# comment

text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> yet through the scent of water it will bud, and put forth boughs like a plant-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Perhaps God almost playfully responds to this by talking of how oceans of waters are under His control. Clearly Job's restoration was typical of how the restored Israel could "bud" and fill the land with fruit (s:w. <a href='B:290 27:6'>Isa 27:6</a>; <a href='B:290 35:1-2'>Isa 35:1-2</a>; <a href='B:290 66:14'>Isa 66:14</a>; <a href='B:350 14:5'>Hos 14:5</a>; <a href='B:350 14:7'>Hos 14:7</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> But man dies, and is laid low. Yes, man gives up the spirit, and where is he?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I pointed out on :4 that Job's depression leads him to a wrong understanding of the human condition; and here we have another example, in his denial of any hope of resurrection of the body (as in :12); even though by <a href='B:220 19:25-27'>Job 19:25-27</a> he has come to believe in it, and even by :13 he has returned to some idea of it. Again we see how both Job and the friends have truth on many points, but framed in the wrong context. Death is indeed unconsciousness; but Job is overlooking the resurrection of the body and future restoration, just as the exiles were focused only upon their present realities and not eternal ones.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As the waters fail from the sea, and the river wastes and dries up-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The theme of 'drying up' or 'withering' is significant. Bildad considers Job to have been 'dried up' by God’s judgment (<a href='B:220 8:12'>Job 8:12</a>), and the word is used of how God withered or dried up Judah at the hands of their invaders (<a href='B:300 12:4'>Jer 12:4</a>; <a href='B:300 23:10'>Jer 23:10</a>; <a href='B:330 17:9-10'>Eze 17:9-10</a>; <a href='B:330 17:24'>Eze 17:24</a>; <a href='B:450 11:17'>Zec 11:17</a>; <a href='B:310 4:8'>Lam 4:8</a>; <a href='B:290 40:7-8'>Isa 40:7-8</a> - although the prophetic word of God requiring their restoration would endure, despite their drying up). The dry bones of Judah in captivity were withered or dried up (<a href='B:330 37:11'>Eze 37:11</a>). So Job's 'drying up' was again, a sharing in the representative suffering of God’s people. Job's personal response to his 'drying up' was to reflect that God dries up waters and also sends them forth as floods (<a href='B:220 12:15'>Job 12:15</a> s:w:); He can give and He can take, just as Job had initially realized (<a href='B:220 2:10'>Job 2:10</a>). Just as He dried up Job / Israel, so He could abundantly send forth waters; just as He did at the Red Sea. Restoration and salvation was just as easy for Him as destruction, to put it another way. The drying up of Job was also understood by him as referring to his death (<a href='B:220 14:11'>Job 14:11</a>), but God could raise him from the dead and have a desire to him again (<a href='B:220 14:15'>Job 14:15</a>). Eliphaz wrongly argues that the Divine 'drying up' of a person means permanent extinction (<a href='B:220 15:30'>Job 15:30</a>), as does Bildad (<a href='B:220 18:16'>Job 18:16</a>); but Job always sees the 'drying up' as part of a Divine action which also has a counterpart, the pouring out again of waters, or resurrection of the dried up, withered bones. Likewise Judah in captivity thought that their drying up, their dry bones, were incapable of revival (<a href='B:330 37:11'>Eze 37:11</a>); but the message is that they could indeed be revived, and their drying up was but a presage to their eternal revival:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> so man lies down and doesn’t rise. Until the heavens are no more, they shall not awake, nor be roused out of their sleep-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job was wrong to deny so dogmatically the hope of resurrection; see on :10. But he has the closeness of relationship with God to ask that in fact his case there would be a resurrection (:13), and by <a href='B:220 19:25-27'>Job 19:25-27</a> he is thoroughly convinced there will be. We hereby see his growth in understanding throughout the book.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Oh that You would hide me in Sheol, that You would keep me secret, until Your wrath is past-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The desires of Job were met, at least potentially, in God’s willingness to hide the exiles from further personal suffering when Babylon fell, and to preserve them for His restored Kingdom. For these words are surely alluded to in <a href='B:290 26:20'>Isa 26:20</a>: "Come, My people, enter into your rooms, and shut your doors behind you. Hide yourself for a little moment, until the indignation is past".</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>That You would appoint me a set time, and remember me!-</p><p> As noted on :5, that "set time" corresponds with Job's restoration, just as the exiles were to be restored at the end of 70 years "set time". See on <a href='B:220 7:1'>Job 7:1</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my warfare would I wait, until my release should come-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job recognized that there would come a time when "My change come (when) Thou shalt call, and I will answer Thee: (I know) Thou wilt have a desire to the work of Thine hands" (<a href='B:220 14:14-15'>Job 14:14-15</a> AV). It would appear from this that Job feels that there will be a call to resurrection corresponding to God’s call of Adam out of hiding, after which he would confess his sins- i:e. at the judgement. God’s calling to Job out of the whirlwind and Job's subsequent confession at the end of the book again encourages us to see "the end of the Lord" with Job as pointing forward to our justification at the day of judgement and the&nbsp;Kingdom, as well as the restoration possible for the exiles. See on <a href='B:220 14:20'>Job 14:20</a>.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Even if God slew him, Job would still be patient or wait (<a href='B:220 13:15'>Job 13:15</a>), he would 'patiently wait' for his "release" (AV "change") to come at some point after his death (<a href='B:220 14:14'>Job 14:14</a>), and waited for light to somehow come out of his current darkness (<a href='B:220 30:26'>Job 30:26</a>). This was the legendary "patience of Job" which we are bidden follow (<a href='B:660 5:11'>Jas 5:11</a>). He was impatient, but he was "patient" in the Hebrew sense of enduring in faith; faith that even if things didn’t work out at all in this life, even if God was apparently unfair in this life, he would be finally restored at the resurrection. This was his 'endurance', and it is a parade example for all who struggle with the justice of God and the incomprehensible problem of suffering:&nbsp;</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> You would call, and I would answer You. You would have a desire to the work of Your hands-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Despite all his apparently bitter words against God, Job realizes that finally, "God is love". For he uses a very tender expression for how he believes when God finally calls him to judgment, God will have a "desire" to Job as His very own created handiwork. It was 'just' that God was apparently acting very differently at that time in Job's mortal life. This is one implication of understanding that we are God’s created beings, made in His image and likeness, and not mere results of random evolutionary chance. If indeed we are created by Him in His image, then He has a tenderness toward us, ultimately.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> But now You number my steps. Don’t You watch over my sin?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This was how Job felt in this life, but he has prefaced this in :15 by saying that he believes that finally God would call him to judgment and show great tenderness to him. That indeed was what happened when God appeared at the end, speaking positively of the Job who had well nigh cursed Him, and restoring him. And the exiles could have experienced the same grace. We note that Job is slowly moving towards the acceptance that he does have "my sin", a realization which will come to full term when God finally appears. Earlier he has spoken as if he has nothing to apologize for before God.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> My disobedience is sealed up in a bag. You fasten up my iniquity-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "and marked if I have been guilty of any transgression unawares". Like David, Job felt that God took note of sins of ignorance. But although he is now beginning to accept his sinfulness, he is justifying it. He has argued that his human nature is an excuse, and now he deploys the argument that any sin found in him would be a mere sin of ignorance. He has yet to come to the final confession of sin he makes at the end, when he ceases all attempts at self-justification before the marvel of God’s justification of him.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> But the mountain falling comes to nothing. The rock is removed out of its place-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> We note the progression from mountain to rocks to stones to dust (:19). Job saw man's being brought to dust as reflected in the process of erosion which can remove the greatest mountains. Again, Job is saying the truth but within the wrong framework. For although God indeed brings to dust, He revives from the dust and can work any number and nature of new creations. Again, the restoration prophets have a positive take on this; the great mountain which God would surely remove was Babylon, and He would establish the mountain of His restored people and Kingdom in Zion (<a href='B:450 4:7'>Zec 4:7</a>; <a href='B:340 2:45'>Dan 2:45</a>). See on <a href='B:220 18:4'>Job 18:4</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> the waters wear away the stones. The torrents of it wash away the dust of the earth. So You destroy the hope of man-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> See on :18. Originally, Job believed that his "hope" was predicated upon his upright ways (<a href='B:220 4:6'>Job 4:6</a>). But Job through his sufferings comes to feel he now has no "hope" (<a href='B:220 7:6'>Job 7:6</a>; <a href='B:220 14:19'>Job 14:19</a>; <a href='B:220 17:15'>Job 17:15</a>; <a href='B:220 19:10'>Job 19:10</a>). The friends suggest that Job had only the "hope" of the hypocrite, and this "hope" would perish (<a href='B:220 4:6'>Job 4:6</a>; <a href='B:220 8:13'>Job 8:13</a>; <a href='B:220 27:8'>Job 27:8</a>). Job had integrity, and on that basis he thought he had "hope". He suffered, and he lost that "hope", because he assumed that his sufferings meant that he was not in fact righteous. And yet he often reflects that he is righteous and is suffering unjustly. And so he is led to the realization that the "hope" of the righteous is by God’s grace and not because of the "integrity of [Job's] ways". Judah in captivity likewise lost their "hope" (<a href='B:330 19:5'>Eze 19:5</a>; <a href='B:330 37:11'>Eze 37:11</a>). But the message of the restoration prophets was that "there is hope in your end" (<a href='B:300 31:17'>Jer 31:17</a>); they were prisoners or exiles in "hope" (<a href='B:450 9:12'>Zec 9:12</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> You forever prevail against him, and he departs. You change his face, and send him away-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "thou settest thy face against him, and sendest him away", relevant to the sending away of Judah into captivity with the face of God hidden from them and against them. See on :18. In his humbler moments Job recognized that he was a sinner and deserved Adam's punishment of being sent out of Eden; or also to Cain's countenance falling and then being sent away from God. See on <a href='B:220 31:33'>Job 31:33</a>; <a href='B:220 9:17'>Job 9:17</a>; <a href='B:220 10:9'>Job 10:9</a>. But Job makes one very wrong statement here, although 'just' one word: "forever". God does not send away forever. This was the whole message of the restoration prophets.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> His sons come to honour, and he doesn’t know it. They are brought low, but he doesn’t perceive it about them-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This may simply be a reference to the numbness Job still felt about the bringing low of his own sons.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> But his flesh on him has pain, and his soul within him mourns- This clearly refers to Job personally; he saw himself as representative of the whole body of God’s people, or all mankind. The captive exiles likewise 'mourned' (s:w. <a href='B:150 10:6'>Ezr 10:6</a>; <a href='B:160 1:4'>Neh 1:4</a>), but were urged not to mourn (<a href='B:160 8:9'>Neh 8:9</a>) because it was God’s intention to restore them; after the pattern of Job.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Eliphaz in this speech clearly objects to Job having made any comeback whatsoever on what the friends have so far said. This is so often the case in supposed 'dialogue'; once people are persuaded of their own narrative, they accuse any dissent therefrom to be arrogance. Which is in turn really just their own pride.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Should a wise man answer with vain knowledge, and fill himself with the east wind?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is an allusion to inspiration, seeing that "wind" in Hebrew also means 'spirit'. He implies that he and the friends are Divinely inspired, whereas Job is not. Yet the friends state often that they are merely saying what the wise sages thought. But as often happens, by reason of merely repeating their own narrative they become persuaded of its truth and beauty and imply that in fact they are speaking on God’s behalf, inspired by Him, and any opposition thereto is therefore uninspired and blasphemous. We note Job never claims to be inspired by God, his speeches are a struggle with God rather than a man claiming Divine inspiration.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Should he reason with unprofitable talk, or with speeches with which he can do no good?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This reflects a very utilitarian view of grief and language, as if even in grief a man is supposed to say things which "do good", which somehow put things right. The friends change very quickly from their initial silent grief with Job, and become very aggressive. They cannot cope with their narrative being upset, or being rejected. And then all human sympathy for the individual suffering person goes out of the window.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Yes, you do away with fear, and hinder devotion before God-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This would appear to be criticism of Job's confidence that he will finally be accepted by God, even if not in this life. Whatever Job said was found wrong by the friends, and this whole drama is a parade example of how dialogue breaks down to the point that every word said is taken issue with and found wrong; and then it is extrapolated to positions never intended by the speaker. In this case, Job's apparent confidence of final acceptance is extrapolated to mean that he is hindering or 'limiting' the power of prayer ["devotion"] to God.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For your iniquity teaches your mouth, and you choose the language of the crafty-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As noted on :4, the friends were extrapolating from Job's words to positions they imputed to him which were totally untrue. He was hardly "crafty", he blurts out whatever he feels at the moment, oscillating between faith in resurrection and utter denial of it. The whole thing is an object lesson in how not to dialogue.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Your own mouth condemns you, and not I. Yes, your own lips testify against you-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Although the context of these words is that Eliphaz is twisting Job's words against him (see on :3-5), he states a truth. And this is picked up by the Lord in His words to the one-talent man in the parable: "Out of your own mouth will I judge / condemn you" (<a href='B:490 19:22'>Luk 19:22</a>). The man was condemned for keeping his talent (his spiritual knowledge of the word) to himself rather than sharing it with others. Eliphaz proceeds to make the same rebuke of Job- although he had "heard the secret of God", which may imply the gift of prophesying the word seeing that Job was a prophet, he instead "restrained wisdom unto thyself" (:8 AV). This confirms that the one talent man of the parable is based on Job, thus making him represent the rejected at judgement. No doubt the primary application of the one talent man was to the Jewish believers of Christ's day who did not capitalize on the talent they already had. The taking away of the talent and its being given to others recalls the Kingdom (i:e. the Gospel of the Kingdom) being taken from the Jews and being given to a nation bringing forth the fruits of it (cp. trading the talent).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Are you the first man who was born? Or were you brought forth before the hills?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The friends ridiculed Job's evident comparison of himself with Adam: "Are you (the emphasis is on that phrase) the first man (Adam; <a href='B:530 15:45'>1Co 15:45</a> alludes here) who was born?". See on <a href='B:220 31:33'>Job 31:33</a>; <a href='B:220 9:17'>Job 9:17</a>; <a href='B:220 10:9'>Job 10:9</a>. But the idea is that there was more wisdom the further back you went; the further back in history, and also the longer you had lived, the more likely you were to have wisdom. This is a very weak argument; for Adam messed up, and the wisdom of sages is often at variance with God’s wisdom.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Have you heard the secret counsel of God? Do you limit wisdom to yourself?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> &nbsp;“Dost thou hearken in the council of God?” (<a href='B:220 15:8'>Job 15:8</a> RVmg:) is the language of the Heavenly throne room- note how this is said in the context of Job, where we have the most classic statement of the operation of the court of heaven in the opening chapters. See on <a href='B:220 1:6'>Job 1:6</a>. If indeed the friends were the "sons of God" of the prologue, the fellow worshippers who were influenced by the discussion between God and the 'Satan' figure (who was also a human worshipper, it seems, although with Angelic representation in the court of heaven). If indeed all this is in view, the argument would be that Job was wrong to be out of step with the argument of the Satan. Eliphaz's argument would then be that indeed he was only faithful to God because God had blessed him, and Job was then wrong to deny it.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Or the idea may be that Job was not the only one who had heard God’s counsel (:9); they had also heard it. And yet they did not accurately speak forth what they had heard, or were even inspired with, as Job did (<a href='B:220 42:7'>Job 42:7</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> What do you know, that we don’t know? What do you understand, which is not in us?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is all a parade example of how dialogue and inter-personal discussion goes so wrong. The friends were persuaded that their narrative was right, and Job couldn't teach them anything. Any new perspective he might offer was therefore treated as an example of his pride and assuming knowledge. But all this arose from their idea that 'truth' was a closed circle of ideas which they possessed and anything outside of it was just presumed knowledge. And human nature hasn't changed to this day, especially with those who consider that they hold absolute truth.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> With us are both the gray-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>headed and the very aged men, much elder than your father-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This implies Job's father was still alive. Again, the source of truth is seen as predicated upon how long a person has lived. Human experience and developed philosophy was seen as the authority, rather than Divine revelation. And this is why their arguments are reduced to nothing by the final appearance of God speaking His own words.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Are the consolations of God too small for you, even the word that is gentle toward you?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "Thou hast been scourged for but few of thy sins: thou hast spoken haughtily and extravagantly", just as Ezra says that Judah had suffered less than their sins deserved (<a href='B:150 9:13'>Ezr 9:13</a>). Again, although what Eliphaz says is true so far as it goes, he is totally wrong because he fails to perceive that the grace of being punished less than sin deserves is but a prelude to glorious restoration.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Why does your heart carry you away? Why do your eyes flash-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job was indeed angry, with flashing eyes. But the expression of emotion is misinterpreted as being angry with God (:13). God’s special creation, Leviathan, also had flashing eyes (<a href='B:220 41:18-19'>Job 41:18-19</a>). Perhaps this is God’s way of saying that eyes flashing with anger is not necessarily sinful of itself, and is all part of the natural created order, and is not worthy of rebuke in itself. This is said against the backdrop of a Bedouin culture where expressions of emotion were only to be made in appropriate ways.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> that you turn your spirit against God, and let such words go out of your mouth?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As the speeches of the friends continue, they engage less and less with Job's actual words. They argue against their perceptions of his position and deal in vague generalities. This again is typical of the breakdown in meaningful dialogue which we see all around us, whereby the participants become confirmed in their positions and build up an image of their opponent in their mind which gets progressively awful and also the more confirmed as true in their view.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> What is man, that he should be clean? What is he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Here and in :15, Eliphaz is just repeating what he has said in <a href='B:220 4:17-19'>Job 4:17-19</a>. I noted there the problems with his ideas, and how questionable it was that he really had the vision he claimed, and in any case, the contents of it contradict Bible teaching elsewhere so it was not of God. And again, this is how human relationships break down, as discussed on :13. The participants revert to their old arguments and refuse to engage with what is being said by their opponent, whom they progressively demonize. Eliphaz's argument that man is inevitably sinful is used to desperately disprove Job's perceived claim of being sinless. But the argument also convicts Eliphaz of sin, as he too was human.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, He puts no trust in His holy ones. Yes, the heavens are not clean in His sight-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Eliphaz is just repeating what he has said in <a href='B:220 4:17-19'>Job 4:17-19</a>. I noted there the problems with his ideas, and how questionable it was that he really had the vision he claimed, and in any case, the contents of it contradict Bible teaching elsewhere so it was not of God.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>It can be argued that the book of Job is a dialogue concerning evil and suffering, with three popular views being represented by the three friends. These views are examined and corrected by the personal history of Job, as well as by the epilogue and prologue to the book. Eliphaz seems to be representative of the idea that Job is being hit by supernaturally controlled evil- Eliphaz speaks of a force of darkness (<a href='B:220 22:10-11'>Job 22:10-11</a>) and sinful or faulty Angels living in an unclean Heaven (<a href='B:220 4:18'>Job 4:18</a>; <a href='B:220 15:15'>Job 15:15</a>). Yet the answer to all this is that the Satan figure is under God’s control, all Job's misfortunes come from God and His Angels- one of whom may have been called 'the adversary' ('Satan')- are in fact perfectly obedient to Him and not disobedient. And finally, Eliphaz and the friends are rebuked for their various wrong understandings, with God declaring Himself supreme and ultimate sovereign. Likewise Bildad's view of Angels in <a href='B:220 25:5'>Job 25:5</a> "The stars are not pure in God’s eyes" is corrected by God in <a href='B:220 38:7'>Job 38:7</a>, when He says that "the morning stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy".</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The question "How can a man be just with God?" is the same question as 'How can a man ever be clean before a perfect God?', and is repeated in this form in <a href='B:220 9:30'>Job 9:30</a>; <a href='B:220 15:15'>Job 15:15</a>; <a href='B:220 25:5'>Job 25:5</a>; here, we have the claim that even heaven is unclean before God:&nbsp;The exiles had considered themselves cleansed whiter than snow because of their obedience to some parts of the Mosaic law (<a href='B:310 4:7'>Lam 4:7</a>), but failed to accept that such cleansing to be whiter than snow is only possible by doing what David did, and casting ourselves upon God’s grace outside of justification by works (<a href='B:230 51:7'>Psa 51:7</a>). Job was to learn this lesson at the end. It was this offer which was made to Job just as it was to Judah under judgment (<a href='B:290 1:18'>Isa 1:18</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks iniquity like water!-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Eliphaz seems to be claiming this about all humanity, in order to desperately prove Job wrong in claiming to be sinless (as Eliphaz liked to perceive Job's words). There is error all around here. For Job was not claiming to be sinless, and Eliphaz was himself human, so his argument that we are all inevitable sinners would apply to himself. But self-awareness and humility aren't present in him; he is driven to prove Job wrong, and he will use any argument to do so. The simple truth is as Job put it- God has a tender desire to man, the work of His hands (<a href='B:220 14:15'>Job 14:15</a>). And whatever we posit about human nature, we say about the Lord Jesus. He fully shared that nature and yet was holy, harmless and undefiled (<a href='B:650 7:26'>Heb 7:26</a>). Man by nature, just standing there as flesh and blood before God, is not "abominable" to Him of himself. It is sin which is the problem; and sin is not inevitable. We must bear full responsibility for our sins and cannot just pass them off as an inevitable function of our humanity. The wrong view of human nature held by the friends affected their view of Job and people in practice. They claim man is "abominable" to God, and therefore the same word is used of how they abhorred Job, treating him as "abominable" (<a href='B:220 19:19'>Job 19:19</a>; <a href='B:220 30:10'>Job 30:10</a>). The lower our view of human nature, the more likely we are to despise human beings rather than value them and speak well of them because they are made in the image of God (<a href='B:660 3:9'>Jas 3:9</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I will show you, listen to me; that which I have seen I will declare-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Eliphaz again is appealing to his supposed vision which he "saw", first referenced by him in <a href='B:220 4:17-19'>Job 4:17-19</a>. I noted there the problems with his ideas, and how questionable it was that he really had the vision he claimed, and in any case, the contents of it contradict Bible teaching elsewhere so it was not of God.</p>


text:
<p> which wise men have told by their fathers, and have not hidden it-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Eliphaz is careful to emphasize that what he 'has seen' in his vision is perfectly in line with the wisdom of the sages of old. This is so important in legalistic societies- to always speak in line with accepted, historical wisdom. There is no humility in this, no openness to truth or to the possibility that Divine revelation may in fact contradict all we once held as 'truth'. This is the power of God’s final appearance and words at the end of the book.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> to whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed among them-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Eliphaz claims that his "fathers" were given the eretz alone and no other ethnic group. This could sound like an early form of the land dispute amongst the children of Abraham which we see to this day. We marvel at the relevance of this ancient book. Adding this point was irrelevant as to whether Eliphaz is speaking rightly about God, but for him it was obviously significant. </p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> the wicked man writhes in pain all his days, even the number of years that are laid up for the oppressor-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Clearly he has Job in view, who was oppressed by raiders, and was apparently writhing in pain constantly. Eliphaz suggests that Job must suffer this for a Divinely decreed "number of years". This is the phrase used of the number of years Judah and Israel were to suffer for their sins in exile at the hands of their oppressors (<a href='B:330 4:5'>Eze 4:5</a>; <a href='B:340 9:2'>Dan 9:2</a>). "Laid up" is AV "hidden". Perhaps Elihu alludes to this when he uses the same phrase to say that "the number of years" cannot be "searched out" because God is great (<a href='B:220 36:26'>Job 36:26</a>). This may refer to how Daniel tried to search out the number of years Judah ought to be in captivity, and had to conclude that the 70 years time period was flexible, depending upon Judah's repentance and other preconditions. We note <a href='B:330 4:5'>Eze 4:5</a> gives a different period:&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> A sound of terrors is in his ears. In prosperity the destroyer shall come on him-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> In God’s final revelation to the friends and Job, they all heard the terrifying sound of the approaching theophany in the thunderstorm. They were thereby convicted of Divine judgment, expressed in their own terms.</p>&nbsp;<p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Eliphaz says that Job's sudden problems amid his prosperity were what would happen to all the wicked. This seems to be alluded to in <a href='B:590 5:3'>1Th 5:3</a> concerning the sudden destruction of rich, spiritually self confident believers- but at the Lord's coming, not in this life. Again we see the friends stating things which are true as far as they go, but framing them in a context which makes them untrue; and this can happen today.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The friends insist that "the destroyer" [by which they surely meant an early equivalent to 'the devil' of popular belief today] had touched Job- whereas Job insists that it is God who had destroyed him (<a href='B:220 15:21'>Job 15:21</a> cp. 19:10; 13:21), perhaps through the Divine Angel known as "the destroyer" (<a href='B:530 10:10'>1Co 10:10</a>). I suggested on <a href='B:220 1:6'>Job 1:6</a> that the 'Satan' may have reference to an obedient Divine Angel. In some ways the book of Job is a deconstruction of the popular Persian and Canaanite myths about a 'satan' figure. Job, both in the story of his sufferings and his specific words, seeks to demonstrate that the essential issues in life is being "just with God", and not whether or not we are touched by the hand of an evil being; for the hand of God which touched Job (<a href='B:220 19:21'>Job 19:21</a>) is the hand of 'satan' into whom God delivered Job temporarily (<a href='B:220 1:12'>Job 1:12</a>). Job says that the attitude of the friends is wrong- they should be looking into themselves, rather than fantasizing about the action of some unseen evil being they imagined: "Ye should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?... know that there is a [personal] judgment" (<a href='B:220 19:28-29'>Job 19:28-29</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He doesn’t believe that he shall return out of darkness. He is waited for by the sword-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The oblique references to Job continue. He has oscillated between faith in a return from the darkness of death, and yet disbelief in this. Uncharitably, Eliphaz focuses upon the low points of his statements. This too can be how we handle interaction with others- seizing upon their lowest points. Job was constantly writhing in pain (:20), so to focus upon his words at his lowest points shows a wilful desire to judge and not save him. We need to learn from this not to mentally record every word spoken in a dialogue- if we are truly seeking to help and restore, rather than judge. Eliphaz was sure that it was only a matter of time before the sword of Divine judgment fell upon Job; hence God’s appearance and justification of Job was so fatal for Eliphaz.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’. He knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "and a dark day shall carry him away as with a whirlwind"; the language of Judah's destruction, and also alluding to Job's sons being slain by a whirlwind. Eliphaz implies that that is coming for Job too. It could seem from what Eliphaz says that Job was even driven to begging for bread by this point.</p> <p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Eliphaz claims that God is preparing to judge Job like a king ready to ride into the battle. But God’s later revelation includes Him demonstrating that man cannot participate successfully in any battle with what God has willed (<a href='B:220 41:8'>Job 41:8</a>), and the horse runs foolishly into battle with no regard for consequence (<a href='B:220 39:25'>Job 39:25</a>). The connection with the words of Eliphaz may be in that it was effectively Eliphaz who was rushing into battle to do judgment against Job; and he was acting like the foolish horse, forgetting that God alone will fight in the battle, and win (<a href='B:220 38:23'>Job 38:23</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Eliphaz claims that God is preparing to judge Job like a king ready to ride into the battle. But God’s later revelation includes Him demonstrating that man cannot participate successfully in any battle with what God has willed (<a href='B:220 41:8'>Job 41:8</a>), and the horse runs foolishly into battle with no regard for consequence (<a href='B:220 39:25'>Job 39:25</a>). The connection with the words of Eliphaz may be in that it was effectively Eliphaz who was rushing into battle to do judgment against Job; and he was acting like the foolish horse, forgetting that God alone will fight in the battle, and win (<a href='B:220 38:23'>Job 38:23</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Because he has stretched out his hand against God, and behaves himself proudly against the Almighty-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> A noted above, Eliphaz is imputing positions to Job, extrapolating from Eliphaz's general impression of Job's positions and turning them into something far removed from reality- in this case, accusing Job of actively stretching out his hand against God. To stretch out the arm is an idiom for judging (<a href='B:300 6:12'>Jer 6:12</a> and often). The idea is that Job has judged God. Hence the first half of the verse reflects the second half- he has behaved proudly against God.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1em'> he runs at Him with a stiff neck, with the thick shields of his bucklers-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As noted on <a href='B:220 15:25'>:25</a>, this again is a grotesque extrapolation from Job's positions, claiming that he is proactively against God, charging at Him as a fully armed solider charges at an enemy.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> because he has covered his face with his fatness, and gathered fat on his thighs-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Eliphaz refers to how Job was once full fleshed because of the good life he enjoyed, whereas now he was emaciated and begging for bread (<a href='B:220 15:23'>:23</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:em'> He has lived in desolate cities, in houses which no one inhabited, which were ready to become heaps-</p><p style='margin-left:1:em'> LXX "and what they have prepared, others shall carry away"- the language of the Babylonian captivity and the curses for disobedience to the covenant. Job had not broken the covenant, but is suffering as if he had, as the representative suffering servant. It could be implied that Job was now living in deserted homes in deserted settlements, as well as begging for bread (<a href='B:220 15:23'>:23</a>). This would all imply a period of time during which the historical Job suffered.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1em'> He shall not be rich, neither shall his substance continue, neither shall their possessions be extended on the earth-</p><p style='margin-left:1em'> The "substance" of Israel would continue blessed if they continued obedient (<a href='B:50 33:11'>Deu 33:11</a> s:w:) and be removed if they were not (s:w. <a href='B:290 10:14'>Isa 10:14</a>; <a href='B:300 15:13'>Jer 15:13</a>). Again we see Job suffering as the representative of sinful Israel whilst himself innocent, all looking forward to the nature of the Lord's work for us as the ultimate suffering servant.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1em'> He shall not depart out of darkness-</p><p style='margin-left:1em'> Job had perceived that God would and could bring light out of darkness (<a href='B:220 12:22'>Job 12:22</a>). To predict that the darkness was endless is presented here as a major sin and mistaken position. And so it was for those who thought the darkness of exile in Babylon could never end.</p><p style='margin-left:1em'>The flame shall dry up his branches. By the breath of God’s mouth shall he go away-</p><p style='margin-left:1em'> The theme of 'drying up' or 'withering' is significant. Bildad considers Job to have been 'dried up' by God’s judgment (<a href='B:220 8:12'>Job 8:12</a>), and the word is used of how God withered or dried up Judah at the hands of their invaders (<a href='B:300 12:4'>Jer 12:4</a>; <a href='B:300 23:10'>Jer 23:10</a>; <a href='B:330 17:9-10'>Eze 17:9-10</a>; <a href='B:330 17:24'>Eze 17:24</a>; <a href='B:450 11:17'>Zec 11:17</a>; <a href='B:310 4:8'>Lam 4:8</a>; <a href='B:290 40:7-8'>Isa 40:7-8</a> - although the prophetic word of God requiring their restoration would endure, despite their drying up). The dry bones of Judah in captivity were withered or dried up (<a href='B:330 37:11'>Eze 37:11</a>). So Job's 'drying up' was again, a sharing in the representative suffering of God’s people. Job's personal response to his 'drying up' was to reflect that God dries up waters and also sends them forth as floods (<a href='B:220 12:15'>Job 12:15</a> s:w:); He can give and He can take, just as Job had initially realized (<a href='B:220 2:10'>Job 2:10</a>). Just as He dried up Job / Israel, so He could abundantly send forth waters; just as He did at the Red Sea. Restoration and salvation was just as easy for Him as destruction, to put it another way. The drying up of Job was also understood by him as referring to his death (<a href='B:220 14:11'>Job 14:11</a>), but God could raise him from the dead and have a desire to him again (<a href='B:220 14:15'>Job 14:15</a>). Eliphaz wrongly argues that the Divine 'drying up' of a person means permanent extinction (<a href='B:220 15:30'>Job 15:30</a>), as does Bildad (<a href='B:220 18:16'>Job 18:16</a>); but Job always sees the 'drying up' as part of a Divine action which also has a counterpart, the pouring out again of waters, or resurrection of the dried up, withered bones. Likewise Judah in captivity thought that their drying up, their dry bones, were incapable of revival (<a href='B:330 37:11'>Eze 37:11</a>); but the message is that they could indeed be revived, and their drying up was but a presage to their eternal revival:</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1em'> Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself; for emptiness shall be his reward-</p><p style='margin-left:1em'> This idea that we become like that which we trust or worship is again true, so far as it goes. "Trust" is the usual word for "belief"; and "emptiness" is s:w. "vanities", a term often used about idols. There is here the definite suggestion Job was an idol worshipper. This was untrue. Now Eliphaz has been driven to absolutely wrong conclusions about Job, because he is so convinced that suffering means major sin has been committed. We see a progressive imputation of sin to Job by the friends, all dramatically reversed when God appears and imputes righteousness to Job.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1em'> It shall be accomplished before his time. His branch shall not be green-</p><p style='margin-left:1em'> To die before man's time, to die young, was seen as a sign of Divine judgment. The death of the Lord Jesus at 33 reveals what a misunderstanding this was.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive tree-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea is that he would begin having fruit, but it would be shaken off before it came to maturity. The reference would be to the way Job had had children, but they had been slain in relative youth. The friends are later accused of 'wronging' Job by wicked "devices" (<a href='B:220 21:27'>Job 21:27</a>). 'Wronging' is the same word as "shake off" in <a href='B:220 15:33'>Job 15:33</a>. Eliphaz was so convinced that God would do Job 'wrong' that he developed to the point of actually devising to do wrong to Job, thus confirming the sense that the friends became the 'Satan' figure and actually did the evil to Job which he initially wanted done.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For the company of the Godless shall be barren, and fire shall consume the tents of bribery-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> It was Job's tents that had been consumed, and so clearly Eliphaz implies Job's children had practiced bribery. Perhaps they had- for they were indeed destroyed by "the fire of God". But he is wrong to imply some kind of guilt by association whereby Job had done the same and was about to be judged for it.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1em'> They conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. Their heart prepares deceit- Eliphaz thought there were only a few very sinful people in the world, of whom Job was one; but his words are quoted by the Spirit in <a href='B:290 59:4'>Isa 59:4</a> concerning the whole nation of Israel; and this in turn is quoted in <a href='B:520 3:15-17'>Rom 3:15-17</a> concerning the whole human race. This same path of progressive realization of our sinfulness must be trodden by each faithful individual, as well as on a communal level:&nbsp;The association between Job's supposed sins and those of Israel again confirms the idea that Job is the prototype suffering servant of Isaiah 53, carrying Israel's sins and the judgments for them, whilst personally innocent.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Then Job answered-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job here despairs at how Eliphaz has merely repeated his earlier speech; and his disillusion with the friends leads him in this speech to therefore turn to God more strongly and directly. And this is where disillusion with fellow believers and religious structures will lead the truly spiritual person- to the God whom we know has the answers to our unaddressed issues and questions, even if for now He is not revealing them.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I have heard many such things. You are all miserable comforters!-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The friends admit they are only saying what was generally accepted wisdom at the time. Job had heard this many times over. But it gave him no comfort. This leads him to seek "comfort" from God; and the restoration prophets promise such "comfort" direct from God to the exiles who had not found it in traditional answers (<a href='B:290 40:1'>Isa 40:1</a>; <a href='B:290 66:13'>Isa 66:13</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Shall vain words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job is led by the annoying, empty answers of the friends to long for "an end". And that is what he is given when Elihu and then God appears at the end. His enquiry as to what was motivating them can be read as genuine pity for them, and a desire to help them forward spiritually- even from his own desperate position. This basic desire was rewarded at the end, when he is asked to pray for the friends and thereby save them from their own stupidity.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I also could speak as you do. If your soul were in my soul’s place, I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> It was against the Lord Jesus that the Jews shook their head, as He died the death of the suffering servant (<a href='B:230 22:7'>Psa 22:7</a>). Despite his own awful situation, with all the self-centeredness which is elicited by extreme physical pain and suffering, Job thinks himself into their very soul, imagining how he would react in their situation. This basic concern for them was turned into reality when God makes Job their saviour in the end.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> but I would strengthen you with my mouth. The solace of my lips would relieve you-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> We can't be brethren in Christ who have no effect on the rest of the body. We all have an influence on others. Words of our brethren really can strengthen and relieve. Our behaviour, however passive, has a powerful effect on our brethren. We are all members of one body. See on :6. On the contrary, a whole community can be cursed for the sake of one man’s sin, even if he later repents (<a href='B:120 24:3-4'>2Ki 24:3-4</a>). The fact we can be guilty of causing others to stumble means that we can limit God’s gracious plan for them. "Strengthen" is exactly what God wanted to do for the exiles in their suffering (s:w. <a href='B:290 35:3'>Isa 35:3</a>; <a href='B:290 41:10'>Isa 41:10</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Though I speak, my grief is not subsided. Though I forbear, what am I eased?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Relieve" in :5 is the same word translated&nbsp; "subside" in :6. Job is therefore pointing out that the words of another can relieve grief in a way that ones’ own self-talk simply cannot (<a href='B:220 16:5-6'>Job 16:5-6</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> But now, God, you have surely worn me out-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Or, "wearied", the same word used of the weariness of sinful Judah (<a href='B:300 9:5'>Jer 9:5</a>; <a href='B:300 12:5'>Jer 12:5</a>; <a href='B:330 24:12'>Eze 24:12</a>). Job was to be read as their representative, although not personally sinful.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>You have made desolate all my company-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job had sought comfort from the friends, his "company", but he feels that the lack of comfort from them is also somehow God’s testing of him. Those who despair at the lack of comfort from their fellow believers would do well to adopt this perspective; that this too is from God, and as in Job's case in this speech, it is designed to drive us the closer to Him personally.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> You have shrivelled me up. This is a witness against me. My leanness rises up against me. It testifies to my face-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job looked at his body, as the Lord looked upon His own body from His elevated position on the cross (<a href='B:230 22:17'>Psa 22:17</a>). The once fat and full fleshed Job (see on <a href='B:220 15:27'>Job 15:27</a>) was now thin and emaciated.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He has torn me in His wrath, and persecuted me. He has gnashed on me with His teeth-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> <a href='B:220 41:14'>Job 41:14</a> speaks of how terrible are the teeth of the creature God has made; but He alone can open the mouth of it and is fearless before its' teeth. The idea of the connection back to <a href='B:220 16:9'>Job 16:9</a> is that God knows all about teeth. He has designed them, and even if Job thinks God is gnashing at Him like a beast, he must accept that God creates the beast and its teeth.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>My adversary sharpens His eyes on me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job sees God as his adversary / enemy; he understood God to be the Satan. God’s eyes often refer to the Angels. For the connection between the satan and an Angel, see on <a href='B:220 1:6'>Job 1:6</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They have gaped on me with their mouth. They have struck me on the cheek reproachfully-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The exact language of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, the ultimate "suffering servant" (<a href='B:230 22:13'>Psa 22:13</a>; <a href='B:400 5:1'>Mic 5:1</a>). I have earlier suggested that the "friends" morph with the Satan figure, adopting his mentality, and proceed to actually bring some of the sufferings upon Job. Their aggression was to the point of pulling faces and hitting him. Yet they originally came to see him to comfort him, apparently sincerely. This is how far and how quickly a false theological understanding can transform human relationships for the worse. They also spat in his face (see on <a href='B:220 17:6'>Job 17:6</a>):&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>They gather themselves together against me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> A reference to the friends gathering themselves together to supposedly comfort Job.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> God delivers me to the ungodly, and casts me into the hands of the wicked-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> There is reason to think that Eliphaz, the leader of the friends, may have been the specific individual referred to as 'satan' in the prologue. God singles him out for especial condemnation at the end (<a href='B:220 42:7'>Job 42:7</a>). After one of Eliphaz's speeches, Job responds with what appears to be a comment upon him, rather than God, here in :9-11. Eliphaz was a Temanite, from where Job's afflicters came. See on <a href='B:220 1:6'>Job 1:6</a>. But Job perceives that God is working through the friends; and his thoughts about them in :9,10 now therefore merge into his thoughts about God, so clearly did He see God working through them. This is a sure example as to how we can see the difficult people in our lives- as used by God. This removes some amount of personal anger with them, even though God is not forcing them to behave as they do, and they will be ultimately accountable for it as the friends were.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I was at ease, and He broke me apart-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> There are some very evident ways in which Job spiritually grew. In <a href='B:220 3:26'>Job 3:26</a> he originally says that his life previous to his afflictions had not been a life of ease; but as a result of his suffering, he realized that actually it had been "at ease".</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Yes, He has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job perceives God as a lion or beast of prey, taking him off to His lair by the neck and now ripping him apart.</p>&nbsp;<p style='margin-left:1:415em'>He has also set me up for His target-</p><p> Like the friends, Job is starting to repeat himself; for he has said this in <a href='B:220 6:4'>Job 6:4</a>; <a href='B:220 7:20'>Job 7:20</a>. Eliphaz blames Job's troubles upon the “sons of Resheph” (<a href='B:220 5:7'>Job 5:7</a>); but Job’s response is that the source of the evil in his life is ultimately from God and not any such being. Eliphaz there speaks of how man’s trouble comes “as the sons of Resheph fly upwards”. Resheph was known as “the lord of the arrow” and the Ugaritic tablets associate him with archery (William J. Fulco, The Canaanite God Resep (New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1976)). We would therefore be justified in reading in an ellipsis here: man’s trouble comes “as the [arrows of] the sons of Resheph fly upwards”. Job’s response is that “The arrows of the Almighty are in me” (<a href='B:220 6:4'>Job 6:4</a>), and he lament that God is an archer using him as his target for practice (<a href='B:220 7:20'>Job 7:20</a>; <a href='B:220 16:12-13'>Job 16:12-13</a>). Job refuses to accept Eliphaz’s explanation that Job is a victim of Resheph’s arrows. For Job, if God is “the Almighty” then there is no space left for Resheph. Each blow he received, each arrow strike, was from God and not Resheph.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> His archers surround me. He splits my kidneys apart, and does not spare. He pours out my gall on the ground-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The prophets speak of archers surrounding Zion, and the language of gall and kidneys spilled on the ground is that of Jeremiah in Lamentations reflecting on the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians. God was to threaten His sinful people that He would "not spare" (<a href='B:300 13:14'>Jer 13:14</a>; <a href='B:310 2:2'>Lam 2:2</a>). He finally did, in His grace. Job has earlier hinted that God would have a tender desire to the work of his hands at the end (<a href='B:220 14:15'>Job 14:15</a>), but in his weakness he has for now lost that perspective. And yet at this very nadir of faith and understanding, he becomes the representative of God’s people who felt He had not spared them.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He breaks me with blow after blow. He runs on me like a giant-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "They...", as if Job saw God manifest in the abusers. This was the situation in the Babylonian overthrow of Judah. Just as Eliphaz had exaggerated Job's position to the point of accusing him of running upon God as a charging soldier (<a href='B:220 15:26'>Job 15:26</a>), so Job now makes the same mistake and does the same, exaggerating positions and extrapolating to make God like a giant charging at him. This was not at all the case. But once one party in a dialogue starts distorting things grossly, the partner in the dialogue tends to do the same in other contexts. And this is a lesson for us today.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>It was so hard for Job to accept that God and not any orthodox ‘Satan’ figure was his adversary. It’s one thing to deduce from the Bible that both good and disaster comes from the Lord, as per <a href='B:290 45:5-7'>Isa 45:5-7</a>. It’s of course quite another to accept it in real life, and Job is an inspiring example. <a href='B:220 16:9-14'>Job 16:9-14</a> is so powerful – the poetry speaks of Job’s awesome and even angry realization that God is in fact [in a sense] his enemy / adversary. “Here Job... identifies God as his enemy rather than his advocate. From his perspective he is led to wonder if the God in whom he trusted is not in reality his Satan” (J:E. Hartley, The Book of Job (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988) p. 30). See on <a href='B:220 19:26'>Job 19:26</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I have sewed sackcloth on my skin-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The language of the Messianic <a href='B:230 69:11'>Psa 69:11</a> about the suffering of the Lord Jesus. Sinful Israel were called to do this in repentance (<a href='B:300 6:26'>Jer 6:26</a>); they refused to do so, and so they were covered with sackcloth at the time of their judgment (<a href='B:310 2:10'>Lam 2:10</a>). Job was sorry for himself, and didn’t use sackcloth as a sign of repentance but of self pity. This was to be transformed at the end when he really repents unconditionally:&nbsp;And have thrust my horn in the dust-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> His horn may refer to his reproductive organ, so desperate was he to express his grief.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> My face is red with weeping. Deep darkness is on my eyelids-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "On my eyelids is the shadow of death" (<a href='B:220 16:16'>Job 16:16</a> AV). Job felt he was facing death right before his eyes, and the shadow of that death was cast over his eyes. But God disagrees, challenging Job that he has not in fact seen "the doors of the shadow of death" (<a href='B:220 38:17'>Job 38:17</a> s:w:). Job had only seen death from a personal, human perspective. God sees death for what it really is, and it is far more terrible than man perceives. For from God’s perspective it carries with it the tragedy of the eternity which a man has missed, if he has rejected God. And God is saying that Job hasn't see death from that perspective.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job oscillates between accepting he has sinned, and protesting his innocence. The final appearance of God leads him to the unqualified conclusion that he is indeed a sinner, and this was God’s intended outcome for the exiles in captivity. Job's oscillation however is understandable once we perceive that he is being set up as representative of God’s sinful people, represented by the friends. He is suffering the judgment for sins when he himself is innocent, pointing forward to the Lord's representative sacrifice.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Earth, don’t cover my blood-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Here he seems to associate himself with unfairly persecuted Abel, whose blood cried out for justice (<a href='B:10 4:10'>Gen 4:10</a>). And yet he earlier compares his seeking of death and not finding it, as a marked man, with the judgment of Cain. He feels he is being treated as Cain when he is in fact as Abel. This is exactly what happened to the Lord in hearing our sins. See on <a href='B:220 11:15'>Job 11:15</a>.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Let my cry have no place to rest-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job makes the amazing comment: “Although He slays me, yet will I trust in Him” (<a href='B:220 13:15'>Job 13:15</a>). The language of ‘slaying’ takes us back to the Mosaic commands about how a ‘slayer’ of a man might be killed by the ‘avenger of blood’. Job saw God as slaying him; yet he also sees God as the ‘witness’ in the case (<a href='B:220 16:19'>Job 16:19</a>), and the avenger of Job’s blood (<a href='B:220 19:25'>Job 19:25</a>). Job even asks God to not let the earth cover his blood, so that God as the avenger of Job’s blood may avenge Job’s death, continuing the allusions to the avenger of blood scenario. Job feels he is innocent blood. Job does not see ‘Satan’ as his slayer, and God as the avenger of his blood. Instead Job – in a quite breathtaking set of associations – sees God in all these things: the slayer, the legal witness to the slayer, the avenger of blood, and the One who will enforce the doing of justice in this case, the One who will not let the earth cover Job’s blood. If Job really believed in a superhuman Satan, in Satan as the bad guy and God as the avenger of the injustice, he surely would’ve expressed himself differently. As Job imagines God as it were taking vengeance on Himself, so he came to portray for all time the way that evil and good are indeed both ultimately from God.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven. He who vouches for me is on high-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> See on :18. Job in his depths came to know God as his “witness in heaven”; in his former life, “when the eye saw me, it gave witness [s:w:] to me” (<a href='B:220 29:11'>Job 29:11</a>). But Job was brought to learn that the only ultimate witness in life is God, and it is His testimony and not man’s which is meaningful.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> My friends scoff at me. My eyes pour out tears to God-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The emphasis is upon "God"; he had poured out his tears to the friends and they had scoffed at him. So his experience of disillusion with his brethren didn’t turn him away from God, as so often happens; instead it drove him to throw himself more intimately upon his God.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> that He would maintain the right of a man with God, of a son of man with his neighbour!-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job sees his enemy as his "neighbour", surely referring to the friends. Again we have the hint that they had effectively morphed into the satan figure bringing some of the actual distresses upon him. Job felt like having a court case with them before God. But God’s final appearance is to hold a court case against them all, Job included. Clearly the lesson is that instead of judging our brother and wanting justice established with him, we should concern ourselves with God’s judgment of us, and our injustice before Him.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Maintaining the right is legal language. Job appeals for ‘witnesses’ (<a href='B:220 9:33-35'>Job 9:33-35</a>; <a href='B:220 16:18-22'>Job 16:18-22</a>; <a href='B:220 19:20-27'>Job 19:20-27</a>), an advocate in Heaven (<a href='B:220 9:33'>Job 9:33</a>), denies his guilt and demands a legal list of his sins (<a href='B:220 13:19'>Job 13:19</a>), he wishes for God to come to trial (<a href='B:220 9:3'>Job 9:3</a>), and thus Job is described as a man who has taken out a ‘case’ with God (<a href='B:220 23:4'>Job 23:4</a>; <a href='B:220 40:2'>Job 40:2</a>). Job 29-31 is effectively Job’s declaration of legal innocence and an appeal to God to hear his case more sympathetically (<a href='B:220 31:35'>Job 31:35</a>). And of course God pronounces a final legal verdict at the very end (<a href='B:220 42:7'>Job 42:7</a>), in response to Job’s earlier plea: “Sleeplessly I wait for His reply” (<a href='B:220 16:22'>Job 16:22</a>). It’s as if the whole experience of Job was [at least partly] in order to test out the Canaanite theories of ‘Satan’, suffering and evil in the court of Heaven; and also the various theories which arose to explain Judah's captivity in Babylon. The friends represent the traditional views of evil, and often make reference to the myths of their day about ‘Satan’ figures. They speak as if they are the final court – Eliphaz speaks of how the judges and elders of their day, the “holy ones”, had concluded Job was guilty, and that they, the friends, were right: “To which of the holy ones will you appeal [legal language]?... we have [legally] examined this, and it [Job’s guilt] is true” (<a href='B:220 5:1'>Job 5:1</a>; <a href='B:220 5:27'>Job 5:27</a>). This is of great comfort to those who feel misjudged by man – above them in Heaven the ultimate Heavenly court is considering our case, and that is all that matters.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>AV "O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!". "Plead" is the same word translated "umpire" in <a href='B:220 9:33'>Job 9:33</a>. The word suggests 'one who is right', a reasoner, an advocate, one who pleads, a reprover (<a href='B:220 40:2'>Job 40:2</a> s:w:). Job's request is not simply for a mediator; he would have used a different word if so. He seems to want to put God in the dock, but knows this is not appropriate; he wants someone else to do this who can legitimately do it. And he is rebuked for this in <a href='B:220 40:2'>Job 40:2</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For when a few years have come, I shall go the way of no return- This may be a purposeful challenge to the statements of Eliphaz in the previous chapter, that Job is about to be smitten with death at any moment. Job instead gives himself a few years. We note that Job directly engages with the words of the friends, whereas they attack him in terms of vague generalities.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> My spirit is consumed. My days are extinct, and the grave is ready for me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "I seek for burial, and obtain it not". To have no burial and to have their corpse thrown on the open field was the very punishment several times threatened to Judah's leadership. Again Job oscillates; in <a href='B:220 16:22'>Job 16:22</a> he has just given himself a few years, but now within the same speech he considers himself already as without spirit and at death's door. This is typical of a depressed sufferer, and confirms that there was a historical Job who suffered these things.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Surely there are mockers with me. My eye dwells on their provocation-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>&nbsp; Even in deep illness, a man can still dwell on the unkind words of others. This is one lesson of Job- the power of words. LXX "strangers have stolen my goods", also relevant to the captivity at the hands of Babylon. This further confirms the idea that the satan figure of the prologue has morphed into the friends, and it was they personally who brought some of the sufferings upon him.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Now give a pledge, be collateral for me with Yourself. Who is there who will strike hands with me?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The person in view is clearly God, as :4 continues to address Him. To strike hands is parallel with giving a pledge as in <a href='B:240 6:1'>Pro 6:1</a>. Job is here inviting God to enter court with him, and to pay a pledge, a kind of caution money required before the court sits, in case He is indeed found guilty. And that bond money is to be God Himself. This is indeed arrogant of Job. He is asking God to stake His very own Divine self, all He stands for, and risk losing it if Job is right. When God finally appears in judgment, Job is quite rightly humbled. But for all this arrogance of a moment, it is the friends whom God condemns and justifies Job. We cannot justify arrogance or sins of depression or hot blood, they remain as sins. But we notice, we are forced to notice, that God passes over them in Job's case and sees the man's core devotion to Him. It is the arrogance and lies of the friends, their hatred of their brother, which is to Him so hard to forgive unless, as it were, He has the 'help' of Job in forgiving them himself and praying to Him for their restoration. We learn so very much from all this.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For You have hidden their heart from understanding, therefore You shall not exalt them-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job considers the friends have been stopped from understanding the real facts and truths about Job's case, because God doesn't want to exalt them. God can indeed close eyes of understanding, but He does so in response to the attitudes of the people concerned; just as He hardened Pharaoh's already hardened heart. We see that God is capable of working directly upon the mind of man, to give or take understanding.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He who denounces his friends for a prey, even the eyes of his children shall fail-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Perhaps the idea is that in the envisioned court case of :3, Job is not going to denounce the friends before God. Job may here be quoting a proverb known at the time. Job is angry with the friends in his speeches, but has a basic desire to save them and not to see them dragged by him into court for condemnation. This basic desire to save people needs to be in us too, and if it is, as with Job at the end (<a href='B:220 42:7-8'>Job 42:7-8</a>), then God will use us to save people. This is what is so essential in all evangelism; technique and evangelism materials may be as perfect as man can make them, but without this basic desire to save others, it is all useless.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> But He has made me a byword of the people. They spit in my face-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The friends have earlier been accused of striking Job (see on <a href='B:220 16:10'>Job 16:10</a>), and the "they" here refers likewise to the friends (:5). They were so furious with him that they spat in his face, thereby again connecting him with the future sufferings of the Lord Jesus, the suffering servant after the pattern of Job. Their aggression was to the point of spitting at and hitting him. Yet they originally came to see him to comfort him, apparently sincerely. This is how far and how quickly a false theological understanding can transform human relationships for the worse.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> My eye also is dim by reason of sorrow. All my members are as a shadow-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Failing eyesight appears to also have been experienced by the Lord on the cross. "Shadow" is literally a shade, and is very often used in the sense of giving shade and comfort to others. Through his sufferings, Job was to become a shade for salvation to the friends who were abusing him, just as the Lord achieved for His enemies through His crucifixion.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Upright men shall be astonished at this. The innocent shall stir up himself against the godless-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This matches the astonishment of the Jews at the ghastly physical appearance of Christ on the cross (<a href='B:290 52:14'>Isa 52:14</a>). Job begins to have the sense that his sufferings are somehow for the sake of others; and this is revealed as the key to his suffering, as an innocent man suffering as if he has committed sins he hasn't, so that he might thereby become a representative saviour. Just as the Lord Jesus did, to a far greater extent. So now he muses that his sufferings will stir up other innocent people to action. He is starting to come towards the climax of the book, when he is asked to pray for and intercede to save the friends (<a href='B:220 42:7-8'>Job 42:7-8</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Yet shall the righteous hold on to his way. He who has clean hands shall grow stronger and stronger-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job has been lamenting the decline of his physical health, to the point he feels he is now facing death (:11). But he has held on to his way spiritually and insists he has clean hands. So he knows that at some future point, he must "grow stronger and stronger". This implies a resurrection. See on :17.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> But as for you all, come on now again; I shall not find a wise man among you-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Paul alludes to these word sin lamenting that there was not found a wise man amongst the church at Corinth, who could correctly judge his brother (<a href='B:530 6:5'>1Co 6:5</a>). This is an identical context- the friends couldn't judge their brother Job rightly because they were themselves morally compromised and lacked wisdom. We can infer that Paul understood Job to mean that there was not a wise man amongst the friends to judge him rightly. For that is how Paul uses this quotation.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> My days are past, my plans are broken off, as are the thoughts of my heart-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The word&nbsp; for "plans" is not the Hebrew word which would be used if "plans" were simply meant. In nearly all of the other 28 occurrences of the word in the Old Testament, the word means "wickedness" or "lewdness". Job again moves closer towards the final confession of sin he will make, and away from his earlier self righteousness. He seems to be saying that death will finally end his sin, because his sin is parallel with his thoughts, and they will perish at death. Or it could be that he was so carrying the guilt of others, as their sin bearer, that he feels a wicked sinner when in fact he wasn't; just as the Lord was to carry the sin of His people in Himself on the cross. The difference of course was that although Job is presented as "perfect" before God in <a href='B:220 1:1'>Job 1:1</a>, he was not Jesus, and he had sinned, and he minimized that sin- until the final appearance of God elicits this realization from him.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They change the night into day, saying ‘The light is near’ in the presence of darkness-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The argument was that because Job was in darkness, then light had to come soon; whereas Job felt he was about to die, before the dawn broke (:11,13). The friends never deploy this argument; Job is transferring his own thoughts onto the friends, and then knocking down the argument. And they then do just the same to him (see on <a href='B:220 18:3'>Job 18:3</a>). This again is an example to us of what happens when dialogue goes wrong. The whole dialogues are a masterful example to us in this respect. The restoration prophets again seize upon Job's words here and reframe them; the darkness of the exile was indeed to soon end in the day of Zion's glad morning of restoration. And so it happened with Job.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If I look for Sheol as my house, if I have spread my couch in the darkness-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job was lying on a couch (<a href='B:220 7:13'>Job 7:13</a>), and felt that he was already lying in the darkness of the grave. The deserted house he was lying in (see on <a href='B:220 15:28'>Job 15:28</a>) was effectively sheol, the grave, for him.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> if I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father’; to the worm, ‘My mother’, and ‘my sister’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job felt he was in a living death and therefore the idea that hope was just around the corner (12,15) was meaningless, because death had already come effectively, and he felt as if already in sheol.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> where then is my hope? As for my hope, who shall see it?-</p><p> Originally, Job believed that his "hope" was predicated upon his upright ways (<a href='B:220 4:6'>Job 4:6</a>). But Job through his sufferings comes to feel he now has no "hope" (<a href='B:220 7:6'>Job 7:6</a>; <a href='B:220 14:19'>Job 14:19</a>; <a href='B:220 17:15'>Job 17:15</a>; <a href='B:220 19:10'>Job 19:10</a>). The friends suggest that Job had only the "hope" of the hypocrite, and this "hope" would perish (<a href='B:220 4:6'>Job 4:6</a>; <a href='B:220 8:13'>Job 8:13</a>; <a href='B:220 27:8'>Job 27:8</a>). Job had integrity, and on that basis he thought he had "hope". He suffered, and he lost that "hope", because he assumed that his sufferings meant that he was not in fact righteous. And yet he often reflects that he is righteous and is suffering unjustly. And so he is led to the realization that the "hope" of the righteous is by God’s grace and not because of the "integrity of [Job's] ways". Judah in captivity likewise lost their "hope" (<a href='B:330 19:5'>Eze 19:5</a>; <a href='B:330 37:11'>Eze 37:11</a>). But the message of the restoration prophets was that "there is hope in your end" (<a href='B:300 31:17'>Jer 31:17</a>); they were prisoners or exiles in "hope" (<a href='B:450 9:12'>Zec 9:12</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Shall it go down with me to the gates of Sheol, or descend together into the dust?- Job saw sheol as death, the grave, the time of turning back to dust. And he felt he could take no hope with him there. Here again we have Job at the low point of his oscillation between believing in a resurrection, as he does in :9 and often, and yet denying it. Or at best, placing it under serious question. But for all his fluctuating faith and spirituality, he is the one justified in the end; and the self confident friends are condemned. We learn at least that perfectly consistent maintenance of faith and hope is not necessary for God to impute righteousness and save us by grace. Job is rightly condemned at the end and does repent, but the up points of his faith cycle are noted by God.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Then Bildad the Shuhite answered-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Bildad doesn't even engage with Job's words after briefly doing so in :4, but rather just vents his anger in this speech, threatening Job with all manner of condemnation; and the longer he rants on, the more convinced he becomes that Job is "wicked" and doesn't know God (:5,21). This is the problem when we don't engage with the words and arguments of another, or pay mere lip service to doing so; we can fall headlong into a feeding frenzy of angry accusation, resulting in doing what God condemns- condemning our brother, imputing sin rather than righteousness to a person we have created in our own minds, who merely bears the name of the one who began merely with a theological difference with us.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> How long will you hunt for words? Consider, and afterwards we will speak-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This again is imputing to Job an image which the friends like to assume he has, rather than engaging with what he has actually said. Job appears to be blurting out his feelings, not hunting for words to say.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Why are we counted as animals, which have become unclean in your sight?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Again as noted on :2, this is a case of attacking a straw man image of an opponent. For Job has not treated them as animals. They have themselves proclaimed all men as "unclean" by birth (<a href='B:220 15:14'>Job 15:14</a>), and yet they decide Job has called them unclean, and they object to it. But as Job transfers his feelings back onto the friends in <a href='B:220 17:12'>Job 17:12</a>, so they are doing the same to him. They may posit that all men are unclean, including themselves; but if Job is even supposed to have said this, then he is to be condemned. This again is an example to us of what happens when dialogue goes wrong. The dialogues begin and end with Job and the friends in silence. The implication is that all that was said had been not said.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> You who tear yourself in your anger, shall the earth be forsaken for you? Or shall the rock be removed out of its place?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is the only point in this speech where Bildad makes any attempt to engage with the actual words of Job; see on :1. And he quickly moves on to generalize about Job as a wicked person for the rest of his speech. In any case, he is only superficially engaging with Job's words. Job has said that he felt as if God were tearing him apart like a wild beast (<a href='B:220 16:9'>Job 16:9</a>); but Bildad twists this, or simply misremembers it, to Job saying that he was tearing himself apart. Job has argued that the process of erosion wears down the greatest mountains and removes them (<a href='B:220 14:18-19'>Job 14:18-19</a>), and so likewise the strongest man is eventually worn down to dust. But Bildad denies this; perhaps he was ignorant of the process of erosion, and considered it bunk science. For him, present realities are all that count. Mountains aren't removed, in his experience. And yet they are, by faith (<a href='B:470 17:20'>Mat 17:20</a>); and the great mountain which God would surely remove was Babylon, and He would establish the mountain of His restored people and Kingdom in Zion (<a href='B:450 4:7'>Zec 4:7</a>; <a href='B:340 2:45'>Dan 2:45</a>). The exiles disbelieved this, and thus were like Bildad, seeing only what was immediately before their own eyes. Bildad considered that the eretz ("land") could never be "forsaken"; but that is just what happened. The very phrase is used of the land being forsaken, because God’s people had forsaken Him (<a href='B:30 26:43'>Lev 26:43</a>). The hope of the restoration prophets was that the land would no longer be forsaken (<a href='B:290 62:4'>Isa 62:4</a>). But just as Bildad considered such a thing impossible, so God’s people had done.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Yes, the light of the wicked shall be put out, the spark of his fire shall not shine-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Much of Bildad's condemnation of Job in :5-21 appears to be taken from the "wisdom of the Beni Kedem", the children of the east (<a href='B:110 4:30'>1Ki 4:30</a>). Bildad has decided Job is sinful and very wicked, because of the extent of his sufferings. And he brings in now descriptions of the wicked man taken from other sources. Through these allusions and quotations, he is lead to yet further condemn and slander Job.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The light shall be dark in his tent. His lamp above him shall be put out-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Light becoming dark is exactly the phrase used about the judgment coming upon Judah (<a href='B:290 5:10'>Isa 5:10</a>; <a href='B:290 13:10'>Isa 13:10</a>; <a href='B:300 13:16'>Jer 13:16</a>). Indeed this had happened to Job, but insofar as he was representing God’s people who were to suffer this.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The steps of his strength shall be shortened. His own counsel shall cast him down-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> An oblique reference to the way Job was apparently dying before his time, with a shortened life. Here we have another connection between Job and Hezekiah, who had the same experience, but like Job was restored out of it. Yet Hezekiah didn’t make use of that restoration, just as the exiles didn’t.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he wanders into its mesh-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I noted on :5 that Bildad has concluded that Job is wicked because of the extent of his sufferings; and he begins quoting or alluding to standard condemnations of the wicked from the wisdom of the east. And this leads him to ever more falsely accuse Job. For it was simply not so that Job was falling into his own trap. For he had lived justly and uprightly before his trials (<a href='B:220 1:1'>Job 1:1</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> A snare will take him by the heel. A trap will catch him-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I noted on :8 that this idea that Job had fallen into his own snare was totally untrue. But it was how he was judged and considered by men. In this respect, he was completely identified with the sins of Israel, who indeed fell into their own snare (<a href='B:290 8:14'>Isa 8:14</a>; <a href='B:290 24:17-18'>Isa 24:17-18</a>; <a href='B:350 5:1'>Hos 5:1</a>). He was a representative figure.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> A noose is hidden for him in the ground, a trap for him in the way-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Jeremiah alludes to this in complaining that the Jews had hid snares for him (<a href='B:300 18:22'>Jer 18:22</a>). He often alludes to Job and saw himself as&nbsp; Job- persecuted by his own people, whom he vainly tried to reform.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall chase him at his heels-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This looks ahead to Jerusalem, represented by Job, surrounded on every side by her enemies. The "terrors" are imagined to be demon-like figures under the control of "the king of terrors" (s:w:, :14). As noted on :14, this wrong idea is being deconstructed.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> His strength shall be famished. Calamity shall be ready at his side-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The destruction of Jerusalem by famine may be in view, prefigured by Job being so hungry that he had to beg for bread (see on <a href='B:220 15:23'>Job 15:23</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The members of his body shall be devoured. The firstborn of death shall devour his members-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The phrase recalls the destroying Angel who destroyed the Egyptians and would have also destroyed the Israelite firstborn were it not for the blood of the Passover lamb. The satan figure was associated with an obedient Divine angel who brought the trials upon Job (see on <a href='B:220 1:6'>Job 1:6</a>). "Devour" is the same Hebrew word used of how Job's wealth was "consumed" by Divine fire (<a href='B:220 1:16'>Job 1:16</a>). Again, Job is representative of an apostate Israel who likewise had their members (s:w. "branches") devoured by the fire of Divine judgment (s:w. <a href='B:330 19:14'>Eze 19:14</a>; <a href='B:350 11:6'>Hos 11:6</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He shall be rooted out of his tent where he trusts. He shall be brought to the king of terrors-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Significantly, it is the friends who make allusion to the ‘Satan’ figures and gods as if they are real, whereas Job in his responses always denies their reality and sees God as the direct source of His sufferings. Bildad speaks of how Job’s troubles are to be associated with “the king of terrors”; Eliphaz blames them upon the “sons of Resheph” (<a href='B:220 5:7'>Job 5:7</a>); but Job’s response is that the source of the evil in his life is ultimately from God and not any such being. See on <a href='B:220 5:7'>Job 5:7</a>. The Bible personifies death as a person; that is the king of terrors (<a href='B:230 49:14'>Psa 49:14</a>; <a href='B:290 28:15'>Isa 28:15</a>), rather than the superhuman being of&nbsp; the friends' imagination.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> There shall dwell in his tent that which is none of his. Sulphur shall be scattered on his habitation-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Living in early times, the friends were likely aware of the fate of Sodom. Job's children and wealth had been destroyed by Divine fire, just as Sodom was, and perhaps sulphur was also used. God’s sinful people are likewise identified with Sodom (<a href='B:290 1:10'>Isa 1:10</a>; <a href='B:330 16:46'>Eze 16:46</a>; <a href='B:370 4:11'>Amo 4:11</a>), the destruction of Jerusalem was seen as that of Sodom (<a href='B:310 4:6'>Lam 4:6</a>), just as the friends here identify Job with Sodom.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> His roots shall be dried up beneath. Above shall his branch be cut off-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The theme of 'drying up' or 'withering' is significant. Bildad considers Job to have been 'dried up' by God’s judgment (<a href='B:220 8:12'>Job 8:12</a>), and the word is used of how God withered or dried up Judah at the hands of their invaders (<a href='B:300 12:4'>Jer 12:4</a>; <a href='B:300 23:10'>Jer 23:10</a>; <a href='B:330 17:9-10'>Eze 17:9-10</a>; <a href='B:330 17:24'>Eze 17:24</a>; <a href='B:450 11:17'>Zec 11:17</a>; <a href='B:310 4:8'>Lam 4:8</a>; <a href='B:290 40:7-8'>Isa 40:7-8</a> - although the prophetic word of God requiring their restoration would endure, despite their drying up). The dry bones of Judah in captivity were withered or dried up (<a href='B:330 37:11'>Eze 37:11</a>). So Job's 'drying up' was again, a sharing in the representative suffering of God’s people. Job's personal response to his 'drying up' was to reflect that God dries up waters and also sends them forth as floods (<a href='B:220 12:15'>Job 12:15</a> s:w:); He can give and He can take, just as Job had initially realized (<a href='B:220 2:10'>Job 2:10</a>). Just as He dried up Job / Israel, so He could abundantly send forth waters; just as He did at the Red Sea. Restoration and salvation was just as easy for Him as destruction, to put it another way. The drying up of Job was also understood by him as referring to his death (<a href='B:220 14:11'>Job 14:11</a>), but God could raise him from the dead and have a desire to him again (<a href='B:220 14:15'>Job 14:15</a>). Eliphaz wrongly argues that the Divine 'drying up' of a person means permanent extinction (<a href='B:220 15:30'>Job 15:30</a>), as does Bildad (<a href='B:220 18:16'>Job 18:16</a>); but Job always sees the 'drying up' as part of a Divine action which also has a counterpart, the pouring out again of waters, or resurrection of the dried up, withered bones. Likewise Judah in captivity thought that their drying up, their dry bones, were incapable of revival (<a href='B:330 37:11'>Eze 37:11</a>); but the message is that they could indeed be revived, and their drying up was but a presage to their eternal revival:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>This connects with the thought of Job's words in <a href='B:220 14:8'>Job 14:8</a>: "Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stock dies in the ground". "Earth" is eretz, the land (of Israel). If merely "soil" was intended, a different word would have been used. Again, we see the drama of Job has been tweaked, under Divine inspiration, to become the narrative for the exiles. The root had indeed largely died in the land at the time of the Babylonian invasion, but it still had some life and would "bud" again (<a href='B:220 14:9'>Job 14:9</a>). Job was the man with great roots who had been cut down but hadn't completely died (<a href='B:220 8:17'>Job 8:17</a>); his roots had been dried up (<a href='B:220 18:16'>Job 18:16</a>; <a href='B:220 29:19'>Job 29:19</a>). He represented Judah, whose roots were throughout the land as a tree transplanted by God (s:w. <a href='B:230 80:9'>Psa 80:9</a>). Those roots were withered by the invasions (<a href='B:290 5:24'>Isa 5:24</a>), but out of those dry roots would grow up a "tender plant / branch" (<a href='B:290 11:1'>Isa 11:1</a>; <a href='B:290 11:10'>Isa 11:10</a>; <a href='B:290 53:2'>Isa 53:2</a>), using the same word for "tender" as in <a href='B:220 14:7'>Job 14:7</a>. This Messianic suffering servant was to be based upon Job, and representative of all God’s restored people. They were to again spread their roots in the land of promise in a restored Kingdom (<a href='B:290 37:31'>Isa 37:31</a>; <a href='B:300 17:8'>Jer 17:8</a>), after the pattern of Job's restoration.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> His memory shall perish from the earth. He shall have no name in the street-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This was the most awful fate for an oriental sheikh or leader. <a href='B:290 26:14'>Isa 26:14</a> uses this language about Babylon, who initially refused to let the Jews return.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea of being driven away into darkness is that of condemnation, as is used of the driving of God’s condemned people into exile (<a href='B:290 8:22'>Isa 8:22</a>; <a href='B:300 23:12'>Jer 23:12</a>). Again, Job suffered the condemnation of the wicked without being wicked as charged. And just as the Lord's death made Him be perceived as an accursed criminal, although He was innocent, so the friends' judgments of Job made him appear "wicked" when he wasn't.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He shall have neither son nor grandson among his people, nor any remaining where he lived-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Clearly an oblique reference to the fate of Job's children. Perhaps the desolation and emptying of homes and areas in Israel and Judah is in view, after the people were carried into exile.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Those who come after shall be astonished at his day, as those who went before were frightened-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Astonished" is s:w. "desolation" in the descriptions of the fate of the land when its people would go into exile (<a href='B:30 26:34-35'>Lev 26:34-35</a>; <a href='B:310 1:4'>Lam 1:4</a>). The promise of restoration was that the new covenant would change this and restore the desolate (<a href='B:300 33:10'>Jer 33:10</a>). Bildad failed to see this, assuming that all judgment was to be eternal. The idea of ultimate restoration was out of his mind, as it was with the faithless exiles.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous. This is the place of him who doesn’t know God- Clearly Job did "know God". We see here for all time the danger of dashing headlong along a path of reasoning about a person which leads us to a totally wrong and slanderous position about them. <a href='B:220 36:26'>Job 36:26</a> uses the same phrase in what appears to be Elihu's take on this- which is that in fact God is too great to be known by any man. His final appearance makes it clear that to know God is to repent and accept His grace.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Then Job answered-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This speech sees Job bitterly lament his treatment by God and the friends. Indeed everything was so unfair. But out of all this deep self pity, he comes to the classic expression of his faith in resurrection and judgment in :25-27. Taking any of his statements alone would lead to the impression that he was almost narcissistic in his self-pity, but it is out of this down cycle that is born the expression of faith and yet deeper understanding of :25-27.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> How long will you torment me, and crush me with words?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If nothing else we see here the power of words. The friends had come to comfort, but ended up crushing him. Eliphaz had earlier concluded that Job was "crushed" (s:w:) because of his sins (<a href='B:220 5:4'>Job 5:4</a>) and so he thought he could crush Job with words as well. Even if Job had indeed been condemned, his friends ought still to have sought to save him. Through this experience he came to bear the "torment" which the exiles would during the Babylonian invasion and captivity (s:w. <a href='B:290 51:23'>Isa 51:23</a>; <a href='B:310 1:4'>Lam 1:4</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> You have reproached me ten times. You aren’t ashamed that you attack me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> There have not yet been ten speeches by the friends. So "ten times" is being used to mean 'totally' or 'many times', as in <a href='B:10 31:41'>Gen 31:41</a>; <a href='B:40 14:22'>Num 14:22</a>; <a href='B:160 4:12'>Neh 4:12</a>; <a href='B:340 1:20'>Dan 1:20</a>. We must understand that Semitic languages don't use numbers always in the strictly literal sense which European languages tend to. The friends were so sure that Job was condemned that they lost all sense of shame and personal guilt in how they treated him.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If it is true that I have erred, my error remains with myself-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The aggression of the friends was because they thought they had the right to join in the apparent Divine condemnation of him; rather than leaving the matter between God and Job. This mentality is seen all around us today. We note however that Job is still qualifying his sinfulness ["if it is true..."]; and his final repentance reflects a total shedding of this kind of careful self qualification.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The Messianic Psalms record David and the Lord Jesus feeling that their enemies had magnified themselves against them (<a href='B:230 35:26'>Psa 35:26</a>; <a href='B:230 38:16'>Psa 38:16</a>; <a href='B:230 41:9'>Psa 41:9</a>; <a href='B:230 55:12'>Psa 55:12</a>). <a href='B:230 41:9'>Psa 41:9</a> applies the term to Judas, who was typified by the friends as the Lord Jesus was by Job.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>And plead against me my reproach-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Pleading is legal language. Job had done nothing wrong to the friends, but he feels they had come into court to quote his "reproach" as evidence he had sinned, and therefore were demanding his judgment. When they should have left any possible sin as a matter between Job and God (:4).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> know now that God has subverted me, and has surrounded me with His net-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Subverted" translates a Hebrew word which clearly means to be perverse or wicked with another person. Elihu sternly rebukes Job for this statement, saying that God will not "pervert judgment" (<a href='B:220 34:12'>Job 34:12</a>). Again we marvel at the grace of how God later says that Job has spoken what was right about Him (<a href='B:220 42:7'>Job 42:7</a>). Whilst that statement may refer simply to Job's expression of total repentance, we would still expect it to be qualified by some clause to the effect that "although earlier Job accused me of many awful things". There is no such clause in <a href='B:220 42:7'>Job 42:7</a>. The absence of it, bearing in mind Job's wrong statements about God which Elihu has reminded us of, is surely noticeable and intended to be noticed. We are left marvelling at the extent of grace and imputed righteousness, through faith by grace.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, I cry out because of injustice, but I am not heard. I cry for help, but there is no justice-</p><p> Job now turns to lament how he feels God has treated him, having complained of how the friends have unjustly treated him. Job feels he has 'cried out' to God for justice and not been heard (<a href='B:220 19:7'>Job 19:7</a>; <a href='B:220 30:20'>Job 30:20</a>); and that there is nothing wrong with crying out to God in distress, it is a perfectly natural reaction (<a href='B:220 24:12'>Job 24:12</a>). One comment upon this is that the young ravens cry out to God for food and yet are not always heard (<a href='B:220 38:41'>Job 38:41</a> s:w:). But God in the wider picture sustains all of creation by grace. Job did well to cry out to God even if there was no answer, because the hypocrites do not 'cry out' to God when they are facing judgment (<a href='B:220 36:13'>Job 36:13</a> s:w:). Job feels hurt that God has not responded to his 'crying out' because he says that when the needy cried out to him, he had heard (<a href='B:220 29:12'>Job 29:12</a> s:w:). But here we see his works based approach; he thought that his response to those who cried out to him meant that therefore God must respond to his crying out. And God is not so primitive. His apparent silence is because His response is not predicated upon human works and charity. It is by grace alone, as is taught in His final appearance to Job. The exiles likewise were to finally see the response to their crying out to God in the restoration (<a href='B:290 58:9'>Isa 58:9</a>), just as their representative Jonah cried out to God from the belly of sheol amidst the sea of nations, and was heard (s:w. <a href='B:390 2:2'>Jon 2:2</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He has walled up my way so that I can’t pass, and has set darkness in my paths-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job is feeling confined, imprisoned, blocked in. But this was what happened to Judah in their judgment (<a href='B:350 2:6'>Hos 2:6</a>); Job although righteous was the representative of Judah. See on <a href='B:220 10:11-12'>Job 10:11-12</a>.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'><a href='B:40 22:22'>Num 22:22</a> describes how an Angel of God stood in a narrow, walled path before Balaam, so that his donkey fell down beneath him. That Angel is described as a "satan", an adversary, to Balaam. Job comments how the sufferings which the 'Satan' brought upon him were God 'walling up my way that I cannot pass' (<a href='B:220 19:8'>Job 19:8</a>). The connection is clear- and surely indicates that Job's satan was a satan-Angel, acting as an adversary to Job just as such an Angel did to Balaam. See on <a href='B:220 1:6'>Job 1:6</a>. Job and Balaam have certain similarities- both were prophets (in Job's case see <a href='B:220 4:4'>Job 4:4</a>; <a href='B:220 23:12'>Job 23:12</a>; <a href='B:220 29:4'>Job 29:4</a> cp. 15:8; <a href='B:370 3:7'>Amo 3:7</a>; <a href='B:660 5:10-11'>Jas 5:10-11</a>); both had genuine difficulty in understanding God’s ways, but they to varying degrees consciously rebelled against what they did understand; both thus became angry with God (in the Angel), and were reproved by God through being brought to consider the Angel-controlled natural creation.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Stripped me" is s:w. "fell upon" in describing how the troops of Job's enemies fell upon his children and wealth (<a href='B:220 1:17'>Job 1:17</a>). It was God who did this, Job perceives; they were "His troops" (:12). The same word is used of the stripping of God’s people of their glory (<a href='B:330 16:39'>Eze 16:39</a>; <a href='B:330 23:26'>Eze 23:26</a>; <a href='B:400 3:3'>Mic 3:3</a>), which only happened because they themselves did not strip themselves of their clothing in repentance (s:w. <a href='B:290 32:11'>Isa 32:11</a>;&nbsp; <a href='B:330 26:16'>Eze 26:16</a>). The stripping of Job, which also recalls the stripping of the priest Aaron of his clothes and "crown" [mitre] when his priesthood ended (<a href='B:40 20:26'>Num 20:26</a>; <a href='B:40 20:28'>Num 20:28</a>), was therefore to elicit repentance in him. And this is what was finally achieved at the end of the book. See on <a href='B:220 40:10'>Job 40:10</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone. My hope He has plucked up like a tree-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Originally, Job believed that his "hope" was predicated upon his upright ways (<a href='B:220 4:6'>Job 4:6</a>). But Job through his sufferings comes to feel he now has no "hope" (<a href='B:220 7:6'>Job 7:6</a>; <a href='B:220 14:19'>Job 14:19</a>; <a href='B:220 17:15'>Job 17:15</a>; <a href='B:220 19:10'>Job 19:10</a>). The friends suggest that Job had only the "hope" of the hypocrite, and this "hope" would perish (<a href='B:220 4:6'>Job 4:6</a>; <a href='B:220 8:13'>Job 8:13</a>; <a href='B:220 27:8'>Job 27:8</a>). Job had integrity, and on that basis he thought he had "hope". He suffered, and he lost that "hope", because he assumed that his sufferings meant that he was not in fact righteous. And yet he often reflects that he is righteous and is suffering unjustly. And so he is led to the realization that the "hope" of the righteous is by God’s grace and not because of the "integrity of [Job's] ways". Judah in captivity likewise lost their "hope" (<a href='B:330 19:5'>Eze 19:5</a>; <a href='B:330 37:11'>Eze 37:11</a>). But the message of the restoration prophets was that "there is hope in your end" (<a href='B:300 31:17'>Jer 31:17</a>); they were prisoners or exiles in "hope" (<a href='B:450 9:12'>Zec 9:12</a>). And we may get the possible whiff of restoration of hope in Job; for now he compares himself to a tree plucked up, whereas in <a href='B:220 14:7-10'>Job 14:7-10</a> he has said that a tree has hope of sprouting again, but he has no hope at all. Now, he at least sees himself as the tree. These were baby steps towards faith in restoration.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He has also kindled His wrath against me. He counts me among His adversaries-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job feels God’s wrath kindled against him (<a href='B:220 19:11'>Job 19:11</a>). The innocent Job&nbsp; experienced the judgments of God’s people, against whom God’s wrath was kindled (<a href='B:50 11:17'>Deu 11:17</a>; <a href='B:120 23:26'>2Ki 23:26</a>). Significantly, we find Elihu's wrath kindled against both Job and the friends (<a href='B:220 32:2-3'>Job 32:2-3</a>), but the wrath of God was kindled only against the friends (<a href='B:220 42:7'>Job 42:7</a>). Elihu is therefore not fully reflecting God’s position about Job. I have repeatedly demonstrated that the innocent Job was suffering the judgment for the sins of God’s people. In the end, this came to full term in the salvation of the friends on account of Job's intercession. God’s wrath was not personally against Job, it was against the friends. But Job suffered God’s wrath against him, because he was to be the saviour of the friends by offering sacrifice for them and praying for them. This looks forward to the work of the Lord Jesus, the suffering servant based upon Job; experiencing the judgment for our sins, and through the representative nature of His sacrifice, being able to save us.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> His troops come on together, build a siege ramp against me, and encamp around my tent-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> See on :9. Job represents both the Lord Jesus Christ and Israel. He was representative of both. This is nicely shown by how the language of 19:12-14 is reminiscent of the descriptions of the Roman armies (Christ's armies- <a href='B:470 22:7'>Mat 22:7</a>) surrounding Jerusalem in AD70. There then follows a description of Job's sufferings which has clear links with that of Christ's crucifixion in Psalms 69. "He hath put my brethren far from me (cp. <a href='B:230 69:8'>Psa 69:8</a>), and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me. My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me". Note how the last phrase links with Christ's description&nbsp; of&nbsp; Judas as "my own familiar friend", implying there may be a connection between the one-time friends of Job, and Judas. Both epitomized the Jewish system, and both were at one stage trusted by Job/Jesus. Other descriptions of Job's sufferings in the language of Psalms 69 include <a href='B:220 30:9'>Job 30:9</a> "Now am I their song, yea, I am their byword" (cp. <a href='B:230 69:12'>Psa 69:12</a>); <a href='B:220 22:11'>Job 22:11</a> "abundance of waters cover thee" (cp. <a href='B:230 69:1-2'>Psa 69:1-2</a>); <a href='B:220 2:11'>Job 2:11</a> the friends came "to mourn with him and to comfort him", although Job said he turned to them for comfort in vain (16:2). The Hebrew in <a href='B:220 2:11'>Job 2:11</a> is identical to that in <a href='B:230 69:20'>Psa 69:20</a>, describing Christ looking in vain for comforters.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The brothers of Job turned against him (:17) because they all considered him "smitten of God" just as the suffering servant was considered (<a href='B:290 53:4'>Isa 53:4</a>); the Lord Jesus likewise had this experience, being initially rejected by his brothers (<a href='B:500 7:5'>Joh 7:5</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This total rejection by everyone was indeed lamentable, but it led to Job turning the more intensely toward God, despite the apparent distance of God from him. And this apparently hopeless situation of being rejected by all his family in <a href='B:220 19:13-16'>Job 19:13-16</a> was reversed at the end when all his relatives again came to him (<a href='B:220 42:11'>Job 42:11</a>). The way they give him a piece of money and an earing appears to be some kind of gratitude for his salvation of them. They thus recognized their guilt and expressed deep gratitude that although they had rejected him, his sufferings and their rejection of him had led to their salvation. For we can deduce from the gift of a piece of money that they feel they have sinned, and he has saved them. So again, his restoration was the restoration of others, the friends and his family who had rejected him. He had born the sufferings for their sins, and thus becomes a type of the Lord Jesus, who suffered the judgments for sin in order to save those who had rejected and abused him.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Those who dwell in my house, and my maids, count me for a stranger. I am an alien in their sight-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is quoted in the Messianic <a href='B:230 69:18'>Psa 69:18</a> concerning the Lord's sufferings on the cross.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer. I beg him with my mouth-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The begging was for bread; see on <a href='B:220 15:23'>Job 15:23</a>. This is how desperately low Job became. "Beg" is the word for 'grace'; see on :21.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Loathsome" is not the best translation, the Hebrew word is usually translated to be gracious to. Perhaps the idea is that he asked his brothers for grace, but wasn't afforded it. The usage of the word suggests Job for the first time is thinking about grace, undeserved favour; and this is what he is led to realize at the end when God appears. But this was one of the baby steps towards that. See on :21.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job was finally to be the saving hero of his society. Likewise the exiles who had been despised were to be praised by all in the restored Kingdom (<a href='B:290 41:9'>Isa 41:9</a> s:w:). All because Job was the suffering servant, despised and rejected of all and yet finally saviour of those who despised him, just as the Lord Jesus to a far greater extent (<a href='B:290 53:3'>Isa 53:3</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> All my familiar friends abhor me. They whom I loved have turned against me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This abhorrence of Job by the friends is related to the way they considered mankind to be "abominable and corrupt" (<a href='B:220 15:16'>Job 15:16</a>). "Abhor" is the same word as "abominable". The simple truth is as Job put it- God has a tender desire to man, the work of His hands (<a href='B:220 14:15'>Job 14:15</a>). And whatever we posit about human nature, we say about the Lord Jesus. He fully shared that nature and yet was holy, harmless and undefiled (<a href='B:650 7:26'>Heb 7:26</a>). Man by nature, just standing there as flesh and blood before God, is not "abominable" to Him of himself. It is sin which is the problem; and sin is not inevitable. We must bear full responsibility for our sins and cannot just pass them off as an inevitable function of our humanity. The wrong view of human nature held by the friends affected their view of Job and people in practice. The lower our view of human nature, the more likely we are to despise human beings rather than value them and speak well of them because they are made in the image of God (<a href='B:660 3:9'>Jas 3:9</a>).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>It must be noted that the satan never occurs again, under that name. The real adversary of Job was his "friends"; and in God’s final judgment, it is they who are condemned, not 'satan'. It is therefore reasonable to see a connection between the satan and the 'friends' of Job; they too walked to and fro in the earth in order to come to him, as it seems satan did at the beginning. And we pause here for another lesson. The great satan / adversary of Job turned out to be those he thought were his friends in the ecclesia. And so it has been, time and again, in our experience: our sorest trials often come from the words of our brethren. Without underestimating the physical affliction of Job, his real adversary was his brethren. Rather than bemoaning his physical affliction, he commented how his friends had become his satans (<a href='B:220 19:19'>Job 19:19</a>) And so with the Lord Jesus, whom Job so accurately typified. Again, without minimizing the material agony of His flesh, the essential piercing was from His rejection at the hands of those He died for. For other reasons to connect the satan with the friends, see on <a href='B:220 1:6'>Job 1:6</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh. I have escaped by the skin of my teeth-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job was just about hanging on to life, and so he had the hope of restoration. This was the position of the exiles. From their living death they would be given new skin and flesh in revival (<a href='B:330 37:6'>Eze 37:6</a>; <a href='B:330 37:8'>Eze 37:8</a>) after the pattern of Job- if they wished to follow his example of repentance.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Have pity on me, have pity on me, you my friends-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The word for "grace" is used four times in quick succession (:16,17 and twice in :21). Job is now appealing for grace, even if he is deemed guilty. Job for the first time is thinking about grace, undeserved favour; and this is what he is led to realize at the end when God appears.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>For the hand of God has touched me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Touch" is the word used by the satan in <a href='B:220 1:11'>Job 1:11</a>, showing again that the hand of the Satan was the hand of God, and Job understood this. The friends insist that "the destroyer" [by which they surely meant an early equivalent to 'the devil' of popular belief today] had touched Job- whereas Job insists that it is God who had destroyed him (<a href='B:220 15:21'>Job 15:21</a> cp. 19:10; 13:21). In some ways the book of Job is a deconstruction of the popular Persian and Canaanite myths about a 'satan' figure. Job, both in the story of his sufferings and his specific words, seeks to demonstrate that the essential issues in life is being "just with God", and not whether or not we are touched by the hand of an evil being; for the hand of God which touched Job (<a href='B:220 19:21'>Job 19:21</a>) is the hand of 'satan' into whom God delivered Job temporarily (<a href='B:220 1:12'>Job 1:12</a>). Job says that the attitude of the friends is wrong- they should be looking into themselves, rather than fantasizing about the action of some unseen evil being they imagined: "Ye should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?... know that there is a [personal] judgment"(<a href='B:220 19:28-29'>Job 19:28-29</a>).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Job understood God to be in control in Heaven; he rejects the idea of a cosmic conflict going on ‘up there’ which the friends seem to allude to. More specifically, Job speaks of how God’s hand forms and can pierce the “crooked serpent” and smite any monster (<a href='B:220 26:11-14'>Job 26:11-14</a>). It’s as if Job is mocking the idea that God has let him go into the hands of the cosmic monsters which the friends believed in. For Job so often stresses that it is the “hand of God” which has brought His affliction (<a href='B:220 19:21'>Job 19:21</a>; <a href='B:220 23:2'>Job 23:2</a>). That Divine hand was far greater than any mythical ‘Satan’ figure. The theme of his speech in Job 28 is that Yahweh alone is to be feared throughout the entire cosmos. Nobody else – such as the ‘Satan’ figures alluded to by the friends – needed to be feared.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Why do you persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The friends ended up playing God. They presumed to judge Job according to their own limited and inaccurate theology, by assuming that he must have sinned in order to receive such terrible trials from God. Zophar claims to have revealed Job’s guilt, and then says that “the heavens”- an ellipsis for “God”- have revealed Job’s guilt (<a href='B:220 20:27'>Job 20:27</a>). Job figured out what was happening when he complained to them: “Why do you hound me as though you were divine?” (<a href='B:220 19:22'>Job 19:22</a> NAB). But something good came out of all this for Job. The way the friends played God set up a kind of dialectic, from which Job came to perceive more powerfully who God really was- and, moreover, how in fact this God would ultimately save him rather than destroy and condemn him, as the friends falsely thought. By ‘dialectic’ I mean that the way the friends presented a false picture and manifestation of God’s judgment led Job to react against it, and thereby come to a true understanding of God’s judgment. Having stated his perception that the friends are indeed playing God (<a href='B:220 19:22'>Job 19:22</a>), Job goes straight on to make a solemn and important statement. The solemnity of it is witnessed by his request that what he was now going to say would be inscribed in rock with the point of a diamond as a permanent record (<a href='B:220 19:24'>Job 19:24</a>). And that solemn statement was that he knew that God would be his vindicator at the last day, that he would “see God”, that he would have a bodily resurrection, and that at that time it would be the friends who would be condemned (<a href='B:220 19:25-29'>Job 19:25-29</a>). This supreme statement of faith, hope and understanding was elicited from Job because of the rejection he suffered from his friends, and the way they so inaccurately and wrongly played God in wrongly condemning him on God’s behalf. Job thus came to long for the judgment seat. There are few believers who have reached that level of intimacy with God- but Job did, thanks to the way his friends so cruelly turned against him. And this is a major lesson we can take from being the victim of slander, misunderstanding and misjudgment by our own brethren.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The existence of the book of Job is proof enough that his wish was granted. His request, however, shows baby steps towards realizing that his sufferings can be used for a greater and wider purpose. He was not just suffering for himself. And finally his salvation of his friends and family [possibly leading to the resurrection of his slain children] was realized by him to be the outcome of this sufferings. He, the innocent, had born their sins in his own body, just as the Lord did. Earlier he had offered sacrifice for his children, but this was not enough; a representative sufferer was needed. For now, he is only just beginning to move towards this realization.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> That with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> An "iron pen" is only found again in <a href='B:300 17:1'>Jer 17:1</a>, where Judah's sin is written with an iron pen. The desire for suffering to be remembered was strong amongst the exiles as it was with Job.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> But as for me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Given the context, the idea may be that whether or not his suffering achieves anything for others, he is confident of his own salvation at the end.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>I know that my Redeemer lives-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> God was the redeemer of His people from slavery and captivity (<a href='B:20 6:6'>Exo 6:6</a>; <a href='B:20 15:13'>Exo 15:13</a>). Job felt his sufferings had placed him in some kind of slavery or captivity, from which he needed redemption or 'buying out'. And he believed that God was that redeemer. In these feelings, he becomes the exact representative of the suffering exiles in slavery and captivity. A redeemer from slavery was typically a close relative (<a href='B:30 25:48'>Lev 25:48</a>; s:w. "kinsman" in <a href='B:80 4:8'>Rth 4:8</a>), and this is how Job came to perceive the God whom he felt was so apparently silent and distant. He is a parade example of not being ultimately fazed by the apparent silence of God. The exiles were intended to rejoice that they had a redeemer, again, after the pattern of Job (<a href='B:290 41:14'>Isa 41:14</a>; <a href='B:290 43:1'>Isa 43:1</a>; <a href='B:290 43:14'>Isa 43:14</a>; <a href='B:290 44:6'>Isa 44:6</a>; <a href='B:290 44:22-23'>Isa 44:22-23</a> etc:); and their redemption from Babylon was ultimately to be from death itself (<a href='B:350 13:14'>Hos 13:14</a>).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>In the end-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> AV "latter day" is wrong. There is no Hebrew equivalent here for the idea of a "day". The idea is simply, in the future.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>He will stand upon the earth-</p><p> "Earth" here is the word for dust. If the land or physical planet earth was in view, then eretz would probably have been used as it is elsewhere in Job. "Stand" doesn't have to imply resurrection; the idea is of being 'raised up', as the Messiah was to be raised up from amongst His brothers (<a href='B:50 18:15'>Deu 18:15</a>; <a href='B:300 23:5'>Jer 23:5</a>). Putting the ideas of the verse together, Job looked for a Messiah-Saviour figure similar to himself to be raised up in the future, who would be the living God manifested in human dust and ashes like Job's (<a href='B:220 7:21'>Job 7:21</a>; <a href='B:220 17:16'>Job 17:16</a>). The Lord Jesus was not God Himself nor did He personally pre-exist, but Job's idea is that this person was to be his representative, of his own dust, but raised up by the living God. His sufferings led him to long for someone exactly like the Lord Jesus- and that longing ultimately came true.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> After my skin is destroyed-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> In <a href='B:220 2:4-6'>Job 2:4-6</a> we have the ‘Satan’ commenting that Job’s flesh and skin need to be harmed; but in <a href='B:220 19:6'>Job 19:6</a>; <a href='B:220 19:26'>Job 19:26</a> we have Job stating his faith that even though God destroys his flesh and skin, yet God shall ultimately save him. See on <a href='B:220 16:14'>Job 16:14</a>. JobThen in my flesh shall I see God-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job understood God to be a personal being, and that in a bodily form he would 'see' Him. Seeing his body was to be destroyed in death, this can only mean he believed in a resurrection of the body. And yet he was to be brought to realize the 'now but not yet' nature of the Kingdom experience; for he came to realize that man can even now "see God" through repentance and acceptance of His great salvation: "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee" (<a href='B:220 42:5'>Job 42:5</a> AV). See on <a href='B:220 42:5'>Job 42:5</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> whom I, even I, shall see for myself. My eyes shall see it, and not a stranger’s. My heart is consumed within me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Whatever value Job's sufferings may have had for others, Job was rejoicing in the intensely personal nature of salvation. He whose eyes and body were fading into death would in a corporeal form see God for himself. "And not a stranger's" connects with what we noted on :23; Job had begun to realize that his sufferings were for others' benefit, even though he didn’t know who, they were still strangers to him. His point is that notwithstanding that, he was now beginning to grasp the utter wonder of his personal salvation.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>As Job's emphasis on the coming of Messiah and judgment increased, so his concentration on his present sufferings decreased. His heart was consumed within him with desire for that day. 2 Timothy 4 can be regarded as Paul's most mature spiritual statement, written as it was just prior to his death. In <a href='B:620 4:1'>2Ti 4:1</a>; <a href='B:620 4:8'>2Ti 4:8</a>, Paul's mind was clearly on the second coming and the certainty of judgment. He realized, in that time of undoubted maturity, that the common characteristic of all the faithful would be that they all loved the appearing of Christ. But do we love the appearing of Christ as Job did? Is it really all we have in life? Is our conscience, our faith in the grace of God, our real belief in the blood of the cross, so deep that we love the idea of the coming of judgment, that we would fain hasten the day of His coming?&nbsp; Job's love of the Lord's coming grew very rapidly. Before, he was too caught up with bitterness about his unspiritual fellow 'believers', effectively justifying himself in the eyes of his ecclesia and his world, full of passive complaints about his own sufferings... and so he didn’t love that day as he later came to. You and I personally will be in God’s Kingdom, with our arms around each other in the rubble of Jerusalem. We will personally be there. We will see Abraham there (<a href='B:490 13:28'>Luk 13:28</a>); as Job says, with our own eyes we will behold our Lord, and not through anyone else’s eyes (<a href='B:220 19:27'>Job 19:27</a>). Our eyes shall behold the King in the beauty which we personally perceive in Him (<a href='B:290 33:17'>Isa 33:17</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’; because the root of the matter is found in me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Having begun by complaining about the friends and then moved to rejoicing in God’s future salvation of him, Job now returns to address the friends. Here and in :29 he appeals for them not to judge him but to repent and prepare for judgment day. This is not at all out of context with the passionate rejoicing in personal salvation he has just expressed in :25-27. The connection is in that he desperately wanted the friends to be there too, to share his wonderful hope. But whilst they continued condemning him, they would unlikely be there; for God has always operated the principle that those who judge / condemn will themselves be condemned (<a href='B:470 7:1'>Mat 7:1</a>), and that is just what they were doing. And Job wants them to stop that and be saved. The situation arose because they considered that Job was totally at fault, and they were intended to persecute him on God’s behalf. If they had realized that we are not to judge in the sense of condemning, and left the possible sins between God and Job (see on :4), then they would not have worked themselves into the situation they were now in- thinking it was their duty to persecute Job. This is one of several passages where Job speaks as if the friends were responsible for his physical persecution (cp::22); as if they had brought the calamity which the opening chapters make satan responsible for. See on <a href='B:220 1:6'>Job 1:6</a>, and note how the satan figure morphs into the friends as the book continues.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishments of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment- I suggest that this expresses a deep concern in Job for the final salvation of the friends; see on :28. He urges them to be aware that the wrath they have could lead to their own punishment by the Divine sword of judgment. And he wants them to realize "there is a judgment". His basic desire to save them is rewarded. God does appear in judgment and condemn the friends, and asks Job to save them by his prayers and sacrifices for them.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Then Zophar the Naamathite answered-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job has just uttered a wonderful statement of ecstatic joy at the prospect of his personal, future salvation, and then has gone on to appeal for the friends to repent and stop judging him, so that they might share it (<a href='B:220 19:25-29'>Job 19:25-29</a>). Zophar is so proud and angry that all he can do is lash out at Job, totally ignoring Job's faith, hope and appeal. This is characteristic of how the friends generally refuse to engage with Job's actual words and arguments, because they are so obsessed with their own narrative they have spun about Job. And this refusal leads Zophar to crudeness (:7,15) and basically predicting the violent destruction of Job, with heaven and earth united in witness against his evil (:24-28).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Therefore do my thoughts make me answer, even by reason of my haste that is in me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu opens his response with something similar, leading us to see Elihu as summarizing the arguments of the friends and Job.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I have heard the reproof which seeks to shame me. The spirit of my understanding makes me answer-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The "reproof" was Job's genuine appeal to the friends to stop condemning him because they might thereby miss out on the wonderful personal salvation which Job rejoiced in (<a href='B:220 19:25-29'>Job 19:25-29</a>). To be told 'You are too judgmental' made Zophar even more judgmental and angry.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Don’t you know this from old time, since man was placed on earth-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> We the audience become almost bored by the way the friends keep on claiming that ancient sage wisdom is the source of truth, and any new revelation must be wrong just because it is new. But this sense of weariness at their repetition is intentional. We are led to realize that indeed, dialogue cannot progress if the participants simply return to the same old arguments all the time and refuse to engage with the responses.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> that the triumphing of the wicked is short, the joy of the godless but for a moment?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job's relatively brief period of prosperity is interpreted as meaning that Job was "wicked... Godless". Again we see how the wrong theology (in this case, that suffering implied personal sin) led to a headlong dive into ever more false assumptions, and condemning an upright man.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Though his height mount up to the heavens, and his head reach to the clouds-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This was of special relevance to the captives in Babylon. These words are used of Babylon's king who was to fall (<a href='B:340 4:22'>Dan 4:22</a>), an event the restoration prophets associate with Israel's restoration. Again, the friends state certain truths which are even quoted in later scripture, but they hold those truths within the wrong frames of reference when it comes to Job. And this is the problem with 'truth' about a matter being held isolated from a wider framework, and without connection to the things of the spirit. For God seeks worshippers in "spirit and truth". See on :9.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> yet he shall perish forever like his own dung. Those who have seen him shall say, ‘Where is he?’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Bildad's anger is such that he becomes crude in his vicious desire to curse Job. We recall that just shortly before, he had been sitting in silence with Job seeking to comfort him as a friend and fellow worshipper. This is how quickly relationships can go wrong, and false suppositions and lack of engagement with a person as an individual can lead to them going down a totally different track.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found. Yes, he shall be chased away like a vision of the night-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Bildad is dogmatic that after Job's death, there can be no restoration, and he bitterly stresses this in the following verses. Later events were to show him how wrong he was. And he then is thereby presented as a warning to the exiles who tended to believe that restoration to the land of promise was impossible for them.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The eye which saw him shall see him no more, neither shall his place any more see him-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Again, this is a true enough picture of death, and shows the error of all primitive fears of ghosts of the dead haunting their previous living places, reincarnation etc. But that truth is misused by Bildad and is seen without the wider context of God’s power to restore and resurrect. See on :6.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> His children shall seek the favour of the poor. His hands shall give back his wealth-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job's wealth had been taken from him by Temanite invaders, from the same area as Eliphaz the Temanite. His hands didn’t give it back. This is another hint that the Satan figure morphs with the friends, and they were actually the ones behind the stealing of Job's wealth, on the basis that they believed that as a sinner, it ought to be taken from him. See on :15.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> His bones are full of his youth, but youth shall lie down with him in the dust-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> AV "full of the sins of his youth". Job has earlier admitted the possibility that he had sinned in youth, so perhaps he had indeed sinned as a young man. Seeing they could see nothing apparently sinful in Job at that time, they concluded he must have sinned earlier, or was sinning in a way hidden from them. They were desperate to impute sin, finding possible fault in everything; whereas the way of love and of the spirit is to seek to impute righteousness as God does to us, and as He does to Job at the end. This of itself was a huge rebuke to how the friends had done just the opposite.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Though wickedness is sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under his tongue-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As noted on :11, the implication is that although they had to admit there was no sin in Job's current lifestyle, they concluded that his sufferings meant he had either sinned in youth, or was hiding his current sins from them.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> though he spare it, and will not let it go, but keep it still within his mouth-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea is that Job has sinned secretly and will not let that sin go but savours it.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> yet his food in his bowels is churned. It is cobra venom within him-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As noted on :6, there is truth in these statements, in this case, that sin becomes its own punishment; the sin secretly kept in the mouth and enjoyed as a tasty morsel, turns into the venom of judgment when swallowed. But it is truth without context, just as a Bible text without context is a pretext... for various wrong thinking and behaviour.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He has swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again. God will cast them out of his belly-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> It was in fact Israel who had taken riches but not by right, and would vomit them up again (<a href='B:300 17:11'>Jer 17:11</a>). Job had not done this, but was treated and judged as if he had. Again we see how he was suffering as an innocent representative of his peoples' sins. If indeed it was the friends who had seized Job's wealth wrongfully (see on :10), then Job becomes so powerfully their saviour at the end. He suffered the judgments for what they had done, although he had not done those things; and so he bore their sins. Through his prayer and offering for them at the end, he thereby saved them. He was suffering for the salvation of his friends, although at the time it seems he didn’t realize it. The Lord Jesus did the same to a far greater extent, but He learned the lesson of Job and was aware that His sufferings were for our salvation. See on :16,18; <a href='B:220 42:7'>Job 42:7</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He shall suck cobra venom. The viper’s tongue shall kill him-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As noted on :15, this was the judgment of Israel in their apostasy (<a href='B:50 32:32-33'>Deu 32:32-33</a>; <a href='B:290 59:16'>Isa 59:16</a>; <a href='B:300 8:14'>Jer 8:14</a>; <a href='B:300 9:15'>Jer 9:15</a>; <a href='B:300 23:15'>Jer 23:15</a>; <a href='B:310 3:5'>Lam 3:5</a>). Like the Lord Jesus, who also drunk gall on the cross (s:w. "venom"; <a href='B:230 69:21'>Psa 69:21</a>), Job was suffering the judgment for others' sins, so that he might finally save them.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He shall not look at the rivers, the flowing streams of honey and butter-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Honey and butter were the blessings for obedience to the covenant; Job was suffering as if he had been disobedient to the covenant, just as the Lord did.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> That for which he laboured he shall restore, and shall not swallow it down. According to the substance that he has gotten, he shall not rejoice-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Bildad was clearly jealous of Job's wealth, adopting the thinking of the Satan who suggested these things originally. But he justifies this by saying that Job has taken his wealth from others, and the Bedouin bands who had stolen it were in fact just taking back what Job had taken wrongfully from them. If indeed it was the friends who had seized Job's wealth wrongfully (see on :10), then all Bildad is saying becomes true for him. And he is therefore only to be saved by Job, the innocent, bearing the judgments for his sins.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For he has oppressed and forsaken the poor. He has violently taken away a house, and he shall not build it up-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Bildad assumes Job must have done something like this, to deserve his sufferings. Job engages with what Bildad says and denies it (<a href='B:220 29:12'>Job 29:12</a>; <a href='B:220 31:17'>Job 31:17</a>). Again we note that Job engages with the actual words of the friends, whereas they tend to attack him in terms of the straw man image of him they had built up in their minds, ignoring him as a person and the actual words he says. This is typical of how dialogue goes wrong.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Because he knew no quietness within him, he shall not save anything of that in which he delights-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> AV "quietness in his belly". Bildad is back to his crude comparison of Job's sin and wealth with tasty things he had secretly eaten (:15) which now swallowed, were working within his stomach to produce death by his bowels excreting them all.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> There was nothing left that he didn’t devour, therefore his prosperity shall not endure-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The satan had begun by saying that God had given Job wealth, but if that wealth was taken away, he would curse God. The satan then morphs into the friends, the "sons of God" present in the prologue, and they continue the role of the satan as the story progresses. But Zophar has now moved beyond the original suspicion. He now paints Job as a man who had not so much been given wealth by God, but had greedily devoured the wealth of others and was now paying the price, and justice was making him relinquish all his ill gotten wealth. Again we see a parade example of how dialogue breaks down. An initial suspicion (however legitimate the suspicion) becomes exaggerated into a totally different accusation, which has no basis in reality and is outright slander, however confidently presented.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> In the fullness of his sufficiency, distress shall overtake him. The hand of each one who is in misery shall come on him-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Zophar is reasoning that those who had been reduced to misery by Job could now legitimately put their hand upon him. In the prologue, Job is placed in the hand of the satan, with the reminder that this hand is ultimately God’s hand. Zophar now defines that "hand" as the hand of those whom Job has supposedly grabbed wealth from and reduced to misery. Again we have the suspicion that some of the trials were brought upon Job by the friends, who reasoned themselves into the assumption that they were the ones from whom Job had taken wealth. This is the classical outworking of envy and jealousy; 'you are wealthy... you have more than me... I am poorer than you... because... you took my wealth from me and added it to your own!'.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> When he is about to fill his belly, God will cast the fierceness of His wrath upon him. It will rain on him while he is eating-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> A clear reference to how "the fire of God" had consumed Job's wealth and children, at the very apex of his prosperity. God casting wrath through His Divinely controlled "angels of evil" is the very phrase used of His judgment of His sinful people (<a href='B:230 78:49'>Psa 78:49</a>; <a href='B:330 7:3'>Eze 7:3</a>). We noted the connection between the Satan and such "angels of evil" on <a href='B:220 1:6'>Job 1:6</a>. Again, Job is presented is experiencing the judgments of God' sinful people, whilst personally innocent.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He shall flee from the iron weapon. The bronze arrow shall strike him through-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Zophar claims that Job was going to flee from the arrow of Divine judgment, but would all the same be struck through by it (<a href='B:220 20:24-25'>Job 20:24-25</a>). God’s response was that His creatures didn’t flee from His arrows (s:w. <a href='B:220 41:28'>Job 41:28</a>). Neither did Job flee from God; he uses the same term to describe how the wicked vainly tried to flee from God (<a href='B:220 27:22'>Job 27:22</a>). He was in harmony with the natural creation. Zophar was wrong. Job didn’t flee from God but quite the opposite- he keeps begging God to reveal Himself, and He does so at the end of the book.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He draws it forth, and it comes out of his body. Yes, the glittering point comes out of his liver-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Zophar is gloating in the judgment that he was sure would come upon Job. We marvel at how quickly he has transformed his position from the man who came and sat down with Job seven days in silence, perhaps sincerely seeking to comfort Job in his affliction. But now by this point, the friends have reasoned themselves into a position where they not only think Job's sufferings are legitimate and deserved, but gloat at the prospect of his further and final sufferings, with his liver pierced by God’s arrows, and the arrow coming out of the other side of his body. This is how far the relationship broke down, all because of a refusal to understand Job as a person and engage with what he was actually saying and who he really was.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Terrors are upon him-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Terrors" are again the judgment of God upon an apostate Israel, whom Job was suffering for whilst innocent, after the pattern of the later Lord Jesus (<a href='B:50 32:25'>Deu 32:25</a> s:w:). Those "terrors" were likely understood by the friends as some kind of demonic beings. God deconstructs this by explaining that the great beasts He has created likewise were 'terrible' (s:w. "terrors"). But the simple point was that He had created them and was totally in control (s:w. <a href='B:220 39:20'>Job 39:20</a>; <a href='B:220 41:14'>Job 41:14</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> All darkness is laid up for his treasures. An unfanned fire shall devour him. It shall consume that which is left in his tent-</p><p> This implies Job still had some wealth concealed in his tent. But that seems unlikely, seeing he was literally begging for bread (see on <a href='B:220 15:23'>Job 15:23</a>) and squatting in deserted houses (see on <a href='B:220 15:28'>Job 15:28</a>). Again the friends are dogmatically asserting what they had previously begun by surmising. This again is how relationships go wrong when there is no actual engagement with what the person really is saying and their actual location in reality.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The heavens shall reveal his iniquity. The earth shall rise up against him-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The friends became assured that God, "the heavens", knew Job was a sinner, and "earth" would rise up against Job in harmony with "heaven". Again, the dialogue broke down because of their assumptions, which they came to assume were supported by God, and therefore their reasoning went full circle- they, as the "earth", were rising up against Job in harmony with "heaven".</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The increase of his house shall depart. They shall rush away in the day of His wrath-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Alluding to the destruction of Job's house / family. The friends have moved on from the original concern of the satan, who morphs into them. The initial question was whether Job only believed in God because God had materially blessed him. And so God gave all Job had into the hand of the 'satan'. The removal of Job's wealth was never intended to be an outcome of God’s wrath. Rather was it part of an experiment, if you like, to teach the satan and the friends something. But they had moved far further from that position, and were talking in terms of Divine wrath and judgment against Job. This moving on from original questions and concerns about an individual is exactly what we see in relationship breakdown today. The original issues are unrecognizable compared to the accusations which the original issues morph into.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is the portion of a wicked man from God, the heritage appointed to him by God- As explained on :28, the removal of Job's wealth was in order to test Job and reveal him to God and man. It was not a judgment of a wicked man; the prologue is at pains to point out that Job was "perfect" (<a href='B:220 1:1'>Job 1:1</a>) and not a "wicked man".</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Then Job answered-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I have consistently noted how Job actually engages with the words of the friends, whereas they pay little attention to his words and attack him in terms of the straw man they have created. See on :2.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Listen diligently to my speech. Let this be your consolation-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As noted on :1, Job engages with what the friends have said, whereas they attack him in terms of vague generalities without such specific engagement with his words. In this chapter he specifically answers what Zophar has said in Job 20. He argues that (contrary to what Zophar has just claimed in the previous speech) in fact the wicked are rarely cut down in this life, instead they prosper (:17,18). And their children often don't suffer for the sins of the parents but instead profit from them (:19-21).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Allow me, and I also will speak; after I have spoken, mock on-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This may be an invitation to them to hear what he has actually said and only then "mock on", rather than continually attacking the straw man image of him they had created in their minds (see on :1,2). "Mock" is the word for "scorn" used of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, the suffering servant based upon Job (<a href='B:230 22:7'>Psa 22:7</a>). The application to Hezekiah's time is that the people of Judah were likewise scorned by their enemies (<a href='B:290 37:22'>Isa 37:22</a>); and to the exiles in that they too were mocked by the opponents to the rebuilding by men who came from the same ethnic background as the three friends (s:w. <a href='B:160 2:19'>Neh 2:19</a>; <a href='B:160 4:1'>Neh 4:1</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn’t I be impatient?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job fell into the trap of thinking that his terrible situation somehow allowed him to speak whatever words came into his head. Job felt he hadn’t been ‘fed’ and so he was entitled to “bray” and “low” over his misfortune (<a href='B:220 6:5'>Job 6:5</a>). Because of the weight of his sufferings, he thereby justified the fact that "Therefore have my words been rash (<a href='B:220 6:3'>Job 6:3</a>). Likewise “Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit” (<a href='B:220 7:11'>Job 7:11</a>). “I will give free course to my complaint. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul” (<a href='B:220 10:1'>Job 10:1</a> RV). Zophar criticizes Job being “full of talk” and speaking “the multitude of words”, “for thou sayest, my doctrine is pure” (<a href='B:220 11:1-4'>Job 11:1-4</a>)- as if Job felt that because he held true doctrine he was justified in pouring out words as he did. “Why should I not be impatient?” (<a href='B:220 21:4'>Job 21:4</a> RV). “Today is my complaint bitter. My stroke is heavier than my groaning” (<a href='B:220 23:2'>Job 23:2</a>)- i:e. his complaining was due to his sufferings. “If I hold my peace, I shall give up the spirit” (<a href='B:220 13:19'>Job 13:19</a> RVmg:). Job felt that the situation he was in forced him to use the words he did, and certainly justified it [we may well have used this reasoning ourselves when justifying the use of bad language]. But in the end, Elihu on God’s behalf rebuked him for his wrong words. And Job himself recognized: “I am vile. I will lay mine hand upon my mouth” in regret of his words (<a href='B:220 40:4'>Job 40:4</a>). “Wherefore I loathe my words and repent” (<a href='B:220 42:6'>Job 42:6</a> RVmg:). He realized his mistake: he had thought that the situation justified his words. Now he hung his head and admitted that there was no justification for speaking in the way he had. Especially in the matter of the tongue, we can so easily justify ourselves; ‘I only said / did it [or didn’t do it] because</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>’. And it is all so child-like. Once we leave off all attempts at self-justification, we will face up to our sins.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Look at me, and be astonished. Lay your hand on your mouth-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> When Job finally lays his hand upon his own mouth (<a href='B:220 40:4'>Job 40:4</a>), he is only doing what he had earlier told the friends to do in recognition of their folly (<a href='B:220 13:5'>Job 13:5</a>; <a href='B:220 21:5'>Job 21:5</a>). Through the pain and irritation of their speeches, Job came to value and appreciate the need for silence before God. But it was only when personally confronted by God at the end that he realizes that he too had spoken too much and he repents of that in silence.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This horror was at the thought that although the wicked were not judged in this life, they would face a terrible future condemnation, and despite his own desperate illness and situation, he looked out of himself as did the Lord on the way to the cross, to deeply mourn the future judgment of the wicked at the last day. Here we have a wonderful window onto Job's basic loving, saving concern for others. No wonder he was the one chosen to be their representative saviour, suffering the judgment of their sins, and then invited to pray and sacrifice to bring about the salvation of the friends and his own family who had rejected him. If we too have a heart that bleeds for the condemnation of others, we will be used to save them. This is the prime qualification for all evangelism. It is this which God will use, rather than having apparently persuasive technique and evangelism materials.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The answer to this question is what had made Job shudder in :6. The answer is that they will come to their judgment at the last day, as they clearly don't face it in this life.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Their child is established with them in their sight, their offspring before their eyes-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> In contrast to Job's children who were dead. The point is that Job is answering Zophar's claims that the wicked are punished through the suffering of their children, but Job is saying that this simply doesn't correspond to observable reality. Note that he engages with the words of the friends, whereas they largely ignore his words. See on See on :1,2,17.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Their houses compare with Job's, which fell down as a result of the Angel-satan whirlwind. Earlier in <a href='B:220 9:34'>Job 9:34</a> Job pleaded: "Let Him take His rod away from me, and let not His fear terrify me". He felt he was suffering the punishment of the wicked in this life, and therefore he was drawn towards the conclusion that he would not therefore suffer it at the last day- but rather then be saved.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Their bulls breed without fail. Their cows calve, and don’t miscarry-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Miscarriage was understood as a Divine curse (s:w. <a href='B:10 31:38'>Gen 31:38</a>; <a href='B:300 15:7'>Jer 15:7</a>; <a href='B:350 9:14'>Hos 9:14</a>; <a href='B:460 3:11'>Mal 3:11</a>). It had come upon Job, but apparently not upon "the wicked". But the references just quoted in the prophets show that it was to come upon the apostate people of God. And this is Job's point. Judgment doesn't immediately come, but it will. And he was suffering those judgments because he was representative of sinners whilst himself innocent, in the spirit of the future Lord Jesus.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They send forth their little ones like a flock. Their children dance-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Again Job is answering Zophar's claim that the children of the wicked are punished, just as Job's children had been. But as noted on :1,2,8,17, Job is saying that this is just not true according to observed reality. There is a longer term Divine game plan here and Job is ever more clearly seeing it.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They sing to the tambourine and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the pipe-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is the language of partying. Job's children had partied regularly like this, and the fire of God had consumed them in judgment. This could be a tacit recognition from Job that his children had indeed sinned, his sin offerings for them had not of themselves been efficacious, his children had been slain "in an instant" (:13); but there still remained the mystery, that the same sin leads to immediate judgment for some, but not for others. He could even be implying that because his children had suffered it in this life, there would be future hope for their salvation. And this connects with the possibility that his slain children were resurrected, thanks to his being their sin bearer in his own body, when all things in his life are restored at the end. See on <a href='B:220 42:13'>Job 42:13</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They spend their days in prosperity. In an instant they go down to Sheol-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea is that they die an easy, quick and painless death. Job was dying a hard and slow death, inching ever closer to sheol rather than going there "in an instant".</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They tell God, ‘Depart from us, for we don’t want to know about Your ways-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Again as noted on :12, Job may be admitting that his children had indeed cursed God in their hearts, renouncing Him (<a href='B:220 1:5'>Job 1:5</a>). For he seems to be saying that his children had been judged in this life for their sins, but those who did the same as they had but who avoided such judgment would be judged and condemned at the last day. There may be in <a href='B:610 5:24'>1Ti 5:24</a> the idea that if we are judged for our sins in this life, we shall not be in the last day; and the reverse is true. This again could support the possibility discussed on <a href='B:220 42:3'>Job 42:3</a> that Job's slain children were resurrected when he was restored. See on :23. His sin offerings for them couldn't achieve this of themselves; but his representative suffering for them could. And this of course looks ahead to the work of the Lord Jesus, saving those whom Mosaic sacrifices of themselves couldn't save.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> What is the Almighty, that we should serve Him? What profit should we have, if we pray to Him?’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Note the parallel between praying to God and serving Him. Those who feel incapacitate to physically serve God can take comfort from the fact that the Bible presents prayer as serving God. Again as noted on :14, Job may be admitting that his children had indeed cursed God in their hearts, renouncing Him (<a href='B:220 1:5'>Job 1:5</a>). These words are misquoted by Elihu in <a href='B:220 35:3'>Job 35:3</a> as if Job has said this about himself and about there being no profit in serving or praying to God. Yet Elihu claims to speak on God’s behalf. We can however understand Elihu as merely reiterating the position of the friends, as a kind of summary at the end of their dialogues; and at the same time giving a foretaste of the speeches of God which are to come. He therefore serves as a literary device in the story, particularly required for an illiterate audience hearing or viewing the drama presented, and having inevitably forgotten the details of all the positions previously presented.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The idols and the Gentile nations amongst whom the exiles lived would not "profit" them (<a href='B:290 30:5-6'>Isa 30:5-6</a>; <a href='B:290 44:9-10'>Isa 44:9-10</a>); but as the book of Esther makes clear, they were profiting well, apparently, from remaining amongst them. But the only real "profit" would be if they quit all that and returned to Zion (<a href='B:290 48:17'>Isa 48:17</a> s:w:). But they saw no "profit" in being forgiven and restored as God’s people (s:w. <a href='B:220 35:3'>Job 35:3</a>). Rather they considered the temporal "profit" of life in Babylon as far greater profit.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand. The counsel of the wicked is far from me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea may be as GNB "They claim they succeed by their own strength, but their way of thinking I can't accept". Job is saying that citing the various calamities of the wicked, as Zophar has just done, is not relevant to him personally as he doesn't act and think as the wicked to.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out, that their calamity comes on them, that God distributes sorrows to them in His anger?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The answer of course is intended to be 'Not often!'. He argues (contrary to what Zophar has just claimed in the previous speech) that in fact the wicked are rarely cut down in this life, instead they prosper (:17,18). And their children often don't suffer for the sins of the parents but instead profit from them (:19-21). We again must note how Job actually engages with the words of the friends, whereas they increasingly ignore his words and attack the image of "Job" which they have falsely created in their own minds. See on :1,2,8.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is the language of the latter day destruction of the wicked at judgment day (<a href='B:290 17:13'>Isa 17:13</a>; <a href='B:340 2:35'>Dan 2:35</a>). Job is saying that they do not have their judgment in this life, unlike his sinful children who did have it in this life; but they will be judged at the last day. He is driven towards his understanding of the last day by his own experience of injustice and the very differing judgment which sinners experience. All our struggles with the injustice of life today are designed to bring us to a similar focus- upon the return of the Lord Jesus as the just judge, and the establishment of eternal justice.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> You say, ‘God lays up his iniquity for his children’. Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> GNB "You claim God punishes a child for the sins of his father. No! Let God punish the sinners themselves; let him show that he does it because of their sins". This was particularly relevant to the exiles, who considered they were unjustly suffering for their fathers' sins, and whose arguments are likewise challenged in Ezekiel 18. And in Job's immediate context, he is tacitly admitting that his children had indeed sinned and been punished- but not for his sins, but for their own sins, which he clearly was not involved in.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Let his own eyes see his destruction. Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> GNB "Let sinners bear their own punishment; let them feel the wrath of Almighty God". See on :19.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For what does he care for his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea is that in fact the wickedness of the sinner is often not visited upon their children. Job argues (contrary to what Zophar has just claimed in the previous speech) that in fact the wicked are rarely cut down in this life, instead they prosper (:17,18). And their children often don't suffer for the sins of the parents but instead profit from them (:19-21). We again must note how Job actually engages with the words of the friends, whereas they increasingly ignore his words and attack the image of "Job" which they have falsely created in their own minds. See on :1,2.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Shall any teach God knowledge, since He judges those who are high?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Even those in high places" (GNB). The three friends have similarities with the Jewish system. When Job speaks of "the wicked" he is digging at the friends, as they do at him when they speak of the wicked. Thus he implies here that they were trying to "teach God knowledge" - alluded to in <a href='B:520 11:34'>Rom 11:34</a> and <a href='B:530 2:16'>1Co 2:16</a>, where the Jews are mocked for thinking they can instruct God and be "His counsellor", thus linking the friends with the Jews. As Job suffered the judgments for their sins and finally redeemed them, so the Lord Jesus did for Israel.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea is that "one sinner" has an easy death, whereas others have Divine judgment in this life (:25). Job has earlier accused the friends of those being "at ease" (s:w. <a href='B:220 12:5'>Job 12:5</a>). He sees them as therefore being liable to future judgment, seeing they were not receiving judgment in this life. Job had earlier lived a "quiet" life (s:w. <a href='B:220 16:12'>Job 16:12</a>). But now that had been interrupted; he was experiencing judgment now, so that he would not face it in the last day. And earlier in this chapter it seems that he considered that this is what his sinful children had experienced when God slew them, paving the way for the idea that in fact they were resurrected thanks to his restoration- see on <a href='B:220 42:3'>Job 42:3</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> His pails are full of milk. The marrow of his bones is moistened-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job's bones are often mentioned as suffering; he was receiving judgment in this life so he didn’t have to face it at the last day (as in <a href='B:610 5:24'>1Ti 5:24</a>). The satan had been given specific authority to see Job's bones suffer (<a href='B:220 2:5'>Job 2:5</a>). His suffering of the condemnation of the wicked, whose bones were to suffer, was allowed on the specific understanding that God considered him righteous and not a sinner. This had been completely and willfully forgotten by the friends, who were the "sons of God" party to those initial discussions with God in the prologue.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Another dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Bitterness of soul" is the very phrase Job uses about himself (<a href='B:220 3:20'>Job 3:20</a>; <a href='B:220 7:11'>Job 7:11</a>; <a href='B:220 10:1'>Job 10:1</a>). He clearly has himself in view. His idea is that some get their judgment in this life, as he was; and he contrasts himself with those like the friends who don't have their judgment now, but shall have it in the last day.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They lie down alike in the dust. The worm covers them-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The implication of Job's argument, as noted on :6, is that indeed all experience death, but the difference will be at the future judgment. Job's belief in the mortality of man and death as an unconscious state is hereby revealed, and it likely stood in contrast to the majority views of the time.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, I know your thoughts, the devices with which you would wrong me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The friends are accused of 'wronging' Job by wicked "devices"; of actually planning wrong against him. 'Wronging' is the same word as "shake off" in <a href='B:220 15:33'>Job 15:33</a>. Eliphaz was so convinced that God would do Job 'wrong' that he developed to the point of actually devising to do wrong to Job, thus confirming the sense that the friends became the 'Satan' figure and actually did the evil to Job which he initially wanted done.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’-</p><p> "The [wicked] prince" clearly refers to Job. The friends have not exactly aid these words, but Job as it were places the implication of their positions in inverted commas, as if they had really said this in so many words- when actually they had only implied it. So again we see how dialogue goes so wrong, when parties become sure that the implication of others' positions is what they have actually said- when they haven't. The friends do the same to Job, but we can say that Job does so more accurately and fairly than they do to him.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Haven’t you asked wayfaring men? Don’t you know their evidences-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The friends constantly appeal to the wisdom of the sages and of previous generations. Job now appeals to the general knowledge and observations of the ordinary people, the "wayfaring men". He is saying that observed reality simply differs to what the sages are saying.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity, that they are led forth to the day of wrath?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job is arguing that the way the wicked prosper means that they must face a future "day of wrath", and that this has been figured out by ordinary "wayfaring" people (:29) because it is so obvious. God confirms this view, by saying that He has "reserved" final judgment, although He has created the things He will use in that judgment and "reserved" them until then (<a href='B:220 38:23'>Job 38:23</a> s:w:).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Who shall declare his way to his face? Who shall repay him what he has done?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> GNB "There is no one to accuse the wicked or pay them back for all they have done". The answer of course is that there is no such ultimate judgment or moral ombudsman in this life. Yet justice and judgment must be done- and there must therefore be a future day of judgment when God shall do this. Job is driven relentlessly towards a focus upon the last day, just as we are by our experiences of injustice. And the appearance of God in judgment at the end is a vindication of Job's desire.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Yet he will be carried to the grave. Men shall keep watch over the tomb-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The wicked are carried to peaceful graves without having faced judgment (:31). But therefore, the very peacefulness of their graves is a strong argument for belief in a future day of judgment, and their resurrection to face it.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The clods of the valley shall be sweet to him. All men shall draw after him, as there were innumerable before him-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As noted on :32, the apparent sweetness of the death and burial of the wicked, going on generation after generation, is a powerful argument that in fact there must be a day of resurrection to judgment yet to come. Or we can read with GNB "Thousands join the funeral procession, and even the earth lies gently on their bodies".</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> So how can you comfort me with nonsense, because in your answers there remains only falsehood?- LXX "I have no rest from your molestation". If this reading is correct, we have more evidence that the friends were in fact the Satan, bringing the judgments upon Job. The friends initially came to "comfort" Job. But their refusal to engage with him as a person and his actual situation and words (see on :1,2) leads them to do the very opposite. And so we see how initially well meaning dialogue turns to be destructive and the reverse of "comfort". The restoration prophets announced "Comfort" to God’s people who were feeling and suffering as Job (<a href='B:290 40:1'>Isa 40:1</a>; <a href='B:290 66:13'>Isa 66:13</a>); Job's lack of comforters thereby makes him representative of the exiles.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Much of this speech is utterly irrelevant to what Job has just said. Eliphaz assumes Job is protesting his righteousness, as noted on <a href='B:220 21:1-2'>Job 21:1-2</a>, the friends attack a straw man image they have built up of Job rather than engaging with that he has actually said. And they repeatedly forget the context of Job as explained by God in the prologue- that Job is a righteous man, and his sufferings are not judgment for sin, but rather to persuade the satan of his doubts. And the satan morphs into the friends after the end of Job 2. Eliphaz here does later mention some of Job's words (:15-20), but he misrepresents them to fit his own agenda. This again is a parade example of how dialogue breaks down and becomes more than unhelpful.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Can a man be profitable to God? Surely he who is wise is profitable to himself-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> These words are applied by Elihu to Job in <a href='B:220 35:3'>Job 35:3</a>. It seems an obvious and unkindly wilful misquotation- until we accept the viewpoint that Elihu is not so much speaking for himself, as summarizing for the audience the arguments presented so far, with Elihu playing the role of the friends in summarizing the argument so far. See on :21.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Is it any pleasure to the Almighty, that you are righteous? Or does it benefit Him, that you make your ways perfect?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Eliphaz is now propelled by his obsession against Job to say things about God which are wildly untrue, and is specifically rebuked above the other friends for doing this at the end (<a href='B:220 42:7'>Job 42:7</a>). I would surmise that his words of <a href='B:220 22:3'>Job 22:3</a> are specifically in view. For this is a complete denial of all that God reveals Himself to be. Job rightly understood that God as human creator has a tender desire to the work of His hands (see on <a href='B:220 14:15'>Job 14:15</a>). But Eliphaz speaks as if God has no interest nor feeling towards those who are righteous, so far above caring is He. And this could not be a more serious misrepresentation of the God who is thrilled by every move a man makes towards Him. See on :12.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Is it for your piety that He reproves you-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is sarcasm. And this is the point where we know that dialogue is now no longer dialogue. Eliphaz reached this low point because he is simply ignoring all Job has said in the previous speech, and has developed his own idea that Job's sufferings are Divine reproof- when the prologue makes clear that they were for the benefit of the satan and the "sons of God", the friends party to the original discussion about Job.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>That He enters with you into judgment?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The prologue had made it clear to the "sons of God", the friends, that Job was seen by God as a righteous man. His sufferings were not Divine judgment, but a means through which to teach the friends.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Isn’t your wickedness great? Neither is there any end to your iniquities-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is in total defiance of the opening explanation in the prologue that Job was not seen as wicked before God. But just as people today lose their basis in Biblical principle and statement and run headlong into assumptions which lead to breakdown of interpersonal relationships, so Eliphaz has become convinced that Job is a sinner because he is suffering. The greatness of his sufferings was in order to persuade the friends / satan about Job's righteousness; but instead they are so fixated on the idea that sin and judgment are proportional that they assume that the great sufferings imply great wickedness.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For you have taken pledges from your brother for nothing, and stripped the naked of their clothing-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Eliphaz is so convinced that Job is suffering because he sinned that he now dogmatically states Job's sins in details. What began as internal speculation within him, he now comes out with as fact. And we see this happening all the time in broken relationships. He assumes that the stripping of Job of his clothing in <a href='B:220 19:9'>Job 19:9</a> must have been because Job had stripped others of their clothing. The same word is used of the stripping of God’s people of their glory (<a href='B:330 16:39'>Eze 16:39</a>; <a href='B:330 23:26'>Eze 23:26</a>; <a href='B:400 3:3'>Mic 3:3</a>), which only happened because they themselves did not strip themselves of their clothing in repentance (s:w. <a href='B:290 32:11'>Isa 32:11</a>;&nbsp; <a href='B:330 26:16'>Eze 26:16</a>). The stripping of Job, which also recalls the stripping of the priest Aaron of his clothes and "crown" [mitre[ when his priesthood ended (<a href='B:40 20:26'>Num 20:26</a>; <a href='B:40 20:28'>Num 20:28</a>), was therefore to elicit repentance in him. And this is what was finally achieved at the end of the book.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> You haven’t given water to the weary to drink, and you have withheld bread from the hungry-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> See on :6. The focus of the Lord Jesus upon the positive is shown by the way the Lord quotes <a href='B:220 22:7'>Job 22:7</a> in the parable of the sheep and goats. These words are part of Eliphaz’s erroneous allegations against Job- for Job was a perfect man, and not guilty on these counts. Yet the Lord extracts elements of truth from those wrong words, rather than just contemptuously ignoring them. Likewise <a href='B:220 22:25'>Job 22:25</a> speaks of God being our “treasure</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> our precious silver” (RV). Surely the Lord had this in mind when saying that our treasure must be laid up “in heaven”, i:e. with God (for He often uses ‘Heaven’ for ‘God’). And James follows suite by approvingly quoting <a href='B:220 22:29'>Job 22:29</a> about the lifting up of the humble (<a href='B:660 4:6'>Jas 4:6</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> But as for the mighty man, he had the earth from you. The honourable man, he lived in it-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The accusation is that Job had given land to the mighty and famous in return for favours from them, whereas he had despised the poor (:7,9). We must recall that Job was "perfect" before God and was being tested for the sake of the education of the friends. They as the "sons of God" of <a href='B:220 1:6'>Job 1:6</a> were party to those discussions. But now Eliphaz is so persuaded of his pet theory that Job's sufferings are for his sins, that he feels he can speculate about what those things were. And that allowance of himself to speculate now leads him to dogmatically make false accusation; dialogue is now no longer dialogue but a feeding frenzy of hatred and self-justification. We too can so easily descend this path.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> You have sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless you have broken-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As explained on :8, Eliphaz began by nursing a pet theory: Job was suffering because he had sinned, and God’s word of explanation about why Job was now to suffer was ignored. This led to internal speculation about Job's possible sins; and now to utterly dogmatic assertion of that which was untrue. The path to every slander is similar.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Therefore snares are around you. Sudden fear troubles you-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Now Eliphaz quotes some of Job's words describing his lamentable state. But still, as noted on :1, Eliphaz isn't engaging with Job's words and arguments. He is merely quoting Job's laments and descriptions of his illness, and gloating that "therefore", because of Job's sins, these things have happened. This is not engagement with the words and arguements of another.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> or darkness, so that you can not see, and floods of waters cover you-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This may refer to fits of blindness which Job complains of, and a sensation of drowning. Or the darkness can refer to the cosmic 'power of darkness' many then believed in. It can be argued that the book of Job is a dialogue concerning evil and suffering, with three popular views being represented by the three friends. These views are examined and corrected by the personal history of Job, as well as by the epilogue and prologue to the book. Eliphaz seems to be representative of the idea that Job is being hit by supernaturally controlled evil- Eliphaz speaks of a force of darkness (<a href='B:220 22:10-11'>Job 22:10-11</a>) and sinful or faulty Angels living in an unclean Heaven (<a href='B:220 4:18'>Job 4:18</a>; <a href='B:220 15:15'>Job 15:15</a>). Yet the answer to all this is that the Satan figure is under God’s control, all Job's misfortunes come from God and His Angels- one of whom may have been called 'the adversary' ('Satan')- are in fact perfectly obedient to Him and not disobedient. And finally, Eliphaz and the friends are rebuked for their various wrong understandings, with God declaring Himself supreme and ultimate sovereign. Likewise Bildad's view of Angels in <a href='B:220 25:5'>Job 25:5</a> "The stars are not pure in God’s eyes" is corrected by God in <a href='B:220 38:7'>Job 38:7</a>, when He says that "the morning stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy".</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Isn’t God in the heights of heaven? See the height of the stars, how high they are!-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is similar to Eliphaz's terribly wrong claim in :3 that God is so far away that He is not so serious about human behaviour. Job however is then accused of misusing this to think that God is unable to see his sinful behaviour (:13). The final appearance of God is surely to demonstrate how close God is, and the height of His exaltation is no barrier to His relationship with and feelings toward man.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> You say, ‘What does God know? Can He judge through the thick darkness?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This was not Job's personal view, but he was falsely accused of holding it. In fact, this was the very view of the exiles, and it was this subconscious belief that God could not see them which led to their sins in the first place (<a href='B:290 29:15'>Isa 29:15</a>; <a href='B:290 40:27'>Isa 40:27</a>; <a href='B:300 23:24'>Jer 23:24</a>; <a href='B:310 3:44'>Lam 3:44</a>; <a href='B:330 8:12'>Eze 8:12</a>). So even the experience of false accusation was used by God, so that Job felt the feelings of God’s sinful people. Eliphaz was proven wrong enough when the God enveloped by the "thick darkness" of the Sinai theophany saw Israel's sin with the golden calf (s:w. <a href='B:50 4:11'>Deu 4:11</a>; <a href='B:50 5:22'>Deu 5:22</a>). The "thick darkness" is created by God (<a href='B:220 38:9'>Job 38:9</a>), it is He who can shroud Himself from human understanding; but this doesn't mean that He cannot "judge through the thick darkness" (<a href='B:220 22:13'>Job 22:13</a>). The thick darkness was only from man's viewpoint; not from God’s. The fact man feels God to be distant and shrouded doesn't mean He actually is. And this is a fundamental truth for all time, that our perceptions of God don't mean that this is what He actually is. For God was not created by man in his image and likeness, but the other way around. "The thick darkness" is the term used to describe the exile in Babylon (<a href='B:290 60:2'>Isa 60:2</a>; <a href='B:300 13:16'>Jer 13:16</a>; <a href='B:330 34:12'>Eze 34:12</a>). But God judged through this, and the exiles weren't hidden from God because of it.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Thick clouds are a covering to Him, so that He doesn’t see-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> See on :13. Again, these were false representations of Job, attacking a straw man image of Job which had no real existence and was only in the mind of Eliphaz. God created these thick clouds and could dissolve them at will, and maintains them within a perfect balance (s:w. <a href='B:220 37:11'>Job 37:11</a>; <a href='B:220 37:16'>Job 37:16</a>).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>He walks on the vault of the sky’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea is alluded to in <a href='B:290 40:22'>Isa 40:22</a>, where the context is of assuring the exiles that in fact they are not forgotten, and the God who is enthroned over Heaven and earth has the absolute power to change their situation in a moment.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Will you keep the old way, which wicked men have trodden-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The friends continually appeal to past history. Their wisdom is supposedly in line with that of the ancient sages; and they consider Job's behaviour to be in line with that of previous sinners, those who lived before the flood (see on :16).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> who were snatched away before their time-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Snatched away" is only s:w. <a href='B:220 16:8'>Job 16:8</a>, where Job complains his body is "shrivelled" or "snatched away". Eliphaz is claiming that Job is suffering just as those previously condemned by God had done.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Whose foundation was poured out as a stream-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Literally, "whose foundation was poured out (so as to become) a stream or flood", possibly referring to how the foundations of the earth appeared to turn into gushing waters at the flood (<a href='B:10 7:11'>Gen 7:11</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> who said to God, ‘Depart from us’; and, ‘What can the Almighty do for us?’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> A misrepresentation of Job's words (<a href='B:220 21:14-15'>Job 21:14-15</a>). The friends reasoned that Job was a sinner because he was suffering, therefore he was to be seen as associated with other sinners such as those destroyed by the flood, and therefore the reported words and attitudes of those sinners must be those of Job. Like many today in pseudo dialogue, the false steps of logic all arose because they refused to engage with Job as a unique person and hear his actual words; instead they pigeon holed him within a certain category they had in their minds. And treated him as if he were like all the others they had placed him with.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Yet He filled their houses with good things, but the counsel of the wicked is far from me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> A sarcastic quotation of Job's words, where he had denied association with the "counsel of the wicked" (<a href='B:220 21:16'>Job 21:16</a>). The descent into sarcasm is a sure sign that genuine dialogue is over. Perhaps Eliphaz is claiming that Job had justified the sinners destroyed by the flood by noting that God had "filled their houses with good things". Whilst there may be evidence of prosperity just before the flood (<a href='B:470 24:38-39'>Mat 24:38-39</a>), Eliphaz is attributing words to Job which he simply never said.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The righteous see it, and are glad. The innocent ridicule them-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Eliphaz equates the friends with "the righteous... the innocent". But they have earlier condemned Job for claiming he is "innocent", arguing that in fact all men are impure before God. Their obsession with condemning Job led them to contradict themselves, to even condemn themselves so that they might be seen as righteous and Job as sinful. And surely "ridicule" is never appropriate for the righteous in their relationship with the wicked. Job was indeed "the innocent", but he doesn't in this sense rejoice, gloat over nor ridicule the friends. Whereas the friends do "ridicule" Job (s:w. <a href='B:220 21:3'>Job 21:3</a>). This ridiculing of the innocent by those who wrongly thought they were innocent was exactly what happened to the Lord on the cross (<a href='B:230 22:7'>Psa 22:7</a> s:w:), and what was done to the exile (<a href='B:290 33:19'>Isa 33:19</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> saying, ‘Surely those who rose up against us are cut off-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "Has not their substance been taken away"; Heb. "Truly our&nbsp;adversary&nbsp;is cut down". Eliphaz is saying that the righteous, himself and the friends, would rejoice in Job's death because their satan / adversary would then have been cut down. This is how completely transformed was their reasoning. They were acting as the satan to Job; for the satan figure morphs with the friends after he disappears from the story. Job was treated now as the satan, the adversary. But thereby he came to save those who were adversarial to him. He thus bore their sins whilst innocent, which is one of the great themes of the story. And it is in this aspect that he points forward to the suffering, saving work of Lord Jesus.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The fire has consumed their remnant’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Alluding to how the fire of God consumed the wealth and family of Job.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Acquaint yourself with Him, now, and be at peace. Thereby good shall come to you-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Eliphaz orders Job to repent, and thereby receive "good" from God. He has overlooked Job's opening position, that the righteous receive both "good" and "evil" from God’s hand (<a href='B:220 2:10'>Job 2:10</a>). Again we see the defining parameters of the prologue disregarded by the friends as they rush to judge Job according to their own assumptions about him. "Acquaint yourself with Him" is the very same Hebrew phrase just used by Eliphaz in :2: "Can a man be profitable to God?". Eliphaz has been arguing that being profitable to God is not something God is interested in and Job is wasting his time. But here he contradicts himself. There are many such bald and blatant contradictions within the words of the friends. This is what happens when a preexisting agenda becomes the basis for so called dialogue, and the other party must be condemned at all costs.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Please receive instruction from His mouth, and lay up His words in your heart-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Instruction" is "the law", the word usually used of the law of Moses. Job was to receive it, as Israel received it (<a href='B:50 31:26'>Deu 31:26</a> s:w:). Again he is set up as the representative of Israel, who received the law but refused to put it in their heart. This was not the case with Job personally, but he was treated as if he had done what Israel did.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If you return to the Almighty, you shall be built up-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is language clearly relevant to the building up of the restored Zion which would happen if the exiles returned both to their God and their land. Job had not departed from the Almighty, but he was treated as if he had committed their sins.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>If you put away unrighteousness far from your tents-</p><p> Eliphaz quotes verbatim from the words of Zophar in <a href='B:220 11:14'>Job 11:14</a>. This again is a parade example of dialogue gone wrong. Those on the accusing side start quoting each other as authorities, whilst continuing to ignore the actual person and words of the accused.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Lay your treasure in the dust, the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea is that Job should stop valuing wealth. Gold was washed down from the upper reaches and was found "among the stones of the brook"; and Job is bidden leave it there. Yet again, the divinely given defining parameters of the prologue are ignored; Job's wealth was from God and not because he sought it, and it was removed from him in order to teach the "sons of God", the friends. But they had done what so many do in their interpersonal relationships and supposed diaogues with others; they had ignored the paramaters defining the specific relationship in view, e.g. that we are to esteem our brother better than ourselves, we are to have the love which seeks to believe good rather than evil.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The Almighty will be your treasure, and precious silver to you-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Treasure" is only s:w. "treasure" in :24, the word also meaning 'gold'. God was to be Job's gold and not literal gold. LXX "and he shall bring thee forth pure as silver that has been tried by fire". This is the image used of the intended effect of Judah's sufferings in Babylon (<a href='B:290 48:18'>Isa 48:18</a>; <a href='B:330 22:18-22'>Eze 22:18-22</a>). If the LXX is correct, then Job quotes this back to Eliphaz in <a href='B:220 23:10'>Job 23:10</a>. Job is arguing back that he does not love gold over God, and that he will himself come forth as gold after the trials have finished. Unlike the friends, who generally refuse to engage with Job's words in their speeches, Job specifically engages with their words. See on :7.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For then you will delight yourself in the Almighty-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The exiles like Job were to finally delight themselves in God at the restoration, if they followed Job's path (s:w. <a href='B:290 58:14'>Isa 58:14</a>).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>And shall lift up your face to God-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Perhaps the Lord had this in view when He commended the man who like Job would not lift up his face to God (<a href='B:490 18:13'>Luk 18:13</a>). The friends were only saved because Job was allowed to lift up his face to God for them (s:w. <a href='B:220 42:8-9'>Job 42:8-9</a>). This was all a powerful way of teaching the friends that they were being saved by absolute grace. The man Job, whose face they were sure God would not accept, saved them by lifting up his face to God. It was the exiles whose faces God would not accept (s:w. <a href='B:460 1:8-9'>Mal 1:8-9</a>). Job was treated like them although he was not like them; he was bearing the punishment of their sins in order to save them, just as he did for the friends, whose faces were likewise unacceptable to God.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> You shall make your prayer to Him, and He will hear you. You shall pay your vows-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This turned around in a strange way; for it was due to God hearing Job’s prayer that the friends were finally saved. God surely alludes back here when He says that Job will pray for them, “and him will I accept” (<a href='B:220 42:8'>Job 42:8</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> You shall also decree a thing, and it shall be established to you. Light shall shine on your ways-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "And he shall establish to thee again a habitation of righteousness and there shall be light upon thy paths". Again this is the language of later Isaiah about Zion's light and the restored Zion.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The decree which is established is parallel to the prayer which is heard (:27,28). This was in fact true of Job, for it was thanks to his prayers that the friends were finally saved; when they had here insisted that God didn’t hear Job's prayers. In fact it was their prayers which were not heard. But there is a wider principle here. Absolute faith in prayer which is according to God’s broad desires results in our requests&nbsp; effectively being decrees of what is now going to happen! It is not difficult for us to know what the will of God in the sense of His desires is. We have been born again by the word of God. We were not born again by the will of man, but by the&nbsp; will&nbsp; of God. The will of God is therefore found in the word of God (<a href='B:660 1:18'>Jas 1:18</a>; <a href='B:670 1:23'>1Pe 1:23</a>; <a href='B:500 1:12-14'>Joh 1:12-14</a>). Thus if we pray according to our knowledge of God’s desires as explained in the word, we are praying according to His will- and therefore if we have faith "He hears us". The Lord Jesus said as much: "If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you" (<a href='B:500 15:7'>Joh 15:7</a>). Notice He didn’t say 'you will ask whatever is according to God’s will , and it will be heard'. We ask whatever we desire, and we will receive. This is because our will should be the will of God if the word of God is in us. And as we mature, our experience of answered prayer gets better, because we more intuitively sense what is God’s will.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> When they cast down, you shall say, ‘Be lifted up’. He will save the humble person-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> See on :7. This is quoted in <a href='B:660 4:6'>Jas 4:6</a>. As noted earlier, the friends come out with some truths, but they are framed in the wrong context. What they say is so true it is even worthy of later quotation, but the context in which they use their 'truth' is so wrong. And this is an example for all time. The friends may be saying that Job now cannot lift up the cast down by his prayers nor save anyone (:27,28) because he is a sinner. All this was turned right around at the end, where it is the friends whose prayers cannot be heard, and who are saved from their "cast down" position by Job's prayers.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He will even deliver him who is not innocent. Yes, he shall be delivered through the cleanness of your hands- There are times and places where God is willing to save people for the sake of the spirituality of a third party, but if he or she fails in this, deliverance doesn’t necessarily arise from another place, as it would have done in Esther’s time. Eliphaz perceived all this when he told Job that a truly righteous man can “save the humble person. He shall deliver even him that is not innocent: yeah, he shall be delivered through the cleanness of thine hands” (<a href='B:220 22:30'>Job 22:30</a> RV). And this was proved true later on- for Eliphaz was saved due to Job’s mediation for him.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Then Job answered-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job's reply over Job 23 and Job 24 slips into self justification and fails to engage specifically with what Eliphaz has said in his last speech. Job 24 is largely a repeat of the general observation that the wicked prosper, and the suffering of anyone is therefore no sign they are sinning. This all indicates the overall decline of the dialogue. And it is a path followed by so many failed personal interactions.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Even today-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As if to say that yes, I am still going to keep complaining about my situation.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>My complaint is grievous. His hand is heavy in spite of my groaning-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> AV "My stroke is heavier than my groaning”. Job fell into the trap of thinking that his terrible situation somehow allowed him to speak whatever words came into his head. Job felt he hadn’t been ‘fed’ and so he was entitled to “bray” and “low” over his misfortune (<a href='B:220 6:5'>Job 6:5</a>). Because of the weight of his sufferings, he thereby justified the fact that "Therefore have my words been rash (<a href='B:220 6:3'>Job 6:3</a>). Likewise “Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit” (<a href='B:220 7:11'>Job 7:11</a>). “I will give free course to my complaint. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul” (<a href='B:220 10:1'>Job 10:1</a> RV). Zophar criticizes Job being “full of talk” and speaking “the multitude of words”, “for thou sayest, my doctrine is pure” (<a href='B:220 11:1-4'>Job 11:1-4</a>)- as if Job felt that because he held true doctrine he was justified in pouring out words as he did. “Why should I not be impatient?” (<a href='B:220 21:4'>Job 21:4</a> RV). “Today is my complaint bitter. My stroke is heavier than my groaning” (<a href='B:220 23:2'>Job 23:2</a>)- i:e. his complaining was due to his sufferings. “If I hold my peace, I shall give up the spirit” (<a href='B:220 13:19'>Job 13:19</a> RVmg:). Job felt that the situation he was in forced him to use the words he did, and certainly justified it [we may well have used this reasoning ourselves when justifying the use of bad language]. But in the end, Elihu on God’s behalf rebuked him for his wrong words. And Job himself recognized: “I am vile. I will lay mine hand upon my mouth” in regret of his words (<a href='B:220 40:4'>Job 40:4</a>). “Wherefore I loathe my words and repent” (<a href='B:220 42:6'>Job 42:6</a> RVmg:). He realized his mistake: he had thought that the situation justified his words. Now he hung his head and admitted that there was no justification for speaking in the way he had. Especially in the matter of the tongue, we can so easily justify ourselves; ‘I only said / did it [or didn’t do it] because</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>’. And it is all so child-like. Once we leave off all attempts at self-justification, we will face up to our sins.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Job understood God to be in control in Heaven; he rejects the idea of a cosmic conflict going on ‘up there’ which the friends seem to allude to. More specifically, Job speaks of how God’s hand forms and can pierce the “crooked serpent” and smite any monster (<a href='B:220 26:11-14'>Job 26:11-14</a>). It’s as if Job is mocking the idea that God has let him go into the hands of the cosmic monsters which the friends believed in. For Job so often stresses that it is the “hand of God” which has brought His affliction (<a href='B:220 19:21'>Job 19:21</a>; <a href='B:220 23:2'>Job 23:2</a>). That Divine hand was far greater than any mythical ‘Satan’ figure. The theme of his speech in Job 28 is that Yahweh alone is to be feared throughout the entire cosmos. Nobody else – such as the ‘Satan’ figures alluded to by the friends – needed to be feared.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Oh that I knew where I might find Him! That I might come even to His seat!-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job sought to "probe" (AV "find out") the Almighty (<a href='B:220 23:3'>Job 23:3</a>; <a href='B:220 28:12'>Job 28:12</a>), whereas Elihu appears to agree with Zophar that "the Almighty" cannot be 'found out' (<a href='B:220 11:7'>Job 11:7</a>; <a href='B:220 37:23'>Job 37:23</a>). God’s own appearance at the end is perhaps an answer to this. He cannot be 'found out' by intellectual argument or personal righteousness, but He still responds to the spirit of Job's request by appearing. Instead, He 'finds out' people and saves them by grace. Paul expresses the same idea when he writes that it is not so much a case of man 'knowing God', but rather of being "known of God" by grace (<a href='B:550 4:9'>Gal 4:9</a>):&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'><a href='B:220 23:3'>Job 23:3</a> perhaps epitomizes this desire of Job for judgment day: “Oh, that today I might find him, that I might come to his judgment seat!” (NAB). He wanted the judgment seat to come that very day! The invisible hand of God is working in every life that suffers from ones’ brethren ‘playing God’ in false judgment of us</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> to lead us to this wonderful and blessed attitude.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The use of the word "order" in Job's words in 23:3-6 repays examination: " Oh that I knew where I might find (God)! that I might come even to His seat!. I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments... Will He plead against me with his great power? No". See on :10.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I would set my cause in order before Him, and fill my mouth with arguments-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Earlier, Job had judged himself, setting in order his legal case, but declaring himself righteous (<a href='B:220 13:8'>Job 13:8</a>). By <a href='B:220 23:4'>Job 23:4</a>, Job is realizing that he needs to set his case in order before God; but he can't find God, or get God to engage in this game of judgment. He needed the final appearance of God at the end of the book to review his case, and declare that he is in fact wrong and condemned. But by grace, God will count him as right. He was prepared for this by Elihu's speech in <a href='B:220 37:19'>Job 37:19</a>: "Teach us what we shall tell Him, for we can’t make our case by reason of darkness". "Make our case" is s:w. "set my cause in order".</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Job appeals for ‘witnesses’ (<a href='B:220 9:33-35'>Job 9:33-35</a>; <a href='B:220 16:18-22'>Job 16:18-22</a>; <a href='B:220 19:20-27'>Job 19:20-27</a>), an advocate in Heaven (<a href='B:220 9:33'>Job 9:33</a>), denies his guilt and demands a legal list of his sins (<a href='B:220 13:19'>Job 13:19</a>), he wishes for God to come to trial (<a href='B:220 9:3'>Job 9:3</a>), and thus Job is described as a man who has taken out a ‘case’ with God (<a href='B:220 23:4'>Job 23:4</a>; <a href='B:220 40:2'>Job 40:2</a>). Job 29-31 is effectively Job’s declaration of legal innocence and an appeal to God to hear his case more sympathetically (<a href='B:220 31:35'>Job 31:35</a>). And of course God pronounces a final legal verdict at the very end (<a href='B:220 42:7'>Job 42:7</a>), in response to Job’s earlier plea: “Sleeplessly I wait for His reply” (<a href='B:220 16:22'>Job 16:22</a>). It’s as if the whole experience of Job was [at least partly] in order to test out the Canaanite theories of ‘Satan’, suffering and evil in the court of Heaven; and also the various theories which arose to explain Judah's captivity in Babylon. The friends represent the traditional views of evil, and often make reference to the myths of their day about ‘Satan’ figures. They speak as if they are the final court – Eliphaz speaks of how the judges and elders of their day, the “holy ones”, had concluded Job was guilty, and that they, the friends, were right: “To which of the holy ones will you appeal [legal language]?... we have [legally] examined this, and it [Job’s guilt] is true” (<a href='B:220 5:1'>Job 5:1</a>; <a href='B:220 5:27'>Job 5:27</a>). This is of great comfort to those who feel misjudged by man – above them in Heaven the ultimate Heavenly court is considering our case, and that is all that matters.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I would know the words which He would answer me, and understand what He would tell me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job promises to be obedient and acceptant of whatever outcome there was from his meeting with God. And when God does finally appear and in a way condemn him, he does accept this. Or perhaps the sense is simply as in GNB "I want to know what he would say and how he would answer me".</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Would He contend with me in the greatness of His power? No, but He would listen to me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> AV "Would he plead against me…?". God, and Elihu on His behalf, did plead against Job by recounting God’s power. Judgment before God was not quite as Job had imagined. When Elihu was established in Job's mind as God’s true representative, he found that he had nothing to say, as he thought he would have. Elihu seems to refer back to this speech when he challenges the dumfounded Job: "If thou hast anything to say, answer me... if thou canst answer me, set thy words in order before me" (<a href='B:220 33:32'>Job 33:32</a>; <a href='B:220 33:5'>Job 33:5</a> AV). Elihu has in mind <a href='B:220 23:4'>Job 23:4</a> "I would set my cause in order before Him". Job several times spoke of how he would fully explain himself to God, if he found Him. Yet in the presence of God and Elihu, he finds that all the words dry up. Words became irrelevant. All he can do is behold the majesty of God’s righteousness, and declare his own unrighteousness. That spiritual pinnacle of Job still lies ahead for the majority of us. The desire to speak is a desire to express our own thoughts. Words are a construct which can trap us. Only God’s words can liberate. There is a wordless element in being truly humbled before the Almighty.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> There the upright might reason with Him, so I should be delivered forever from my judge-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job's imagination of judgment day was that there would be some upright person present who would be as his advocate, and deliver him from God as his judge. Elihu appears according to Job's wish (<a href='B:220 33:6'>Job 33:6</a>); but he condemns Job. And God then appears in person to judge Job. Elihu couldn't save Job from that.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If I go east, He is not there; if west, I can’t find Him-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> We note there was no God to be found to the east, whereas He is apparently present at the other compass points, although invisible to Job. Perhaps this would be a reference to the spiritual bankruptcy of the children of the east, from where the friends had come from. It would also be a statement from Job, as one of the greatest of the children of the east, that there was no God in his surrounding society.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He works to the north, but I can’t see Him. He turns south, but I can’t catch a glimpse of Him-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "The north" in Hebrew is 'the hidden place'. There appears to be the idea that God is indeed at work to the north and south, but Job can't glimpse God there.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> But He knows the way that I take-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job cannot discern the way God takes, not even the compass point He is working on; but the point is that God knows the way Job takes. Paul expresses the same idea when he writes that it is not so much a case of man 'knowing God', but rather of being "known of God" by grace (<a href='B:550 4:9'>Gal 4:9</a>). See on :3:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;When He has tried me, I shall come forth like gold-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This appears to be an allusion to <a href='B:220 22:25'>Job 22:25</a> LXX "and he shall bring thee forth pure as silver that has been tried by fire". This is the image used of the intended effect of Judah's sufferings in Babylon (<a href='B:290 48:18'>Isa 48:18</a>; <a href='B:330 22:18-22'>Eze 22:18-22</a>). If the LXX is correct, then Job quotes this back to Eliphaz here in <a href='B:220 23:10'>Job 23:10</a>. Job is arguing back that he does not love gold over God, and that he will himself come forth as gold after the trials have finished. Unlike the friends, who generally refuse to engage with Job's words in their speeches, Job specifically engages with their words.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> My foot has held fast to His steps. I have kept His way, and not turned aside-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job says this in the context of having lamented that he senses God’s activity in various places, but cannot see God there (:9,10). But he has planted his feet in the footsteps left by the invisible God and not turned aside from that path. Job "held fast" to God’s footprints, even though He didn’t see Him, and yet he later realized that the afflictions God sent had taken hold [s:w. "held fast"] to him (<a href='B:220 30:16'>Job 30:16</a>). We see here the mutuality between God and man, achieved through the experience of suffering brought by Him.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I haven’t gone back from the commandment of His lips. I have treasured up the words of His mouth more than my necessary food-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job had had no fresh revelation from God since God gave the satan power over him. Perhaps he had been party to the discussion between God, satan and the other "sons of God" (the friends) recorded in the prologue. He would have hung on to God’s statement that He considered Job to be His righteous servant. And that the afflictions were somehow for the benefit of the friends / satan / "sons of God". See on :14. But there is a wider principle here. The Word of God should be our daily food - indeed, our dependence upon it, and natural desire for it, should be even greater than our instinctive appetite for physical food: “... I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my necessary food” was Job’s feeling (<a href='B:220 23:12'>Job 23:12</a>). Jeremiah likewise: “Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart” (<a href='B:300 15:16'>Jer 15:16</a>). Making time during each day for regular Bible reading is therefore a vital thing to build into our pattern of daily life. An uninterrupted 30 minutes of Bible study first thing in the morning is bound to start us off each day in the right spiritual gear. Such faith-forming habits are vital.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> But He stands alone-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea may be that God remained "alone" from Job's perspective, refusing to allow Job to come to Him and enter into dialogue.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>And who can oppose Him? What His soul desires, even that He does-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The dramatic story of Job thrice uses the same phrase as in <a href='B:290 43:13'>Isa 43:13</a>, concluding that "who can hinder…?" God’s way (<a href='B:220 9:12'>Job 9:12</a>; <a href='B:220 11:10'>Job 11:10</a>; <a href='B:220 23:13'>Job 23:13</a>). The exiles were to understand that no human opposition or discouragement can turn back or hinder God’s purpose to save His people, even if they are as Job in suffering. His saving and restorative purpose will not be hindered, if we wish to identify with it.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For He performs that which is appointed for me. Many such things are with Him-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Again Job demonstrates his understanding that all his afflictions were from God, not any cosmic satan being. And those afflictions were those "appointed"- perhaps referring to God’s words in the prologue, which Job had continually meditated upon (see on :12; <a href='B:220 24:1'>Job 24:1</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Therefore I am terrified at His presence. When I consider, I am afraid of Him-</p><p> Job has lamented that he senses God but cannot see Him (:8,9). But clearly he felt His presence in a very real manner. So we conclude that the presence of God can be felt in His very absence. We like Job can sense His hand working through His very silence and apparent lack of direct engagement with us.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For God has made my heart faint. The Almighty has terrified me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> See on :17. We can read this 'terror' as a reference to the panic attacks which were apparently part of Job's sickness (s:w. <a href='B:220 22:10'>Job 22:10</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Because I was not cut off before the darkness, neither did He cover my face with the thick darkness- The Hebrew in :16,17 is difficult, and GNB offers "Almighty God has destroyed my courage. It is God, not the dark, that makes me afraid—even though the darkness has made me blind". The darkness was typically associated with cosmic forces of evil. Job sees through that and perceives it is God behind the darkness. The exiles had to learn the same (<a href='B:290 45:5-7'>Isa 45:5-7</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Why aren’t times laid up by the Almighty? Why don’t those who know Him perceive His days?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This could be read as a complaint that God’s people don't realize the time periods of His operations in advance. Job sensed that his afflictions were for a period (see on <a href='B:220 23:12'>Job 23:12</a>; <a href='B:220 23:14'>Job 23:14</a>), but he didn’t know the end point. There is a purpose to that. All attempts to understand Bible prophecy as history and time periods predicted in advance are missing the whole point; these prophecies are so that we will understand once the fulfilment comes, rather than presenting history in advance.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> There are people who remove the landmarks. They violently take away flocks, and feed them-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Alluding to the taking away of Job's flocks. Probably his landmarks were removed at the same time. I have suggested that the satan figure morphs into the friends, and they may actually have been responsible for the theft of Job's flocks. The Bedouin tribes were certainly from the same areas as the friends came from. Job may be hinting that the theory that sin brought judgment was wrong, because the sins of the friends against him weren't being immediately judged.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They drive away the donkey of the fatherless, and they take the widow’s ox for a pledge-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Drive away" is the word used of the driving of God’s people into captivity (<a href='B:50 4:27'>Deu 4:27</a>; <a href='B:50 28:37'>Deu 28:37</a>). The exiles were wondering why judgment had come upon them, and not upon their captors and abusers. The answer of the book of Job is that they were as Job, and the wicked whose day of judgment was surely to come ultimately refer to their captors.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They turn the needy out of the way. The poor of the earth all hide themselves-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Turning aside the poor out of the way is the very phrase used in <a href='B:370 2:7'>Amo 2:7</a> of how the Jewish leadership had done this to the righteous remnant. Again, the idea is that sufferings of the righteous remnant were going to be finally judged, even though it appeared as if the wicked had got away with it. This had powerful relevance to the exiles.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, as wild donkeys in the desert, they go forth to their work, seeking diligently for food. The wilderness yields them bread for their children-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> It's unclear whether those referred to are the Bedouin tribes of the preceding verses, or the desperately poor who are not helped by them (as in the subsequent verses). Possibly the ambiguity is purposeful, as if to make the point that those Bedouin tribes didn’t help their own people even, and they themselves became poor and desperate. See on :6.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They cut their provender in the field. They glean the vineyard of the wicked-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "They have reaped a field that was not their own before the time: the poor have laboured in the vineyards of the ungodly without pay and without food". The impression is that they were themselves thieves and yet were also oppressed by others; see on :5.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They lie all night naked without clothing, and have no covering in the cold-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Particularly relevant to the cold desert nights in the region.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for lack of a shelter-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This could perhaps hint that through the experience of affliction, men "embrace the rock", a symbol of God and His Son, the Messiah Jesus. Job likewise was in essence led to the spirit of Christ through his experience of the abuse of others and lack of comfort from his own brethren.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> There are those who pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Baby stealing was exactly the sort of thing practiced by the Bedouin Arab groups who had stolen Job's property, perhaps under the direction of the friends (see on :2). Job has accused the friends of abusing the fatherless (<a href='B:220 6:27'>Job 6:27</a>). The friends accused Job of doing so (<a href='B:220 22:7'>Job 22:7</a>). Job now insists that it is the wicked who do this (<a href='B:220 24:3'>Job 24:3</a>; <a href='B:220 24:9'>Job 24:9</a>), and is dogmatic that he has in fact blessed the fatherless (<a href='B:220 29:12'>Job 29:12</a>; <a href='B:220 31:17'>Job 31:17</a>; <a href='B:220 31:21'>Job 31:21</a>). As explained on <a href='B:220 42:7'>Job 42:7</a>, Job in various aspects suffers as if guilty for the very sins committed by the friends. He was their representative, and suffered the results of their sins, although he hadn't committed them. Therefore at the end, his prayer and further sacrifice for them was accepted, and they were thereby saved- by grace indeed.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> so that they go around naked without clothing. Being hungry, they carry the sheaves-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Keeping the pledge of the poor so he is left naked (:9) was recognized from earliest times as wicked behaviour. It is condemned in the law of Moses. But Job is observing that those who do even such things are apparently not immediately judged.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They make oil within the walls of these men. They tread wine presses, and suffer thirst-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The wicked didn’t even let their workers drink from the grape juice they were treading out. The law of Moses allowed even animals to eat bits of what they were treading out. This legislation clearly had a basis in very early standards of what was right and wrong, for the book of Job appears to be about a situation before the time of Moses.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> From out of the populous city, men groan. The soul of the wounded cries out, yet God doesn’t regard the folly-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Because God doesn't judge the abuses listed in the previous verses, it is therefore wrong to suggest that He immediately judges sin with suffering, and rewards obedience with material blessing. That's Job's point. But Job also feels he has 'cried out' to God for justice and not been heard (<a href='B:220 19:7'>Job 19:7</a>; <a href='B:220 30:20'>Job 30:20</a>); and that there is nothing wrong with crying out to God in distress, it is a perfectly natural reaction (<a href='B:220 24:12'>Job 24:12</a>). One comment upon this is that the young ravens cry out to God for food and yet are not always heard (<a href='B:220 38:41'>Job 38:41</a> s:w:). But God in the wider picture sustains all of creation by grace. Job did well to cry out to God even if there was no answer, because the hypocrites do not 'cry out' to God when they are facing judgment (<a href='B:220 36:13'>Job 36:13</a> s:w:). Job feels hurt that God has not responded to his 'crying out' because he says that when the needy cried out to him, he had heard (<a href='B:220 29:12'>Job 29:12</a> s:w:). But here we see his works based approach; he thought that his response to those who cried out to him meant that therefore God must respond to his crying out. And God is not so primitive. His apparent silence is because His response is not predicated upon human works and charity. It is by grace alone, as is taught in His final appearance to Job. The exiles likewise were to finally see the response to their crying out to God in the restoration (<a href='B:290 58:9'>Isa 58:9</a>), just as their representative Jonah cried out to God from the belly of sheol amidst the sea of nations, and was heard (s:w. <a href='B:390 2:2'>Jon 2:2</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> These are of those who rebel against the light. They don’t know its ways, nor stay in its paths-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The implication could be that these people knew the light but refused to walk in the way of light nor its paths; whereas Job insists he has held to the true path (<a href='B:220 23:11'>Job 23:11</a>). He perhaps is making oblique reference to the friends; who may be the wicked who had stolen his flocks (see on :2). But this attacking of the partner in dialogue is an indication that the dialogue is failing: 'I held on to the true path, you didn’t' is not engagement with what has been said.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The murderer rises with the light. He kills the poor and needy. In the night he is like a thief-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job is appearing to overly labour his point; that the wicked are not immediately judged, nor are the righteous immediately rewarded. He almost revels in his description of wicked deeds which go unpunished, making the point that light or darkness make no difference to the wicked. Darkness is not a deterrent to them; they sin equally using both the light and the darkness. Therefore the accusation that Job has sinned in darkness is therefore untrue. But Job appears to be labouring his point. This too is a feature of how dialogue goes wrong once the actual words of our partner are ignored; lengthy digressions are made to prove a relatively minor point, and the essential thrust of the arguments is thereby lost.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The eye also of the adulterer waits for the twilight, saying, ‘No eye shall see me’. He disguises his face-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As noted on :14, the idea is that the wicked sin as much in the light as in the darkness. Murderers take the light as a signal to murder (:14), whilst adulterers wait for darkness to commit adultery.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> In the dark they dig through houses. They shut themselves up in the daytime. They don’t know the light-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As commented upon on :14, Job is far over labouring his point- that sinners sin in both the light and the darkness.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For the morning is to all of them like thick darkness, for they know the terrors of the thick darkness-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Perhaps the idea is that they are disappointed when the morning comes, because they have to stop their wicked works. But AV "the shadow of death" for NEV "thick darkness" suggests that the morning is the time of their death. Job envisaged a morning coming which would mean judgment and death for the wicked. In the end this was to be the hope of the exiles too, that a day of judgment would come with the arising of Messiah as the dawn (<a href='B:460 4:2'>Mal 4:2</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They are foam on the surface of the waters. Their portion is cursed in the earth. They don’t turn into the way of the vineyards-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> GNB "The wicked are swept away by floods, and the land they own is under God’s curse; they no longer go to work in their vineyards". This is relevant to the Jews exiled from their inheritance in the land and their vineyards. AV "He is swift as the waters" may refer to the swift coming of Divine judgment, like a flash flood of waters. The same word is used of the judgment of God’s people (<a href='B:310 4:19'>Lam 4:19</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Drought and heat consume the snow waters, so does Sheol those who have sinned-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> In <a href='B:220 6:17'>Job 6:17</a>, Job sees the melting of the snow waters as representing the failing comfort of his three friends; now he uses the figure about the destruction of the wicked; he comes towards the conclusions that his friends, his fellow "sons of God" of <a href='B:220 1:6'>Job 1:6</a>, were in fact sinners, they are the wicked Bedouin people who have brought his trials (see on :2). And this is all preparing the way for him to finally pray for their forgiveness and salvation at the end of the book. Job, the righteous remnant amongst the captives, were to pray for and save the unspiritual majority; but they had to be convinced of how far astray their brethren really were. We note too that sheol, the grave, is understood by Job as the destruction of sinners; although he himself speaks of how sheol is waiting for him, although he believed he would be resurrected to justification in a bodily form. He therefore believed that the wages of sin is death (<a href='B:520 6:23'>Rom 6:23</a>) in the grave [sheol, where both righteous and wicked alike go], and not eternal torment in some other place.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The womb shall forget him. The worm shall feed sweetly on him. He shall be no more remembered. Unrighteousness shall be broken as a tree-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> GNB "Not even their mothers remember them now; they are eaten by worms and destroyed like fallen trees". As noted on :19, Job understood the judgment of the wicked as being eternal death, rather than conscious eternal torment. In <a href='B:220 17:14'>Job 17:14</a>, Job uses the same language about his own impending death. He believed that both he and the wicked were going to the same place in death; the difference was therefore in that Job would be resurrected, whereas the wicked would remain dead.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The language of judgment as a tree being broken down was relevant to the exiles, who were bidden see their hope in the revival of the cut down stump, shooting forth as the shoot who would be known as Messiah.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He devours the barren who don’t bear. He shows no kindness to the widow-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job appears unable to resist the temptation to dwell yet further upon the wickedness of the wicked; for this further comment upon them appears slightly out of context between verses 20 and 22. He begins to bring God into the equation, but then in this verse flips back to relishing how wicked are the wicked, and how they avoid judgment in this life. Such an attitude would be appropriate if indeed the wicked he had in view were the friends who were seated before him (see on :2).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Yet God preserves the mighty by His power. He rises up who has no assurance of life-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The 'rising up' could mean that the wicked mighty people are not only preserved alive by God, but at times rise up from their temporal sufferings.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> God gives them security, and they rest in it. His eyes are on their ways-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The apparent security of the wicked is from God, somehow; but God’s eyes [a reference to the Angels?] are on their ways, and therefore [by implication] they will come to judgment.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They are exalted; yet a little while, and they are gone. Yes, they are brought low, they are taken out of the way as all others, and are cut off as the tops of the ears of grain-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This was how the Egyptians harvested corn, cutting off the entire ear of corn at the top of the stalk, and lends support to the impression that these things really happened "in the land of Uz" to a historical Job (see on <a href='B:220 1:1'>Job 1:1</a>). The death of the wicked "as all others" implies to job that there must be a future point of justification for the righteous; for the wicked and the righteous die the same death, as other scripture also makes clear.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If it isn’t so now, who will prove me a liar, and make my speech worth nothing?- Job has argued himself into an invincible position, in his own eyes. Indeed, all he says is true; but like the friends, truths are expressed but within a wrong context. Finally Job is to lay his hand upon his mouth in repentance (<a href='B:240 30:32'>Pro 30:32</a>; <a href='B:400 7:16'>Mic 7:16</a>) and recognize he has not spoken rightly (<a href='B:220 40:4'>Job 40:4</a>), although he earlier demanded the friends lay their hands upon their mouths before the power of his arguments (<a href='B:220 21:5'>Job 21:5</a>). God confirms this by remarking that whoever has hope of overcoming Leviathan, His great beast (perhaps representing death and human mortality) is a liar to think he has such hope (<a href='B:220 41:9'>Job 41:9</a> s:w. "liar"). Job has forgotten his humanity, despite being 'right' in his arguments. This is the problem with possessing truth; it can lead us to wrongly forget our humanity and consider ourselves invincible.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Then Bildad the Shuhite answered-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Here Bildad is merely using the previous arguments of Eliphaz in <a href='B:220 11:17'>Job 11:17</a>; <a href='B:220 15:15'>Job 15:15</a>. This is another sign that dialogue has failed- when one side starts quoting the words and arguments of their own side, rather than engaging with the actual words of the other side. These dialogues are recorded to teach us how not to dialogue, and to see the extreme consequence of refusing to even want to understand each other.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Dominion and fear are with Him. He makes peace in His high places-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Again, this is true, but it is a truth used in a wrong context. For Bildad's argument here is a repeat of what Eliphaz has said, that God is so great and high, considering even the Angels unclean, that He is really not that concerned with man, and Job's idea that God ought to be passionately concerned about him is therefore blasphemous.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Can His armies be counted? On whom does His light not arise?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The armies presumably refer to His Angels (as GNB). Job didn’t disagree with this; he has just argued in <a href='B:220 24:14-17'>Job 24:14-17</a> that indeed God’s light is everywhere, but sinners refuse to walk in it, and the presence of darkness or His light is no deterrent to sinners. But that argument is totally bypassed by Bildad here because he is set on repeating earlier arguments of his friend Eliphaz. Again, this is all a parade example of dialogue gone wrong.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> How then can man be just with God? Or how can he who is born of a woman be clean?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Bildad isn't engaging with Job's arguments now, he is simply repeating the false statements of Eliphaz that the human condition is such that we can never be just with God. Bildad has forgotten the parameters imposed by God in the prologue- that in His eyes, Job was perfect. The final justification of Job with God, by grace, was an answer enough to this wrong view of human nature. See on :6.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The question "How can a man be just with God?" is the same question as 'How can a man ever be clean before a perfect God?', and is repeated in this form in <a href='B:220 9:30'>Job 9:30</a>; <a href='B:220 15:15'>Job 15:15</a>; <a href='B:220 25:4'>Job 25:4</a>:&nbsp;&nbsp; The exiles had considered themselves cleansed whiter than snow because of their obedience to some parts of the Mosaic law (<a href='B:310 4:7'>Lam 4:7</a>), but failed to accept that such cleansing to be whiter than snow is only possible by doing what David did, and casting ourselves upon God’s grace outside of justification by works (<a href='B:230 51:7'>Psa 51:7</a>). Job was to learn this lesson at the end. It was this offer which was made to Job just as it was to Judah under judgment (<a href='B:290 1:18'>Isa 1:18</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, even the moon has no brightness, and the stars are not pure in His sight-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> It can be argued that the book of Job is a dialogue concerning evil and suffering, with three popular views being represented by the three friends. These views are examined and corrected by the personal history of Job, as well as by the epilogue and prologue to the book. Eliphaz seems to be representative of the idea that Job is being hit by supernaturally controlled evil- Eliphaz speaks of a force of darkness (<a href='B:220 22:10-11'>Job 22:10-11</a>) and sinful or faulty Angels living in an unclean Heaven (<a href='B:220 4:18'>Job 4:18</a>; <a href='B:220 15:15'>Job 15:15</a>). Yet the answer to all this is that the Satan figure is under God’s control, all Job's misfortunes come from God and His Angels- one of whom may have been called 'the adversary' ('Satan')- are in fact perfectly obedient to Him and not disobedient. And finally, Eliphaz and the friends are rebuked for their various wrong understandings, with God declaring Himself supreme and ultimate sovereign. Likewise Bildad's view of Angels in <a href='B:220 25:5'>Job 25:5</a> "The stars are not pure in God’s eyes" is corrected by God in <a href='B:220 38:7'>Job 38:7</a>, when He says that "the morning stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy".</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> how much less man, who is a worm, the son of man, who is a worm!- Bildad is simply wrong to argue that because man is a worm, therefore he is of no particular value to God, seeing that his nature means that he can never be clean nor just before God (see on :4). This is not the case. The Lord Jesus had human nature but was clean and just before God, showing for all time the possibilities intrinsic within human nature. The same word is used of how He on the cross felt as a worm (<a href='B:230 22:6'>Psa 22:6</a>). It is the very message to the exiles: "Fear not, you worm Jacob, and you men of Israel: I will help you" (<a href='B:290 41:14'>Isa 41:14</a>). Though their sins were red as the crimson worm (s:w:), they would be made white as wool (<a href='B:290 1:18'>Isa 1:18</a>). The lowness of man is no barrier to being clean before God, nor to being revived and used by Him.</p>


text:
<p> Then Job answered-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The speech of Job recorded in Job 26-31 is the longest in the book. The pattern of each of the three friends giving a speech and Job replying, spread over three speeches, appears to slightly break down in that Zophar doesn't give his third speech. We note that Bildad's final speech was very brief, and was really only quoting previous words from Eliphaz (Job 25). This could all create the intentional impression in the drama that the friends were running out of steam in their arguments. Job now makes a very long speech... but that is not his victory nor justification. That is only provided by God’s appearance at the end, when Job repents of his words. It is usual for the genre of drama to play with audience expectation and dash it to make a point. That is what is happening here, with Bildad's final speech really a flop, and Zophar not giving the speech which the structure of the drama requires him to make. And we are also led to expect Job's final long speech to be his justification, seeing most of what he says is true in itself. But this too is a dashed expectation; for God appears and condemns them all, and then justifies Job by grace. But see on <a href='B:220 27:11'>Job 27:11</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> How have you helped him who is without power! How have you saved the arm that has no strength!-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The reference may again be to Cain, who was cursed with the ground being "without power" to him (<a href='B:10 4:12'>Gen 4:12</a> s:w:), as an apostate Israel were (s:w. <a href='B:30 26:20'>Lev 26:20</a>). In this case Job would be saying that even the condemned in this life could be helped to revival. That was what he had learnt of God, and he expected men to act with a similar saving grace. Elihu confirms the argument by saying that although God has all power, He doesn't despise those who have none (<a href='B:220 36:5'>Job 36:5</a>). The exiles were also without "power" (<a href='B:310 1:6'>Lam 1:6</a> s:w:), represented by Daniel in just that position (s:w. <a href='B:340 10:8'>Dan 10:8</a>; <a href='B:340 10:16-17'>Dan 10:16-17</a>), with "no strength" (<a href='B:330 19:14'>Eze 19:14</a>), but would "renew their strength / power" (<a href='B:290 40:31'>Isa 40:31</a> s:w:). That revival would not be by human power but by God’s spirit (<a href='B:450 4:6'>Zec 4:6</a>), after the pattern of Job's revival. The Zion who had "no strength" would put on strength (s:w. <a href='B:290 51:9'>Isa 51:9</a>; <a href='B:290 52:1'>Isa 52:1</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> How have you counselled him who has no wisdom, and plentifully declared sound knowledge!-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job felt he had been deprived of everything, including wisdom and knowledge. But this was not because he was unwise; he is presented as a perfect man (<a href='B:220 1:1'>Job 1:1</a>). God is able to give and take wisdom, as is seen in the natural creation (<a href='B:220 39:17'>Job 39:17</a> s:w:).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> To whom have you uttered words? Whose spirit came forth from you?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> To ask this question is to imply that they were false prophets (<a href='B:110 22:24'>1Ki 22:24</a>). And God confirms this at the end, in saying that the friends had not spoken rightly about Him (<a href='B:220 42:7'>Job 42:7</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Those who are deceased tremble, those beneath the waters and all that live in them-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> AV "Dead things are formed from under the waters". "Waters" are a clear figure for judgment. Job's great theme is that out of death, there can be revival and restoration. Death itself is no barrier to this revival. This was the lesson taught to the exiles by the vision of the dry, dead bones of Israel reviving. The LXX therefore speaks of "giants be born from under the water".</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Sheol is naked before God, and Abaddon has no covering-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is a deconstruction of Mot, the god of death; see on <a href='B:220 10:8'>Job 10:8</a>. He sees God is the real attacker, not, therefore, Mot or any other such being. Note too how <a href='B:40 16:31-35'>Num 16:31-35</a> describes God as swallowing up Korah, Dathan and Abiram into death in the earth – as if to deconstruct the idea that Mot did things like this. But in the context noted on :5, death is no barrier to God’s work of revival and restoration.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He stretches out the north over empty space, and hangs the earth upon nothing-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This continues the ideas of :5,6; God can revive and restore from death, He can create matter, and can hang great weights upon nothing. Emptiness and deserted space can be used by Him. And this was the challenge of faith to the exiles. To believe that the empty space of the Jerusalem temple and the ruined land could again be stretched out by God as a tabernacle is stretched out, and revived (s:w. <a href='B:290 54:2'>Isa 54:2</a>); just as Job's ravaged body and life could be restored in a moment. Creation itself had been brought about from that which was "without form" (<a href='B:10 1:2'>Gen 1:2</a>, s:w. "empty space"), and so the new creation of Job and Israel would be likewise.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He binds up the waters in His thick clouds, and the cloud is not burst under them-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job likes to reason from the hints found within the natural creation, and Elihu and God Himself will speak to him in these very terms which he clearly so appreciated. Here, Job's point is that great weight can be carried by that which is nothing, and will not be broken by the great weight. This is in harmony with the preceding verses; Job believed that God would and could revive from nothing, from death itself.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He encloses the face of His throne, and spreads His cloud upon it-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As so often in the drama of Job, truths are presented but without context. This is indeed true; but Job and the exiles had to learn that the cloud that came between God and themselves was that of human sin (<a href='B:290 44:22'>Isa 44:22</a>), even though God responded by bringing that cloud (<a href='B:220 36:32'>Job 36:32</a>). The years of exile were the day of cloud (<a href='B:330 34:12'>Eze 34:12</a>; <a href='B:310 3:44'>Lam 3:44</a>). But through that cloud, the light of God’s saving glory was still visible (<a href='B:220 37:15'>Job 37:15</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He has defined a boundary on the surface of the waters, and to the confines of light and darkness-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> GNB "He divided light from darkness by a circle drawn on the face of the sea". Job understands that it is God who sends the good and evil, the light and the darkness, into his life (<a href='B:220 30:26'>Job 30:26</a>). Significantly, he states his faith that God even marks out the boundary between light and darkness (<a href='B:220 26:10'>Job 26:10</a>) – a similar idea in essence to the reassurance of <a href='B:290 45:5'>Isa 45:5</a> that God creates both light and darkness. The ‘darkness’, however we experience and understand it, is framed and limited by God; it is not a power or being with independent existence outside the realm of God’s power. God confirms Job’s understanding later, when He says that it is He who can swaddle the sea [another figure for uncontrollable evil] in bands of darkness (<a href='B:220 38:9'>Job 38:9</a>) – as if to say that it is God who gives things like darkness and the sea their sinister appearance and perception by men; but He is in control of them, using them in His hand. See on <a href='B:220 38:10'>Job 38:10</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at His rebuke-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job understood God to be in control in Heaven; he rejects the idea of a cosmic conflict going on ‘up there’ which the friends seem to allude to. More specifically, Job speaks of how God’s hand forms and can pierce the “crooked serpent” and smite any monster (<a href='B:220 26:11-14'>Job 26:11-14</a>). It’s as if Job is mocking the idea that God has let him go into the hands of the cosmic monsters which the friends believed in. For Job so often stresses that it is the “hand of God” which has brought His affliction (<a href='B:220 19:21'>Job 19:21</a>; <a href='B:220 23:2'>Job 23:2</a>). That Divine hand was far greater than any mythical ‘Satan’ figure. The theme of his speech in Job 28 is that Yahweh alone is to be feared throughout the entire cosmos. Nobody else – such as the ‘Satan’ figures alluded to by the friends – needed to be feared.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He stirs up the sea with His power, and by His understanding He strikes through Rahab-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Rahab is a term used for Babylon and so this becomes all the more relevant to the restoration context. "The sea" was understood by the contemporary people to be awfully mysterious, and a radical power in its own right. Just as Babylon and the forces arraigned against Job seemed invincible and a law to themselves. Just as we may consider we are in the hands of forces which are mysterious and too great for us to grapple with. But Job's simple faith was that God was in total control of all those things. "He stirs up the sea..." is quoted in <a href='B:290 51:15'>Isa 51:15</a> of God’s power available for the exiles against Babylon.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> By His Spirit the heavens are garnished. His hand has pierced the swift serpent-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> See on :11. Here the hand and Spirit of God are equated- both are Angelic phrases, and thus provides further evidence that the Angels actually performed the creation. Many passages clearly identify God’s spirit with His power. In order to create the earth, “the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light” (<a href='B:10 1:2-3'>Gen 1:2-3</a>). God’s spirit was the power by which all things, e.g. light, were made. “By His spirit He has created the heavens; His hand has formed the crooked serpent” (<a href='B:220 26:13'>Job 26:13</a>). A comparison of <a href='B:470 12:28'>Mat 12:28</a> and <a href='B:490 11:20'>Luk 11:20</a> shows that “the finger of God” and “the spirit of God” are parallel - God in action is His spirit. “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth” (<a href='B:230 33:6'>Psa 33:6</a>).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Thus Job associates God’s Spirit with His hand, which is Satan's hand. It seems far more fitting that this hand and spirit should be Angelic rather than human. Again, it was Angelic work that formed the Heavens. Job recognized that his trials came from the hand of God, but knew that His hand would not kill him- " with Thy strong hand Thou opposest Thyself against me... howbeit He will not stretch out His hand to (bring me to) the grave" (<a href='B:220 30:21'>Job 30:21</a>; <a href='B:220 30:24'>Job 30:24</a>). This was exactly the brief given to satan- to try Job, but "preserve his life". The hand of God creating evil (<a href='B:220 2:10-11'>Job 2:10-11</a>) must surely refer to God’s " Angels of evil" (<a href='B:230 78:49'>Psa 78:49</a>) rather than to man- Cyrus had to be taught that no one except God (including human satans!) created evil (<a href='B:290 45:5-7'>Isa 45:5-7</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, these are but the outskirts of His ways. How small a whisper do we hear of Him! But the thunder of His power who can understand?- There are only some things which God makes known to us about Himself; we do not have the total truth about God, we see but parts of His ways and hear only a little portion of Him (<a href='B:220 26:14'>Job 26:14</a>). Our perception and definition of “the truth” needs to bear this in mind. Absolute truth claims aren’t simply ignorant, they lead to all manner of relationship breakdown, arrogance and deformation of spirituality both in ourselves and others. See on <a href='B:520 1:19'>Rom 1:19</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job again took up his parable and said-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> In what sense is Job's pouring out of his very personal reflections about his situation "a parable"? I suggest the answer is that we are intended to understand his situation as parabolic or representative of other situations; particularly that with the exiles in Babylon, who would also be led to restoration if they followed Job's path.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As God lives, who has taken away my right-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job is specifically criticized by Elihu for saying this (<a href='B:220 34:5'>Job 34:5</a> s:w:). I have suggested that Elihu was not always specifically reflecting God’s viewpoints, but instead is a literary device within the drama who serves to summarize the arguments so far delivered. "Right" is literally "judgment". Job has lamented that he sought in vain for God to meet him in judgment. But the very same phrase is used of how by grace God would 'take away Israel's judgments' in no longer condemning them (<a href='B:430 3:15'>Zep 3:15</a>). It was therefore a good thing that God did not meet Job in judgment; and by grace He was to justify Job and take away his judgment of condemnation.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The Almighty, who has made my soul bitter-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The phrase used by Hezekiah, another possible fulfilment of the suffering servant based upon Job (<a href='B:290 38:17'>Isa 38:17</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For the length of my life is still in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is obviously referring to the record of God’s creation of Adam in <a href='B:10 2:7'>Gen 2:7</a>. See on <a href='B:220 10:9'>Job 10:9</a>; <a href='B:220 9:17'>Job 9:17</a>. Job may be wrongly suggesting he is merely suffering because he is a son of Adam, whilst personally innocent. Although in Job's case he did need to repent, his situation pointed forward to that of the Lord Jesus, the suffering servant based upon Job who was the second Adam.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> surely my lips shall not speak unrighteousness, neither shall my tongue utter deceit-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job was bending all his self will to avoid not sinning with his lips, as he is initially commended for doing (<a href='B:220 2:10'>Job 2:10</a>). But finally he is taught that for all that steel willed self control, he must lay his hand upon his mouth and realize he has not spoken rightly (<a href='B:220 40:4'>Job 40:4</a>). He may have controlled his specific words, but the general thrust of his understanding had been so badly wrong.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Far be it from me that I should justify you. Until I die I will not put away my integrity from me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The friends had specifically accused Job of things he had never done (e.g. <a href='B:220 22:5-9'>Job 22:5-9</a>). He would not justify them by saying they had been right after all; he is a great example of not taking false guilt. For in such situations, people often break down and accept guilt for what they never actually did. He held on to God’s view of him which had been made clear in the prologue- that he was "perfect", of integrity, and he would not be made to feel as if that was not the case. What he had to learn was that he was after all a sinful human and that high estimation of him had been the result of imputed righteousness by grace. And he had to be taught that in God’s final appearance to him.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I hold fast to my righteousness, and will not let it go-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> God had stated in <a href='B:220 2:3'>Job 2:3</a> that Job held fast (s:w:) to his integrity. And here Job uses this word about himself. He will not "curse God, and die". Again we have the impression that he had been present at these discussions between the Satan and God; and the view of the Satan was in fact the view now of the friends, who effectively acted as the Satan figure who had influenced their thinking. His argument against the friends, that he did maintain his integrity still, was effectively arguing back against this position of the Satan.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>"Hold fast" is the same word as in <a href='B:290 56:2'>Isa 56:2</a>: "And the son of man who holds it fast". To "hold fast" means to keep covenant (<a href='B:140 7:22'>2Ch 7:22</a>). The "it" the exiles were to hold fast to was God’s righteousness and not their own (<a href='B:290 56:1'>Isa 56:1</a>). But they refused to do so because like Job, they held fast (s:w:) to their own righteousness (s:w. <a href='B:220 27:6'>Job 27:6</a>).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>My heart shall not reproach me so long as I live-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Paul was like Job, determined to "have always a conscience void of offence, both toward God and toward man" (<a href='B:510 24:16'>Act 24:16</a>); but later he learnt the lesson of Job, and realized that although his conscience doesn't condemn him, this is not to say he is ultimately right before God (<a href='B:530 4:4'>1Co 4:4</a>). For the final appearance of God convicted Job of sin, of the fact that his status as "perfect" before God was by imputed righteousness through grace; and that his spotless personal conscience was not therefore the ultimate decider of his acceptability before God. Just as we must learn that at the last day, we will be judged by God’s word and our conscience will not as it were jump out of us and judge us.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Job realized his sinfulness, and yet at the same time he was in a quandary over whether he really had sinned. In <a href='B:220 27:6'>Job 27:6</a> he even feels that his heart does not reproach him over any of the days he has ever lived (RV). This is such an accurate caricature of so many Christian consciences, of so much of our self-examination, both individually and collectively. We of course have to admit that we are sinners, riddled with weakness in so many ways; and of course we do admit this. And yet there is a quandary over whether we really are big time sinners. We feel ourselves to be little sinners, whatever we may theoretically admit. And as such, we fail to appreciate the grace of God’s salvation, and therefore we fail to dynamically respond to this as we should do, and thereby our community and our own lives are characterized by the all too evident apathy with which they are; there is so little of the real flame, the fire of true spirituality, which there might be. And dear Job, like us, for all his good works, for all his being such a truly and really nice guy and brother, through and through... he had to be brought down to his knees: "I am vile... I know (now, by implication) that thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from thee... therefore have I uttered that I understood thee; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not".</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Let my enemy be as the wicked. Let him who rises up against me be as the unrighteous-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I wonder whether this specific enemy was Eliphaz. He is singled out by God at the end (<a href='B:220 42:7'>Job 42:7</a>), and the other two friends largely repeat his arguments in their speeches. He was from Teman, the very place from where the bands of marauders had come upon Job's encampment. He was one of the sons of God of <a href='B:220 1:6'>Job 1:6</a> who had heard the Satan's opening arguments, and it seems he and the friends replaced the satan in the narrative; and therefore the distress brought by the satan may partly have been brought by Eliphaz and his team. He had risen up against Job, and therefore the descriptions of "the wicked" given by Job were all relevant to him and the friends.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For what is the hope of the godless, when he is cut off, when God takes away his life?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> GNB "What hope is there for the godless in the hour when God demands their life?". This appears to have been a source for the Lord's parable of the rich fool. "The godless" is AV "the hypocrite". This would be so true of the friends if indeed they were the ones behind Job's loss of cattle at the hand of the Bedouin tribesmen.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Will God hear his cry when trouble comes on him?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> <a href='B:220 27:9-10'>Job 27:9-10</a> seems to be saying [although the Hebrew text is rather obscure] that every man on his deathbed cries to God in some kind of prayer; but a belief in the mortality of man will result in the righteous man having lived a life of prayerful crying to the Father, which will be in context with his final cry to God in his time of dying. The final truth was that God did not hear the cry of the friends- but He asks Job to pray for them, and He heard Job's cry for them.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Will he delight himself in the Almighty, and call on God at all times?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As noted on :9, "at all times" means that the wicked only cry to God on their deathbeds and not "at all times" in their lifetimes. The exiles like Job were to finally 'delight themselves' in God at the restoration, if they followed Job's path (s:w. <a href='B:290 58:14'>Isa 58:14</a>). But Job is saying that whilst sinners refuse to repent, then they can never do this; and that was the fate of the exiles.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I will teach you about the hand of God. That which is with the Almighty will I not conceal-</p><p> See on <a href='B:220 6:10'>Job 6:10</a>. Some consider that there is textual corruption in Job, and <a href='B:220 27:11-23'>Job 27:11-23</a> are Zophar's apparently missing third speech. But I would argue otherwise, apart from a dislike of positing textual corruption in order to explain away what may otherwise be hard of explanation. The speech of Job recorded in Job 26-31 is the longest in the book. The pattern of each of the three friends giving a speech and Job replying, spread over three speeches, appears to slightly break down in that Zophar doesn't give his third speech. We note that Bildad's final speech was very brief, and was really only quoting previous words from Eliphaz (Job 25). This could all create the intentional impression in the drama that the friends were running out of steam in their arguments. Job now makes a very long speech... but that is not his victory nor justification. That is only provided by God’s appearance at the end, when Job repents of his words. It is usual for the genre of drama to play with audience expectation and dash it to make a point. That is what is happening here, with Bildad's final speech really a flop, and Zophar not giving the speech which the structure of the drama requires him to make. And we are also led to expect Job's final long speech to be his justification, seeing most of what he says is true in itself. But this too is a dashed expectation; for God appears and condemns them all, and then justifies Job by grace.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, all of you have seen it yourselves; why then have you become altogether vain?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They had been present at the opening dialogue with the Satan; and so they had 'seen' that Satan's hand was God’s hand (:11). But they had not retained that in their knowledge, and had become vain in that they had come to argue and reason from a purely secular, Godless perspective.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is the portion of a wicked man with God, the heritage of oppressors, which they receive from the Almighty-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The "this" refers to the description of the fate of the wicked which we now have in :13-23. Nearly all the descriptions have reference to Job's own experience. But his point is that he the righteous is suffering exactly the judgment of the wicked; he is now starting to realize that his sufferings were on behalf of others, even perhaps of the friends. And this comes to final term when at the end, he becomes their saviour, by grace.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If his children are multiplied, it is for the sword. His offspring shall not be satisfied with bread-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Seeing his own children had been destroyed by the sword, Job presumably was accepting that he was among the "wicked", as he does elsewhere (e.g. <a href='B:220 9:2'>Job 9:2</a>). <a href='B:350 9:13'>Hos 9:13</a>; <a href='B:350 9:16'>Hos 9:16</a> repeats such language regarding the punishment of sinful Israel: "Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer". <a href='B:50 28:41'>Deu 28:41</a> has the same idea.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Those who remain of him shall be buried in death. His widows shall make no lamentation-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Alluding to how Job's wife turned against him and was making no lamentation over his grief.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Though he heap up silver as the dust, and prepare clothing as the clay-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The sense is "Even if he..." had done these things. Job clearly has himself in view (see on :13), hence his conditional language (also in :17).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> he may prepare it, but the just shall put it on, and the innocent shall divide the silver-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The friends insisted Job was not innocent (s:w. <a href='B:220 4:7'>Job 4:7</a>). Job said he was. So he recognizes that whilst it appears that his wealth is being taken away by others because he has sinned, there will yet come a day when he is justified, and 'divides the silver'; and he as the innocent (<a href='B:220 9:23'>Job 9:23</a>) will condemn his hypocritical friends (<a href='B:220 17:8'>Job 17:8</a>). It was perhaps in recognition of this that those who had once rejected him come and give him silver (<a href='B:220 42:11'>Job 42:11</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He builds his house as the moth, as a booth which the watchman makes-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Again Job refers to himself (<a href='B:220 4:19'>Job 4:19</a>; <a href='B:220 13:28'>Job 13:28</a>), recognizing that indeed he is suffering the judgment of the sinner, whilst personally righteous. Being consumed by a moth was to be the fate of apostate Israel (s:w. <a href='B:290 50:9'>Isa 50:9</a>; <a href='B:290 51:8'>Isa 51:8</a>). But they could follow the path of Job to restoration, despite feeling and being condemned to death.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He lies down rich, but he shall not do so again. He opens his eyes, and he is not-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Perhaps as GNB "One last time they will lie down rich, and when they wake up, they will find their wealth gone".</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Terrors overtake him like waters. A storm steals him away in the night-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> A reference to the terrors or panic attacks which Job complained of (<a href='B:220 6:4'>Job 6:4</a>; <a href='B:220 31:23'>Job 31:23</a>), and the whirlwind storm which had suddenly taken away Job's family and wealth.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The east wind carries him away, and he departs. It sweeps him out of his place-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job felt he too had been swept out of his place (<a href='B:220 7:10'>Job 7:10</a>). The wind from the east was the wind which swept in out of the wilderness to destroy Job (<a href='B:220 1:19'>Job 1:19</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For it hurls at him, and does not spare, as he flees away from his hand-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> AV "For God shall cast upon him, and not spare: he would fain flee out of his hand". Zophar claims that Job was going to flee from the arrow of Divine judgment, but would all the same be struck through by it (<a href='B:220 20:24-25'>Job 20:24-25</a>). God’s response was that His creatures didn’t flee from His arrows (s:w. <a href='B:220 41:28'>Job 41:28</a>). Neither did Job flee from God, although he wanted to (see AV); he was in harmony with the natural creation. Zophar was wrong. Job didn’t flee from God but quite the opposite- he keeps begging God to reveal Himself, and He does so at the end of the book.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Men shall clap their hands at him, and shall hiss him out of his place- It was the friends who did this to Job, just as Zion's abusers did to her (<a href='B:310 2:15'>Lam 2:15</a> s:w:), hissing her into captivity (<a href='B:300 19:8'>Jer 19:8</a>). Again, Job is presented as bearing the judgments of God’s apostate people, who were also moved out of their place into exile.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place for gold which they refine-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job in chapter 28 prides himself on his appreciation, as he thought, of God’s hand in creation, and how creation reveals the greatness of God. But at the end he was taught that what he thought he so appreciated, he really didn’t; and he learnt the true knowledge of God. Unclean animals are brought to his attention in Job 39; he then repents in <a href='B:220 40:2-4'>Job 40:2-4</a>, as if he finally saw in them symbols of himself. And then chapters 40 and 41 go on to speak of the joy of clean animals in their relationship with God, and the inability of man to come between them and their maker. &nbsp;The theme of his speech in Job 28 is that Yahweh alone is to be feared throughout the entire cosmos. Nobody else – such as the ‘Satan’ figures alluded to by the friends – needed to be feared. Job understood God to be in control in Heaven; he rejects the idea of a cosmic conflict going on ‘up there’ which the friends seem to allude to. More specifically, Job speaks of how God’s hand forms and can pierce the “crooked serpent” and smite any monster (<a href='B:220 26:11-14'>Job 26:11-14</a>). It’s as if Job is mocking the idea that God has let him go into the hands of the cosmic monsters which the friends believed in. For Job so often stresses that it is the “hand of God” which has brought His affliction (<a href='B:220 19:21'>Job 19:21</a>; <a href='B:220 23:2'>Job 23:2</a>). That Divine hand was far greater than any mythical ‘Satan’ figure.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is smelted out of the ore-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is leading up to Job's contrast with the way that wisdom cannot be found by as it were mining the earth, and then processing what has been taken out. These reflections lead him to be ready for God’s final appearance, announcing that grace is indeed a gift, and it is not so much knowing God as God knowing us which is so critical (<a href='B:550 4:9'>Gal 4:9</a>). And theoretical knowledge and human wisdom play little part in that. All the extraction and processing of such knowledge will not lead us to personal relationship with Him.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Man sets an end to darkness, and searches out, to the furthest bound of thick darkness, in order to find the stones of obscurity-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Darkness" is a term often used in the dialogues about what Job was enduring. Man, and the reference is to the friends, thinks he can understand it right to the ends of that darkness. But he can't. Only God can (:27):&nbsp;The darkness of Job's trials and their limit was to be defined by God alone, as made clear in the prologue. The finding of some obscure nugget of truth is therefore irrelevant compared to realizing that God has set far wider horizons that man has set himself.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He breaks open a shaft away from where people live. They are forgotten by the foot walking above. They hang far from men, they swing back and forth-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is a picture of ancient mining, with men descending shafts on ropes in desperate search for precious nuggets (:3). Again, Job's point is that wisdom cannot be found by as it were mining the earth, and then processing what has been taken out. All the extraction and processing of such knowledge will not lead us to personal relationship with God.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As for the earth, out of it comes bread; underneath it is turned up as it were by fire-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This could be saying (in line with :2-4) that mining can be dangerous; under the earth is fire, and man is best to use the surface of the earth to grow bread. The whole enterprise of mining is being contrasted to man's search for meaning and knowledge. Job is not as it were anti intellectual, but is coming to appreciate that relationship with God is beyond mere nuggets of knowledge, "stones of obscurity" (:3) strung together. And this is confirmed when God finally appears and condemns the wisdom of the friends. See on :11.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Sapphires come from its rocks. It has dust of gold-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job doesn't doubt that great beauty and value can indeed be mined. See on :2-5. But his point is that there is another set of values, invisible to the naked eye (:7), which is experience with God when we have a clear conscience (:28). Or the idea may be that there is gold that can be found on the surface without mining, and sapphires are found in alluvial soil embedded in gneiss on the surface, and not by mining. Perhaps the idea is that mining isn't needed to find nuggets of 'truth' but rather gathering what is on the surface of life.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> That path no bird of prey knows, neither has the falcon’s eye seen it-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The pagan peoples thought that birds had the gift of divination and wisdom. Again, as so often in Job, there is a deconstruction of popular beliefs in order to demonstrate the utter supremacy of God.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The proud animals have not trodden it, nor has the fierce lion passed by there-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "The proud animals" are literally a pride of lions. Physical strength and reputation will not bring one to the wisdom of relationship with God which the argument climaxes with in :28.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He puts forth his hand on the flinty rock, and he overturns the mountains by the roots-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The "he" could be wisdom personified, or the reference could be to God. For He alone can overturn mountain roots. This section of the argument concludes in :12 "But where shall wisdom be found?". God can upturn mountains for us to look underneath, but still we will not find wisdom. Because wisdom is not knowledge which can be dug out and processed as if by the mining enterprise; rather is it live relationship with God which is of the essence (:28).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He cuts out channels among the rocks. His eye sees every precious thing-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As noted on :9, God can reveal everything physical, if He wishes. But man will still not find "wisdom" if he is searching for it as a 'physical' thing, obtained by a process of mining and subsequent refining. That reveals merely "stones of obscurity" (:3), nuggets of isolated truth. This message needs to be heeded by those who consider the Christian duty is to search out academic truth, mining it from the pages of the Bible and further processing it. This of itself is not to be despised, but this can be done as the Pharisees did it, and as the friends did- without coming to the awesome personal encounter with God and His grace with which the book of Job concludes.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He binds the streams that they don’t trickle. The thing that is hidden he brings forth to light-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is the same argument as explained on :10. God can dry up the streams so that those panning in them thigh deep for precious stones- find them. He can bring them to light, but this is not the same thing as the "wisdom" of personal relationship with Him and departing from evil in our hearts (:28). This is what was happening on Job's life; God was 'bringing forth' light from death, deep things from darkness (s:w. <a href='B:220 12:22'>Job 12:22</a>). And this was realized by God bringing it forth, and not man's search for 'truth'. Job as a person was to be 'brought forth' by God as gold from that fire of affliction (<a href='B:220 23:10'>Job 23:10</a> s:w:). Just as plants are 'brought forth' from the earth without the need for mining under the earth (<a href='B:220 28:5'>Job 28:5</a> s:w:). This is why God’s reply to Job keeps on using this word for 'bring forth', labouring the point that God 'brings forth' by His processes and initiatives, and not man. And that is as a code stamped upon all of creation (<a href='B:220 38:8'>Job 38:8</a>; <a href='B:220 38:29'>Job 38:29</a>; <a href='B:220 38:32'>Job 38:32</a>; <a href='B:220 39:4'>Job 39:4</a>; <a href='B:220 39:21'>Job 39:21</a>; <a href='B:220 41:20-21'>Job 41:20-21</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> But where shall wisdom be found?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Found" is the word used of how Job sought to "probe" (AV "find out") the Almighty (<a href='B:220 23:3'>Job 23:3</a>; <a href='B:220 28:12'>Job 28:12</a>), whereas Elihu appears to agree with Zophar that "the Almighty" cannot be 'found' (<a href='B:220 11:7'>Job 11:7</a>; <a href='B:220 37:23'>Job 37:23</a>). God’s own appearance at the end is perhaps an answer to this. He cannot be 'found out' by intellectual argument or personal righteousness. Instead, He 'finds out' people and saves them by grace. Paul expresses the same idea when he writes that it is not so much a case of man 'knowing God', but rather of being "known of God" by grace (<a href='B:550 4:9'>Gal 4:9</a>):&nbsp;See on :9-12:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Where is the place of understanding?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The origin of "wisdom" is simply from God; it has no location on planet earth, no holy place somewhere which can be visited and wisdom obtained there; it is from Him rather than being mined and processed by man:&nbsp;This would have been relevant to the "sons of God" of <a href='B:220 1:6'>Job 1:6</a>, Job and his friends, who apparently regularly came to a defined place for worship and instruction.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Man doesn’t know its price; neither is it found in the land of the living-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The wisdom of true relationship with God (:28) cannot be bought with money (see on :15). It can only be found beyond "the land of the living", which implies 'in death'. Job believed that his final justification and restored relationship with God could only come through his death and subsequent resurrection. And he, along with Hezekiah and later the captives in Babylon, had to pass through a living death to get to that point. See on :22.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The deep says, ‘It isn’t in me’. The sea says, ‘It isn’t with me’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Hum ["the deep / abyss"] and yam ["the sea"] are references to the monsters supposed to live there, much feared by the folk of Job's day. Believing in them and trying to appease them by sacrifice (think of the casting of Jonah into the sea) wouldn't reveal wisdom. That was in repentance and relationship with God (:28), as the story of Jonah also demonstrates.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> It can’t be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for its price-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The same phrase translated as "without money and without price" is found in <a href='B:290 55:1'>Isa 55:1</a> as to how the greatest wisdom was to leave Babylon / Persia and return to Judah, with all the inversion of values this required. The book of Job is full of connections to Isaiah, as it was rewritten to encourage the exiles in captivity.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> It can’t be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Earlier in this chapter, Job has contrasted man's mining for precious stones on his initiative with God’s working upon man to give him, by grace, something more precious- relationship with Him. Gold, onyx and sapphire were all stones in the Mosaic breastplate, and this is perhaps also be understood as an oblique reference to how the Mosaic system couldn't of itself bring about that relationship with God which is the true wisdom.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Gold and glass can’t equal it, neither shall it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Once a man comes to the true wisdom of relationship with God with a pure conscience by His grace (:28), he will never want to exchange it. This is the sense likewise of <a href='B:240 23:23'>Pro 23:23</a> "Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding". "The truth", true understanding, is not a series of isolated academic truths mined and processed by man (see on :3-6). It refers to relationship with God. Many Christians obsessed with 'finding the truth' have yet to realize this.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal. Yes, the price of wisdom is above rubies-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The words of <a href='B:220 28:18'>Job 28:18</a> are repeatedly quoted in Proverbs (<a href='B:240 3:15'>Pro 3:15</a>; <a href='B:240 8:11'>Pro 8:11</a>; <a href='B:240 20:15'>Pro 20:15</a>). "Wisdom" in Proverbs refers not so much to nuggets of truth, but to a way of life in relationship with God; for that is the context in the source passage in <a href='B:220 28:18'>Job 28:18</a> cp. 28.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shall it be valued with pure gold-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Equal" is the word used to the exiles in <a href='B:290 40:18'>Isa 40:18</a>, where they are told that "God" has no equal. But I suggest in that context we must read in an ellipsis; 'relationship with God' cannot be equalled. It is totally inappropriate to compare it to human strength of any category.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Where then does wisdom come from? Where is the place of understanding?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The origin of "wisdom" is simply from God; it has no location on planet earth, no holy place somewhere which can be visited and wisdom obtained there; it is from Him rather than being mined and processed by man. This would have been relevant to the "sons of God" of <a href='B:220 1:6'>Job 1:6</a>, Job and his friends, who apparently regularly came to a defined place for worship and instruction.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Seeing it is hidden from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the birds of the sky-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The wisdom of true relationship with God and restoration by grace (:28) cannot be discerned by the human senses. The naked eye cannot perceive it. Thus Job is coming closer to the New Testament teaching about the Spirit, which the exiles were also taught in <a href='B:290 64:4'>Isa 64:4</a>: "... neither has the eye seen... what He has prepared for him who waits for Him", to the end of the 70 year period of exile. These words are applied to all in our age who receive the Spirit (<a href='B:530 2:9'>1Co 2:9</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Destruction and Death say, ‘We have heard a rumour of it with our ears’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As noted on :13, Job believed that through death he would thence ultimately pass to a bodily resurrection and restored relationship with God. In this sense, therefore, death has a rumour of this wisdom which nothing in the world of the living can have. A true sense of our mortality will lead to our prayerful, urgent contact with the Father all our days. Thus destruction and death give insight into the true wisdom.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> God understands its way, and He knows its place-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Just as there is a sense in the natural creation that things such as the dawn have a specific "place" known by God alone (<a href='B:220 38:12'>Job 38:12</a> s:w:), so the way of true relationship with Him, "wisdom", is known by Him alone. We do not find that "place" by intellectual effort, searching hither and thither, but by being open to God’s leading of us as Job was.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For He looks to the ends of the earth, and sees under the whole sky-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The implication may be that man sees only what is before his face, whereas God has an infinitely wider perspective. Job in his intense suffering is to be commended for realizing this; for physical pain tends to make the sufferer focus only upon the immediate.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He establishes the force of the wind. Yes, He measures out the waters by measure-</p><p> This is quoted in <a href='B:290 40:12'>Isa 40:12</a> as encouragement to the exiles; the power of wind and waters, both representative of God’s judgments for sin, are totally under His control. They are measured, the exile period would come to a defined end, just as Job's sufferings did.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> When He made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This "decree" for the rain is the word used of how the waters are "bounded" (<a href='B:220 26:10'>Job 26:10</a>), just as Job's sufferings were "appointed" or 'bounded' (<a href='B:220 23:14'>Job 23:14</a>), as the sufferings of the exiles were also time limited. The idea may be that when that 'bound' of the rain and darkness is reached, the end of the appointed suffering, then we find the wisdom of true relationship with God. He has set it there (:27), at that point. And that is the true wisdom, which we are led to and arrive at, rather than seeking to mine it out in human strength and enterprise.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> then He saw it, and declared it. He established it, yes, and searched it out-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> See on :3. In <a href='B:220 13:9'>Job 13:9</a> Job asks the friends: "Is it good that He should search you out? Or as one deceives a man, will you deceive Him?". The idea seems to be that if God searched out the friends, they would have to try to deceive Him, lest He find the truth about them. But Job later realizes that God does indeed search out all things (s:w. <a href='B:220 28:27'>Job 28:27</a>). He begins here by saying that if He were to search things out, He would not find a nice scene in the hearts of the friends. But Job moves on to realize that indeed this is what God is doing, on a cosmic scale- searching out all things.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> To man He said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom. To depart from evil is understanding’- Wisdom is thereby presented as essentially being experience of God and relationship with Him. Wisdom is not found by going to a certain location, to a guru here or a holy book there, digging like miners dig, in search of it. It is experience with God, and all the things summarized in "the fear of the Lord". Job was aware it seems of God’s estimation that he had indeed "turned away from evil" and feared God (<a href='B:220 1:1'>Job 1:1</a> s:w:); it was those things, rather than the traditional wisdom of the friends, which he came to see was the true "understanding".</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Oh that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> That Job was indeed depressed can be seen by the vast number of times Job speaks of "I" or "myself". There are some 40 occurrences of these words in Chapter 29 alone. "Watched over" is the same word used for how God had set the parameters for Job's trials in the prologue; his life was to be preserved (s:w:, <a href='B:220 2:6'>Job 2:6</a>). But Job like the friends became obsessed with immediate suffering and issues to the point that he overlooked these basic parameters set by God. We can do the same. He complains that God watches over him too closely (<a href='B:220 13:6'>Job 13:6</a>; <a href='B:220 33:11'>Job 33:11</a> s:w:), and yet complains that God isn't watching over him (<a href='B:220 29:2'>Job 29:2</a>). God’s response is to direct him again to the natural creation, where God’s constant 'watching over' His creation is evident. He even watches over the exact gestation time of mountain goats, who were invisible to human eyes (<a href='B:220 39:1'>Job 39:1</a> s:w:). And likewise Job was to understand that the time of his sufferings, like the period of exile for the captives, was likewise intensely noted by God and had not been forgotten.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> when His lamp shone on my head, and by His light I walked through darkness-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job had experienced the darkness of trial before (see on <a href='B:220 3:26'>Job 3:26</a>), but felt he had been led by God’s light through the darkness. This walking in darkness was exactly the experience of an apostate Israel (s:w. <a href='B:290 9:2'>Isa 9:2</a>; <a href='B:290 59:9'>Isa 59:9</a>; <a href='B:310 3:2'>Lam 3:2</a>). Job understandably struggles with being treated as wicked, and under judgment for serious sin; when he knew he was "perfect" in God’s eyes, according to the prologue. And at this point he appears to be on the pole of focusing upon his being judged for sin which he hadn't committed. But this was all because he was suffering as representative of sinners, as the Lord Jesus did to a far greater extent, seeing He unlike Job was actually sinless.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> as I was in the ripeness of my days, when the friendship of God was in my tent-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Friendship" is 'secret'. Job was a prophet (<a href='B:220 29:4'>Job 29:4</a> cp. 15:8;&nbsp; 23:12; <a href='B:240 3:32'>Pro 3:32</a>; <a href='B:370 3:7'>Amo 3:7</a>; the secret of God being with him made Job a prophet) and it is in his role as such that he is commended in <a href='B:660 5:10-11'>Jas 5:10-11</a> - i:e. for the words concerning God which he spoke. The words for which God and Elihu rebuked him were perhaps therefore about other things. We can conclude from this that the gift of prophecy had been withdrawn from Job whilst he was passing through his affliction, and something similar happened with the exiles; the sun went down on their prophets (<a href='B:400 3:6'>Mic 3:6</a>), but that didn’t mean that the previous prophetic words of restoration would not come true for them.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> when the Almighty was yet with me, and my children were around me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The same phrase is found in <a href='B:220 6:4'>Job 6:4</a>, "the arrows of the Almighty are with me". Job is struggling to accept that the presence of God "with" him was manifest through his afflictions, just as much as it had been in God’s more visible, tangible presence with him he had experienced in the past.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> when my steps were washed with butter, and the rock poured out streams of oil for me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Loss of the blessings of oil and butter makes Job representative of an Israel who lost those blessings through their rebellion (<a href='B:50 28:40'>Deu 28:40</a>; <a href='B:50 28:51'>Deu 28:51</a>; <a href='B:50 32:13-14'>Deu 32:13-14</a>). Again and again we see Job set up as representative of God’s people, and achieving the salvation of his friends through suffering for their sins whilst innocent (see on <a href='B:220 42:6'>Job 42:6</a>). The whole story of Job is designed to encourage Israel's faith in a representative saviour, the Lord Jesus, who bore the judgment for their sins whilst personally sinless.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> when I went forth to the city gate, when I prepared my seat in the street-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job recalls in great detail his former greatness, and laments his loss of power. This is all absolutely credible and appropriate to a real historical male figure who was cast down from a position of power and respect.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The young men saw me and hid themselves. The aged rose up and stood-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The fact those older than Job respected him is perhaps an oblique self justification against the idea of the friends that the wisdom of the aged condemned Job.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The princes refrained from talking, and laid their hand on their mouth-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job was later to be the one who laid his hand upon his mouth (<a href='B:220 40:4'>Job 40:4</a>). In this part of the dialogues, Job seems to come very low. He is consumed with self pity and regret concerning the power and prestige he has lost.</p>&nbsp;


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The voice of the nobles was hushed, and their tongue stuck to the roof of their mouth-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> By implication, Job's voice was now hushed and his tongue stuck to the roof of his dried mouth, just as was to happen to the Lord Jesus, the ultimate suffering servant after the pattern of Job (<a href='B:230 22:15'>Psa 22:15</a>), and to a condemned Israel (<a href='B:310 4:4'>Lam 4:4</a>). Ezekiel passed through the same experience (<a href='B:330 3:26'>Eze 3:26</a>), again as a representative sufferer for the sake of Israel's sins- likewise in an attempt to save them by bearing the judgment of their sins:&nbsp;</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For when the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it commended me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job in his depths came to know God as his “witness in heaven” (<a href='B:220 16:19'>Job 16:19</a>); in his former life, “when the eye saw me, it gave witness [s:w:] to me” (<a href='B:220 29:11'>Job 29:11</a>). But Job was brought to learn that the only ultimate witness in life is God, and it is His testimony and not man’s which is meaningful. He confesses that he had only heard of God by the ear, and only upon recognizing his humanity did he 'see' God (<a href='B:220 42:5'>Job 42:5</a>). The fact others' eyes and ears had seen and heard him with respect was to become of no value to him at all.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> because I delivered the poor who cried, and the fatherless also, who had none to help him-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Bildad assumes Job must have done the very opposite, to deserve his sufferings (<a href='B:220 20:19'>Job 20:19</a>). Job engages with what Bildad says and denies it (<a href='B:220 29:12'>Job 29:12</a>; <a href='B:220 31:17'>Job 31:17</a>). Again we note that Job engages with the actual words of the friends, whereas they tend to attack him in terms of the straw man image of him they had built up in their minds, ignoring him as a person and the actual words he says. This is typical of how dialogue goes wrong.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Job feels he has 'cried out' to God for justice and not been heard (<a href='B:220 19:7'>Job 19:7</a>; <a href='B:220 30:20'>Job 30:20</a>); and that there is nothing wrong with crying out to God in distress, it is a perfectly natural reaction (<a href='B:220 24:12'>Job 24:12</a>). One comment upon this is that the young ravens cry out to God for food and yet are not always heard (<a href='B:220 38:41'>Job 38:41</a> s:w:). But God in the wider picture sustains all of creation by grace. Job did well to cry out to God even if there was no answer, because the hypocrites do not 'cry out' to God when they are facing judgment (<a href='B:220 36:13'>Job 36:13</a> s:w:). Job feels hurt that God has not responded to his 'crying out' because he says that when the needy cried out to him, he had heard (<a href='B:220 29:12'>Job 29:12</a> s:w:). But here we see his works based approach; he thought that his response to those who cried out to him meant that therefore God must respond to his crying out. And God is not so primitive. His apparent silence is because His response is not predicated upon human works and charity. It is by grace alone, as is taught in His final appearance to Job. The exiles likewise were to finally see the response to their crying out to God in the restoration (<a href='B:290 58:9'>Isa 58:9</a>), just as their representative Jonah cried out to God from the belly of sheol amidst the sea of nations, and was heard (s:w. <a href='B:390 2:2'>Jon 2:2</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> the blessing of him who was ready to perish came on me, and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy (by his charity). I (thereby) put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgement was as a robe and a diadem" (29:13,14). This has clear reference to the clothing of the Mosaic High Priest with his outward show of righteousness. Job was probably the family priest, seeing that the head of the household appears to have been the priest in patriarchal times; thus Job could offer a sacrifice for the sins of his children (<a href='B:220 1:5'>Job 1:5</a>). Job's likening of himself to a moth-eaten garment due to God’s changing of his circumstances (<a href='B:220 13:26-28'>Job 13:26-28</a>) must connect with the disciples of the Law as an old, decaying garment in <a href='B:650 8:13'>Heb 8:13</a>. The priestly clothing " for glory and for beauty" (<a href='B:20 28:2'>Exo 28:2</a>) is certainly alluded to by God when He challenges Job "Deck thyself now (i:e. like you used to) with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty... then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee" (<a href='B:220 40:10'>Job 40:10</a>; <a href='B:220 40:14'>Job 40:14</a>)- as if God is saying that Job's previous life represented the Mosaic priestly system with its external pomp and implication that ones own righteousness can bring salvation ("that thine own right hand can save thee"). Job's humiliation meant that, by implication, he no longer felt able to clothe himself with the priestly garments of glory and beauty; he had learnt the spirit of the Christian dispensation, to trust on the grace of God rather than a system of salvation depending on personal righteousness. The descriptions of Job rending his "mantle" (priestly robes) recalls that of Caiaphas; his falling on his face perhaps&nbsp;&nbsp;indicates his recognition that reliance on the outward show of the Law needed to be replaced by humble faith. Job thus described his experiences as God leading "priests away stripped" of their robes (<a href='B:220 12:19'>Job 12:19</a> N:I:V:).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I put on righteousness, and it clothed me. My justice was as a robe and a diadem-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This would mean that his merciful acts to the poor were done in a 'charitable' spirit, thinking that such public acts declared him outwardly righteous: "I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy (by his charity). I (thereby) put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgement was as a robe and a diadem" (<a href='B:220 29:13-14'>Job 29:13-14</a> AV):&nbsp;And yet Job's words of <a href='B:220 30:1'>Job 30:1</a> certainly smack of arrogance: "Whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock". His charity was done to some whilst despising others and judging them. This works based, judgmental righteousness can so easily be our weakness. See on :13.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is quoted in Romans 2. It is in the context of Paul's rebuke of the Jews in <a href='B:520 2:17-23'>Rom 2:17-23</a> for their reliance on a mixture of worldly wisdom and the Mosaic law. The passage has many similarities with Job: ""Thou art called a Jew... and makest thy boast of God, and knowest His&nbsp;will, and triest the things that&nbsp;differ (AVmg:) ["Doth &nbsp;not the ear try words?" (<a href='B:220 12:11'>Job 12:11</a>)], being instructed&nbsp;out&nbsp;of the law [A fair description of Job before his trials]... and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of&nbsp;them which are in darkness ["I was eyes to the blind" (<a href='B:220 29:15'>Job 29:15</a>)], an instructor of the foolish, a&nbsp;teacher&nbsp;of babes, which hast the form of&nbsp;knowledge and of the truth in&nbsp;the law…&nbsp;Thou therefore which teachest&nbsp;another,&nbsp;teachest thou not thyself? ["Thou hast instructed many... thy words have upholden him that was falling... but now it is come upon thee, and thou faintest" (<a href='B:220 4:3-5'>Job 4:3-5</a>)]. Thou that preachest a man&nbsp;should not&nbsp;steal... commit adultery…&nbsp;(worship)&nbsp;idols... dost thou? [These were the three main things of which the friends accused Job]. Thou that makest thy boast of&nbsp;the Law,&nbsp;through breaking the Law&nbsp;dishonourest&nbsp;thou God?" [Elihu, on God’s behalf, says that Job's boasting of his righteousness implied God was doing wickedly in punishing Job (<a href='B:220 34:10'>Job 34:10</a>).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Their belief that they possessed such great wisdom led the Jews to be self-righteous, in that they reasoned that if they were wicked, then their wisdom would reveal this to them. Job and the Jews were in this sense similar. But as ever, Job is being set up as representative of sinful Israel, bearing their judgments (see on :3,6); and yet personally innocent.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I was a father to the needy. The cause of him who I didn’t know, I searched out-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> It is one thing to meet needs which come right before our face on life's path; but Job went beyond that, in searching out the needs of others. "The cause" could be legal language; Job expected his legal case against God and man to be upheld, because he has taken the side of others in legal matters and upheld the downtrodden. But again, we have here a legalistic attitude. He expects better from life right now, because of his previous good deeds. He has at this point forgotten his conclusions about a future recompense at a point of future resurrection and judgment.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I broke the jaws of the unrighteous, and plucked the prey out of his teeth-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This suggests Job was proactive in even orchestrating physical punishment and violence against the wicked. But now he feels as if he is the prey within the teeth of his abusers and of God Himself. Again, he expects better from life right now, because of his previous good deeds. He has at this point forgotten his conclusions about a future recompense at a point of future resurrection and judgment.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Then I said, ‘I shall die in my own house, I shall number my days as the sand-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job lived in patriarchal times, and so we can legitimately detect here an allusion to the promises to Abraham of a seed as numerous as the sand. Job had thought that the promises spoke of a long life in this world. He was to come to realize that they rather spoke of eternal inheritance of the earth at a future point, thanks to the work of Abraham's great seed, the Lord Jesus.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> My root is spread out to the waters. The dew lies all night on my branch-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This connects with the thought of Job's words in <a href='B:220 14:8'>Job 14:8</a>: "Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stock dies in the ground". "Earth" is eretz, the land (of Israel). If merely "soil" was intended, a different word would have been used. Again, we see the drama of Job has been tweaked, under Divine inspiration, to become the narrative for the exiles. The root had indeed largely died in the land at the time of the Babylonian invasion, but it still had some life and would "bud" again (<a href='B:220 14:9'>Job 14:9</a>). Job was the man with great roots who had been cut down but hadn't completely died (<a href='B:220 8:17'>Job 8:17</a>); his roots had been dried up (<a href='B:220 18:16'>Job 18:16</a>; <a href='B:220 29:19'>Job 29:19</a>). He represented Judah, whose roots were throughout the land as a tree transplanted by God (s:w. <a href='B:230 80:9'>Psa 80:9</a>). Those roots were withered by the invasions (<a href='B:290 5:24'>Isa 5:24</a>), but out of those dry roots would grow up a "tender plant / branch" (<a href='B:290 11:1'>Isa 11:1</a>; <a href='B:290 11:10'>Isa 11:10</a>; <a href='B:290 53:2'>Isa 53:2</a>), using the same word for "tender" as in <a href='B:220 14:7'>Job 14:7</a>. This Messianic suffering servant was to be based upon Job, and representative of all God’s restored people. They were to again spread their roots in the land of promise in a restored Kingdom (<a href='B:290 37:31'>Isa 37:31</a>; <a href='B:300 17:8'>Jer 17:8</a>), after the pattern of Job's restoration.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> My glory is fresh in me. My bow is renewed in my hand’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Perhaps as GNB "Everyone was always praising me, and my strength never failed me". Job's bow or strength was however broken, just as Israel's was (<a href='B:350 1:5'>Hos 1:5</a>); he was their representative.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Men listened to me, waited, and kept silence for my counsel-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> We note the parallel with how Elihu on God’s behalf listened, waited, and only then spoke (<a href='B:220 32:4'>Job 32:4</a>). Job was to be taught that the fact men listened, waited and kept silence before him needed to be reversed; so that he would wait, listen and keep silence before God, laying his hand upon his mouth (<a href='B:220 40:4'>Job 40:4</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> After my words they didn’t speak again. My speech fell on them-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is what happened at the end of the book; God’s speech through Elihu fell upon Job, and after God’s words Job didn’t want to speak again (<a href='B:220 40:4'>Job 40:4</a>). Job was to be taught that it was God’s word and greatness and not his which was of the essence.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They waited for me as for the rain. Their mouths drank as with the spring rain-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job was to realize that men should wait for God’s word as the rain, and the latter rain of His blessings. Job had previously functioned as those blessings for men, and he was to realize the utter insignificance of this. For he needed Divine blessing and grace, rather than being an apparent provider of that blessing to others. All his good works were therefore given a quite different context when he was made to realize his need for blessing. GNB "they had nothing to add when I had finished. My words sank in like drops of rain;&nbsp;everyone welcomed them just as farmers welcome rain in spring" (:22,23).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I smiled on them when they had no confidence. They didn’t reject the light of my face-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> GNB "I smiled on them when they had lost confidence; my cheerful face encouraged them". But Job was to realize that it was God’s face smiling upon man which was the only important thing; the smiling of man's face upon man was therefore of no account compared to that.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I chose out their way, and sat as chief. I lived as a king in the army, as one who comforts the mourners- Job was to realize that it was God and not him who chooses out the way of men (<a href='B:230 25:12'>Psa 25:12</a>); like Job, the exiles failed through choosing out their own way (s:w. <a href='B:290 66:3'>Isa 66:3</a>) rather than seeking God’s way.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to put with my sheep dogs-</p><p> Job has just boasted of how his charitable giving earned him his righteousness: "I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy (by his charity). I (thereby) put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgement was as a robe and a diadem" (<a href='B:220 29:13-14'>Job 29:13-14</a> AV):&nbsp;And yet Job's words of <a href='B:220 30:1'>Job 30:1</a> certainly smack of arrogance. His charity was done to some whilst despising others and judging them. This works based, judgmental righteousness can so easily be our weakness.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Of what use is the strength of their hands to me, men in whom ripe age has perished?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Here in :2-9 we have a rather unpleasant streak in Job revealed. He clearly despised some men deeply, and it was deeply irksome to him that the children of those he had despised should now mock him. The way he speaks of these men indicates a deep disdain which is inappropriate in any man for other men, who are all made in the image of God. GNB "They were a bunch of worn-out men, too weak to do any work for me". Here we see the importance Job placed upon "work"; for it was also by works that he felt justified before God, and deserving of a better deal in life than what he was having. His finer insights into his sufferings are now absent, as he walls in the self pity of the moment.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They are gaunt from lack and famine. They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of waste and desolation-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Waste and desolation" is the language of condemnation (s:w. <a href='B:430 1:15'>Zep 1:15</a>). But God makes the point that He sends rain "to satisfy the desolate and waste ground" (<a href='B:220 38:27'>Job 38:27</a> AV)- the very place where the condemned lived whom Job despised in his prosperity (<a href='B:220 30:3'>Job 30:3</a> s:w:). But God doesn't despise even the most desperate of society. He sends rain to cheer them whom the righteous despise. And this was to help Job be convicted of his own desperation, of how wrong he had been to despise others and trust that he was righteous; and to further convict him that God still sought to revive him, as He did those deserted lands.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They pluck salt herbs by the bushes. The roots of the broom are their food-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This plant grows in the wilderness regions where the book of Job is set; the roots are famed as being bitter but nutritious for the desperately hungry and perishing Bedouin. Again we have evidence that Job was a historical person who lived where the prologue says he did.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They are driven out from the midst of men. They cry after them as after a thief-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> These desperate people whom Job so despised had been driven from their societies so that they wandered the deserts, surviving by eating wild roots, and robbing travellers and encampments like Job's. But now they were despising Job, so desperate and rejected was he. He was surely being taught how wrong he had been to despise even the spiritually desperate.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> so that they dwell in frightful valleys, and in holes of the earth and of the rocks-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> AV "in the clifts of the valleys", where Moses cowered and saw the glory of Yahweh. And it was the faithful who lived in holes, caves and amongst the rocks (<a href='B:650 11:38'>Heb 11:38</a>). The connections may mean that God is a God of the desperate- and Job had despised those on the bottom rung of society. But now he had been placed there, and would be saved if he repented of his former despising of the desperate.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Among the bushes they bray; and under the nettles they are gathered together-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The impression is given that Job considered them as animals, braying under bushes and huddling together under nettles. This treating of human beings as less than human was deeply wrong, and was something which Job had to be convicted of when he finally realized the depth of his own desperation.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They are children of fools, yes, children of base men-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>&nbsp; This was how Job had seen them, but now he was beneath even them (:9). He was being made to see that God has a saving purpose even for the desperate, those "without name" (Heb:, NEV "base men"), treated by Job as if they were of no name, without personhood in his eyes. And he was now lower than them:&nbsp; We recall how the Lord taught that such was the Divine value of the human person, that whoever called his brother a fool was in danger of Gehenna's condemnation (<a href='B:470 5:22'>Mat 5:22</a>).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>They were flogged out of the land-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> AV "viler than the earth". This was how Job had so utterly despised people; and we marvel at God’s grace in still calling him "perfect" and without guile. This therefore had been by imputed righteousness and grace alone.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Now I have become their song. Yes, I am a byword to them-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job is presented as representative of the exiles, who were a song and byword to the Gentiles whom they had once despised. The Hebrew for "byword" is literally 'a word or speech'; and Job was the subject of the friends' speeches / words (s:w. about the speeches / words of the friends, <a href='B:220 16:4'>Job 16:4</a>; <a href='B:220 19:2'>Job 19:2</a>; <a href='B:220 32:11'>Job 32:11</a>). We must consider the possibility that Job considered these desperate Bedouin people to be somehow connected with the friends who were mocking him; see on :10. These people spat in Job's face (:10), just as it seems the friends did (see on <a href='B:220 17:6'>Job 17:6</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They abhor me, they stand aloof from me, and don’t hesitate to spit in my face-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This abhorrence of Job by the friends is related to the way they considered mankind to be "abominable and corrupt" (<a href='B:220 15:16'>Job 15:16</a>). "Abhor" is the same word as "abominable". The simple truth is as Job put it- God has a tender desire to man, the work of His hands (<a href='B:220 14:15'>Job 14:15</a>). And whatever we posit about human nature, we say about the Lord Jesus. He fully shared that nature and yet was holy, harmless and undefiled (<a href='B:650 7:26'>Heb 7:26</a>). Man by nature, just standing there as flesh and blood before God, is not "abominable" to Him of himself. It is sin which is the problem; and sin is not inevitable. We must bear full responsibility for our sins and cannot just pass them off as an inevitable function of our humanity. The wrong view of human nature held by the friends affected their view of Job and people in practice. The lower our view of human nature, the more likely we are to despise human beings rather than value them and speak well of them because they are made in the image of God (<a href='B:660 3:9'>Jas 3:9</a>). In this experience of being spat at, Job again was experiencing the abuse of the suffering servant (s:w. <a href='B:290 50:6'>Isa 50:6</a>):&nbsp;</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>We must consider the possibility that Job considered these desperate Bedouin people to be somehow connected with the friends who were mocking him; see on :9. These people spat in Job's face (:10), just as it seems the friends did (see on <a href='B:220 17:6'>Job 17:6</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For He has untied his cord, and afflicted me; and they have thrown off restraint before me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The desperate Bedouin were seen by Job as having been unleashed upon him by God when he brought affliction upon Job. He is therefore describing the marauding bands who came and stole his cattle in the prologue. And they have an undoubted connection with the friends. Job sees God as capable of binding and loosing him, untying the cords that restrain affliction and then binding them up again (<a href='B:220 30:11'>Job 30:11</a>). God’s response is that indeed this is the case, and such binding and loosing is seen throughout the natural creation (s:w. <a href='B:220 38:31'>Job 38:31</a>; <a href='B:220 39:5'>Job 39:5</a>; <a href='B:220 41:14'>Job 41:14</a>). And therefore, Job and the exiles are to live in hope of being bound up in safety from affliction, just as God "untied His cord and afflicted me" in <a href='B:220 30:11'>Job 30:11</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> On my right hand rise the rabble. They thrust aside my feet, they cast up against me their ways of destruction-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This sounds like these desperate Bedouins were in physical proximity to Job and were actually involved in his persecution (also :13). I have argued throughout the book that the satan figure morphs into the friends, and they actually perform part of the physical trials upon Job, with the Bedouin attackers of Job partly under the control- leading to Job to charge them with insincerity and hypocrisy. They are in fact guilty of all he is apparently suffering for, and so he becomes their representative saviour by the end of the book.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They mar my path, they set forward my calamity-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> These words would be so appropriate if the Bedouin Arab marauders whom Job is cursing were in fact under the control of the friends, into whom the Satan figure has morphed. Eliphaz was from the same area as the Sabeans of <a href='B:220 1:15'>Job 1:15</a>. Job's experiences were of "calamity" (s:w. <a href='B:220 6:2'>Job 6:2</a>) and affliction set in his "path" (s:w. <a href='B:220 19:8'>Job 19:8</a>). And the Bedouins he curses in <a href='B:220 30:1-12'>Job 30:1-12</a> were those who had abused him in that "path" (<a href='B:220 30:13'>Job 30:13</a>). So it seems he has in view the Sabeans who had abused him in the prologue, and yet this section also has clear reference to the friends. Yet that "path" of affliction which God had given Job was the path of wisdom and relationship with Him which was indiscernible to the human eye (<a href='B:220 28:7'>Job 28:7</a> cp. 28); the fact that the ultimate path is invisible to the secular, naked eye is a truth stamped upon the natural creation (<a href='B:220 38:20'>Job 38:20</a>), and yet after the affliction or trouble, this path shines clearly (<a href='B:220 41:32'>Job 41:32</a>). And this was to be Job's experience at his restoration, as it could have been likewise for the exiles.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Without anyone’s help-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea may be that they were unprovoked to do what they did to Job. But he has just used the term of how he helped those "without anyone's help" (s:w. <a href='B:220 29:12'>Job 29:12</a>); as if to say that in return for the grace he had shown them, they now persecuted him.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As through a wide breach they come, in the midst of the ruin they roll themselves in-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "The ruin" is s:w. 'the desolate place', the wilderness from where these Bedouins came (<a href='B:220 30:3'>Job 30:3</a>). This is the same picture as in <a href='B:220 1:15'>Job 1:15</a> of the Sabeans rolling in from the wilderness, associated with the whirlwind (:15), coming upon Job like waters (symbolic of enemy forces) gushing through a breach. The accusation of the friends / "sons of God" and the Satan was that God had made a fence around Job protecting him from misfortune (<a href='B:220 1:10'>Job 1:10</a>). God had agreed for this to be as it were 'widely breached'. And in came flooding the desert tribes to despoil Job. My point is that the desperate Bedouin whom Job here curses are associated with the friends, it is they who sent their own forces against Job, making him understandably accuse them of being hypocrites and false brethren.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Terrors have turned on me. They chase my honour as the wind. My welfare has passed away as a cloud-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> These Bedouin are associated with the whirlwind which struck Job (<a href='B:220 1:15-18'>Job 1:15-18</a>). "Chase" is the word translated "persecute" and is specifically applied by Job to the friends' persecution of him (<a href='B:220 19:22'>Job 19:22</a>; <a href='B:220 19:28'>Job 19:28</a>), albeit under God’s control (<a href='B:220 13:25'>Job 13:25</a>); for Satan's hand is God’s hand, as the prologue makes clear. Again we have a fairly solid path of identification of the friends with the Satan and with the Bedouin marauders under their control, whom they sent against Job.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Now my soul is poured out within me. Days of affliction have taken hold on me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job "held fast" to God’s footprints, even though he didn’t see Him (<a href='B:220 23:11'>Job 23:11</a>), and yet he later realized that the afflictions God sent had taken hold [s:w. "held fast"] to him. We see here the mutuality between God and man, achieved through the experience of suffering brought by Him.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> In the night season my bones are pierced in me, and the pains that gnaw me take no rest-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This pain in the bones at night clearly looked ahead to that experienced by the Lord Jesus, the suffering servant based on Job, during the darkness of the crucifixion. Hezekiah, another possible fulfilment of the suffering servant, suffered likewise with bone pain at night (<a href='B:290 38:13'>Isa 38:13</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> By great force is my garment disfigured. It binds me about as the collar of my coat-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "With great force my disease has taken hold of my garment: it has compassed me as the collar of my coat", AV "By the great force of my disease is my garment changed". Job offered sacrifice for his children as if he were the family priest, and he likely had a priestly garment which accompanied this. But this garment had become defiled by Job's skin disease, covered with blood and secretions; and in fact Job felt it was choking him. This is another hint that legal apparatus was unable to save Job, nor those who would follow his path to restoration and revival.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He has cast me into the mire. I have become like dust and ashes-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Abraham, who would have been recent history for Job, had described the human condition as "dust and ashes". Job was dust and ashes anyway, but he feels he has "become" dust and ashes. Clearly, he is being made to realize his humanity, and God’s final appearance will do this in ultimate terms. It is a denial of our humanity which leads people to a path in which they refuse to repent, reject any idea that they desperately need God, and leads to the pride of effectively playing God rather than accepting we are but dust and ashes.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I cry to You, and You do not answer me. I stand up, and You gaze at me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job feels he has 'cried out' to God for justice and not been heard (<a href='B:220 19:7'>Job 19:7</a>; <a href='B:220 30:20'>Job 30:20</a>); and that there is nothing wrong with crying out to God in distress, it is a perfectly natural reaction (<a href='B:220 24:12'>Job 24:12</a>). One comment upon this is that the young ravens cry out to God for food and yet are not always heard (<a href='B:220 38:41'>Job 38:41</a> s:w:). But God in the wider picture sustains all of creation by grace. Job did well to cry out to God even if there was no answer, because the hypocrites do not 'cry out' to God when they are facing judgment (<a href='B:220 36:13'>Job 36:13</a> s:w:). Job feels hurt that God has not responded to his 'crying out' because he says that when the needy cried out to him, he had heard (<a href='B:220 29:12'>Job 29:12</a> s:w:). But here we see his works based approach; he thought that his response to those who cried out to him meant that therefore God must respond to his crying out. And God is not so primitive. His apparent silence is because His response is not predicated upon human works and charity. It is by grace alone, as is taught in His final appearance to Job. The exiles likewise were to finally see the response to their crying out to God in the restoration (<a href='B:290 58:9'>Isa 58:9</a>), just as their representative Jonah cried out to God from the belly of sheol amidst the sea of nations, and was heard (s:w. <a href='B:390 2:2'>Jon 2:2</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> You have turned to be cruel to me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As God (in the Angel of the presence) "was turned to be (Israel's) enemy" because of their sin (<a href='B:290 63:10'>Isa 63:10</a>).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>With the might of Your hand You persecute me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Satan asks God: "Put forth Your hand". The hand of God is an Angelic phrase. God agrees- "he is in your hand" (<a href='B:220 2:6'>Job 2:6</a>). Thus Satan's hand is God’s hand, which in practice was articulated through an Angel, working through the friends and their Bedouin tribesmen who are the subject of this chapter. Job seems to emphasize the place of God’s hand in bringing his trials- <a href='B:220 2:5-6'>Job 2:5-6</a>; <a href='B:220 2:10'>Job 2:10</a>; <a href='B:220 6:9'>Job 6:9</a>; <a href='B:220 10:7'>Job 10:7</a>; <a href='B:220 13:21'>Job 13:21</a>; <a href='B:220 19:21'>Job 19:21</a>; <a href='B:220 27:11'>Job 27:11</a> AVmg; 28:9. Job in <a href='B:220 12:9'>Job 12:9</a> feels that in the same way as God’s hand had created the natural creation- and the Angels did this- so that same Angelic hand was upon him for evil. "By His Spirit (God makes His Angels spirits) He hath garnished the Heavens; His hand hath formed the crooked serpent" (<a href='B:220 26:13'>Job 26:13</a>). Thus Job associates God’s Spirit with His hand, which is Satan's hand. It seems far more fitting that this hand and spirit should be Angelic rather than human. For no one human being could bring these sufferings upon Job. The human Satan, the fellow worshippers, the sons of God, was reflected in an Angel in the court of Heaven. Again, it was Angelic work that formed the Heavens. Job recognized that his trials came from the hand of God, but knew that His hand would not kill him- "with Thy strong hand Thou opposest Thyself against me... howbeit He will not stretch out His hand to (bring me to) the grave" (<a href='B:220 30:21'>Job 30:21</a>; <a href='B:220 30:24'>Job 30:24</a> AV). This was exactly the brief given to satan- to try Job, but "preserve his life". The hand of God creating evil (<a href='B:220 2:10-11'>Job 2:10-11</a>) must surely refer to God’s "Angels of evil" (<a href='B:230 78:49'>Psa 78:49</a>) rather than to man- in the restoration context, the people and Cyrus had to be taught that no one except God (including human satans!) created evil (<a href='B:290 45:5-7'>Isa 45:5-7</a>):&nbsp; See on <a href='B:220 26:13'>Job 26:13</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> You lift me up to the wind, and drive me with it. You dissolve me in the storm-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job recalls the whirlwind which had destroyed his family and encampment, in tandem with the attacks of the Bedouins (<a href='B:220 1:19'>Job 1:19</a>). But he insists that for all he has suffered, God was behind it. Job was representative of the exiles, who were likewise 'dissolved' in judgment (s:w. <a href='B:290 64:7'>Isa 64:7</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For I know that You will bring me to death, to the house appointed for all living-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> In line with Job's emphasis that God is behind all his sufferings, perhaps the focus is upon "You". God would bring him to death, although the friends and their Bedouin friends wanted to- but God in the prologue had not permitted them to do this. See on :24.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> However, doesn’t one stretch out a hand to stop a fall? Or in his calamity therefore cry for help?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX presents Job as suicidal: "Oh then that I might lay hands upon myself, or at least ask another, and he should do this for me". AV "Howbeit he will not stretch out his hand to the grave, though they cry in his destruction" would connect with the same phrase being used of Satan asking God to stretch out His hand against Job (<a href='B:220 1:11'>Job 1:11</a>); but telling Satan that Job must not be brought to the grave. Although the satan sought to move God to do so (<a href='B:220 2:3'>Job 2:3</a>). Again we have the impression that the satan was manifest through the Bedouin tribesmen described here, under the control of the friends; who did every conceivable evil to Job apart from taking his life.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Didn’t I weep for him who was in trouble? Wasn’t my soul grieved for the needy?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? was not my soul grieved for the poor? When I looked for good, then evil came unto me: and when I waited for light, there came darkness" (<a href='B:220 30:25-26'>Job 30:25-26</a>). Note the past tenses; even in the past, it seemed that evil came when he deserved blessing; but despite this, he hadn’t become inward looking; he had wept and grieved for the misfortune of others. "Weep with them that weep" (<a href='B:520 12:15'>Rom 12:15</a>) seems to be quoting from here; as if to say: Job is really our pattern in all this. But again we note that Job is very works-based in his thinking; he thinks that his kindness to the needy ought to mean that his sufferings are cut short (:26). And thereby he is failing to discern the Divine path which no eye can see.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> When I looked for good, then evil came; when I waited for light, there came darkness-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job understands that it is God who sends the good and evil, the light and the darkness, into his life (<a href='B:220 30:26'>Job 30:26</a>). Significantly, he states his faith that God even marks out the boundary between light and darkness (<a href='B:220 26:10'>Job 26:10</a>) – a similar idea in essence to the reassurance of <a href='B:290 45:5'>Isa 45:5</a> that God creates both light and darkness. The ‘darkness’, however we experience and understand it, is framed and limited by God; it is not a power or being with independent existence outside the realm of God’s power. God confirms Job’s understanding later, when He says that it is He who can swaddle the sea [another figure for uncontrollable evil] in bands of darkness (<a href='B:220 38:9'>Job 38:9</a>) – as if to say that it is God who gives things like darkness and the sea their sinister appearance and perception by men; but He is in control of them, using them in His hand. See on <a href='B:220 38:10'>Job 38:10</a>.</p><p>Even if God slew him, Job would still be patient or wait (<a href='B:220 13:15'>Job 13:15</a>), he would 'patiently wait' for his "release" (AV "change") to come at some point after his death (<a href='B:220 14:14'>Job 14:14</a>), and waited for light to somehow come out of his current darkness (<a href='B:220 30:26'>Job 30:26</a>). This was the legendary "patience of Job" which we are bidden follow (<a href='B:660 5:11'>Jas 5:11</a>). He was impatient, but he was "patient" in the Hebrew sense of enduring in faith; faith that even if things didn’t work out at all in this life, even if God was apparently unfair in this life, he would be finally restored at the resurrection. This was his 'endurance', and it is a parade example for all who struggle with the justice of God and the incomprehensible problem of suffering.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> My heart is troubled, and doesn’t rest. Days of affliction have come on me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> AV "My bowels boiled". This is the word used for the boiling of the exiles under Divine judgment (<a href='B:330 24:5'>Eze 24:5</a>). God is able to make things boil in the natural creation and then make them perfectly still (<a href='B:220 41:31'>Job 41:31</a> s:w:); and the message was that the days of affliction, the intense boiling of Job and later the exiles, could be made still in a moment.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I go mourning without the sun. I stand up in the assembly, and cry for help-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The prologue described the sons of God in assembly. This would have included Job and the friends, the "sons of God". He appealed to them for comfort when they came to the next assembly, but instead he got the bitter condemnation and false accusation which is recorded in their speeches.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to ostriches-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The concept of clean and unclean animals was known even before the flood, so Job is accepting that he has become ritually unclean. All this was necessary for him to come to realize that his restoration was not going to be upon the basis of obedience to the law, such as it was at the time. According to that, he was unclean. Likewise the exiles had broken the old covenant, and could only be saved by the grace of the new covenant offered to them through Jeremiah and Ezekiel. See on <a href='B:220 31:7'>Job 31:7</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> My skin grows black and peels from me. My bones are burned with heat-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Again Job is presented as suffering as the exiles had (<a href='B:310 5:10'>Lam 5:10</a>), possibly with allusion to leprosy (<a href='B:30 13:31'>Lev 13:31</a>). The exiles could share Job's path to restoration if they too repented and were humbled.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Therefore my harp has turned to mourning, and my pipe into the voice of those who weep- No longer is Job able to rejoice as he once had, in his own strength and exaltation. The pictures painted of the mourning exiles in Lamentations is so clearly based upon Job. See on :30.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I made a covenant with my eyes, how then should I look lustfully at a young woman?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This chapter is Job's clearing of himself, and has similarities to Babylonian legal documents. An accused person could begin his court case by such a statement of detailed denial. The accusers could respond with silence, in which case they dropped their case; or continue. The friends are reduced to silence after this great clearing of himself. Job's righteousness in a legal sense was unassailable. We may consider that their silence after this speech means that Job has 'won'. After his great clearing speech, the audience is expecting his justification. But then we have the interlude with Elihu, and then God appears Himself- and condemns yet saves Job, justifying him by condemning him, in the spirit of Paul's legal arguments in Romans 1-8. See on :2.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For what is the portion from God above, and the heritage from the Almighty on high?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job considers it unthinkable that he would have looked lustfully on a woman, because there was such an obvious judgment for adultery. He was well ahead of his time in considering that looking lustfully is the same as adultery- especially considering he was living at a time when "sin" was not a concept dwelt upon in religious circles, and the idea that we can sin in our minds was a new idea.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Is it not calamity to the unrighteous, and disaster to the workers of iniquity?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As noted on :2, Job sees thoughts as 'working' iniquity, a conception well ahead of his time, and reflective of his deep spirituality; see on <a href='B:470 5:27-30'>Mat 5:27-30</a>. Here Job uses the same Hebrew phrase used regarding the punishment of Cain's iniquity in <a href='B:10 4:13'>Gen 4:13</a>, thus saying that it was the wicked of the world, not him, who were the real counterparts of Cain; and he was only suffering as Cain, when he was as righteous Abel. See on 31:39.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Doesn’t He see my ways, and number all my steps?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job knew that it was impossible that, e.g.,&nbsp; he would lust after a woman, if he really believed (as he claimed he did) that God was omniscient. "Why then should I think upon a maid [as the friends implied he had done]?... doth not he [God] see my ways, and count all my steps?" (<a href='B:220 31:4'>Job 31:4</a> AV). Likewise God had to remind Israel: “Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? Saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth?” (<a href='B:300 23:24'>Jer 23:24</a>). The context is appealing to the people to quit their sins:&nbsp; We should labour to enter the Kingdom, because God knows absolutely every thought and action of ours and will ultimately judge them (<a href='B:650 4:11-13'>Heb 4:11-13</a>). The Sermon on the Mount is really based around translating the knowledge that God sees and knows all things into practice.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If I have walked with falsehood, and my foot has hurried to deceit-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Falsehood" is likely a reference to idol worship.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> (let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know my integrity)-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The same word is used in the prologue of how God already considers Job to be of "integrity" (<a href='B:220 2:3'>Job 2:3</a>; <a href='B:220 2:9'>Job 2:9</a>). Job has forgotten, as we can forget, that He counts us as if we are righteous- by grace. Instead Job seeks to establish that 'righteous' status, his own integrity, by his own good deeds and avoidance of sin, seeking now to legally establish it- rather than accepting that God simply loved him and would count him of integrity by grace.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> if my step has turned out of the way, if my heart walked after my eyes-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Again, as noted on :3, Job perceives ahead of his time that the essence of sin is in the heart.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>If any defilement has stuck to my hands-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job has been made ritually defiled by his illness, and being forced to live with unclean animals (<a href='B:220 30:29'>Job 30:29</a>). All this was to try to make him realize that all his protestations of legal purity, of not being defiled because he had avoided sin and done good deeds, could not make him undefiled. And this was to come to full term in God’s appearance at the end.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> then let me sow, and let another eat. Yes, let the produce of my field be rooted out-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This was the judgment to come upon Israel for disobedience. The reality was that Job was living in deserted houses and had lost his property. So he is saying 'This should only have happened to me if I were a sinner'. He had lost his realization that his sufferings were not related to himself; they were his bearing of the judgments of others, the just for the unjust.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The Lord likened His preachers to men reaping a harvest. He speaks of how they fulfilled the proverb that one sows and another reaps (<a href='B:500 4:37-38'>Joh 4:37-38</a>). Yet this ‘proverb’ has no direct Biblical source. What we do find in the Old Testament is the repeated idea that if someone sows but another reaps, this is a sign that they are suffering God’s judgment for their sins (<a href='B:50 20:6'>Deu 20:6</a>; <a href='B:50 28:30'>Deu 28:30</a>; <a href='B:220 31:8'>Job 31:8</a>; <a href='B:400 6:15'>Mic 6:15</a>). But the Lord turns around the ‘proverb’ concerning Israel’s condemnation; He makes it apply to the way that the preacher / reaper who doesn’t sow is the one who harvests others in converting them to Him. Surely His implication was that His preacher-reapers were those who had known condemnation for their sins, but on that basis were His humbled harvesters in the mission field.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If my heart has been enticed by a woman, and I have laid wait at my neighbour’s door-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Again Job reflects some spiritual insight in recognizing the process of temptation as beginning in the human heart (<a href='B:660 1:13-15'>Jas 1:13-15</a>). We noted this on :3 also:&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> then let my wife grind for another, and let others sleep with her-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This could imply that despite Job's wife not spiritually supporting him in the prologue, they remained married.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For that would be a heinous crime. Yes, it would be an iniquity to be punished by the judges-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Heinous crime" is "lewdness", the word used of the moral apostasy of God’s people and their unfaithfulness to Him (s:w. <a href='B:300 13:27'>Jer 13:27</a>; <a href='B:330 16:27'>Eze 16:27</a>; <a href='B:330 16:43'>Eze 16:43</a>; <a href='B:330 16:58'>Eze 16:58</a>; <a href='B:330 23:27'>Eze 23:27</a> etc:). Job was refusing to hold to his sense that his sufferings were a bearing of the condemnation of others; he is now crying out against this, and requires the rebukes he is soon to be given by God. This too is where we go wrong; in focusing upon the injustice of situations to the point that we forget that we are called to use our experiences to minister to others.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> for it is a fire that consumes to destruction, and would root out all my increase-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> All Job's increase had been rooted out; his argument is that this ought to only have happened if he had committed adultery, which he says he had not done so, not even in his heart. He had lost his realization that his sufferings were not related to himself; they were his bearing of the judgments of others, the just for the unjust.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If I have despised the cause of my male servant or of my female servant, when they contended with me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job is coming out with the reasoning of Bildad, that God will not despise a perfect man (<a href='B:220 8:20'>Job 8:20</a> s:w:). And now he is getting angry that he is being despised when he has not despised others. He is logically building up a strong case for his self-justification. But he is omitting to factor in God’s wider plan of wisdom. In spiritual terms, this final speech of Job appears to be Job at his lowest. And he lacks the humility to accept that although he had apparently not despised his servants, he had despised others (<a href='B:220 30:1'>Job 30:1</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> what then shall I do when God rises up? When He visits, what shall I answer Him?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job's point was that as he had not despised the cause of his servants (:13), therefore he did not have anything to fear before God’s judgment. God’s final appearance was proof enough that he of himself had no right to answer back to God. "What shall I answer You?" (<a href='B:220 40:4'>Job 40:4</a>) was his final word. But here, Job insists he could only be speechless before God if he had committed sins like adultery- which he was insistent he hadn't. Job is led to realize that he has sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, although he had avoided the sins like adultery which counted as major sins in the view of his society.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Didn’t He who made me in the womb make him? Didn’t One fashion us in the womb?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job had just argued that some men he despised as almost less than human (<a href='B:220 30:1'>Job 30:1</a>); now he argues that all human beings are formed by God in the womb and therefore no human should ever be despised. This could be just put down to the oscillations of a depressed person; or it appears Job is not being completely honest, using spiritual truths to justify himself as needed rather than accepting their true implication.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If I have withheld the poor from their desire, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is Job's direct answer to the false accusation of <a href='B:220 22:7'>Job 22:7</a> (s:w:). Again we note how Job actually engages with the words of the friends, whereas they respond to him in terms of vague generalities and knocking down a straw man image of him they had created in their own minds. The whole drama is an example of how dialogue breaks down.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> or have eaten my morsel alone, and the fatherless has not eaten of it-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Bildad assumes Job must have done the very opposite, to deserve his sufferings (<a href='B:220 20:19'>Job 20:19</a>). Job engages with what Bildad says and denies it (<a href='B:220 29:12'>Job 29:12</a>; <a href='B:220 31:17'>Job 31:17</a>). Again we note that Job engages with the actual words of the friends, whereas they tend to attack him in terms of the straw man image of him they had built up in their minds, ignoring him as a person and the actual words he says. This is typical of how dialogue goes wrong.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> (no, from my youth he grew up with me as with a father, her have I guided from my mother’s womb)-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> In summary, as GNB "All my life I have taken care of them". Job is at pains to now claim that he had not sinned even in his youth, even from a baby he claims to have cared for the poor. This is a protestation of innocence too far. He has moved away from his earlier acceptance of sin to now claim he had not sinned even from the womb. No wonder he needed the rebuke which is soon to come from him. The audience is intended to wince at this point, and to expect a rebuke and conviction of sin- which indeed comes.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> if I have seen any perish for want of clothing, or that the needy had no covering-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job has a strong awareness of his pas good works; the blessing of people ready to perish came upon him, for he recalled how he had saved them (s:w. <a href='B:220 29:13'>Job 29:13</a>). Job now was ready to perish (s:w. <a href='B:220 4:7'>Job 4:7</a>; <a href='B:220 14:19'>Job 14:19</a>; <a href='B:220 18:17'>Job 18:17</a>; <a href='B:220 20:7'>Job 20:7</a>). He feels that he ought to be saved from perishing because he had saved others from perishing. In this final speech, Job becomes very works based. He becomes the epitome of justification by works; and God’s display of His works in creation and salvation was going to convict him that his works were irrelevant, and salvation was by grace alone.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> if his heart hasn’t blessed me, if he hasn’t been warmed with my sheep’s fleece-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job in a legalistic way (see on :19) seems to consider that the blessings given him by those whom he had helped (<a href='B:220 29:13'>Job 29:13</a>) ought to have actual meaning; instead of his perishing in shame and lack of clothing. Again, he is arguing for justification by works and human blessing. He was to be taught that Divine blessing is the only blessing which can save.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> if I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless, because I saw my help in the gate-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea is as LXX "if I lifted my hand against an orphan, trusting that my strength was far superior to his" and GNB "If I have ever cheated an orphan, knowing I could win in court". Job was confident that he had not misused legal process, and so he longs for some kind of court case with God whereby he can be justified. He was to learn that his apparent justice was as nothing compared to Divine justice.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> then let my shoulder fall from the shoulder blade, and my arm be broken from the bone-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The arm may represent his power. But his power, his arm, had been broken. So he is arguing that what has happened to him should only have happened if he had done the things he was accused of. And seeing he hadn't, this breaking of his life shouldn't have happened. He totally forgot the parameters set in the prologue; that his suffering was not punishment for sin. And he has moved away from his earlier perception that he was in some sense suffering for the sake of others' salvation, even if he only dimly perceived that.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For calamity from God is a terror to me. Because of His majesty, I can do nothing-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea is as GNB "Because I fear God’s punishment, I could never do such a thing". And here we have a window into Job's motivation; he feared condemnation and therefore he was careful to be strictly legally obedient. It was this mindset which was to be dismantled by God’s final appearance. See on :28.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If I have made gold my hope, and have said to the fine gold, ‘You are my confidence’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> <a href='B:220 31:24-25'>Job 31:24-25</a>; <a href='B:220 31:28'>Job 31:28</a> speak in dire and chilling terms of trusting in wealth- and note that these words come from a rich believer who lost it all: “had I put my trust in gold, or called fine gold my security [cp. assurance and insurance policies, bank balances, portfolios of investments</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> banknotes stored under the carpet, jewelry hidden in a corner of some peasant home]</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> this would be a crime for condemnation; for I should have denied God above”. It’s noteworthy that Job claims that despite having been one of the wealthiest men in the Middle East, he never put his trust in it. But that shouldn’t lead us to think that we can so easily handle the possession of wealth. For to possess wealth leads most people to trust in it. And if we do this</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> this is a crime calling for our condemnation, it’s a denial of God, an effective atheism. Attitudes to wealth are that important.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> if I have rejoiced because my wealth was great, and because my hand had gotten much-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Again we see Job moving outside of the parameters provided in the prologue. There it was made clear that his wealth was given by God’s hand; but now he claims it was from his own hand. This is the problem with suffering and false accusation; it can make us terribly self congratulatory, listing our own good deeds, rather than serving to humble us and recognize our humanity. Job previously has had points where he does indeed appear to be responding rightly; but finally now he reveals his essential self justification. No longer does he groan about his physical sufferings; instead he is pouring out self justification.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> if I have seen the sun when it shined, or the moon moving in splendour-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The reference is to worshipping the sun and moon. This was common enough at the time, and was called Sabaism (from&nbsp;tsaba,&nbsp;"the heavenly hosts"). It could be argued that the term "Lord of Sabaoth" ["Yahweh of hosts"] was a deconstruction of this common view, presenting Yahweh as the God of the heavenly hosts.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> and my heart has been secretly enticed, and my hand threw a kiss from my mouth-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Again as noted on :1,7, Job perceives that the essence of idolatry is in the human heart. He realized what James was to later make explicit (<a href='B:660 1:13-15'>Jas 1:13-15</a>)- that the process of temptation begins within the heart. Idolatry is essentially an affair of the heart.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> this also would be an iniquity to be punished by the judges; for I should have denied the God who is above-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> &nbsp;And here we have a window into Job's motivation; he feared condemnation and therefore he was careful to be strictly legally obedient. He was careful not to follow his wife's advice to deny or curse God and die; and he as it were parades his faithfulness to God by recalling how he had refused to yield to her. It was this mindset which was to be dismantled by God’s final appearance. See on :23.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If I have rejoiced at the destruction of him who hated me, or lifted up myself when evil found him-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job had not had an altogether easy life even before the sufferings came. He had experience of being hated, and had seen the destruction of those people. But he insists he had not rejoiced; instead he had been sad. And this sorrow for the lost is revealed several times in his genuine concern for the friends' salvation. This basic desire is to be used by God when Job is made the one whose prayer and representational suffering saves the friends.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> (yes, I have not allowed my mouth to sin by asking his life with a curse)-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Again we get the impression of Job parading his steel willed self control, not allowing his mouth to sin. Acceptability with God is not a function of how strong is our will. For some have more steel in their will than others. It's about believing in grace an accepting it. Perhaps the Lord alludes to Job favourably at this point (despite his surrounding words being so full of self justification); for He taught that instead of doing evil to our enemies, "I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for them that persecute you" (<a href='B:470 5:44'>Mat 5:44</a>). And this is what Job did- his prayer for the friends, who apparently were his actual persecutors, bringing many of the trials upon him, was finally answered.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> if the men of my tent have not said, ‘Who can find one who has not been filled with his meat?’-</p><p> Job's own family were bound to recognize that Job had been generous to the hungry and stranger (:32). But his wife turned away from him, and his wider family only appear on the scene at the end. They knew he was of integrity, but Job's wife had urged him to curse God and resign his integrity.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> (the foreigner has not lodged in the street, but I have opened my doors to the traveller)-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job may be alluding to the well known hospitality of Abraham and Lot in fairly recent history. Again he is presenting himself as a seed of Abraham by works rather than by faith.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> if like Adam I have covered my transgressions, by hiding my iniquity in my heart-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Here Job denies that he is like Adam in that unlike him, he has no sin to hide. The same word for "hiding" is used in <a href='B:10 3:8'>Gen 3:8</a>; <a href='B:10 3:10'>Gen 3:10</a>, of Adam&nbsp;hiding&nbsp;himself from God. But Job was like Adam, and part of the lesson is that he was denying his humanity. And so like Adam he was humiliated by God’s questioning at the end of the book. Job is associated with Adam several times in the book- see on <a href='B:220 9:17'>Job 9:17</a>; <a href='B:220 10:9'>Job 10:9</a>; <a href='B:220 13:20-22'>Job 13:20-22</a>. But he was denial of his humanity, unable to accept that he was a son of Adam who was also a sinner, even if seen as righteous.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>LXX "or if too having sinned unintentionally, I hid my sin;</p>&nbsp;<p style='margin-left:1:415em'>(for I did not stand in awe of a great multitude, so as not to declare boldly before them:)". Job recognizes that sins of ignorance are still sins and apparently confessed such sins before others, perhaps at the regular meetings of the "sons of God" (<a href='B:220 1:6'>Job 1:6</a>). But even this he cites as a reason for his justification; rather than recognizing that therefore he is not in fact perfect and sinless.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> because I feared the great multitude, and the contempt of families terrified me, so that I kept silence, and didn’t go out of the door-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I noted on :32 that Job compares his hospitality to that of Abraham and Lot. He alludes to how Lot went out of the door to the great crowd in order to defend his guests' honour. Again he presents himself as a seed of the faithful family by works rather than by faith. He has little to say about the great promises to Abraham and the patriarchs; he felt his own works eclipsed their importance.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>"Terrify" is the word elsewhere translated 'dismay', and is used of how the exiles were urged not to be dismayed but to believe that God would indeed bring them from exile to restoration in His restored Kingdom (<a href='B:290 51:7'>Isa 51:7</a>; <a href='B:300 30:10'>Jer 30:10</a>; <a href='B:300 46:27'>Jer 46:27</a>). Job begins by being dismayed / scared (<a href='B:220 7:14'>Job 7:14</a>), but develops to not be dismayed (<a href='B:220 31:34'>Job 31:34</a> s:w:), following the example of the Lord's battle horse (<a href='B:220 39:22'>Job 39:22</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> oh that I had one to hear me!-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job appeals for ‘witnesses’ (<a href='B:220 9:33-35'>Job 9:33-35</a>; <a href='B:220 16:18-22'>Job 16:18-22</a>; <a href='B:220 19:20-27'>Job 19:20-27</a>), an advocate in Heaven (<a href='B:220 9:33'>Job 9:33</a>), denies his guilt and demands a legal list of his sins (<a href='B:220 13:19'>Job 13:19</a>), he wishes for God to come to trial (<a href='B:220 9:3'>Job 9:3</a>), and thus Job is described as a man who has taken out a ‘case’ with God (<a href='B:220 23:4'>Job 23:4</a>; <a href='B:220 40:2'>Job 40:2</a>). Job 29-31 is effectively Job’s declaration of legal innocence and an appeal to God to hear his case more sympathetically (<a href='B:220 31:35'>Job 31:35</a>). And of course God pronounces a final legal verdict at the very end (<a href='B:220 42:7'>Job 42:7</a>), in response to Job’s earlier plea: “Sleeplessly I wait for His reply” (<a href='B:220 16:22'>Job 16:22</a>). It’s as if the whole experience of Job was [at least partly] in order to test out the Canaanite theories of ‘Satan’, suffering and evil in the court of Heaven; and also the various theories which arose to explain Judah's captivity in Babylon. The friends represent the traditional views of evil, and often make reference to the myths of their day about ‘Satan’ figures. They speak as if they are the final court – Eliphaz speaks of how the judges and elders of their day, the “holy ones”, had concluded Job was guilty, and that they, the friends, were right: “To which of the holy ones will you appeal [legal language]?... we have [legally] examined this, and it [Job’s guilt] is true” (<a href='B:220 5:1'>Job 5:1</a>; <a href='B:220 5:27'>Job 5:27</a>). This is of great comfort to those who feel misjudged by man – above them in Heaven the ultimate Heavenly court is considering our case, and that is all that matters.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Behold, here is my signature, let the Almighty answer me; let the accuser write my indictment!-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Or, "Behold my&nbsp;sign". The legal mark made on statements of defence in those days was originally a&nbsp;cross;&nbsp;and hence the letter Tau or T. We are invited to see him swearing as it were by the cross. His challenge to God to write an indictment was arrogant, and is answered by God’s personal appearance, convicting him of sin. Again we note that Job perceives his "adversary" (AV) or accuser as effectively God. Although it was the satan, who morphs into the friends, who in practice accused him- of only believing in God because he had received Divine blessing.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Surely I would carry it on my shoulder; and I would bind it to me as a crown-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> His desire that the accusations be written down was ultimately answered by the production of the book of Job. But the whole story is hardly a crown of glory to Job, because at the end he is humiliated and condemned.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I would declare to Him the number of my steps. As a prince would I go near to Him-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job definitely had to be humbled from this arrogant position. He was no prince before God. And in this we see him as representative of Israel, 'prince with God'. Through repentance and recognizing his humanity, he would eventually become 'prince with God', as Israel could have done, and as the exiles were bidden do by following Job's path.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If my land cries out against me, and its furrows weep together-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The land is put by metonymy for the workers of it, who would have cried out against him for being deceived of their wages (:39). But they didn’t. Job had acted with integrity. Just as he had not caused people to lose their lives in tending his land (:39), so perhaps he farmed his land sensitive to the land itself, not greedily seeking the maximum gain from it, so that its furrows didn’t as it were weep.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> if I have eaten its fruits without money, or have caused its owners to lose their life-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> See on :38. <a href='B:660 5:4'>Jas 5:4</a> alludes here, condemning the early Christians for abusing their workers, and thereby holding up Job and his repentance as their pattern. Perhaps here we have another example of Job saying that he was being unfairly treated like Cain: "If I have eaten the strength (of my land) without money... let thistles grow instead of wheat" (31:39,40 AVmg:). This is referring back to the curse on Cain, that "when thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength" (<a href='B:10 4:12'>Gen 4:12</a>). Job is saying that his land has yielded its strength to him, and that only if he sinned should the Adamic curse of thistles come upon him. We too can resent the limitations of our own nature, not least in the proneness to sin which it gives us, and become bitter against God because of it as Job did. See on 11:15; 13:27; 16:17,18; 31:3.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> let briars grow instead of wheat, and stinkweed instead of barley. The words of Job are ended- Thistles were part of the curse. Again we see Job failing to recognize his humanity, acting as if he were not under the curse of Eden, and arguing that it was unfair that it applied to him, concluding that it should only apply to him if he had sinned. He was counted righteous by God at the beginning and at the end of the book, but he was a sinner. He was not the Lord Jesus. Had he been in Adam's place, he would have done the same thing; and in that sense, we all sinned "in Adam" (<a href='B:520 5:12'>Rom 5:12</a>). Job has now to be convicted of his humanity.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> So these three men ceased to answer Job-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The preceding chapter has been Job's clearing of himself, and has similarities to Babylonian legal documents. An accused person could begin their court case by such a statement of detailed denial. The accusers could respond with silence, in which case they dropped their case; or continue. The friends are reduced to silence after this great clearing of himself. Job's righteousness in a legal sense was unassailable. We may consider that their silence after this speech means that Job has 'won'. After his great clearing speech, the audience is expecting his justification. But then we have the interlude with Elihu, and then God appears Himself- and condemns yet saves Job, justifying him by condemning him, in the spirit of Paul's legal arguments in Romans 1-8.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Because he was righteous in his own eyes-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The contrast is with the fact that God doesn't remove His eyes from the righteous (s:w. <a href='B:220 36:7'>Job 36:7</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Then the wrath of Elihu the son of Barachel, the Buzite, of the family of Ram, was kindled against Job. His wrath was kindled because he justified himself rather than God-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The role of Elihu is difficult to perceive. He repeats the arguments of the friends in some detail, summing them up, as it were, in his own words. We must remember that Job is poetry, it is a drama, although that doesn't take away from the existence of a historical Job (see on <a href='B:220 1:1'>Job 1:1</a>). In terms of the drama, we have here a series of speeches, full of accusations, followed by Job's rebuttals. For an illiterate audience, or any audience hearing / watching rather than reading the drama, by this point we have all rather forgotten the arguments. So simply in terms of the drama, Elihu could function as an appropriate way of summarizing what has been said so far. And many of his arguments against Job are repeated afterwards by God- so his function is also to introduce us to the revelation of God’s own perspective which is coming. Job did indeed justify himself, but he did not completely not justify God; although perhaps the sense is that he focused more upon his own rightness ['justification'] rather than God’s. The suffering servant of Isaiah is indeed based upon Job, but at times by way of contrast. By His sufferings, He justified "many" (s:w. <a href='B:290 53:11'>Isa 53:11</a>), whereas Job at best only justified himself:&nbsp;</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Also his wrath was kindled against his three friends, because they had found no answer, and yet had condemned Job-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job feels God’s wrath kindled against him (<a href='B:220 19:11'>Job 19:11</a>). The innocent Job&nbsp; experienced the judgments of God’s people, against whom God’s wrath was kindled (<a href='B:50 11:17'>Deu 11:17</a>; <a href='B:120 23:26'>2Ki 23:26</a>). Significantly, we find Elihu's wrath kindled against both Job and the friends (<a href='B:220 32:2-3'>Job 32:2-3</a>), but the wrath of God was kindled only against the friends (<a href='B:220 42:7'>Job 42:7</a>). Elihu is therefore not fully reflecting God’s position about Job. I have repeatedly demonstrated that the innocent Job was suffering the judgment for the sins of God’s people. In the end, this came to full term in the salvation of the friends on account of Job's intercession. God’s wrath was not personally against Job, it was against the friends. But Job suffered God’s wrath against him, because he was to be the saviour of the friends by offering sacrifice for them and praying for them. This looks forward to the work of the Lord Jesus, the suffering servant based upon Job; experiencing the judgment for our sins, and through the representative nature of His sacrifice, being able to save us.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job, because they were elder than he-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> We are invited to imagine Elihu as being one of the "sons of God" of <a href='B:220 1:6'>Job 1:6</a> who had been party to the discussions of the prologue between God and the satan. His comments, however, repeatedly ignore the parameters set in the prologue. Again as noted on :2, Elihu appears to be a literary device summarizing the arguments so far, although taking the side of the friends against Job; and giving a foretaste of the arguments of God which are about to be revealed.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> When Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouth of these three men, his wrath was kindled-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This phrase "his wrath was kindled" is that used of how God’s wrath was kindled against the friends (<a href='B:220 42:7'>Job 42:7</a>); but significantly not against Job. Elihu is therefore presented as not completely in step with God and is not totally His representative when he talks about Job. This all adds to the intentional enigma of Elihu; he functions also to elicit our response as the audience to the speeches. We are all beginning to form our opinions of the characters, and then Elihu appears and gives his take, and we raise our eyebrows and wonder whether... he is right or wrong, just as we too struggle to come to a correct and just opinion about what we've just heard.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite answered, I am young, and you are very old; therefore I held back, and didn’t dare show you my opinion-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Very old" may be sarcasm, seeing Job lived 140 years after this (<a href='B:220 42:16'>Job 42:16</a>) and his father was still alive (<a href='B:220 15:10'>Job 15:10</a>), and the friends appeal to the wisdom of men older than them, in which case we immediately begin to doubt whether Elihu is indeed totally God’s representative; this enigma of Elihu is intentional, as explained on <a href='B:220 32:5'>Job 32:5</a>. As a Buzite, Elihu was from the same geographical area and the same broad ethnic background as the friends (<a href='B:10 22:1'>Gen 22:1</a>; <a href='B:300 25:23'>Jer 25:23</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I said, ‘Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> On this point Elihu agrees with Job, that traditional wisdom and religion has failed and was not being taught by the friends (<a href='B:220 26:3'>Job 26:3</a>). The old men were not teaching wisdom.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> But there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I suggest the idea is not that every man is inspired, but that just as God breathes the physical breath of life into man, so He can choose to inspire some men; and this is the source of teaching, as we have it today in the inspired writings known as the Bible; rather than through appealing to sages and tradition, as the friends were doing. But see on <a href='B:220 33:4'>Job 33:4</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> It is not the great who are wise, nor the aged who understand justice-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This idea that age and position were effectively the basis for inspired wisdom was well entrenched. Even the disciples marvelled that the great men of Jewish society would not be saved (<a href='B:470 19:23-25'>Mat 19:23-25</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Therefore I said, ‘Listen to me; I also will show my opinion’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> By implication, Elihu considers himself to be inspired by God (see on :8). "Opinion" really means "knowledge", and the Hebrew word is used only by Elihu (<a href='B:220 32:6'>Job 32:6</a>; <a href='B:220 32:10'>Job 32:10</a>; <a href='B:220 32:17'>Job 32:17</a>). He claims his knowledge comes from "afar", from God (<a href='B:220 36:3'>Job 36:3</a>), but he also recognizes that God alone has totality of "knowledge" (<a href='B:220 37:16'>Job 37:16</a>). So we are again left with Elihu as an enigma, not totally reflecting God’s knowledge, although considering that his view is in line with God’s. This enigma of Elihu is purposeful; as explained on <a href='B:220 32:5'>Job 32:5</a>, his function is to elicit our opinions; we too who like to think our view is in line with God’s, and yet admitting we lack His total knowledge.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, I waited for your words, and I listened for your reasoning, while you searched out what to say-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The friends claimed they had "searched out" their response (s:w. <a href='B:220 5:27'>Job 5:27</a>). One theme of the book is that God alone searches man and searches out final truth in judgment (<a href='B:220 28:3'>Job 28:3</a>; <a href='B:220 28:27'>Job 28:27</a>). The exiles were comforted that no matter how they were judged by human judgment, God alone searches out man (<a href='B:230 139:1'>Psa 139:1</a>; <a href='B:230 139:23'>Psa 139:23</a>; <a href='B:300 17:10'>Jer 17:10</a>). The exiles were to search themselves not others (<a href='B:310 3:40'>Lam 3:40</a> s:w:). God’s final appearance is evidence enough that He alone can search out His own creation, including humans. Elihu yet again is presented as not completely in line with God’s position, for by implication he considers he can search out this matter where the friends have failed to.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Yes, I gave you my full attention, but there was no one who convinced Job, or who answered his words, among you-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As often noted on expounding the speeches, the friends tend not to engage with Job's actual words but rather attack their straw man image of him which they have created. They tend to respond to Job in terms of vague generalities, whereas Job more specifically engages with their actual words. The whole dialogue, on one level, is an example of human dialogue and personal relationship gone wrong. We are left with the impression that Job needs to be convicted, but he hasn't been convicted by the friends. Their legal case has failed. And this sets the scene for God’s final conviction of Job.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Beware lest you say, ‘We have found wisdom, God may refute him, not man’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> GNB "How can you claim you have discovered wisdom? God must answer Job, for you have failed". Their failure was in that they had not convicted Job is sin. Only God can do that, and indeed that is what happens at the end. This is one of those points at which the audience has to nod in agreement with Elihu. Or we can read with LXX "lest ye should say, We have found that we have added wisdom to the Lord". They were acting as greater than God, assuming their wisdom was above His.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> for he has not directed his words against me; neither will I answer him with your speeches-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea may be that even if Job had been answering Elihu, he wouldn't have spoken as they had.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They were amazed. They answered no more. They didn’t have a word to say-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> It could be that this is the narrator's description of how the friends were unable to answer Elihu. Or it could be that this is Elihu commenting upon how they had been closed down by Job's reasoning, looking forward to how at the end, men feared to ask the Lord any more questions or seek to answer Him back. <a href='B:470 22:46'>Mat 22:46</a> appears to allude here, confirming Job as a type of the Lord Jesus: "No man was able to answer Him a word, neither dared any man from that day onwards ask Him any more questions". Some see in :15,16 the implication that Elihu actually wrote the book of Job. He was therefore the fulfilment of Job's desire that someone would sympathetically write his grief and record his mental agonies (<a href='B:220 19:23'>Job 19:23</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Shall I wait, because they don’t speak, because they stand still, and answer no more?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The drama in performance likely included a significant silence after Job finishes his last speech, and the silence of the friends leads us to wonder whether for all Job's self righteousness in his final speech, they have been trounced. But then Elihu speaks.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I also will answer my part, and I also will show my opinion-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Whether Elihu is directly from God or not is an open question. It is purposefully ambiguous. The audience 'hear' the lengthy silence after Job finishes, and the friends are unable to continue arguing with him. His righteousness appears genuine, if arrogantly presented and recounted. And we are left to ponder how much of what he says is just the views of an angry young man, and how much is really of God. The enigma of Elihu is therefore to give us the audience a chance to ponder whether we accept or reject Job's argument and legal case. We wonder whether Elihu speaks for us, in places, or completely, or not at all.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For I am full of words. The spirit within me constrains me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu sounds exactly like Zophar, who says the same (<a href='B:220 20:2-3'>Job 20:2-3</a>) as well as Job, who likewise feels he just has to speak (<a href='B:220 13:13'>Job 13:13</a>; <a href='B:220 13:19'>Job 13:19</a>). The book ends with Job, Elihu and the friends all in humbled silence. We feel that our earlier impression has been confirmed- that it would've been better had they remained in silence as they were at the start of the drama. The book opens and closes with Job and the friends sitting in silence. The implication is that all the words were inappropriate. And this impression applies to Elihu too. Again we are purposefully presented with Elihu as an enigmatic figure.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, my breast is as wine which has no vent; like new wineskins it is ready to burst-</p><p> The implication is that he has old wine in new wineskins, and this is an image used negatively by the Lord (<a href='B:470 9:17'>Mat 9:17</a>). This would place Elihu in a somewhat negative light. As argued earlier, he appears to be a literary device to summarize the friends' arguments, reminding us of Job's weaker moments in his self-righteousness, and giving a foretaste of God’s argument which is yet to come.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I will speak, that I may be refreshed. I will open my lips and answer-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job opened his mouth at the beginning (<a href='B:220 3:1'>Job 3:1</a>), just as Elihu now does, and we have the impression that he would have been better to be as the Lord Jesus, and remain silent through His trials. Elihu spoke for his own benefit- "that I may be refreshed". And this was what they all did.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Please don’t let me respect any man’s person, neither will I give flattering titles to any man-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As noted on :9, Elihu is correct in realizing that titles and human respect are no basis for truth. 'To give flattering titles' is s:w. "surname himself" in <a href='B:290 44:5'>Isa 44:5</a>, where the exiles are to surname themselves by Yahweh and not by man.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For I don’t know how to give flattering titles; or else my Maker would soon take me away- This is confirming Job's similar condemnation of flattery in <a href='B:220 17:5'>Job 17:5</a>. If we accept God is our maker, then other human beings are likewise made by Him. This means we should respect them, but not make them more than human by giving them flattering titles.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> However, Job, please hear my speech, and listen to all my words-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This recalls the plea of Job (<a href='B:220 13:17'>Job 13:17</a>; <a href='B:220 21:2'>Job 21:2</a>). We are given the impression that just as Job was so desperate to speak and would've been better not to, so Elihu likewise. See on :2,31.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> See now, I have opened my mouth. My tongue has spoken in my mouth-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Again we see a similarity with Job, who is silent for a period and then opens his mouth and speaks (<a href='B:220 3:1'>Job 3:1</a>). But our natural reflection is that Job would've been better to remain silent. And we are encouraged through this connection to think the same of Elihu. This all contributes towards an intended impression that Elihu is an enigmatic figure. We are not intended to be sure as to whether he is really in line with God or not. He functions also to elicit our response as the audience to the speeches. We are all beginning to form our opinions of the characters, and then Elihu appears and gives his take, and we raise our eyebrows and wonder whether... he is right or wrong, just as we too struggle to come to a correct and just opinion about what we've just heard.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> My words shall utter the uprightness of my heart. That which my lips know they shall speak sincerely-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The very phrase "words of uprightness" is only found when Job complains about the words of the friends in <a href='B:220 6:25'>Job 6:25</a>: "How forcible are words of uprightness! But your reproof, what does it reprove?". This experience led Job to long for "words of uprightness", and thereby he came to be ready for the final revelation of God’s words at the end of the book. Likewise our disillusion with human words and relationships leads us to be the more eager and ready for God’s revelation.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "The Divine Spirit is that which formed me, and the breath of the Almighty that which teaches me". Elihu has used the same argument in <a href='B:220 32:8'>Job 32:8</a>. He seems however to assume that because he like all men has been made by God’s Spirit and given life by that Spirit, his opinion is therefore inspired by God’s Spirit. That is obviously a false position. Again, we are intentionally left wondering whether Elihu is totally in line with God, and we get the impression from this kind of thing that he isn't. See on <a href='B:220 32:5'>Job 32:5</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If you can, answer me. Set your words in order before me, and stand forth-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu seems to be responding to Job's words in <a href='B:220 23:6'>Job 23:6</a> "Would He contend with me in the greatness of His power? No, but He would listen to me"- AV "Would he plead against me…?". God, and Elihu on His behalf, did plead against Job by recounting God’s power. When Elihu was established in Job's mind as God’s true representative, he found that he had nothing to say, as he thought he would have. Elihu seems to refer back to this speech when he challenges the dumfounded Job: "If thou hast anything to say, answer me... if thou canst answer me, set thy words in order before me" (<a href='B:220 33:32'>Job 33:32</a>; <a href='B:220 33:5'>Job 33:5</a> AV). Elihu has in mind <a href='B:220 23:4'>Job 23:4</a> "I would set my cause in order before Him". Job several times spoke of how he would fully explain himself to God, if he found Him. Yet in the presence of God and Elihu, he finds that all the words dry up. Words became irrelevant. All he can do is behold the majesty of God’s righteousness, and declare his own unrighteousness. That spiritual pinnacle of Job still lies ahead for the majority of us. The desire to speak is a desire to express our own thoughts. Words are a construct which can trap us. Only God’s words can liberate. There is a wordless element in being truly humbled before the Almighty.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, I am toward God even as you are. I am also formed out of the clay-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The degree to which Elihu was Job's exact representative helps us appreciate the precision of our Lord's representation of us. Indeed this appears to be one of the roles of Elihu in Job. The LXX brings this out well: "Stand against me, and I will stand against thee. Thou art formed out of the clay as also I: we have been formed out of the same substance". It seems that Elihu had been through Job's very experiences, of 'death' and rising again: "He has delivered my soul from death, that my life may praise him in the light. Hearken, Job, and hear me" (33:30,31 LXX). And this is exactly what Job did. But again we are left wondering whether Elihu really is the answer to Job's desire for a sympathetic mediator with God. Here at the beginning of his speech, we have hopes he might be. But as we see how tough he is on Job, we wonder. We look for someone else. And that person doesn't arise, at the time. God Himself then appears, without any mediator. But our sympathy with Job's desire for a mediator leads us in essence to an understanding of the Lord Jesus.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Understanding the real import of the speeches rests largely on a correct understanding of Elihu. Job longed for one like Elihu, who could reconcile God with Job's righteous life , his sufferings, and all his intellectual doubts. Elihu points out that he is the fulfilment of Job's need (<a href='B:220 33:6'>Job 33:6</a> cp. 9:33). With this, Job has no disagreement. Elihu can be seen as a type of Christ. The speeches of Job therefore make us see the desperation of man's need for Elihu/Jesus; especially the need of those who lived under the Old Covenant. Job's weakness, morally, physically and intellectually, becomes representative of the weakness of each of us. We breathe a&nbsp; sigh of relief when Elihu appears on the scene. But we are not completely relieved as Elihu's speeches continue. For he isn't very sympathetic to Job. So whilst we see him as the requested mediator, his failure and our dissatisfaction with him becomes our longing for a better mediator, the Lord Jesus.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, my terror shall not make you afraid, neither shall my pressure be heavy on you-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Clearly God’s "hand" (s:w. "pressure") had been upon Job, and God had made Job feel His "terrors" (s:w. <a href='B:220 7:14'>Job 7:14</a>; <a href='B:220 9:34'>Job 9:34</a>). Elihu is saying that he is not going to be like this; he had no power to hurt Job, he is just making observations.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Job had stated this fear of God’s terror making him afraid in <a href='B:220 9:34'>Job 9:34</a>; <a href='B:220 13:21'>Job 13:21</a>, and Elihu alludes to it when he uses the same phrase in assuring Job that his terror will not make Job afraid (<a href='B:220 33:7'>Job 33:7</a>). The terror is perhaps "the terror of the Lord", the fear of condemnation at the last day (so Paul uses the phrase, <a href='B:540 5:11'>2Co 5:11</a>). That terror should "persuade men" to accept grace, Paul argues. To have that terror unexperienced by men would mean they had no persuasion toward grace. Elihu however argues that he is not going to as it were pressurize Job with such fears.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>It might be possible to speculate as to the tone of voice in which Elihu spoke. By contrast to the friends' "hard speeches", Elihu assures Job at the start of their dialogue: "My fear shall not terrify thee, neither shall my hand be heavy upon thee" (33:7 LXX). A similar contrast is pointed by Elihu's claim to be speaking as a result of God’s spirit within him (<a href='B:220 32:8'>Job 32:8</a>), whereas Zophar and the friends spoke from their own spirit (20:3). Apart from God’s specific confirmation of Elihu's words, Job evidently perceived Elihu to be the answer to his pleas to find God. Job's desire for "a daysman" was answered by Elihu: "I am according to thy wish". Job did not dispute this. If one of the friends had claimed to be such a "daysman" , we can imagine Job's indignant denial of it!</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Surely you have spoken in my hearing, I have heard the voice of your words, saying-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu has been present all along. Although the reader hasn't seen him, the audience watching the drama would have seen him there.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> ‘I am clean, without disobedience. I am innocent, neither is there iniquity in me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Discerning and feeling ones own sinfulness is an undoubted part of conversion. Elihu on God’s behalf rebukes Job for thinking that “I am clean without transgression” (33:9,12); and Elihu’s exhortation to Job to say “I have sinned” (33:27) is obeyed by Job, as if he accepted the truth of what Elihu was saying. How we see the role of Elihu determines how we understand Job's claims of innocence. But we are left with a nagging doubt about Elihu. I have earlier suggested that he is inserted as a literary device to summarize the arguments so far and to give us a foretaste of God’s argument which is yet to come.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, He finds occasions against me. He counts me for His enemy-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is a rather uncharitable twist of Job's words in <a href='B:220 7:17-19'>Job 7:17-19</a>; <a href='B:220 10:3-6'>Job 10:3-6</a>. And even when Job feels God is his enemy (<a href='B:220 16:9'>Job 16:9</a>), this surely must be balanced against what Job elsewhere says about maintaining his faith in God, even if God slays him. We are expecting Elihu to be sympathetic, and instead we find him twisting Job's words and seizing upon the words of a man clearly in great pain and anguish whilst ignoring the other things he says about God. God’s statement that Job has spoken what is right about Him (<a href='B:220 42:7'>Job 42:7</a>) appears to be a rebuke of Elihu's position. But for now, we immediately begin to have our doubts about Elihu.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He puts my feet in the stocks. He marks all my paths’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is indeed a quote of Job's words in <a href='B:220 13:27'>Job 13:27</a>, but Elihu rather overlooks the context in which Job spoke of God marking all his paths (<a href='B:220 7:17-19'>Job 7:17-19</a>). We get the impression that Elihu is making Job an offender for a word, and is not giving credit for all the faith he shows in God in his other speeches.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, I will answer you. In this you are not just, for God is greater than man-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job has often said that God is greater than man. And yet indeed Job is "not just" for no man can be just with God of himself, as Job has recognized (<a href='B:220 9:2'>Job 9:2</a>). We sense Elihu is definitely framing Job in as negative a light as possible, and is not free from the false accusations against Job which have been seen throughout the speeches of the friends. I suggested on <a href='B:220 32:5'>Job 32:5</a> that Elihu serves in the narrative to summarize the arguments of the friends.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Why do you strive against Him, because He doesn’t give account of any of His matters?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Again this seems a twist of Job's words; he has complained that God is striving against him (s:w. <a href='B:220 9:3'>Job 9:3</a>; <a href='B:220 10:2'>Job 10:2</a>; <a href='B:220 13:8'>Job 13:8</a>; <a href='B:220 13:19'>Job 13:19</a>), and in his maturer moments Job recognized God was not in fact striving against him (<a href='B:220 23:6'>Job 23:6</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For God speaks once, yes twice, though man pays no attention-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job has wanted God to speak to him (<a href='B:220 13:22'>Job 13:22</a>; <a href='B:220 23:5'>Job 23:5</a>), and Elihu is saying that God has spoken to Job through his sufferings, which Elihu now proceeds to allude to in the next verses. But God will finally speak, plainly and directly. We are left to wonder whether in fact Elihu is right or not; for it was not that Job was paying no attention.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, in slumbering on the bed-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This and the following verses allude to Job's situation. God had given him nightmare visions and bad dreams (<a href='B:220 7:14'>Job 7:14</a>). Whether these were the Divine revelations which Elihu imagines or merely part of the overall illness of Job... again remains unclear to us. Exactly because Elihu is purposefully enigmatic as to whether he is really in line with God; see on <a href='B:220 32:5'>Job 32:5</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> then He opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This rather sounds like the claim of Eliphaz to have had revelation from God in a night vision, which claim I suggested was false (see on <a href='B:220 4:15'>Job 4:15</a>). See on :15.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> that He may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This suggests Job had an evil purpose which God had sought to deflect him from by giving him night visions. But this argument of Elihu's is at variance with the explanations provided in the prologue- that Job is not a sinner who needs correction, but a man being tested for the sake of revealing truths to the friends / satan / "sons of God".</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He keeps back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The impression is that Job was headed for death "by the sword" of his attackers, but God was trying to save him from this by giving him visions at night. But that is at variance with the parameters set in the prologue. God was not going&nbsp; to allow Job's abusers to slay him. His life was to be preserved. So recalling that, we further wonder about Elihu. He states some truths, which God later confirms, but there is much which leaves us doubting whether his approach is totally in line with God’s. This is intentional. See on <a href='B:220 32:5'>Job 32:5</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He is chastened also with pain on his bed, with continual strife in his bones-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This clearly alludes to Job's writhing with pain on his couch with continual pain on his bones. But was this for his 'chastening'? As discussed on :18, the parameters defined in the prologue suggest that the sufferings were for the education of others, and not for Job's personal chastening.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> so that his life hates bread, and his soul dainty food-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Clearly Elihu has Job in view. But there is no evidence he lost appetite; instead he complains that he has to beg for bread and has to eat whatever he can get (<a href='B:220 3:24'>Job 3:24</a>; <a href='B:220 6:7'>Job 6:7</a>; <a href='B:220 15:23'>Job 15:23</a>). Again we fail to find in Elihu a totally truthful and sympathetic mediator; and we look for another, finally fulfilled in the Lord Jesus.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> His flesh is so consumed away, that it can’t be seen. His bones that were not seen stick out-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The reference to consumed flesh seems somewhat exaggerated. The same phrase is used in <a href='B:240 5:11'>Pro 5:11</a> for judgment for sin. But the prologue has made it clear that Job's sufferings were not a punishment for his sin. The righteous was to suffer in order to demonstrate something to others. And Elihu again appears out of full step with the Divine basis of things concerning Job.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Yes, his soul draws near to the pit, and his life to the destroyers-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu appears to hold some pagan ideas that there were "those who bring death" (ESV) who meet and greet those who die. This isn't the Biblical picture of death and the grave, and yet again, we get the feeling that Elihu is not completely in line with God, although some of his views are repeated by God later.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If there is beside him an angel, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to show to man what is right for him-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu seems to be suggesting that unless Job makes use of Elihu's offer of being a mediator / "interpreter" (<a href='B:220 33:6'>Job 33:6</a>), then he is going to die the death of the condemned (:24). But this again misses the point of the parameters set in the prologue. Job is not going to die as a result of his sufferings. Elihu is not going to prove Job's saviour.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> then God is gracious to him, and says, ‘Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Again, this isn't what happened. God’s grace was not mediated to Job through Elihu being a mediator who made a ransom payment for Job; although Elihu clearly liked to image himself like that (<a href='B:220 33:6'>Job 33:6</a>). This primitive idea of ransom payment through a mediator is completely debunked by God’s final appearance to justify and save Job. His grace to Job was not predicated upon Elihu, nor in fact any mediator nor ransom payment.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> His flesh shall be fresher than a child’s. He returns to the days of his youth-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Indeed Job's fortunes were revived, but not thanks to Elihu's mediation (see on :23,24). Job indeed longed to return "to the days of my youth" (<a href='B:220 29:4'>Job 29:4</a>); and Elihu is offering Job the power to return, thanks to his mediation (see on :23).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He prays to God, and He is gracious to him, so that he sees His face with joy. He restores to man his righteousness-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is indeed what happened to Job. He was 'restored', he prayed to God for the friends (<a href='B:220 42:10'>Job 42:10</a>), and felt as if he had seen God’s face (<a href='B:220 42:5'>Job 42:5</a>). The point is that this revival of Job happened exactly as Elihu said- but not thanks to his mediation (see on :23,24). It was predicated purely upon God’s direct grace.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He sings before men, and says, ‘I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it didn’t profit me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The return of the prodigal son foreshadowed the final repentance of the Jews (note how that parable is based on <a href='B:10 43:16'>Gen 43:16</a>; <a href='B:10 45:14-15'>Gen 45:14-15</a>). But Job's decision to say "I have sinned... and it didn’t profit me" also connects with the prodigal son (<a href='B:490 15:21'>Luk 15:21</a>), thus again associating him with the Jews in their suffering and repentance:&nbsp;LXX "Even then a man shall blame himself, saying, What kind of things have I done? and he has not punished me according to the full amount of my sins". This has special reference to the exiles, who admitted that they had not been punished according to their sins (<a href='B:150 9:13'>Ezr 9:13</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He has redeemed my soul from going into the pit. My life shall see the light’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The 'redemption' of the exiles was to be predicated likewise upon their repentance (<a href='B:300 31:11'>Jer 31:11</a> s:w:). But this was to be possible without any mediator figure; Elihu failed to be that figure, just as the various possible Messiah figures didn’t come to anything. But salvation was still possible through repentance eliciting God’s direct restorative grace.</p>


