, letting his imagination run wild and free, while he tries to construct what evils could have possibly landed Job in such a tough situation, and is not speaking out of any affirmative knowledge of such evils.

The middle portion of this chapter has a couple of thoughts, but a large part of it is Eliphaz trying to imagine the thought process of evil men.  Once again we see an equivalence between wickedness and godlessness, with the defining characteristic of such men being the rejection of God (v. 17).

The third and final section is the logical conclusion of Eliphaz’s argument, which is that Job should return to God, cease committing these putative evil deeds that Eliphaz blames him for, and thereafter accept restoration to his former glory.

The third section is easily defined by its opening verse, v. 21.  Eliphaz is petitioning Job to “yield now” to God, “thereby good will come to you.”  This whole chapter has been yet another restatement of the same thing the friends have been saying over and over, which is that God punishes sinners, therefore Job must be a sinner, and if he repents and returns to God then God will restore him.  There is nothing about this that is different from e.g. chapter 5.

In the next chapter, Job responds once more to Eliphaz.

Bible Commentary - Job 21

In this chapter, Job discusses the meaning of punishment and whether it matters for a man to be punished after he dies.

Verses 2-6 are a fairly standard introduction to Job’s response, with the usual “let me speak because I too have wisdom” mentality.

Verses 7-18 establishes that the wicked frequently prosper, and do not face the wrath of God during their lifetimes.  This is a striking claim, since it contradicts the many statements earlier in the book about how God destroys the wicked.  Part of me wonders if Job’s friends would not so readily agree that the wicked prosper, but Job seems to go on anyway and argues both sides, stating what he thinks his friends would reply, and then answering those replies.  It’s a peculiar moment in the book, but it opens up some really interesting topics for discussion so I’ll just leave it at that and move on.

Verses 19-34 is addressing, in various ways, the idea that the wicked may suffer through the destruction of their inheritance after their death.  This is Job stating his friends’ position as a sort of strawman argument, before offering his own response.

In verse 19, the idea is that a man’s “iniquity” is visited upon his children and that the things he built in his life would not endure.  Job’s response is that nobody really cares what happens to their children after death, and that the wicked would not feel the sting of their punishment if they don’t see it happen in their lifetime.

There is an obvious assumption based into Job’s discourse.  The assumption is that there is no such thing as punishment after death.  In fact, Job’s point in verses 23-26 is that the satisfied and the bitter “lie down in the dust together” (v. 26) with no meaningful distinction between them.  Death comes for everyone, and while we may applaud the life of one person and detest the life of another, the dead are oblivious to our feelings about them.  This is one of the basic principles of Jewish thought regarding Sheol; it is a place of rest and peace, because one is rendered oblivious to the goings-on of the world above.  Jewish thought regards the dead as sharing an experience analogous to a dead body.  A dead body is quiet, still and unmoving.  It is at rest in a literal sense.  These literal features are extrapolated into metaphysical properties, with a dead person’s soul also regarded as “at rest”, freed from the strains and anxiety that accompany life on earth.

This is the big reason why Job was so deeply longing for the release of death in e.g. Job 14:12-13, but even more directly in Job 3:13-19.  Job (and the culture he embodies) views death as like going to sleep and never waking up, a restfulness that renders us insensible to the affairs of the world.  In that sense, it is also a great leveler because no matter what kind of life a person has lived, we all become equal in death.

Job’s basic claim, then, is that the only meaningful punishment is what happens when we are alive on earth.  This is when we are “awake” and can experience pain, fear and disgrace, all of which Job believes is the rightful punishment of the wicked.

Verse 28 is another brief statement of how Job anticipates his friends’ arguments  Basically what Job is saying is that when we investigate the “house of the nobleman” and the “tent of the wicked”, we will find that God has blessed the house of righteous people while demolishing the tents of wicked people.  There is a subtle point here which is that similarly to the tabernacle/temple dichotomy that I addressed a long time ago, the “tent” of the wicked implies a temporary existence.  A tent might be here one day and then taken down the next.  The “house” of the righteous implies permanence, because the righteous will endure and leave a lasting inheritance.

However, Job sees all of this as another post-mortem reality, and in verses 30-34 he establishes this as a “vain comfort” (v. 34) because when the wicked is dead and buried, covered with clods of earth, he will no longer experience the reality of his punishment.  Instead, “all men will follow after him” (v. 33) and even the death of the wicked is not a fate unique to them.

Okay, so having summarized the chapter, there is an interesting theological question to be answered.  It is about the notion of how God punishes the wicked and what constitutes meaningful punishment.  The philosophy of Job, which I described above, is that there is no such thing as punishment in the afterlife, because all the dead are at peace in death and only what happens during their life on earth is meaningful.  On the other hand, Job’s friends are saying that there is no such thing as punishment in the afterlife, but the wicked can be punished after their death when God visits the iniquity of the wicked on their children (v. 19).  This is a manner of indirect punishment, not by punishing the man himself but by punishing his household and destroying his inheritance.  In various places in the bible, a household is viewed as a metaphysical extension of a man, so this is not a unique perspective, but Job nevertheless disagrees with it.

The operating assumption in both cases is that it’s only what happens on earth that matters, which is itself quite an interesting predicate considering in other places Job implies that God would in some mysterious way honor or restore him after death (for an example of this, see Job 19:25-27.  See also Job 14:14-15).  Of course, these references to Job’s life after death are oblique and sparse, so while I don’t want to minimize them, it is clear that they are not Job’s primary concern or emphasis; quite the opposite.  It seems like a contradiction, but one with no easy resolution given the sparsity of material that Job presents about the putative afterlife and his thoughts on the subject.

Instead, it shows that in Job, as in many other places in the OT, it is life on earth that is regarded as the chief domain of God’s operation as judge and king.  The other clear example (though one could find many) is the notions of blessing and punishment that permeate Deuteronomy, which are focused perhaps without exception on material outcomes.  For instance, Deuteronomy 28 is a grandiose chapter, laying out starkly the contrast between obedience to and rebellion against the law of God.  Such outcomes are framed entirely in material terms, such as blessings on the “basket and kneading bowl” (Deut 28:5), in battle, offspring, and so on.  These are outcomes that are visible, tangible and in many cases measurable.  This is a worldview that seems very familiar and accepted by Job and his friends, who also seem to think that only visible, physical outcomes matter when it comes to God’s justice.

The notion that there could be rewards or punishment after death is a concept only loosely embedded in the text here, and is largely the subject of later revelation (what I have elsewhere described as progressive revelation).  To Job and his friends, the concept of death, and whatever existence may continue after death, is closely entangled with the concept of sleep.  Sleep and death bear an outwards similarity, and death is considered as like falling asleep and never waking up.  By common experience, they largely agree that they are neither blessed nor punished by God while they are sleeping, so it stands to reason that they would not experience such things upon death either.  As such, this analogous reasoning rules out the possibility of a post-mortem judgment by God of human behavior.

In this context, it seems like Job and his friends agree that sometimes wicked men are not punished during their lifetimes, and where they disagree is that his friends think it is meaningful and appropriate for God to punish these men by extension, laying down justice upon their children and estates after death.  Job does not find that appropriate because he thinks the “peace of death” will leave them unaware of their supposed punishment, which defeats the purpose of punishment in the first place.

Later theological development in the bible will twist the argument a bit by framing things in terms of judgment after death, but for the time being Job and his friends are left at an impasse.

In the next chapter, Job’s first friend Eliphaz takes his third and final turn responding to Job.

Bible Commentary - Job 20

In this chapter, Zophar says basically the same thing as what he said last time, except this time he is angrier.

In verses 2-3, Zophar makes it clear that he is speaking out of emotion (the “inward agitation”) because he feels personally insulted.  This really sets the tone for Zophar’s response as a whole, because Zophar deeply desires to put Job into his place, to make Job understand that in the day of God’s wrath, everything is taken away.  In other words, this chapter is identical in purpose and meaning to every other speech by any of the three friends up to this point.

It really seems like Job and the three friends are talking past each other; they are all saying what is essentially the same thing at each other over and over, to no discernible effect other than to make everyone get more and more upset.  I mean even the “I am upset, do you think I’m an idiot or a wild animal” stuff is nearly indistinguishable between when Job says it and when Job’s friends say it.

Zophar’s speech can be broken down into two core points: the first point is that the prosperity of the wicked is temporary, and the second point is that the wicked will be forced to give up their ill-gotten wealth.  Neither of these points are new or particularly interesting, so I’m not going to give it much more analysis.  It all fits under the larger theological framework that God punishes the wicked and blesses the righteous, which I have previously discussed at length.

As with every other friend’s speech, the underlying subtext here is that Job’s wealth was “expelled” by his recent disaster, and this must necessarily be a product of God’s judgment on Job’s manifest wickedness.  As with every other friend, Zophar is establishing a cause-effect relationship between wickedness and personal tragedy, and by inverting the relationship he is using Job’s suffering as evidence of his wickedness.

Since none of these points are unique to this chapter, I think I’ll leave off here.  In the next chapter, Job responds once again to Zophar.

Bible Commentary - Job 19

In this chapter, Job replies to Bildad, once again decrying the persecution he feels from both God and his friends.

This chapter seems to shift between several related ideas.  In various places, Job speaks about his friends’ betrayal, the anger and violence of God directed against him, abandonment from his friends and relatives, and for a brief and remarkable moment, Job’s continued faith and trust in God.

In verses 1-4, Job accuses his friends of “tormenting” and “insulting” him (v. 2, 3).  This is typical of Job’s earlier responses to his friends as well.

In verses 6-12, Job turns his attention to God, whom he accuses of “wronging me” (v. 6).  He goes on to describe the various ways that God has broken down his life, between closing off his “paths” (i.e. future), stripping his honor and uprooting his hope.  This is one of the more direct accusations of God we have seen in this book so far, but it’s thematically consistent with Job’s overall attitude throughout.

Verses 13-19 focuses on the betrayal of Job’s household and relatives.  This is perhaps a veiled rebuke of his three friends, but it’s also more generally directed against his friends and relatives as a whole, who we can imagine are much less interested in the company of the poor, diseased Job than they were the wealthy, healthy Job.

In verses 21-22, Job turns his attention back to his friends, pleading for them to play the role of the friend and give him comfort rather than continue the attack that he perceives coming from God.  Verses 28-29 continue the theme by presenting his friends as coordinated attackers, planning and searching for ways to heap some new trauma in Job’s already-difficult life.

Verses 25-27 are possibly the strangest part of the chapter.  Every other part of this chapter has a consistent theme: Job’s friends are against him, God is against him, and his family and relatives are against him.  After insisting that God is “wronging” him and arranging troops to surround Job’s tent like a hostile army (v. 12), Job now says that God is his redeemer, who will in the end bring Job into his presence.  It’s incredible, much like the assertion that “though he slay me, I will trust him” of Job 13:15.  We see in the midst of Job’s suffering and even accusing God of wrongdoing, somehow Job maintains some kind of spark or some kind of essential faith that God is with him and will bring him through to a better place, even if it’s on the other side of death.

This basic contradiction lies at the heart of Job.  On the one hand, the accusations seem to flow from Job’s inner grief and emotional response to suffering.  On the other hand, the proclamations of faith persist even in the midst of grief.  Even with Job’s hope itself “uprooted like a tree”, Job somehow continues to find a hope beyond all rational sense.  This would be so much easier to understand if God wasn’t on Job’s list of persecutors.  If Job were saying, “my friends are family are against me but I know that you are always for me, God”, then that is pretty simple to interpret and a powerful message.

But he doesn’t.  Job says, “God, even you are against me and rallying your troops to destroy my life, but I know that you are my redeemer and you will bring me into your presence.”  I hardly even know what to do with that, because it casts God in the role of the bad guy and the hero simultaneously.  I can only imagine there is some unshakable core in Job’s soul that insists God is the redeemer, and God is good.  No matter what tragedy is filling his life, that foundational belief in the goodness of God emerges again and again, even when it doesn’t make sense or contradicts other things Job was saying only a little while ago.

Of course, Job’s friends pay no attention to those statements, and they are thoroughly antagonized by Job’s repeated claims of persecution.

In the next chapter, Zophar takes his second turn to rebuke Job.

Bible Commentary - Job 18

In this chapter, Bildad criticizes Job.

It’s almost getting boring at this point, the back and forth between Job and his friends, because they really aren’t saying anything new or different from what they said previously.  Bildad criticized Job last time he spoke, and he’s criticizing Job now.

In verses 2-4, Bildad responds to Job sarcastically, accusing Job is talking down to them as if they were stupid animals.

The entire rest of the chapter is a long and vivid condemnation of the wicked.  Beginning with “the light of his tent is darkened” (v. 6) and ending with “he is driven from light into darkness” (v. 18), the recurring theme of Bildad’s speech is darkness.  Darkness is what awaits the wicked, when they step into the snare or trap of their own evil plans.  Darkness is also how Job speaks about himself, referring to his own life as being a “bed of darkness”.  Therefore we can understand that Bildad is speaking about Job, and doing it in a way that Job knows Bildad is talking about him.  Bildad speaks about Job in other ways too.  “his skin is devoured by disease” (v. 13) is also a reference to Job, who was struck with terrible boils all over his skin (see Job 2:7).  Verses 17, 19 talk about the destruction of the “posterity” of the wicked, and as we know Job’s sons and daughters were all killed when a house collapsed on them (Job 1:18-19).

In the end, “this is the place of him who does not know God” (v. 21).  Bildad is saying that Job is suffering the fate of an evil, godless man.

Why is Bildad saying all of this?  I would guess it’s similar to Eliphaz, that Bildad is offended by Job’s denials and self-proclaimed innocence.  Bildad thinks that all of the things happening to Job are hallmarks of a sinful man, and that it is hypocritical and deceitful for Job to claim innocence.

I don’t have much else to add, since this chapter so closely parallels previous material from this book.

In the next chapter, Job replies to Bildad in much the way that we would expect him to.

Bible Commentary - Job 17

In this chapter, Job finishes his response to Eliphaz by accusing his friends of being mockers.

I find this chapter difficult to understand the exact meaning, because Job uses lots of metaphors and allusions.  That said, the more time I spend reading it the more clear it becomes that Job is speaking indirectly about his friends.

Let’s begin by looking at verses 1-9.  In this section, Job begins by decrying his situation, that his spirit is broken, his life is at an end, and death is waiting to claim him.  But then he starts talking about “mockers”, traitors and people spitting at him.  While he does not reference anyone directly, I think it’s clear from context that Job is speaking about his friends, because his friends are the ones criticizing him and admonishing him to forsake sin.  Job feels betrayed by his friends, because he expected them to support him but he finds their words hollow and lifeless (see e.g. Job 6:14-21).

Since Job is speaking about his friends indirectly, he is also criticizing them indirectly.  See verses 4-5, 8.  There is a symmetry of sorts between what Job is saying about his friends and what his friends are saying about him.  His friends are saying, essentially, that God punishes the wicked and destroys their hope (and by implication, Job is one of those wicked people).  In turn, Job is saying “people who betray their friends will suffer, and their children will suffer too” (v. 5).  Righteous people will be “stirred up” against Job’s friends (v. 8).  In essence Job is trying to say that people who betray their friends will also be punished by God, and his friends are betraying him.

In verse 10, Job resets and goes back to mourning about his recent suffering, with v. 11 being a close parallel to v. 1.  In verse 12, Job talks about “them” making the night into day.  I don’t know exactly what he means but I suspect what he’s saying is that some group of people are telling Job that he can have hope in God’s restoration.  Earlier his friends were telling him that if he repented then God would restore him, so it’s possible this is another oblique reference to Job’s friends.

Verses 13-16 make it clear that Job does not see any reason for hope.  He thinks he is going to Sheol, a common Hebrew term for the resting place of the dead (an afterlife of sorts), and that his hope will die with him.  Basically what this means is that Job thinks the wonderfully hopeful “night into day” thing that people are talking about is not for him.  Someone else may see the night turn into day, but Job thinks he is condemned to eternal darkness; he is “making his bed in the darkness”, preparing to sleep and dwell in darkness rather than return to the light of life.

In the next chapter, Bildad takes his second shot at Job, rebuking him once again.

Bible Commentary - Job 16

In this chapter, Job replies to Eliphaz by describing his grief.

Job’s response is a two-chapter business, so this chapter only covers the first half of his message.  For this part of the message, it’s hard to find a unifying theme behind Job’s words but if I had to choose one, I would say it is Job’s sense of loss and despair at what he has suffered.

In verses 1-5, Job once again criticizes his friends for condemning him and judging him.

Beginning in verse 9, Job begins speaking about how God has assailed him; he refers to God  as his “adversary”, who has handed him over into “the hands of the wicked” (v. 11).  Verses 13-14 emphasize again the adversarial nature by referring to God as a “warrior”, one who fights against Job by shooting him through with arrows and “running at” him.

In verses 15-22, Job once again pleads to God for mercy, highlighting his humility and innocence.  Strangely, in verse 19 he says that his “advocate is on high”, claiming that God is his witness and advocate.  This is a strange expression because earlier in this same chapter he refers to God as his adversary, but now God is the one fighting on his behalf.

Instead, in v. 20 Job is basically saying that his friends are the ones “scoffing” at him and ridiculing him, and that God is the one who is his witness and will vindicate his righteous life.  This seems contradictory to Job’s rhetoric earlier in this same chapter, when God was the adversary.  I don’t really know how to reconcile these two ideas.  Certainly the notion that “people are fighting against me but God is for me” is a common biblical motif, and we see that sort of thing all the time.  It’s possible that Job is simply reaching for that motif because he’s upset with his friends and it’s a common pattern, even though it doesn’t really fit in the context.

In verse 21 Job wants to “plead with God”, though it’s not clear to me if this pleading is because he wants to ask God for relief or ask God for justice.

Overall, I don’t think this chapter conveys any substantially new thoughts compared to what we’ve seen earlier in Job.  It seems to me like a very emotional recapitulation of the same concepts that have dominated throughout the whole book.

In the next chapter, Job completes his rebuttal.

Bible Commentary - Job 15

In this chapter, Eliphaz seems genuinely offended by Job’s rebuke, and he replies in kind.

If anyone thought that Job’s friends would back down or apologize when he rebuked them, well, you were wrong.  Job’s friend Eliphaz seems to double down in this case, extending his criticism of Job to great lengths.

This chapter contains two parts.  The first part is verses 1-19, and the second part is verses 20-35.

In the first part, Eliphaz makes an argument that is quite similar to Job in the overall tone.  In Job 12:1-5, Job is sarcastically criticizing his friends for thinking that they have all the wisdom and that Job is just some idiot.  In this chapter, Job’s friend replies with less sarcasm but not much less.  He calls Job’s words “windy knowledge” or like the hot wind, possibly the first recorded instance anywhere in the world when someone has been called a blowhard.

Even in this first part, Eliphaz reiterates his belief that Job is guilty, and in fact says that Job is providing evidence of his own guilt by his complaints (v. 5-6).

The core of this chapter is in verses 17-19.  In these three verses, Eliphaz basically says that his philosophy comes down from ancient tradition, taught by their elders.  In other words, it is a cultural tradition and a reflection of common beliefs at the time.

More to the point, the common belief is that God punishes the wicked and blesses the righteous.  That is the theme and purpose of the second part, when Eliphaz describes at length the suffering and despair of the wicked.  Eliphaz’s purpose in these statements is clear: Job is suffering; the wicked suffer; therefore Job is wicked.  This is a thinly veiled criticism of Job, with the same intent as their earlier commentary: Eliphaz is urging Job to repent of whatever sins he has committed, so that God would grant him relief.

This is not a new argument and indeed it tracks closely with Eliphaz’s original rebuke of Job in chapter 4.  In fact, Job 4:18-19 is nearly identical to verses 15-16 in this chapter.

I think what’s different is that Eliphaz certainly feels much more angry now than he was before.  In chapters 4-5, Eliphaz offers a vision to Job of both punishment and redemption, depending on his choice.  In this chapter, Eliphaz speaks entirely about God’s judgment, and of course has the long ad-hominem section in verses 1-13.  Why is Eliphaz so angry?

Besides Job’s rebuke in chapter 12, I think Eliphaz is angry because he sees Job contradicting their ancestral traditions.  The traditional wisdom was that God punishes the wicked, so it was a natural conclusion that Job is sinning somehow.  Job is contradicting this whole chain of logic, insisting that he is righteous and also demanding to have an explanation from God, and to Eliphaz this is an act of tremendous pride.  I think that’s why Eliphaz says that Job is condemning himself, because he thinks Job is acting out of pride against God which is itself a sin (v. 12-13).

Except for that dimension, Eliphaz is making the same argument he did before and he has not changed his position at all.

In the next chapter, Job responds to Eliphaz once more.

Bible Commentary - Job 14

In this chapter, Job concludes his statement by emphasizing the ephemeral nature of human existence.

This is the kind of chapter that would make an existentialist proud.  Job spends almost the whole time talking about how people don’t live forever and we will never rise again after death.  In fact, I could almost go so far as to say that is the only thing Job talks about.

Job applies this to his situation by saying, in essence, that God should withhold his wrath and judgment from men because of our short lives (v. 6).  God has placed a firm limit when we must die, and we cannot live beyond that point.  As far as I can tell, Job’s logic is that since our lives are already short, God should not make them miserable too.

Verses 1-12 are generalized in the sense that Job is speaking about all men.  Then in verses 13-17 he speaks about himself and his petition for his own life.  “Sheol” in v. 13 refers to the afterlife, so between that and verses 14-15 it seems like Job thinks that God will “long for the work of his hands” and bring Job into his presence, probably after death.  He talks about waiting for a “change” in v. 14, which is probably also an oblique reference to death.

Verses 16-17 don’t make sense to me, however much I read them, because in the translations I have seen Job is saying that God will not “observe” his sin.  It seems like everywhere else, Job feels like he is being unfairly punished or that God is being overly harsh and treating him as a sinner (one example was in the previous chapter, Job 13:26).  I don’t understand how Job could say here that God has sealed up his transgressions and iniquity when elsewhere he feels like God is punishing him unfairly.

Verses 18-22 return to the generalist tone, where Job ceases to speak about himself and speaks about mankind once again.  The sentiment of these final five verses is similar to the opening of the chapter.  Job returns to the subject of man’s short existence, this time using erosion and geological change as a metaphor for the “change” that happens to mankind as we grow old and die.

In conclusion, I personally don’t see much depth in this chapter.  It seems like the chapter has roughly one bullet point, and that Job uses many different analogies and metaphors to get the point across.  It’s good reading but I don’t see much depth that I can add here with commentary.

In the next chapter, Job’s first friend Eliphaz rebukes Job once again.

Bible Commentary - Job 13

In this chapter, Job rebukes his friends and then petitions God to explain his suffering.

In broad terms I would divide this chapter into two sections.  The first part is verses 1-13, and the second is 14-28.

In the first part, Job is rebuking his friends.  The overall theme is very close to what we saw in the previous chapter.  Job’s main emphasis is that he has the same knowledge and understanding as his friends, and they are not superior to him in wisdom.

Job also accuses his friends of showing “partiality” towards God.  Strange as it may sound, it’s as if Job’s friends are judging between Job and God, and Job thinks that they are being unfair.  What’s even stranger about this is that Job thinks God will judge his friends harshly if they “secretly show partiality” (v. 10) towards God himself.  If they are unfair or biased in favor of God, that God will “terrify” them for it (v. 11).

Job ultimately pleads for his friends to remain silent (v. 13) and for silence to “become your wisdom” (v. 5).  In spite of Job’s request, I can promise you his friends will not remain silent, and we will be hearing from them again many times throughout this book.

The second part is Job’s petition to God.  This is much closer to the heart of the book, because Job is now directly addressing the Lord and sharing his grief.

He begins in v. 15 by making a remarkable declaration of trust and faith in God.  “Though he slays me, I will hope in him. Nevertheless I will argue my ways before him”.  Even in the midst of his pain, even when he feels like God is destroying his life, he will nonetheless place his hope in God.  This is such a pivotal thought because many people, when faced with suffering, “curse God and die,” like Job’s wife told him to.  To put it less dramatically, periods of suffering cause many people to abandon their faith and choose to live without God.  Usually this is because of offense towards God, believing that God is responsible for their suffering.  Sometimes it’s also because people believe that God was not able to stop their suffering even if he didn’t cause it.  Other people simply question God’s existence or goodness.  It’s a pretty common formula to say that God’s omnipotence, God’s goodness, and suffering cannot all exist in the world.  If God were both good and all-powerful (the reasoning goes) then he would never have permitted suffering.  The manifest reality of suffering “disproves” either God’s goodness or his power.

Job, however, declares a continued faith and trust in God, in spite of his suffering and perhaps even more importantly, in spite of his confusion.  Job does not understand why he is suffering; that much is clear from his repeated declarations of innocence.  Job doesn’t know why he is suffering and he thinks God is responsible; “though he slays me”.  Yet, he chooses to continue trusting God.  I came up with a similar refrain when going through a difficult season a few years ago: “I don’t understand, but I do trust you”.  God is confusing, his ways are confusing, because they are so different from how people think or act.

This leaves us with a conundrum.  On the one hand, we have a firm knowledge of God’s goodness and favor towards us.  For many people this comes from prior experience; I certainly have seen God’s goodness in my life, and it’s not something I will ever forget.  Standing against this knowledge of God’s goodness, is personal suffering, by which our own soul accuses God of not caring about us.

Someday we will understand, and will know why we suffered and what God was doing in that time and in those situations.  But during this period of confusion, we have to make a decision; will we trust God, or will we let our suffering and grief dictate our beliefs about God?  This is not an easy decision, and if not easy or fun even if you make the right choice (trusting in God).  Job continues to trust in God, and at least during this part of the book, he continues to suffer.  Trust does not mean that God swoops in and makes the suffering go away; if he did then trust wouldn’t mean anything.  Trust means that we believe in God’s goodness in spite of the circumstances, and know that whether or brings us out of it or not that God remains good.

After declaring his continued faith, Job nevertheless desires to “argue my ways before him” (v. 15).  In many ways this is just as important as placing our faith in him.  Job trusts God, but in the midst of suffering Job does not become passive.  In the midst of suffering, rather than turning away from God, Job turns towards God, knowing that God is in control of all things.  While “arguing my ways before him” sounds adversarial, and in previous chapters we saw Job essentially plead for some external third party to come in and judge the dispute between him and God.  However, if Job truly did not trust or respect God, he would not be seeking to argue his ways before God because it would seem pointless to him.  The fact that he continues to turn to God shows that he continues to believe God can (and perhaps will) bring him relief from his suffering.

These are the two sides to faith.  The first side is that Job continues to trust God, even in the midst of tremendous suffering.  This is believing in the goodness of God without seeing it (in the moment).  The second side is that Job continues to actively seek God in intercession, trying to win relief by arguing his case.  It seems adversarial but it’s actually a manifestation of faith because simply put, Job does not give up.  Faith does not give up, and Job lives out that faith in the midst of hardship.

With all that said, the heart of his petition is verses 23-24; Job wants to know what is his sin, such that God has chosen to punish him in this way.  Job still considers himself an innocent and righteous man, and he wants God to address what sin he has committed because he simply doesn’t know what he’s done wrong.  In verse 26 he hypothesizes that God may be punishing him for the “iniquities of my youth”, like if God dug up some sin from 25 years ago and is only now punishing him by killing his family and cursing him with sickness.

Job is not accusing God of wrongdoing, he just doesn’t know why God is punishing him and he wants to understand.  In my opinion, this is the reaction of a righteous person towards suffering.  He does not curse God, but he wants to understand and he is confused.  Ultimately his confusion is not because he has some hidden or forgotten sin, it’s because he has bad theology and he thinks that God is punishing him.  Of course, acknowledging that God isn’t punishing Job isn’t really an explanation and many questions remain.  It is only natural that we would desire to answer those questions and to understand the true nature and purpose of suffering in the world.  A righteous person like Job seeks understanding, but does not blame God for it, does not curse God and does not get angry at God.  A righteous person remains confident and steadfast in the knowledge of God’s goodness.  It’s not easy, but it’s right.

In the next chapter, Job concludes his petition.

Bible Commentary - Job 12

In this chapter, Job replies to Zophar.

This is an interesting chapter.  It’s only the first part of Job’s response so it comes across as being somewhat incomplete for that reason.

If I could summarize this chapter in one sentence, it’s basically Job trying to say that he is not ignorant of what his friends have been trying to tell him.

In the beginning of the chapter, Job mocks his friends as being the people who “with you wisdom will die!” (v. 1).  He basically thinks his friends are condescending to him, because “he who is at ease holds calamity in contempt” (v. 5).  That’s a pretty fair criticism; his friends are blaming him for his suffering because they think only the wicked suffer.  Job thinks they are being condescending to him and minimizing his situation only because they are not themselves suffering, and therefore they feel free to criticize him in this way.  For Job, this leaves him feeling that “the just and blameless man is a joke” (v. 4).

Almost the entire rest of the chapter (verses 7-25) is a long tribute to the wisdom and power of God, with a particular emphasis on how God is greater than human wisdom and power (v. 17-25).  What makes this strange is that it’s so similar to the descriptions of God that Job’s friends made in the previous several chapters.  All three of Job’s friends have at least one section where they extol the wisdom and strength of God, and now Job is saying the same thing.

This, I think, clearly shows how much Job has in common with his friends, in terms of their overall theological framework.  What Job is trying to say is that he is not lesser than his friends in knowing God’s power and greatness.  Job knows that God is supreme in wisdom and judgment, and he says that his friends and mocking him by treating him as a simpleton who does not know these things.  The rest of the chapter is basically an explanation of Job’s knowledge of God, how Job also acknowledges God’s greatness and wisdom, and this is not what he is trying to dispute.

Like I described before, Job is trying to understand a contradiction in his life, how he believes in the greatness and wisdom of God, but believes that he is being treated unfairly by God, that he is being punished by God while remaining innocent.  Job’s friends resolve the contradiction by claiming that Job is simply not innocent.  What we know from chapters 1-2 is that Job is indeed innocent, and Job’s friends are mistaken.

In the next chapter, Job continues arguing with his friends but also makes an appeal to God to reason with him.

Bible Commentary - Job 11

In this chapter, Zophar the Naamathite takes his turn to rebuke Job.

I would divide this chapter into roughly three parts. The first part is verses 1-4. In this part, Zophar claims that Job is trying to justify himself by “scoffing” at God by claiming his own innocence.  In a sense this is true, Job is indeed claiming innocence and implying that God is treating him unfairly.  The part where I disagree with Zophar is that he is imputing negative moral character onto Job, because Zophar sees Job as “scoffing” or “boasting” as an act of pride, while I think a fair rendering of Job’s speech is that Job is speaking out of “the bitterness of his soul” (Job 10:1), which he has said several times.  Zophar is misinterpreting Job’s motives and emotional state for the simple reason that under Zophar’s theology, Job must be sinning in order to be punished like this, and therefore Job is a sinner in the same way as “false men” or “idiots” (v. 11-12).  This attitude is entirely consistent with Job’s other two friends.

The second part is verses 5-12, which is Zophar poetically describing the extent of Job’s wisdom and knowledge.  The reason for this section is that Job was previously questioning God’s judgment and God’s fairness.  Basically what Zophar is trying to say is that God has great wisdom, God knows all of Job’s sins, and that God is better at judging who is righteous and who is a sinner than Job.  Job has no place to question God’s judgment, because God is greater than he is.  It’s a strange thing for Zophar to say because Job all but said the exact same thing when claiming that nobody could stand before the LORD (Job 9:2-4).  Anyway, it’s clear that Zophar expects this to end the argument, because God has great wisdom and no one can dispute his judgments.  It’s a reasonable point but it ignores the reality of Job’s existence.

The third and final section is verses 13-20, which is a renewed call for Job to repent.  We’ve had a couple of these in Job already, and this one is much the same.  The formula is pretty much the same as chapter 8 where repentance is followed by a resurgent glory and greatness in Job’s life.

Verse 14 is the key to this third section, because once again Zophar is making a presumption of Job’s guilt.  This presumption is a natural consequence of the second section, which is a presumption of the supremacy of God’s judgment, and the assumption that God would only punish sinners.  From these two assumptions, Zophar can confidently claim that Job must be a sinner, because he suffers in this way.  This is typical of the whole book.

Zophar concludes with a call for Job’s repentance; in the next chapter, Job replies to his third friend.

Bible Commentary - Job 10

In this chapter, Job continues his complaint against God.

The biggest theme I see in this chapter is creation and rejection.  Verse 8 captures it pretty well; Job is asking if God, who created him, is now also choosing to destroy him.  Why create a person only to destroy him?  It seems pointless.  Like making a pot and then smashing it, Job says it would have been better for him to have not been born at all.

Job knows that if he had sinned God would judge him for it (v. 14), but since he hasn’t sinned, it means that his suffering must be some kind of personal rejection from God.  This introduces another paradox for Job.  Job understands that sinners will be judged, but since God created Job and Job hasn’t sinned, it doesn’t make sense why God would reject him now.  If God did not like Job, then God could have just never created him or let him die in the womb like he is asking.

Why would God choose to create Job, and then without any wrongdoing, later choose to destroy him?  It doesn’t make sense.  From our perspective, we can see that God is not choosing to destroy him, and that Job misunderstands God’s heart and God’s intentions.  However, from Job’s perspective this is another contradiction.

In the end, Job petitions God to “withdraw” his judgments from Job’s life, so that Job might live in peace for a little while before he dies.

In the next chapter, Job’s third friend Zophar speaks, joining the other two friends in rebuking Job.