# comment

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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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><h4> 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.</h4>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He establishes the force of the wind. Yes, He measures out the waters by measure-</p><h4> 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.</h4>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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;


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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><h4> 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.</h4>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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><h4>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.</h4>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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><h4> 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.</h4>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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><h4> 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.</h4>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


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<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>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, God works all these things, twice, yes three times, with a man-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Perhaps the idea is that God has offered Job a way out two or three times, and he has rejected it. However this would reflect Elihu again missing the point of the prologue's explanation of why the sufferings were coming upon Job. They were not condemnation for his personal sins, from which he could only be saved by repentance and response to visions given by God. This is Elihu's position, and it is simply at variance with the parameters given in the prologue.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> to bring back his soul from the pit, that he may be enlightened with the light of the living-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> 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. As Job was to be the representative saviour of the friends, so perhaps Elihu was to be for Job.</p>&nbsp;


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Mark well, Job, and listen to me. Hold your peace, and I will speak-</p><h4> See on :30. These are Job's words of <a href='B:220 13:13'>Job 13:13</a>. I noted on :1,2 that Elihu often repeats Job's words and style. Perhaps the collective impression is that Elihu's many words are no better than Job's; he is as desirous that his words be taken as 'truth' just as much as Job and the friends.</h4>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If you have anything to say, answer me. Speak, for I desire to justify you-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu's speech so far has been so self-justifying and critical of Job that we as the audience struggle to believe that he really desires to justify Job. And we are to learn that Job can be justified only by God and not man. And his justification is certainly not going to be on account of his speaking any more words. The fact Job doesn't say anything (:33) is because he clearly doesn't believe Elihu can justify him. God's final appearance and justification of Job, with no reference of Elihu nor usage of his offer of being the mediator desired (:6), is proof enough that Elihu is simply not completely God's representative.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If not, listen to me. Hold your peace, and I will teach you wisdom- The impression is that in the drama, there is now a period of silence. Job says nothing (see on :32). Although he could have taken issue with much of what Elihu says, he doesn't. He is learning that verbal response is of no value and will not help toward resolution of matters with God.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Moreover Elihu answered-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This part of the speech is largely addressed to "you wise men" (:2) and "men of understanding" (:10). The friends are in view, but this serves to confirm Job's claim that sages and those reputed for wisdom are often wrong.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Hear my words, you wise men. Give ear to me, you who have knowledge-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As in :34, Elihu considers that any who is wise will agree with him, that he is wise and is speaking wisdom. But this is a circular, self-justifying argument. Or he could be referring to the friends sarcastically as "wise men" when he proceeds to bitterly criticize them. Seeing at times he repeats their arguments, we again wonder what to make of Elihu; and that unclarity is intentional; see on <a href='B:220 32:5'>Job 32:5</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For the ear tries words, as the palate tastes food-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He is quoting Job (<a href='B:220 12:11'>Job 12:11</a>). Elihu thereby is attempting to repeat what is good in Job's arguments whilst condemning him where he is wrong. But as I have argued on <a href='B:220 32:5'>Job 32:5</a> and often, Elihu may simply be a literary device to summarize the arguments so far.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Let us choose for us that which is right. Let us know among ourselves what is good-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Right" is mishpat, 'judgment'; he is urging the friends to come to a just judgment on the case. This slightly misses the point which God is to make- that He alone is the judge. The only judgment the friends are entitled to come to is that Job has maintained his faith despite adversity, contrary to their original suspicion. But this seems to be behind Paul's words in <a href='B:590 5:21'>1Th 5:21</a> "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good", which is in the context of using "prophesyings" (<a href='B:590 5:20'>1Th 5:20</a>)- i:e. the true word of God- to analyze and reject false Judaist teaching that was claimed to be inspired. We are left wondering whether Paul is merely using the outline principle, or is interpreting Elihu as the true prophet of God and Job as a false reasoner, doing so under the guise of speaking the Truth, seeing he was a prophet.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For Job has said, ‘I am righteous-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job never actually says this. He doesn't claim to be sinless and accepts he isn't. Job's argument has been that in the legal case he feels he is in with God, he is right. Elihu appears to twist this.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>God has taken away my right-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job has said this (<a href='B:220 27:2'>Job 27:2</a>), but in the sense that he feels frustrated that God is not participating in the legal case and is in that sense denying him justice. So many of Elihu's quotations of Job leave us internally debating as to whether he is citing him fairly and in context, and whether he is in fact adding to Job's words. He is certainly not the sympathetic mediator we have been led by the story line to expect.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> notwithstanding my right I am considered a liar. My wound is incurable, though I am without disobedience’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Again Elihu is putting words in Job's mouth. He just didn't say this. He has insisted he will not lie (<a href='B:220 27:4'>Job 27:4</a>) but that doesn't make him "a liar"- unless like the friends, Elihu is arguing that Job is in fact a sinner. Job has complained about suffering a wound or arrow (<a href='B:220 6:4'>Job 6:4</a>) when he has not been disobedient. But Elihu is out of line with the prologue in criticizing Job about this; for there it was made clear that indeed he would suffer but not because he had been disobedient.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> What man is like Job, who drinks scorn like water-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This seems at best an unnecessary comment, intended to mock Job, rather than to justify him- as Elihu had claimed he wanted to. He appears to be alluding to the words of Eliphaz in <a href='B:220 15:16'>Job 15:16</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> who goes in company with the workers of iniquity, and walks with wicked men?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As it stands, this is an untruth. But Elihu isn't rebuked by God for this. Rather is he perhaps just summarizing the arguments of the friends. LXX "saying, I have not sinned, nor committed ungodliness, nor had fellowship with workers of iniquity, to go with the ungodly".</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For he has said, ‘It profits a man nothing that he should delight himself with God’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Again, this purports to be a citation of Job's words when it isn't. Job has indeed lamented that he who delighted himself with God was suffering all the same. But that was indeed the situation, as the prologue makes clear. LXX, perhaps seeking to justify Elihu, has: "For thou shouldest not say, There shall be no visitation of a man, whereas there is a visitation on him from the Lord".</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Therefore listen to me, you men of understanding-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As noted on :2, this is circular reasoning. Elihu is saying that any wise man will listen to him and agree with him. The argument feels somewhat manipulative.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Far be it from God, that He should do wickedness, from the Almighty, that He should commit iniquity-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is a typical debating technique; implying an awful conclusion arises from the argument of the opponent, even if they haven't stated that. And even though their supposed argument has been misquoted and unfairly summarized (see on :9 etc:). In theological squabbles, this kind of thing is often done. "If you believe what he says [which is being misquoted anyway], then effectively you are saying [something awful] about God".</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For the work of a man He will render to him, and cause every man to find according to his ways-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This was the argument of Eliphaz (<a href='B:220 4:8'>Job 4:8</a>); Job's sufferings were to be understood as judgment for sin, which therefore Job has committed. The idea of future and ultimate judgment at a last day of judgment has been overlooked.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Yes surely, God will not do wickedly, neither will the Almighty pervert justice-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As explained on :10, this is a very manipulative argument. Elihu is saying that Job's position (which as noted on :9 he misquotes) implies God is wicked and unjust. But Job has never said nor implied this. Far from being keen to justify Job, Elihu acts more like a vicious minded prosecutor- although I have argued elsewhere that he is merely a literary device to summarize the arguments of the friends, adding no new material to their arguments (see on <a href='B:220 32:5'>Job 32:5</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Who put Him in charge of the earth? Or who has appointed Him over the whole world?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The following statement of God's greatness is true as far as it goes, but Job would have agreed with it. Elihu is implying that Job disagrees with it. And this again is a parade example of where dialogue goes wrong. One party goes on at length about a position which their opponent agrees with, because they are failing to understand 'the other', but are arguing against a straw man position.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If He set His heart on Himself, if He gathered to Himself His spirit and His breath-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The whole of creation keeps on going as a result of God having a heart that bleeds for people. “If he causes his heart to return unto himself”, the whole of creation would simply cease (<a href='B:220 34:14'>Job 34:14</a> RVmg:). His spirit is His heart and mind, as well as physical power. Creation is kept going not by clockwork, but by the conscious outpouring of His Spirit, by the fact that our creator has a constantly and passionately outgoing spirit toward us. In times of depression we need to remember this; that they very fact the world is still going, the planet still moves, atoms stay in their place and all matter still exists</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> is proof that the God who has a heart that bleeds for us is still there, with His heart going out to us His creation. And the spirit of the Father must be in us His children.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> all flesh would perish together, and man would turn again to dust-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is indeed the case (<a href='B:230 104:29'>Psa 104:29</a>), but Elihu seems to be deploying the argument that Job effectively thinks God's Spirit is not active in the world any more (:14); and Job is wrong, because in this case, he would not be alive. But Job wasn't doubting this, indeed he wonders as to why God keeps him alive "every moment". We can reflect that man's returning to dust is indeed his lot, the result of his sin (<a href='B:10 3:19'>Gen 3:19</a>); but until that point, God's Spirit keeps us from returning to dust (:14). His Spirit is therefore keeping us alive by grace every moment.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If now you have understanding, hear this. Listen to the voice of my words-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As noted on :2,10, Elihu is implying that every man of understanding will listen to him with approval. Elihu certainly comes over as manipulative in his argument; and that is not required of anyone who is simply speaking God's word.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Shall even one who hates justice govern? Will you condemn him who is righteous and mighty?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu has misquoted Job (see on :9), and then claimed that Job's words were implying God was wicked and injustice. Elihu now solemnly proceeds to argue that such false accusation was inappropriate even against human rulers; and was unspeakably awful against God. All this is a false path of logic and typical of dialogue gone wrong, exaggerating the implications of the other's argument. However we can read the argument as Elihu saying that Job can not be a ruler himself, because he mocks others who are in authority (:18,19).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Who says to a king, ‘Vile!’ or to nobles, ‘Wicked!’?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Is it fit to say to a King (God), Thou art wicked? and to princes (Angels), ye are ungodly?". Here Elihu is rebuking Job for wrongly accusing the Angels, who had brought the trials. But as noted on :17, this is an exaggeration of Job's position.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Who doesn’t respect the persons of princes, nor respects the rich more than the poor; for they all are the work of His hands-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The argument seems to be that the God who has created all men therefore doesn't show favour to the rich ones more than the poor ones. The fact we are all created beings makes us equal before our creator. He doesn't therefore respect persons; but Job, according to Elihu, mocks God as vile and wicked (:18). As often happens in dysfunctional dialogue, Elihu is jumping from one false implication about Job to another. His argument that God doesn't accept the faces [NEV "persons"] of men is finally proven totally false when God accepts the face of Job in intercession for the friends (s:w. <a href='B:220 42:9'>Job 42:9</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> In a moment they die, even at midnight. The people are shaken and pass away. The mighty are taken away without a hand-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The later application of Job to Hezekiah and the exiles would be in the midnight destruction of the Assyrians (<a href='B:120 19:35'>2Ki 19:35</a>) and in the promise that the kingdoms of the world which dominated the exiles would be destroyed without human hand (<a href='B:340 2:34'>Dan 2:34</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For His eyes are on the ways of a man. He sees all his goings-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu is implying that Job considers that God's eyes don't see him. But Job so often states the opposite. Elihu, representing the arguments of the friends, has reasoned from one false implication to another, until he ends up accusing Job of believing the very opposite of what Job has stated.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> There is no darkness, nor thick gloom, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job hardly appears to be hiding himself from God. He indeed complains that God appears to be hidden from him, and he earnestly seeks God's face and a meeting with Him in judgment.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For He doesn’t need to consider a man further, that he should go before God in judgment-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea seems to be that man is automatically in God's judgment presence. This is what God is going to later imply by His appearance and demonstration of His presence in creation. I suggested on <a href='B:220 32:5'>Job 32:5</a> that the function of Elihu in the narrative is to summarize the position of the friends, and to give a foretaste of God's position.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He breaks in pieces mighty men in ways past finding out, and sets others in their place-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The present tenses imply Elihu thinks that God's judgments are revealed in this life (:23), involving breaking the mighty in pieces and replacing them with others. He clearly has Job in view. But Job's perspective is better and truer; God judges not so much now, as at the last day. Likewise the exiles had looked in vain for the breaking in pieces of their oppressors, and <a href='B:340 2:34'>Dan 2:34</a> explains that this is to only happen at the last day.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Therefore He takes knowledge of their works. He overturns them in the night, so that they are destroyed-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As argued on :24, Elihu is assuming that Divine judgment happens right now, with God destroying men at night because He has noticed their sins. This is not only untrue, it is totally out of step with the prologue's explanation of why Job is suffering.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He strikes them as wicked men in the open sight of others-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This appears to be justifying the friends; they had openly seen Job's being stricken.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> because they turned aside from following Him, and wouldn’t pay attention to any of His ways-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This was totally untrue of Job, as the prologue makes clear. Job had not cursed God and died, he had retained his integrity.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> so that they caused the cry of the poor to come to Him. He heard the cry of the afflicted-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is simply repeating the assumption of the friends; Job is suffering, therefore he sinned, and they have speculated that he abused the poor, and God had heard their cry and was punishing Job. For Elihu to repeat this, when Job has denied it and given evidence to that effect, and the prologue has stated he is righteous and not suffering because of any sin::. surely demonstrates that Elihu is phony, if we consider him as an individual. But he is, I suggest, introduced into the narrative to summarize the arguments of the friends; see on <a href='B:220 32:5'>Job 32:5</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> When He gives quietness, who then can condemn?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> But Job is not condemning God, and to imply this is wrong:&nbsp;When He hides His face, who then can see Him? Alike whether to a nation, or to a man-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> God hid His face from the exiles (s:w. <a href='B:50 31:17-18'>Deu 31:17-18</a>; <a href='B:50 32:20'>Deu 32:20</a>; <a href='B:290 8:17'>Isa 8:17</a>; <a href='B:290 54:8'>Isa 54:8</a>; <a href='B:290 59:2'>Isa 59:2</a>; <a href='B:290 64:7'>Isa 64:7</a>; <a href='B:300 33:5'>Jer 33:5</a>; <a href='B:330 39:23'>Eze 39:23</a>), and again, His apparent hiding of His face from Job was not because Job had sinned but because he was suffering as representative of his people. Hence "whether to a nation, or to a man".</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> that the Godless man may not reign, that there be no one to ensnare the people-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "causing a hypocrite to be king, because of the waywardness of the people". Elihu clearly expresses the friends' perspective, that although Job has been a ruler, he has been deposed by God because he is a hypocrite and is ensnaring people.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For has any said to God, ‘I am guilty, but I will not offend any more-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This kind of oblique reference to Job comes over as disingenuous. Elihu is telling Job how he ought to repent, for things which clearly Job has not been guilty of, as explained on the previous verses. He is repeating the language of all three friends (<a href='B:220 5:8'>Job 5:8</a>; <a href='B:220 8:5'>Job 8:5</a>; <a href='B:220 11:13-15'>Job 11:13-15</a>). That Job does finally repent in similar words is a sign of his humility. Although falsely accused and urged to repent in a certain form of words, he uses those words to repent- even though he is innocent of the charges. He realizes he has not responded perfectly to the trials brought upon him, and recognizes that although counted perfect by God, that was by grace, and he himself had sinned. The RVmg. here offers "though I have not offended"; in which case, Elihu is urging Job to confess sin even if he hasn't done it. This kind of burdening others with false guilt happens frequently amongst religious people. There is true guilt, which we should take before God; and false guilt, which we need not take and indeed must not take.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Teach me that which I don’t see. If I have done iniquity, I will do it no more’?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Finally Job does repent, but he doesn't need to ask God to reveal his sin to him. This realization of sin is elicited by the revelation of God Himself. It didn't need Elihu and the friends to elicit it; they are therefore revealed as failures.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Shall His recompense be as you desire, that you refuse it? For you must choose, and not I-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea of the Hebrew appears to be that Job cannot decide God's judgment as he desires; and Job was refusing to accept God's judgment because it was not as he wished. But God's judgment has not yet been revealed, and his sufferings were not a part of any judgment upon him for personal sins. The prologue has made this clear.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Therefore speak what you know-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job remains silent before Elihu, as the Lord before His false accusers. He is learning the lesson that human words uttered before humans are inappropriate in these situations. He has learned that the dialogue is broken and it is not only pointless but counter productive to continue it. We can imagine a pause for silence in the drama at this point.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Men of understanding will tell me, yes, every wise man who hears me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "Because the wise in heart shall say this, and a wise man listens to my word". As in :2,10, Elihu considers that any who is wise will agree with him, that he is wise and is speaking wisdom. But this is a circular, self-justifying argument.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'>‘Job speaks without knowledge. His words are without wisdom’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job does finally repent in similar words. This is a sign of his humility. Although falsely accused and urged to repent in a certain form of words, he uses those words to repent- even though he is innocent of the charges. He realizes he has not responded perfectly to the trials brought upon him, and recognizes that although counted perfect by God, that was by grace, and he himself had sinned. Elihu's appeal here is that of God in <a href='B:220 38:2'>Job 38:2</a>; <a href='B:220 42:3'>Job 42:3</a>. But this is not to say that Elihu is God's representative in all that he says, for our commentary so far has demonstrated that this is just not the case. I have argued that Elihu functions as a way of summarizing the arguments so far presented, and giving a foretaste of God's final argument.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I wish that Job were tried to the end, because of his answering like wicked men-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job's attitude had been that when God had finished trying him, he would come forth as gold (s:w. <a href='B:220 23:10'>Job 23:10</a>). But Elihu, far from wanting sincerely to justify Job, clearly wants to see Job condemned "to the end". He labels him a "wicked" man, when the prologue has laboured the point that this is not the case.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For he adds rebellion to his sin. He claps his hands among us, and multiplies his words against God- </p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>But God says that Job spoke what was right about Him. "Among us" reflects Elihu's identity with the friends. LXX "for iniquity will be reckoned against us, if we speak many words before the Lord".</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Moreover Elihu answered-</p><h4> Here Elihu claims he is adding something new to the dialogue so far. For he condemns both Job and the friends. We have been set up to expect and hope that he will contribute something new, to an argument that has started to go around in circles. But we are disappointed; for Elihu only repeats the arguments of the friends.</h4>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Do you think this to be your right, or do you say, ‘My righteousness is more than God’s’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The words of Job are misquoted in :3, and so this accusation is wrong too. Elihu repeatedly jumps from one false premise to another. Job was not claiming to be more righteous than God, in fact he has said quite the opposite. This is what happens when the words and situation and personality of the other is not really engaged with, and their words are made to fit our preconceived assumptions of what we think they are really saying.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> that you ask, ‘What advantage will it be to you? What profit shall I have, if I had not sinned?’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job's words of <a href='B:220 21:15'>Job 21:15</a> about the sinful children of sinners are misquoted by Elihu here as if Job has said this about himself, and about there being generally 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'>Further, the reference seems to be also to Elihu's words in <a href='B:220 22:2'>Job 22:2</a> "Can a man be profitable to God? Surely he who is wise is profitable to himself". These words are applied here by Elihu to Job. 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.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The idols and the Gentile nations amongst whom the exiles lived would not "profit" them (s:w. <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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I will answer you, and your companions with you-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu claims he is adding something new to the dialogue so far. For he condemns both Job and the friends. We have been set up to expect and hope that he will contribute something new, to an argument that has started to go around in circles. But we are disappointed; for Elihu only repeats the arguments of the friends.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Look to the heavens, and see. See the skies, which are higher than you-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The huge height of God above man doesn't mean, contrary to how Elihu argues, that God is insensitive to human sin and righteousness (:6,7). God's response is to display His power and demonstrate the omnipresence of His Spirit- not just in the cosmos, but in very intimate and concealed processes upon the earth. He Himself as it were 'comes down' to demonstrate that this argument and feeling is so untrue; and He was to yet more powerfully rend the heavens and come down to earth in His manifestation in His Son.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If you have sinned, what effect do you have against Him? If your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to Him?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is repeating the arguments of the friends, that God is so far from man that He is insensitive to human sin. Nothing could be more untrue. Elihu's promise to contribute something radically new and helpful to the discussion (see on :4) is felt by us to be very hollow.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If you are righteous, what do you give Him? Or what does He receive from your hand?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The prologue has stressed God's positive view of Job's righteousness. Clearly enough, He is sensitive to human morality. Elihu is contradicting himself by arguing that God is too distant to be much affected by human behaviour, and yet then calling down God's wrath upon Job for his behaviour.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Your wickedness may hurt a man as you are, and your righteousness may profit a son of man-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu is so wrong. God is hurt, terribly, by human sin. The prophets of the exile made this point in multiple ways. He was "broken" by their unfaithfulness to Him, feeling it as Hosea did, as if His wife had been unfaithful to Him.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> By reason of the multitude of oppressions they cry out. They cry for help by reason of the arm of the mighty-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This sounds like Israel in captivity in Egypt and Babylon crying out. Elihu's accusation is that Job has cried out because of his affliction, but not to God his maker (:10). Elihu was wrong. Job had indeed cried out to God. And the exiles in Babylon could have followed his path to restoration.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> But none says, ‘Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> We wonder if Paul and Silas had meditated about this as they sung songs in the night. The Passover festival was the time when songs were sung at night. The exiles were bidden believe that they too would be released from captivity. But none was found amongst them who truly sought for God.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> who teaches us more than the animals of the earth, and makes us wiser than the birds of the sky?’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> God's answer is that the animals do teach us of God's ways. This would appear to imply His disagreement with Elihu on this point.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> There they cry, but none gives answer, because of the pride of evil men-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu's argument is that Job has cried out because of his affliction, just as all sufferers do (:9). But he is not heard because his cry is "empty" (:13) and he is a proud, evil man. Yet the prologue has stressed Job is not evil.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Surely God will not hear an empty cry, neither will the Almighty regard it-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Empty" is the word for 'vanities', often used of idols. Elihu is sliding headlong down a path of false logic which leads him to ever more seriously slander Job. He is implying that Job's crying out in his sufferings is in fact a crying out to idols; for Job is an idolater. The parameters of the prologue have been overlooked; just as the foundational principles of God's word which are to guide and frame our relationships are so often likewise ignored.</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 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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> How much less when you say you don’t see Him. The cause is before Him, and you wait for Him!-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This seems a cruel twist of Job's great statement of faith in <a href='B:220 19:25-27'>Job 19:25-27</a>; he believed that although he didn't now see God, yet he would do so in a bodily form in the resurrection and judgment of the last day.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> But now, because He has not visited in His anger, neither does He greatly regard arrogance-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu is again wrong. God does greatly regard the sin of arrogance, and the restoration prophets repeatedly cite pride as the essential reason for the judgment of Israel. Elihu here argues that because God has not judged Job "in His anger", "therefore" Job speaks as he does (:16). But this is obviously contradictory to Elihu's position that Job's sufferings are exactly because God is angry with Job.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> therefore Job opens his mouth with empty talk, and he multiplies words without knowledge- </p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>See on :15. "Words without knowledge" is exactly what God accuses Job of (<a href='B:220 38:2'>Job 38:2</a> s:w:). Elihu functions in the story as a means of summarizing the arguments so far, and giving us a foretaste of the Divine judgment which is to come.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu also continued and said- Elihu as it were speaks up for God in this chapter; although by this stage, we the audience are deeply sceptical of him.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Bear with me a little, and I will show you; for I still have something to say on God’s behalf-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu seems to utter four speeches, more than the friends. We are set up to expect some new contribution; but we are already sceptical as to whether Elihu is going to add anything to the argument, as he is repeating the essential argument of the friends. Elihu 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. He now moves on to focus upon God's argument, although as we listen to him, we are wondering what God really has to say, seeing Elihu lacks integrity. This all leads up to our thankful marvel when God Himself does appear and speak.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I will get my knowledge from afar, and will ascribe righteousness to my Maker-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu often speaks of his "opinion". "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'> For truly my words are not false. One who is perfect in knowledge is with you-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> We have seen Elihu repeatedly misquoting Job and fabricating things which Job never said. This skepticism we have about Elihu's promise to speak only truly lead us to likewise immediately question whether he was indeed "perfect in knowledge". That is after all a huge claim for any mortal man to make. Elihu uses the same phrase about God in <a href='B:220 37:16'>Job 37:16</a>. Elihu seems here to at best be claiming to speak directly on God's behalf, if not to be somehow Divine. But the friends effectively do the same, and it is all these failed attempts to speak on God's behalf which lead up to the necessity and power of God's final appearance. See on :6.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, God is mighty, and doesn’t despise anyone. He is mighty in strength of understanding-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job felt despised or cast away by God (<a href='B:220 10:14'>Job 10:14</a>) just as the exiles did, but this wasn't the case; God will not despise or cast away His servant people (<a href='B:220 36:5'>Job 36:5</a>; <a href='B:290 41:9'>Isa 41:9</a>; <a href='B:300 31:37'>Jer 31:37</a>; <a href='B:300 33:26'>Jer 33:26</a>). The grace of it all was that although he wanted to cast away his life (<a href='B:220 7:16'>Job 7:16</a>; <a href='B:220 9:21'>Job 9:21</a>), just as God's people cast away His covenant (<a href='B:290 8:6'>Isa 8:6</a>; <a href='B:290 30:12'>Isa 30:12</a>; <a href='B:300 6:19'>Jer 6:19</a>), God would not cast away His people in their exile and depression (s:w. <a href='B:30 26:44'>Lev 26:44</a>), even if they cast him away. See on <a href='B:220 26:2'>Job 26:2</a>.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He doesn’t preserve the life of the wicked, but gives to the afflicted their right-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Yet Job has repeatedly complained that God preserves his life when Job instead wishes to die. Job is living evidence that God preserves life; for it seems Job was indeed preserved by God's grace alone at the point of death, to the point that he was experiencing a living death. Again, Elihu is shown to be obviously wrong, straight after his claim to be somehow Divinely "perfect in knowledge" (:4).</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He doesn’t withdraw His eyes from the righteous, but with kings on the throne, He sets them forever, and they are exalted-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This was exemplified in the Divine influence upon Persian kings like Cyrus in allowing the restoration. Hence the mention of kings on the throne is particularly relevant to the exiles. We recall how Ezra and Nehemiah experienced God's eyes and "good hand" upon them, so that kings sitting on thrones made decrees of restoration. The contrast is with how Job was righteous in his own eyes (s:w. <a href='B:220 32:1'>Job 32:1</a>). What matters is that God's eyes are upon us, imputing righteousness to us in His view.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If they are bound in fetters, and are taken in the cords of afflictions-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The force of "then" in :9 is that if people suffer, then God uses it to help them toward knowing themselves and repentance. This may be true on one level; and the reference to the fetters and cords of imprisonment continue the similarity with the captives in Babylon, who were intended to be reformed by their experiences so that God could bring about their restoration. But this isn't really the case with Job. His sufferings weren't in order to reform him nor to elicit his repentance, as the prologue states clearly. Elihu is wrong to say that 'Suffering is intended to elicit repentance, you're suffering, therefore, fess up and repent'. That was the view of the friends, and it is not appropriate to Job. It would be a very surface level reading of the book which concluded that this is the intention of the sufferings. The question of the book is not that of suffering, but rather "how can a man be just with God?".</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> then He shows them their work, and their transgressions, that they have behaved themselves proudly-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> See on :8. The intention of Job's sufferings was not so that he himself would learn and repent. Again we must give full weight to the teaching of the prologue about this. The same words for "to show::. transgression" are used of how the prophets sought to show Israel their sin (<a href='B:290 58:1'>Isa 58:1</a>; <a href='B:400 3:8'>Mic 3:8</a>). But that was not by the prophets making their audience suffer. It was by direct appeal, and this is what God does at the end of the book.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He also opens their ears to instruction, and commands that they return from iniquity-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job had been 'chastened' (s:w. "instruction"; <a href='B:220 5:17'>Job 5:17</a>). The positive effect of "chastening" is only experienced upon repentance, returning from iniquity. Judah in exile didn't repent, and so they were left with the problem of having been 'chastened' apparently in vain, and not experiencing a 'return' to the land because they didn't 'return' to God. The friends fail to realize that "chastening" may not necessarily be for our own personal sins; the suffering servant was 'chastened' not for his own sins, but to achieve our peace with God (<a href='B:290 53:5'>Isa 53:5</a> s:w:).</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If they listen and serve Him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job had listened and served God, and is described by God as His "servant". But his days weren't spent in pleasure and prosperity. Again and again, Elihu's position is simply repeating that of the friends, and he fails in his promise to add something radically new to the dialogue. Job has earlier argued that this simplistic view was wrong because the wicked did indeed "spend their days in prosperity" (s:w. <a href='B:220 21:13'>Job 21:13</a>). Elihu is quoting Job's words but absolutely failing to engage with his argument.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> But if they don’t listen, they shall perish by the sword; they shall die without knowledge-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu's argument is like that of the friends- that unless Job repents, he will "perish by the sword". But the prologue has made it clear that Job's life is to be preserved. He will not perish by the sword. And yet the idea that Job is "without knowledge" is repeated by God (<a href='B:220 38:2'>Job 38:2</a>) and accepted by Job (<a href='B:220 42:3'>Job 42:3</a>). Again, we see Elihu functioning as an introduction to God's ideas. We at this point wonder whether Job is indeed "without knowledge". Elihu's language provokes that question; and then we have it answered in God's usage of the phrase. Elihu's function is to provoke the question.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> But those who are Godless in heart lay up anger. They don’t cry for help when He binds them-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job did indeed cry to God for help (see on <a href='B:220 35:13'>Job 35:13</a>). To state he had a "Godless heart" is simply untrue and inappropriate for Elihu to judge. There are several allusions to Job in Romans, all of which confirm that Job is set up as symbolic of apostate Israel; although he was so as their representative, without being himself astray from God. For he was the righteous suffering the punishment of the wicked. An example is Elihu's description here of Job as a hypocrite heaping up wrath, which connects with Paul's description of the Jews as treasuring up unto themselves "wrath against&nbsp;the day of wrath" (<a href='B:520 2:5'>Rom 2:5</a>).</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They die in youth. Their life perishes among the unclean-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu is reasoning from the position that Job is about to die in relative youth; and he is lying there amongst the unclean, apparently terminally ill. All such reasoning is ignoring the prologue; for Job was not to die. His life would not perish but was to be preserved.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He delivers the afflicted by their affliction, and opens their ear in oppression-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As discussed on :9,10, Elihu's reasoning is not rooted in the Divine words stated in the prologue. The purpose of suffering was not for the reformation of Job. Job's deliverance was to be by grace, and not because he had learnt lessons from affliction.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Yes, He would have allured you out of distress, into a broad place, where there is no restriction. That which is set on your table would be full of fatness-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu implies that if Job repents, then he will be brought out from a narrow place into a broad place (<a href='B:220 36:16'>Job 36:16</a>). God perhaps comments on this by saying that the "broad place" is in fact the whole earth (<a href='B:220 38:18'>Job 38:18</a>). Man is already in freedom; it is a case of accepting it. Whilst I have argued that the idea that suffering leads to spiritual development and repentance was irrelevant in Job's case, it was relevant to Israel in outline terms, especially to the exiles in Babylon for whom the book was rewritten (see on <a href='B:220 1:1'>Job 1:1</a>). Elihu's speeches especially have many Chaldee influences in them, suggesting that an ancient Hebrew story was rewritten in Babylon, under inspiration. God's intention was likewise to allure His sinful people to the freedom of repentance (<a href='B:350 2:14'>Hos 2:14</a>), far from the restriction of captivity and judgment (s:w. <a href='B:290 9:1'>Isa 9:1</a>), to a feast of fat things in the restored kingdom (<a href='B:290 25:6'>Isa 25:6</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> But you are full of the judgment of the wicked. Judgment and justice take hold of you-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu implies that Job has refused God's offers of repentance (:16) because Job continues to suffer; and now Elihu in the next verses appears to relish describing the inevitable destruction of Job. This relishing in Job's judgment is far removed from the ways of the God who takes no pleasure in the death nor judgment of the wicked. Clearly Elihu is presented as out of step with God.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Don’t let riches entice you to wrath, neither let the great size of a bribe turn you aside-</p><h4> The prologue began with the satan / sons of God / friends wondering whether Job's Divinely given wealth was the basis for his faith. But their initial doubts developed into various other theories- not least that Job's wealth was because he had accepted bribes. Now Elihu warns Job not to let his wealth allure him to Divine condemnation ["wrath"]; but rather to be allured by God's encouragement to repentance (:16). But we see how far Elihu has strayed from the initial issues. Perhaps the lesson is that once we start to question the integrity of heart in another believer, we will end up imagining all manner of slander against them. What began as passing conspiracy theory becomes solidified as actual slander in our hearts and then in our words. Quite apart from anything else, the dialogues are a worked example of how personal relationships break down once the Divine parameters bounding them are ignored. AV "Because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke: then a great ransom cannot deliver thee". The idea then would be that Job is foolish to think that his wealth can buy off Divine condemnation.</h4>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Would your wealth sustain you in distress, or all the might of your strength?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea is as in :18, that Job is foolish to think that his wealth can buy off Divine condemnation. But he has not implied that. His wealth came from God's blessing, and was really his misfortune rather than his crime.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Don’t desire the night, when people are cut off in their place-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job's clear desire was to meet God in the light, and he himself has noted that it is the wicked who desire the night as they think they can sin in secret, hidden from God and man. Elihu's lack of basic moral framework for his dialogues leads him to do as the friends had done- speculate ever more wildly about Job's sins, and ever more dogmatically state that he has really done these things. This is the downward spiral of dialogue that is not started nor finished in love for the human person, but rather in jealousy.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Take heed, don’t regard iniquity; for you have chosen this rather than affliction-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu several times states that Job has made a choice; and he has chosen to continue in sin, which means the sufferings will continue, and shall lead him to death. Again, Elihu is far adrift from the guiding light of the prologue. For there it is clear that Job has absolutely no choice in the experience.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, God is exalted in His power. Who is a teacher like Him?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As discussed on :8-10, this continues Elihu's misplaced idea that God is trying to teach Job through his sufferings, and that Job isn't responding. Rather is it the friends, represented by Elihu, who are intended to learn from Job's sufferings.</p>&nbsp;


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Who has prescribed His way for Him? Or who can say, ‘You have committed unrighteousness?’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job says that He is following in God's footsteps and vows to hold on to following God's way to the end. He is certainly not prescribing God's way, in the sense of telling Him which way He should take. Neither is Job accusing God of committing unrighteousness.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Remember that you magnify His work, whereof men have sung-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea may be as in GNB "He has always been praised for what he does; you also must praise him". Again, Elihu is setting up a straw man. Job has not refused to praise God. He is not out of line with the truly faithful, who have always sung God's praises.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> All men have looked thereon. Man sees it afar off-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu continues the theme of the friends; faithful men of old have seen things their way, and Job is out of step with them. He needs to repent and come to praise God along with them. This terrible need to be seen as in step with other believers and their positions and experiences is on one hand natural. But it can militate against a personal journey with God, and a leading by Him to the final "truth" of personal relationship with Him.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, God is great, and we don’t know Him. The number of His years is unsearchable-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Literally "the number of years". This is the same phrase as in <a href='B:220 15:20'>Job 15:20</a>: "The wicked man writhes in pain all his days, even the number of years that are laid up for the oppressor". &nbsp;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> AV). 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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For He draws up the drops of water, which distil in rain from His vapour-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> It is possible that from about this point in the narrative, we are intended to imagine a thunderstorm developing. This begins with rain at this point. It comes to full term in the theophany where God Himself as it were comes down and speaks to men. See on <a href='B:220 36:33'>Job 36:33</a>; <a href='B:220 37:1-2'>Job 37:1-2</a>; <a href='B:220 38:34'>Job 38:34</a>.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> which the skies pour down and which drop on man abundantly-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> All this is true, but Elihu is describing God's power and greatness in order to prove his point in :26; that Job's deep pain about his relationship with God is all rather irrelevant because God is so distant that He doesn't pay as much attention to us as we do to Him. This is so wrong. The reverse is true. God's goodness to man is not merely like God sending rain abundantly on all men, as part of the water cycle which runs on clockwork. God Himself will appear in the gathering clouds, to demonstrate that He is not absent in His greatness, but very present.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Yes, can any understand the spreading of the clouds, and the thunderings of His pavilion?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As noted on :28, Elihu points that God cannot be understood, and so all Job's angst is in vain. And yet of course he and the friends have just as much engaged in that seeking to understand God. God's own discussion of the clouds and thunderings is simply to speak His word of grace to Job out of them. They simply show that His greatness is in His grace.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, He spreads His light around Him. He covers the bottom of the sea-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This again has relevance to the exiles. They felt they were at the bottom of the sea of nations, just as Jonah felt he had gone down to the depths of the sea. And yet from there he was restored, just as the exiles could have been if they followed the path of Job.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For by these He judges the people. He gives food in abundance-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The "these" appear to refer to the clouds, a symbol of judgment and yet also providing rain which "gives food". Out of judgment comes blessing. But Elihu wrongly predicated this upon the personal repentance of Job. However the principle was true for the exiles; the judgment of Babylon could have led to their release and return to the land, enjoying the blessings of a restored Kingdom, "food in abundance". Hence LXX "For by them he will judge the nations". But this potential scenario didn't work out; Babylon and her confederate nations didn't fall in the dramatic, supernatural way envisaged, the Jews didn't repent, and most refused to participate in the possible restoration.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He covers His hands with the lightning, and commands it to strike the mark-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> AV "With clouds he covereth the light; and commandeth it not to shine by the cloud that cometh betwixt". This is Elihu's commentary upon Job's words in <a href='B:220 26:9'>Job 26:9</a>: "He encloses the face of His throne, and spreads His cloud upon it". 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><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>God’s amazing control of events in the natural world is surely through Angelic influence. God gives the lightning- often associated with Angels- a specific charge [as He does to His Angels] that it “strike the mark”. Job has earlier complained that God is using him as target practice. Elihu goes along with this, and sees it reflected in the natural creation.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Its noise tells about Him, and the livestock also concerning the storm that comes up- The idea is that the animals sensed the thunderstorm that was about to burst, and so should man. This again lends weight to the suggestion that a literal thunderstorm was gathering, which came to final term in God's theophany.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Yes, at this my heart trembles, and is moved out of its place-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu has in view the approaching thunderstorm (see on <a href='B:220 36:27'>Job 36:27</a>; <a href='B:220 36:33'>Job 36:33</a>). He says that just as the animals are trembling and moved because of it, so is he (<a href='B:220 36:33'>Job 36:33</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Hear, oh, hear the noise of His voice, the sound that goes out of His mouth-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu asks Job to hear the voice of the thunderstorm (see on :1). Of course Job could hear it physically, but Elihu has the idea that there is a Divine voice within it. And this is indeed true, Elihu functions to introduce the appearance and speaking of God which begins in the next chapter.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He sends it forth under the whole sky, and His lightning to the ends of the earth-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> God was appealing not just to Job but to the ends of the eretz, the land promised to Abraham. This was the potential scenario possible at the restoration. The restoration prophets envisage the supernatural destruction of Babylon coinciding with the repentance of the exiles and leading to the repentance of a minority of the Gentiles at "the ends of the earth"; the borders of the eretz promised to Abraham where they were located, in Babylon and Assyria. The idea was that they would together form a new multi-ethnic people of God in the land, under a new covenant. But this potential didn't happen. For they didn't hear the voice of God.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> After it a voice roars. He thunders with the voice of His majesty. He doesn’t hold back anything when His voice is heard-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu perceives there is a voice, a Divine voice, far beyond the literal roar of noise associated with the thunderstorm (see on :2). If that voice was "heard", as Elihu exhorts Job to hear it (:2), then nothing will be 'held back'. God is willing to do marvellous things (:5). This was of great relevance to the exiles. Had they heard / obeyed that prophetic voice, then the great potentials prophesied as possible in the restored Kingdom would have come true. God would have held nothing back. The Kingdom of God would again have been established in Israel.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> God thunders marvellously with His voice. He does great things, which we can’t comprehend-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The great things God does are all conditional; when or if His voice is heard / obeyed (:4). What we read in the following verses is therefore pregnant with wider meaning than simply describing God's control of the natural creation, thoughts elicited by the bursting of the thunderstorm. This is why the language is used in the restoration prophets concerning what could have happened if the exiles had been obedient to the prophetic word. That God indeed "does great things" was recognized by Job as well as the friends (<a href='B:220 5:9'>Job 5:9</a>; <a href='B:220 9:10'>Job 9:10</a> s:w:). But they were to be taught now by the thunderstorm leading up to the actual revelation of God Himself that indeed God can do all things. "I know You can do all things" was Job's final response. The restoration likewise would have been a case of the Lord doing great things (<a href='B:360 2:21'>Joe 2:21</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth’; likewise to the shower of rain, and to the showers of His mighty rain-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> God's command to the water is understood as meaning that God's prophetic word of restoration could bring about the restoration of the Kingdom for the exiles (<a href='B:290 55:10-11'>Isa 55:10-11</a>). See on :5.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He seals up the hand of every man, that all men whom He has made may know it-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For the potentials planned by God to be realized, man must first realize he has no power of himself. His hand or power must be sealed up, so that God's prophetic word for His exiled, suffering people could be sealed up (s:w. <a href='B:340 9:24'>Dan 9:24</a>). This is what Job was taught, and it was what God wished the exiles to understand (see on :5).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Then the animals take cover, and remain in their dens-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As those responsive to the wind go into their "dens" (AV), so in turn out of its den or room comes the storm of Divine theophany (:9). As the animals were running in response to the storm (<a href='B:220 36:33'>Job 36:33</a>), so should all men. God's people were likewise bidden obediently enter their chambers in order to be saved from the wrath to come (<a href='B:290 26:20'>Isa 26:20</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Out of its room comes the storm, and cold out of the north-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> See on :8. Just as destruction had been called forth upon Judah from the north, so God calls forth His prepared natural phenomena from the north:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> By the breath of God, ice is given-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The breath of God is His Spirit. And this was the point so relevant to the exiles. God's Spirit was potentially able to transform their entire existence, just as it operates throughout the cosmos and upon the earth.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>And the breadth of the waters is frozen-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "He guides the water in whatever way he pleases". This is similar to the idea of the heart of kings being as water in His hands (Proverbs 21; Proverbs 1); Cyrus and the rulers at the time of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther were all under God's control, but His activity was dependent upon His people hearing His voice (see on :5).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Yes, He loads the thick cloud with moisture. He spreads abroad the cloud of His lightning-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> AV "By watering He wearieth the thick cloud". God created these thick clouds and could dissolve them at will, and maintains them within a perfect balance; whereas the exiles in their depression were under the impression that the thickness of the clouds meant that God could not therefore see nor judge (s:w. <a href='B:220 22:13-14'>Job 22:13-14</a>, see notes there). See on :15,16. But LXX "And if a cloud obscures what is precious to him, his light will disperse the cloud". This connects with the exiles being precious to Him (<a href='B:290 43:4'>Isa 43:4</a>). Even the cloud of His own anger with them could be dispersed by Him, such is His saving love and grace.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> It is turned around by His guidance, that they may do whatever He commands them on the surface of the habitable world-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Turned" is literally 'returned', and is pregnant with allusion to how God's prophetic word could make the exiles return. But that turning around was by "His guidance", AV "counsels". It was by response to God's word that this turn about could happen; see on :5.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> whether it is for correction, or for His land, or for grace, that He causes it to come-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The reference to God's land again begs for reference to the situation with the exiles. The whole suffering of Job / Israel was for multiple possible reasons. It was to correct, it was so that His Kingdom or land would be restored, and through it all the whole exercise was to parade His grace.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Listen to this, Job. Stand still, and consider the wondrous works of God-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> We perhaps imagine Job agitated and distracted. He is asked to calm himself and consider the thunderstorm and its implications. This is clearly preparing him for the final appearance of God's word to him through that storm which will begin in the next chapter. Clearly the function of Elihu is to prepare us for God's words and revelation which is to come.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Do you know how God controls them, and causes the lightning of His cloud to shine?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> See on :11,16. Note the emphasis upon God's control of the clouds, and that clouds aren't random occurrences but all intricately balanced with His light shining within them. This is in response to the impression held by the exiles, and wrongly imputed to Job in <a href='B:220 22:13'>Job 22:13</a>, that the thickness of the Divine clouds meant He could not see nor judge them (<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>):&nbsp;</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>This is perhaps commentary upon Job's words of <a href='B:220 26:9'>Job 26:9</a>: "He encloses the face of His throne, and spreads His cloud upon it". 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'> Do you know the workings of the clouds, the wondrous works of Him who is perfect in knowledge?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> See on :11,15. Elihu often speaks of his "opinion". "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>), although he also makes this claim about himself (see on <a href='B:220 36:4'>Job 36:4</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'> You whose clothing is warm, when the earth is still by reason of the south wind?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> GNB "No, you can only suffer in the heat when the south wind oppresses the land". The land of Israel had indeed been oppressed and the people had suffered. But this was all because of their abusers who had as it were been blown in by God's wind / Spirit.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Can you, with Him, spread out the sky, which is strong as a cast metal mirror?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu seems to hold the ancient view that thee sky was in fact made of spread out material. This view, rather like the language of demons in the New Testament, is used without correction. Because the science is not the essential point; rather the idea is that the heavens are as a mirror, and by looking at the natural creation, one sees a reflection of God's work with us. And this is preparing us for God's words which are to soon come, which bid man do just this.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Teach us what we shall tell Him, for we can’t make our case by reason of darkness-</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>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Shall it be told Him that I would speak? Or should a man wish that he were swallowed up?-</p><h4> Elihu's speech becomes more helpful and appropriate the closer he gets to his conclusion, which is followed by God's words, which Elihu is preparing us for. For that is his function. He is here making the legitimate point that the God who can do such wonders doesn't need to be informed that Job wants to talk to Him. And in the light of all the great potentials which He has prepared, Job's earnest wish for death was inappropriate.</h4>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Now men don’t see the light which is bright in the skies, but the wind passes, and clears them-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The essential light of God was obscured by clouds. But the wind of God's Spirit, which had blown in the great heat of suffering (:17), would likewise clear the clouds and reveal His light.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Out of the north comes golden splendour. With God is awesome majesty-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "From the north come the clouds shining like gold: in these great are the glory and honour of the Almighty". Job several times mentions "the north", connecting with the invaders of Israel "from the north" who would all the same finally be used to glorify God.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> We can’t reach the Almighty. He is exalted in power-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Reach" 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 out' or 'reached' (<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;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>In justice and great righteousness, He will not oppress-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu's speech becomes more helpful and appropriate the closer he gets to his conclusion, which is followed by God's words, which Elihu is preparing us for. For that is his function. Elihu's conclusion is that God doesn't willingly afflict or oppress, and the same conclusion was reached in the context of the exiles by Jeremiah (<a href='B:310 3:33'>Lam 3:33</a> s:w:).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Therefore men revere Him. He doesn’t regard any who are wise of heart-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is almost Elihu's repentance, for he has earlier boasted that the "wise in heart" will listen to him and approve his condemnation of Job. But he concludes that men are to revere God because He does not "oppress" and somehow articulates His great justice so as not to afflict His people (:23). And this is quite at variance with all the traditional wisdom of Elihu, the friends and even Job.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Then Yahweh answered Job-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The answer is to Job, not Elihu who has just spoken, nor the friends. The whole focus of the book is upon Job's restoration, and out of that comes the restoration of the friends.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Out of the whirlwind-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The restoration prophets speak of the whirlwind coming to judge both Israel and her abusers (<a href='B:290 40:24'>Isa 40:24</a>; <a href='B:290 41:16'>Isa 41:16</a>; <a href='B:300 23:19'>Jer 23:19</a>; 30:32), and it is through the whirlwind that God's cherubic glory is revealed in exile in Ezekiel. But out of that whirlwind, Yahweh speaks. We read here of Yahweh for the first time; His Name was to be declared through those judgments.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Who is this who makes counsel dark by words without knowledge?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The LXX suggests Job had another agenda which he was trying to hide from God, despite Job's protestations of absolute openness and saying precisely what he thought: "Who is this that hides counsel from me, and confines words in his heart, and thinks to conceal them from me?". This would seem to be the sense, because Job pleads guilty to this charge in <a href='B:220 42:3'>Job 42:3</a>. There, he has "hidden counsel without knowledge". And he has done that by 'darkening' that counsel by all his words, which would have been better left unsaid.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Or we can read it as in the Masoretic Text, as an accusation that Job was darkening God's word ["counsel"] by his own words. He was not simply accepting the truth of God's word because he was so full of his own words. And this is what we see in ourselves and humanity generally so often; the Bible's words are crowded out by the words of our own presuppositions.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The Lord and His word is the light of the world. But we can darken that light, if we do not properly reflect it. God complained that Job had darkened His word (<a href='B:220 38:2'>Job 38:2</a> NIV); the truths which Job should have taught to his friends he relayed very imperfectly, through the prism and distortion of clinging on to his own traditions and preconceptions of God, and his deep desire for self justification.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Brace yourself like a man, for I will question you, then you answer Me!-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Like a man" is not said as it might be said today, as an appeal to masculinity. Rather is it asking Job to realize he is human, and to answer these questions as a human. The implication is that by exalting his own words above God's (see on :2), Job was forgetting his humanity and effectively attempting to rise above God. His questions of God had been inappropriate, just as the friends had been wrong to seek wisdom by asking the sages, mere men (<a href='B:220 8:8'>Job 8:8</a>; <a href='B:220 21:29'>Job 21:29</a> s:w:); it is for God to question us. For we and not God are in the dock.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if you have understanding-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> In the drama, we imagine a significant silence after each question. The laying of foundations is the word used for what the exiles were to do for the temple in Zion (<a href='B:150 3:6'>Ezr 3:6</a>; <a href='B:150 3:10'>Ezr 3:10</a> etc:). Just as God had laid those foundations without any human observation or strength, so He would lay the foundations of the restored Zion (<a href='B:290 44:28'>Isa 44:28</a>; <a href='B:290 48:13'>Isa 48:13</a>). But the exiles like Job had forgotten that (<a href='B:290 51:13'>Isa 51:13</a>). Zechariah teaches this same parallel between God's laying the foundations of the earth, and His empowering the laying of the temple foundations (<a href='B:450 4:9'>Zec 4:9</a>; <a href='B:450 8:9'>Zec 8:9</a>; <a href='B:450 12:1'>Zec 12:1</a>). But how that was to be done was beyond human understanding. Job was silent when asked as to how it was done. The 'how' of God's purpose is a challenge to our faith, and this is reflected in our theological efforts to explain the 'how' of God's Kingdom. There is an element of mystery to it; for it is by grace alone, beyond our effort and understanding.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Who determined its measures, if you know? Or who stretched the line on it?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> God had both stretched the line of destruction upon Zion (<a href='B:120 21:13'>2Ki 21:13</a>; <a href='B:310 2:8'>Lam 2:8</a>), and that of restoration (<a href='B:450 1:16'>Zec 1:16</a>). He gave the "measures" for the reconstruction of Zion and the temple system (s:w. often in <a href='B:330 40:5-6'>Eze 40:5-6</a> etc:); and yet He had likewise measured out the earth (s:w. <a href='B:290 40:12'>Isa 40:12</a>). The restoration of Job and all God's people was to be predicated upon the fact that His work could not be measured and was known finally only to Him (s:w. <a href='B:300 31:37'>Jer 31:37</a>; <a href='B:300 33:22'>Jer 33:22</a>). Just as in <a href='B:10 1:9'>Gen 1:9</a> "Let the waters be marked out with a line", so in the new creations God works, He has the power to determine the dimensions of His work in a way we do not.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Whereupon were its foundations fastened?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The answer is 'Apparently upon nothing'. And this is the way of faith; to believe that out of apparently nothing, restoration can come. This was the challenge to Job, the exiles and to all of God's people.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Or who laid its cornerstone-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This again was of special significance to the exiles who were bidden follow Job's path to restoration. The laying of the cornerstone of the new temple was no less an act of pure grace than that of creation in the first place. Hence <a href='B:450 4:7'>Zec 4:7</a> "Who are you, great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you are a plain; and he will bring out the capstone [cornerstone] with shouts of ‘Grace, grace, to it!’". The exiles didn't make use of that grace, and so these plans were reworked, to the even greater provision of the cornerstone in the person of the Lord Jesus (<a href='B:230 118:22'>Psa 118:22</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> There is an obvious connection with the "sons of God" of the prologue in <a href='B:220 1:6'>Job 1:6</a>. I explained there that they refer to Job's fellow worshippers, although they had their Angelic representatives in the court of heaven. But the friends are the fellow worshippers, and the satan figure morphs into the friends. The contrast is therefore with how the sons of God should be rejoicing at God's work in testing and restoring Job, just as their Angelic counterparts did at creation. But instead they were caught up in their petty jealousies and conspiracy theories, and failed to see the wonder of God's new creation.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it broke forth from the womb-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> There are several allusions in Job to Babylonian legends concerning Marduk – indicating that the book must have been re-written in Babylon with allusion to these legends. Thus the Enuma Elish 4:139,140 speaks of how Marduk limited the waters of Tiamat, and set up a bar and watchmen so that the waters wouldn’t go further than he permitted. But this very language is applied to God in <a href='B:220 7:12'>Job 7:12</a> and <a href='B:220 38:8-11'>Job 38:8-11</a>. One of the purposes of Job was to urge Judah that Yahweh was greater than Marduk, He and not Marduk was to be Israel’s God.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The sea was understood to be the abode of evil monsters. Yet Job stresses how God is in control of the raging sea. Just look out for all the references to the sea in Job (J. Day, God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea: Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament (Cambridge: C:U:P:, 1985)). The book of Daniel perhaps makes the same point – the beasts that arise out of the raging sea are all under God’s control and part of His purpose with Israel (<a href='B:340 7:2'>Dan 7:2</a>). God artlessly claims to have created the sea (<a href='B:220 38:8-11'>Job 38:8-11</a>). In the Canaanite pantheon, Baal was seen as well matched in conflict by Yam, the sea god. But it’s emphasized by God that He created the sea, shuts it up within bounds, brought it out from the womb (<a href='B:220 38:8'>Job 38:8</a>). See on <a href='B:220 39:2'>Job 39:2</a>.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>As God ‘shut up’ Job (<a href='B:220 1:10'>Job 1:10</a>), so He could ‘shut up’ the sea, with all the evil associated with it (<a href='B:220 38:8'>Job 38:8</a>). For at creation, He had commanded the waters where to go and they obeyed just one word from Him. The point is, God is using poetry to reframe these pagan myths in the context of His omnipotence, to show that His awesome power means that there’s no room left for these supposed beings to exist. It’s noteworthy that many times the Bible speaks of the power of God over raging seas – for the sea was so deeply associated with evil in the minds of Semitic peoples (e:g. <a href='B:230 77:19'>Psa 77:19</a>; <a href='B:230 93:4'>Psa 93:4</a> and the fact that three of the Gospels emphasize how Jesus walked over raging sea – <a href='B:470 8:23-27'>Mat 8:23-27</a>; <a href='B:480 4:36-41'>Mar 4:36-41</a>; <a href='B:490 8:22-25'>Luk 8:22-25</a>; “Who is this? Even the winds and the waves obey Him!”).</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> when I made clouds its garment, and wrapped it in thick darkness-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The "thick darkness" is created by God, 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> s:w:). 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.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The thick darkness was a 2swaddllng-band" for the sea (AV):&nbsp; The newborn sea, fresh as it were from the womb (:8), is completely subject to God as its Creator, and is absolutely not a form of radical evil outside of His control, as was imagined by the surrounding peoples.</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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> marked out for it My bound, set bars and doors-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job’s idea that God fixes limits for the darkness is repeated by God saying that He sets limits for the raging sea. God controls evil, or our perception of it (e:g. of the sea as being evil), and He sets limits for it – which was exactly what He did to the power of ‘Satan’ in the prologue to Job. All these statements by God about His use of and power over things like darkness and sea, with the perceptions of them as being independent forces of evil, are quite different to Canaanite and Babylonian views of creation. In them, gods like Baal had to fight Yam, the evil sea god, with clubs provided by other deities; in the Babylonian version, Marduk has to arm himself with various weapons in order to try to get supremacy over Tiamat (S. Dalley, Myths From Mesopotomia: Vol. 4, The Epic of Creation (Oxford: O:U:P:, 1989) pp. 251–255). But Yahweh as revealed in the book of Job has utter and absolute power over the sea [monster] and the [supposed god of] darkness – for He created the sea and the darkness and uses them creatively for His purpose. That’s the whole purpose of the many ‘nature passages’ in the book of Job. And the language of <a href='B:10 1:9'>Gen 1:9</a> is evidence enough of His power. He speaks a word – and light, darkness and seas are created, the waters gathering obediently where He commands them. Likewise God isn’t in any battle with Leviathan – rather is the monster actually His “plaything” (<a href='B:230 104:26'>Psa 104:26</a> says likewise).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The way the doors and bars of even the sea are under God's control connects with how God was to open the great doors of Babylon, to cause the city to fall and release the exiles back to His land (<a href='B:290 45:1'>Isa 45:1</a>).</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> and said, ‘Here you may come, but no further. Here your proud waves shall be stayed?’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The waters were representative of the invading nations. There was a limit to Judah's sufferings, because the waters of the nations had their limits. Job likewise was to be tested so far but no further.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Have you commanded the morning in your days-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> God consciously makes the sun rise each day (<a href='B:470 6:26'>Mat 6:26</a>)- it isn't part of a kind of perpetual motion machine. Hence the force of His promises in the prophets that in the same way as He consciously maintains the solar system, so He will maintain Israel. But this is by grace, totally without human involvement nor understanding of the processes, the whys and wherefores with which the dialogues have been so pointlessly taken up.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>And caused the dawn to know its place-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is God's comment on Job's words of <a href='B:220 28:23'>Job 28:23</a> about wisdom / relationship with God: "God understands its way, and He knows its place". 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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, and shake the wicked out of it?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If the "earth" as in the sense of eretz Israel is in view, then the ends of the earth were where the exiles were located, in Persia / Babylon. The idea of a dawning which chases away evil is used in <a href='B:460 4:2-3'>Mal 4:2-3</a> of what could have happened at the restoration of the exiles- had they followed Job's path.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> It is changed as clay under the seal-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Although Job is written in ancient Hebrew, there are many signs of how it was rewritten in Babylon. The Babylonians used seals which were impressed upon clay rather than wax. Perhaps the idea is that as the seal changes clay (what man is made from) from a formless lump into something highly significant, so God can work with man. But the original is very unclear. LXX: "Or didst thou take clay of the ground, and form a living creature, and set it with the power of speech upon the earth?"</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>And stands forth as a garment-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea is of an embroidered dress, where valuable stones make the pattern stand out in relief. Again the sense is that God can transform the very ordinary into something of beauty and significance.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> From the wicked, their light is withheld. The high arm is broken-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "And hast thou removed light from the ungodly, and crushed the arm of the proud?". Job has complained that light has been removed from him, and so he is being reminded that he has indeed sinned, and is "ungodly", although relatively very righteous, and counted as righteous by the God who so loved him. This is a lesson needed for all 'Godly' people, especially middle class Western Christians, and it was what the exiles had to learn in order that they might repent. Perhaps God is quoting with approval Job's lament that the light of the wicked is darkness (<a href='B:220 24:13-17'>Job 24:13-17</a>).</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Have you entered into the springs of the sea? Or have you walked in the recesses of the deep?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> GNB "Have you been to the springs in the depths of the sea? Have you walked on the floor of the ocean?":&nbsp;Job is reminded that he is ignorant of many things in creation, which remain inaccessible and remote. And so it is with insisting to know everything about Divine process with us. These things are purposefully hidden, and it is part of recognizing our humanity to realize that.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job earlier complained that "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. Job thought he had been there, standing at the gates of death (<a href='B:220 10:21-22'>Job 10:21-22</a>; <a href='B:220 17:16'>Job 17:16</a>). But God disagrees, challenging Job that he has not in fact seen "the gates of the shadow of death" (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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Have you comprehended the earth in its breadth? Declare, if you know it all-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Elihu implies that if Job repents, then he will be brought out from a narrow place into a broad place (<a href='B:220 36:16'>Job 36:16</a>). God perhaps comments on this by saying that the "broad place" is in fact the whole earth (s:w. <a href='B:220 38:18'>Job 38:18</a>). Man (including Job) is already in freedom; it is a case of accepting it.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> What is the way to the dwelling of light? As for darkness, where is its place-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The dialogues have much to say about light and darkness; but the question of their ultimate origin is with God. This was what the exiles had to be reminded of (<a href='B:290 45:5-7'>Isa 45:5-7</a>). Job had rather simplistically concluded that the place of darkness was death (<a href='B:220 10:21-22'>Job 10:21-22</a>). But there was more to it than that. All the various theories of the origin of evil in a cosmic being have been deconstructed in Job. And now God reveals the ultimate truth- that the origin is with Him. Light is distinct from the sun, moon and planets, as Genesis itself teaches (<a href='B:10 1:3'>Gen 1:3</a>; <a href='B:10 1:16'>Gen 1:16</a>). The question of ultimate origins is with God.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> that you should take it to its bound, that you should discern the paths to its house?-</p><h4> Job's experiences were of 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.</h4>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Surely you know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great!-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is also an answer to the way the friends considered that there was wisdom accrued through the number of days lived. Within the context of eternity and God's creative power, such knowledge is as nothing. It is therefore only the truth revealed from God which is a source of truth, and not length of human days. God is engaging with the idea of the friends, that number of days is related to wisdom. But compared to the specter of infinity, that is a very weak argument.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Have you entered the treasuries of the snow, or have you seen the treasures of the hail-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This implies that God has gone exploring though His own creation-making Him even more marvellous than being just the creator. Hail is a common symbol of God's judgment (<a href='B:20 9:18-29'>Exo 9:18-29</a>; <a href='B:230 18:12-13'>Psa 18:12-13</a>; <a href='B:230 78:47-48'>Psa 78:47-48</a>; <a href='B:230 105:32'>Psa 105:32</a>; <a href='B:290 30:30'>Isa 30:30</a>; <a href='B:290 32:19'>Isa 32:19</a> etc:). These things are stored up by God for use at the appropriate time. Both Job and the exiles needed to realize that they were not merely at the whim of God, but He had prepared their experiences in order to achieve specific ends.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Earlier Job has argued that judgment is "reserved" until the last day (<a href='B:220 21:30'>Job 21:30</a> s:w:), and therefore the wicked appear to prosper. God is here confirming that view. Eliphaz claimed that God is preparing to judge Job like a king ready to ride into the battle (<a href='B:220 15:24'>Job 15:24</a>). 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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> By what way is the lightning distributed, or the east wind scattered on the earth?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> AV "By what way is the light parted?", referring to refraction. God has not simply made the good, but He has refracted it in various ways. Peter gets a glance at this when he writes of the refracted beauty of God's grace (AV "the manifold grace of God", <a href='B:670 4:10'>1Pe 4:10</a>). Job is being taught that life is not as simple as light and darkness, good and evil; but these things are refracted by God in different ways, such is the beauty and complexity of His workings:&nbsp;</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Who has cut a channel for the flood water, or the path for the thunderstorm-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The flood waters were a symbol for evil such as the invaders who had taken Judah into exile. But God cuts channels so that His flood waters dissipate, just as His wind / Spirit drives away the clouds that come between God and man. And He had directed the path of that particular thunderstorm to come directly upon Job.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> to cause it to rain on a land where no man is; on the wilderness, in which there is no man-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> God's actions cannot be simply understood by men. To the ancients, it would have appeared pointless to send rain on the remote deserts. But His goodness, represented by the rain, operates on a level far beyond our comprehension. It is not utilitarian, intended to just produce some easily discernible good. His grace is far greater than that.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> to satisfy the waste and desolate ground-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Although the gift of His grace in rain falls sometimes where it apparently has no purpose (:26), it also falls on other areas where the tender grass is nourished by it. And His purpose is to revive even the apparently useless and waste land; both in the life of Job, and of His deserted land and people.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>To cause the tender grass to spring forth?-</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"- 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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Does the rain have a father? Or who fathers the drops of dew?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The question of origins remains to this day. No matter how persuasive are theories of evolutionary development, the question of ultimate origins has to always come back to God. And this question of origins, God is arguing, is really a signpost to the simple idea of grace. For creation is in a sense grace itself.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Out of whose womb came the ice? The gray frost of the sky, who has given birth to it?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Came" is the word for 'bring forth' in <a href='B:220 28:11'>Job 28:11</a>: "The thing that is hidden He brings forth to light". 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" (<a href='B:220 28:3'>Job 28:3</a>), 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. 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 (<a href='B:220 28:9-10'>Job 28:9-10</a>; <a href='B:220 28:28'>Job 28:28</a>). 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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The waters become hard like stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Not only the creation of water and things is wonderful, but equally the transformations of created things. This is what God was to do to Job, and He was offering to do the same to the exiles.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loosen the cords of Orion?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> 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> s:w:). 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>). The constellations are bound together in pattern by God. 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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Can you lead forth the constellations in their season? Or can you guide the Bear with her cubs?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> AV "Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season?". The context would suggest that "Mazzaroth" [a plural word] is a constellation like Orion just mentioned in :31. This would mean that the signs of the Zodiac are not in view here, as has been falsely claimed. It could be that "Mazzaroth" was a group of stars the people of the times thought they had observed which we now know as something else. It could be a variant of Mazzaloth, the gods made to these stars (<a href='B:120 23:5'>2Ki 23:5</a>). In this case God is saying that even if they believed the stars influenced life on earth and made idols to them, God was the ultimate controller and mover. It's rather like the usage of the language of demons in the New Testament. The scale of miracles implies God was far greater than any supposed demons, but the wrong understanding is not specifically targetted; rather by appealing to the greater principle of God's majestic power, it is shown to be bankrupt and void of real power.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you establish its dominion over the earth?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> GNB "Do you know the laws that govern the skies, and can you make them apply to the earth?". This is perhaps the clearest Biblical condemnation of any attempt to practice astrology. The movement of the stars was under God's control, but is not related to the outcomes of life upon earth. For God can work in parallel ways with the stars as well as with human life and situations upon earth.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover you?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is said in the context of the thunderstorm which began as noted on <a href='B:220 36:27'>Job 36:27</a>. That thunderstorm was brought about by God's sovereign action, and was not called up by men commanding God to bring it. The movement of God through His grace is likewise sovereign, otherwise grace would not be grace.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are?’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The same challenge was made to Ezekiel and the exiles, in the visions of the lightnings of the cherubim. The simple point of all this is that this lightning quick and powerful activity is for our sakes, to the end of achieving saving restoration. Job and the exiles complained that God was apparently slow to act. But He is working with lightning speed.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Who has put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who has given understanding to the mind?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> GNB "Who tells the ibis when the Nile will flood, or who tells the rooster that rain will fall?"; LXX "And who has given to women skill in weaving, or knowledge of embroidery?". But the preceding and following context is of God's control of the planets and atmosphere. So the idea may be that the lightnings also have their own wisdom, given to them by God, as it were. Hence one suggested translation is "Who has put wisdom in the thunderbolts? or who has given understanding to the tempest?".</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Who can number the clouds by wisdom? Or who can pour out the bottles of the sky-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The answer of course was that they could not be numbered by man, but only by God. This is the same word used in the restoration prophecy of <a href='B:300 38:22'>Jer 38:22</a>: "As the host of the sky cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea measured", so God's grace would be poured out in restoring His people. And that challenge was at the very heart of the covenant with Abraham, whose seed couldn't be numbered. Job was being taught the same lesson. He believed it, but the exiles generally didn't, and so their restoration didn't happen after the pattern of Job's.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> when the dust runs into a mass, and the clods of earth stick together?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea is that God sends rain from the clouds at the time when it is most desperately needed. The dry bones of both Job and Israel were to be rained upon with the Spirit. And this kind of thing is seen in the natural creation.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Can you hunt the prey for the lioness, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The theme now changes to the animals, and perhaps Job 39 would better begin at this verse. The point is that although the lioness hunts, this is in league with God: "The lions, roaring after their prey, do seek their meat from God" (<a href='B:230 104:21'>Psa 104:21</a>). The lions who hunted Job and Judah were likewise from God, and were not acting without Him.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> when they crouch in their dens, and lie in wait in the thicket?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Crouch" is the word for to humble, to crouch down. The theme of the book of Job is that man must be humbled before he can be used by God (s:w. <a href='B:220 9:13'>Job 9:13</a>; <a href='B:220 22:29'>Job 22:29</a>). And this is coded into the natural creation. The lioness must crouch down before she pounces.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Who provides for the raven his prey-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The raven was considered a bad omen. But still God cares for them; and how much more for His people. This is the force of the Lord's argument in <a href='B:490 12:24'>Luk 12:24</a>, "Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them". Hence <a href='B:230 147:9'>Psa 147:9</a> emphasizes that "He gives to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry". Clearly God doesn't simplistically punish the evil and bless the righteous immediately in this life. His grace reaches out to all.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>When his young ones cry to God, and wander for lack of food?- 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'> Do you know the time when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears fawns?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea is that man may not know the exact time, but God does, and it is built into His plan; see on :2. "Watch [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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Can you number the months that they fulfil? Or do you know the time when they give birth?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This continues the theme of Job 38, that everything has its bounds and limits, and timings set by God. This was so relevant to the exiles who considered their suffering endless; it was a reminder that restoration had been promised after a period, even if they didn't know that exact time (see on :1) and that script is written into all God's work in creation.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The answer of course was that they could not be numbered by man, but only by God. This is the same word used in the restoration prophecy of <a href='B:300 38:22'>Jer 38:22</a>: "As the host of the sky cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea measured", so God's grace would be poured out in restoring His people. Job was being taught the same lesson. He believed it, but the exiles generally didn't, and so their restoration didn't happen after the pattern of Job's.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>In Canaanite myth, Aquhat [another ‘Satan’ figure in their theology] could alone “count the months” (Robert S. Fyall, op cit p. 75) – but the same phrase is used here in <a href='B:220 39:2'>Job 39:2</a> about how God alone has this power. See on <a href='B:220 38:8'>Job 38:8</a>.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They bow themselves, they bring forth their young, they end their labour pains-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is the language of later Isaiah; the travail of Zion would come to an end, in the rebirth of a restored Kingdom of God in Judah. That at least was the Divine intention, although the Jews largely precluded its realization by their own refusal to really want it.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Their young ones become strong. They grow up in the open field. They go forth, and don’t return again-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX emphasizes this idea of 'going forth', which as noted on :1,2 looks ahead to the going forth of the Jews from captivity: "Their young will break forth; they will be multiplied with offspring: their young will go forth, and will not return to them".</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>"Grow up" is the word for 'bring forth' in <a href='B:220 28:11'>Job 28:11</a>: "The thing that is hidden He brings forth to light". 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" (<a href='B:220 28:3'>Job 28:3</a>), 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. 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 (<a href='B:220 28:9-10'>Job 28:9-10</a>; <a href='B:220 28:28'>Job 28:28</a>). 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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Who has set the wild donkey free? Or who has loosened the bonds of the swift donkey-</p><h4> This loosing of bands is the language of Judah's bands being freed and their freedom to return to Zion. 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> s:w:). 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>.</h4>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> whose home I have made the wilderness, and the salt land his dwelling place?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> It was from the wilderness that Job's troubles came. The Bedouins attacked from there, and the destructive wind came from there. But God was somehow in all that.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He scorns the tumult of the city, neither does he hear the shouting of the driver-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job in his depression feels as Israel suffering in Egypt (<a href='B:20 3:7'>Exo 3:7</a>; <a href='B:20 5:6'>Exo 5:6</a>; <a href='B:20 5:13'>Exo 5:13</a>), considering that death was the only way out of the misery of hearing the "voice of the taskmaster", "the shouting of the driver" (<a href='B:220 3:18'>Job 3:18</a>). But he fails to see that out of that misery they were redeemed and restored to their land. This is alluded to when attention is drawn to how God's creations "hear not the voice, the shouts and curses of the driver". God's people didn't have to "hear" the voice of the taskmaster; there was a way of redemption offered.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The LXX here has a strange appropriacy to the release of the exiles from captivity, and the edicts of the Persian kings allowing them to reestablish their kingdom without paying any taxes: "He laughs to scorn the multitude of the city, and hears not the chiding of the tax-gatherer".</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The range of the mountains is his pasture, he searches after every green thing-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "He will survey the mountains as his pasture, and he seeks after every green thing". The returned exiles would have free pasture in all their land, as Ezekiel 34 and other restoration prophecies had intimated.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Will the wild ox be content to serve you? Or will he stay by your feeding trough?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "And will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or to lie down at thy manger?". The reference may be to Cyrus being the servant of Yahweh in allowing the exiles to return.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Can you hold the wild ox in the furrow with his harness? Or will he till the valleys after you?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The wild animals may appear to the human eye to be aimlessly wandering hither and thither. But they are actually ploughing furrows for God. The apparently aimless wandering of Job and the exiles was likewise under God's control, and was actually intended to bring forth a great harvest from the apparently barren land.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Will you trust him, because his strength is great? Or will you leave to him your labour?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> No man could "trust" the randomly wandering oxen. But God has such a close relationship with those things which seem random and aimless that He doesn't actually need to hold those wild animals in harness (:10), He can trust them to do His work without Him harnessing them. And the same progression is to be seen in His work with apparently wild men; they begin needing a harness (:10), but then progress to working independently and yet within the overall furrow of God's direction.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Will you confide in him, that he will bring home your seed, and gather the grain of your threshing floor?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Man struggles to have faith / trust (:11) or confidence in things and processes which appear random and out of his control. But God has such confidence, and He invites Job and all His people to do likewise. Job's sufferings, like Judah's, were not random and aimless. They can be trusted to achieve the work intended, and bring about a great harvest; incredible as that might seem to secular, onlooking man.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The wings of the ostrich wave proudly; but are they the feathers and plumage of love?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I suggest that the following verses are arguing that the ostrich may appear to behave strangely, but is not in fact without love or care for its young. No animal totally lacks parental instinct. The people of Job's time thought that the ostrich did lack it; just as Job and the exiles were questioning whether God really loved and cared for them. Her wings wave as she dashes around the desert in the day time; but the question is, does she really have love for her own? God likewise was and is active through the wings of the cherubim. But does He care for His little ones? That is the sense in which the ostrich becomes a significant animal.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> For she leaves her eggs on the earth, warms them in the dust-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Ostriches, having scratched a hole in the sand, and deposited their eggs in it, cover the eggs over with a layer of sand, sometimes as much as a foot in thickness, and, leaving them during the daytime to be kept warm by the heat of the sun, only incubate at night". As noted on :13, the question is as to whether the ostrich really loves her young. She does; for no animal is without parental instinct. And likewise with God; He covers His little ones in the dust, and uses the darkness of night, the trials of life, to incubate them personally.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> and forgets that the foot may crush them, or that the wild animal may trample them-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea may be that the ostrich can forget about her eggs, with no fear that they may be crushed, as she has buried them well (see on :14). The eggs of both God and the ostrich are preserved; neither man nor wild beasts of nations can destroy them. Job was not going to be crushed as he feared (<a href='B:220 4:19'>Job 4:19</a>; <a href='B:220 5:4'>Job 5:4</a>). God likewise hides and covers His people (<a href='B:290 26:20'>Isa 26:20</a>), although to the eye of secular, imperceptive man, He may appear not to care. But in the analogy, His people had to be prepared to accept that covering; for indeed many of them were trodden down / trampled by the wild beasts of the nations.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> She deals harshly with her young ones, as if they were not hers. Though her labour is in vain, she is without fear-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Young ones" is Heb. "sons". The ostrich is introduced as hard to understand- "loving, or unloving?" is the opening question about the ostrich (:13). And indeed she apparently deals harshly with her young ones. The Bedouin peoples amongst whom Job lived thought that the ostrich was unloving, that it didn't care for its young; and they had proverbs to this effect, alluded to in <a href='B:310 4:3'>Lam 4:3</a>. But the ostrich is not without parental instinct. Why does she incubate at night and hide her eggs in the day time? Not so that she can flit around the desert at her own pleasure, but because she is out looking for food for her young, and at night she incubates her eggs- working around the clock for her little ones. God's labour for His exiled people was likewise, and was also at times in vain (<a href='B:230 127:1'>Psa 127:1</a>; <a href='B:290 49:4'>Isa 49:4</a>). But He did not fear, He didn't give up because some were indeed crushed and trodden down by the wild beasts of the nations, but continued working for them. And God did at times appear to treat His people as if they were not His; for "you are not My people", because they had chosen not to be (<a href='B:350 1:9'>Hos 1:9</a>; <a href='B:300 23:39'>Jer 23:39</a>).</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> because God has deprived her of wisdom, neither has He imparted to her understanding-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The ostrich is presented as being an apparent contradiction; lacking understanding and yet able to run swiftly and be stronger than a horse and its rider (:18). As explained above, the ostrich is not without wisdom nor without parental instinct. But it can appear she is; and indeed some of her young are lost and crushed. See on :18.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Job felt he had been deprived of everything, including wisdom and understanding (<a href='B:220 26:5'>Job 26:5</a>). 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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> When she lifts up herself on high, she scorns the horse and his rider-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This lifting herself up refers to how the ostrich does this in order to run at great speed. She has been given good qualities such as speed and power, and also apparent foolishness which leads to some of her young being lost (:17). It is this union of apparently differing qualities which is the impression men have as they look at the wok of God towards His little ones.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Have you given the horse might? Have you clothed his neck with a quivering mane?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The apparently foolish ostrich is a match for the might of the horse (:18). But all these abilities are given by God, contradictory as they may seem to the secular man observing them. This is addressing the complaint of Job, that God appears to act toward man in contradictory ways (<a href='B:220 10:16'>Job 10:16</a>).</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Have you made him to leap as a locust? The glory of his snorting is awesome-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Awesome" is literally 'terrible' or 'as terrors', which the friends believed would come upon Job (<a href='B:220 20:25'>Job 20:25</a> s:w:). "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'> He paws in the valley, and rejoices in his strength. He goes out to meet the armed men-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Just as the ostrich is on one hand apparently foolish and yet has qualities of speed and bravery (:18), so the horse has great strength and is eager to fight, not fearing the sword which can slay it (:22). It is this union of apparently differing qualities which is the impression men have as they look at the wok of God towards His people.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He mocks at fear, and is not dismayed, neither does he turn back from the sword-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> See on :21. "Dismay" is the word 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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The quiver rattles against him, the flashing spear and the javelin-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is all the language of Divine judgment (<a href='B:410 3:3'>Nah 3:3</a>; <a href='B:310 3:13'>Lam 3:13</a>). The horse doesn't fear that, just as Leviathan doesn't (<a href='B:220 41:29'>Job 41:29</a>). He is as he is, not always wise, but free from the fear of judgment, not fearing the battle as men fear it. And this was perhaps how God wants His people to be, and this was in fact how Job was.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He eats up the ground with fierceness and rage, neither does he stand still at the sound of the trumpet-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Stand still" is the word for 'belief'. The idea may be that 'he hardly trusts his ears for joy' that the battle is beginning. The sound of the trumpet can be understood as the call to judgment. The horse doesn't fear the battle nor the call to judgment, but is eager for it- just as Job was, and as David and Paul also were. And yet the horse fails to understand the real implications of it all. In this sense God may be justifying Job's attitude to judgment.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As often as the trumpet sounds he snorts, ‘Aha!’. He smells the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting-</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 (<a href='B:220 15:24'>Job 15:24</a>). 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'> Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and stretches her wings toward the south?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The invasions of Judah from the north were as birds of prey flying south as they migrate- all under God's control.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up, and makes his nest on high?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The eagle was a symbol of the enemies of God's people (<a href='B:50 28:49'>Deu 28:49</a>):&nbsp; But their movements were completely under God's control.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> On the cliff he dwells, and makes his home, on the point of the cliff, and the stronghold-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The eagle dwells on a point which is inaccessible to man. That seems to be the point. But the eagle is completely under Divine control (:27), although man is unable to engage with it. It was this which Job needed to learn.</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> From there he spies out the prey. His eyes see it afar off-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The extraordinary eyesight of the eagle was legendary. The context is of God teaching Job that all his concerns with process and 'why' this or that are inappropriate; for even the animal creation has better eyesight than he does. Job earlier compared the passing of his life to the swiftness of an eagle (<a href='B:220 9:26'>Job 9:26</a>); perhaps now he is being taught that such comparison is inappropriate. The relevance to the exiles may be that they were "afar off" from the promised land, but in a moment could be brought there, just as the eagle can in an apparent moment close that distance which was "afar off" (<a href='B:290 43:6'>Isa 43:6</a>; <a href='B:290 49:12'>Isa 49:12</a>; <a href='B:290 60:4'>Isa 60:4</a>; <a href='B:290 60:9'>Isa 60:9</a>).</p>


text:
<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> His young ones also suck up blood. Where the slain are, there he is- The Lord appears to allude to this in <a href='B:470 24:28'>Mat 24:28</a>. He is answering the disciples' concerns as to where and how the judgment will take place. Perhaps He sees their undue concerns with process to be similar to those of Job. He directs them back to this passage, which teaches that we are not to overly concern ourselves with these questions, contrary as that attitude is to the 'scientific' mindset of the age of reason. It is the reality of it which is to be focused upon.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Moreover Yahweh answered Job-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> We perhaps are to imagine a pause of silence in the drama at the end of Job 39.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Shall he who argues contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Argues" is the word used for "umpire" in <a href='B:220 9:30'>Job 9:30</a>. The word for "umpire" suggests 'one who is right', a reasoner, an advocate, one who pleads (s:w. <a href='B:220 16:21'>Job 16:21</a>), a reprover (<a href='B:220 40:2'>Job 40:2</a> AV, s:w:). Job's request was not simply for a mediator; he would have used a different word if so. He seems to have wanted to put God in the dock, but knew this was not appropriate; he wants someone else to do this who can legitimately do it. And he is rebuked for this here in <a href='B:220 40:2'>Job 40:2</a>:&nbsp;This is all 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>220


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Then Job answered Yahweh-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The paradox is that he answered Yahweh by saying that he cannot answer Him (:3). And that indeed is man's only possible answer to God.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, I am of small account-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The word for "cursed" (<a href='B:220 3:1'>Job 3:1</a>; <a href='B:220 24:18'>Job 24:18</a>). The one who felt cursed was to be blessed, just as the Israel whom he unknowingly represented.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>What shall I answer you?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Earlier, Job in <a href='B:220 31:14'>Job 31:14</a> had confidently boated that only if he had committed adultery would be feel before God that he was unable to speak; "What shall I answer Him?". &nbsp;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><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The epilogue and prologue to Job are evidently related. Job begins sitting in dust and ashes and ends repenting in dust and ashes (<a href='B:220 2:8'>Job 2:8</a>; <a href='B:220 42:6'>Job 42:6</a>). The silence of the friends at the opening of the book is matched by the silence after God has finally spoken (<a href='B:220 40:4'>Job 40:4</a>). Job intercedes for his children (<a href='B:220 1:5'>Job 1:5</a>) and ends up interceding for his friends. Job begins with the description of being the Lord’s servant; and the book concludes on the same note (<a href='B:220 42:7-8'>Job 42:7-8</a>). The question of course is: ‘So what’s the equivalent of the ‘Satan’ figure in the epilogue?’. The omission is intended and obvious. Ultimately the answer is the essence of the whole book: the ‘Satan’, the adversary, is none other than God Himself, in His love, however and through whomsoever He was manifested.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>I lay my hand on my mouth-</p><h4> When Job finally lays his hand upon his mouth, 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. In <a href='B:220 24:25'>Job 24:25</a> he has boasted of the strength of his own speeches: "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, 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:&nbsp;Earlier, Job had confidently challenged: "Who is he who will contend with me? For then would I hold my peace and give up the spirit" (<a href='B:220 13:19'>Job 13:19</a>). Job is challenging anyone to come forward and contend with him in court by proving him wrong. If they did, then he would be silent ["hold my peace"] and willingly die. This of course is exactly what happens at the end. God does contend with Job, and he is proven guilty. He lays his hand upon mouth, and we can deduce from his challenge here that he wanted to die. He was then saved from that position by grace alone. The connection with the exiles is in <a href='B:290 50:8'>Isa 50:8</a>, where a similarly convicted Israel would be justified by Divine grace to the point they could again challenge any to convict them of sin, seeing that "He is near that justifies me".</h4><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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I have spoken once, and I will not answer; Yes, twice, but I will proceed no further-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Perhaps he means 'I have spoken once in that I have just said that I have no answer. And now, I am speaking twice, I am saying this. But now I promise absolute silence'. He really appreciates that his many words have been inappropriate.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Because God sees and knows absolutely all, we must recognize that He realizes the unspoken implications of our words. Its possible that Job’s words about silence here are seen by God as Job effectively condemning God, because presumably they were said merely as a mask over Job’s inner feelings that God had been unjust with him (<a href='B:220 40:8'>Job 40:8</a>). But when Job uses effectively the same words in <a href='B:220 42:6'>Job 42:6</a>, God accepts them. God’s ability to see to the core should therefore not only affect our words but elicit in us an honesty of heart behind the words which we use.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Then Yahweh answered Job out of the whirlwind-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is God's answer to Job's silence (:5). Perhaps the implication is that Job has not yet come to recognize his humanity and repent in the way he needs to. Hence God speaks again.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Now brace yourself like a man-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea is that Job is to answer as a human, to recognize his humanity and answer the questions as a man. Job is perhaps not so much asked to repent as to realize his humanity.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>I will question you, and you will answer Me-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> His questions of God had been inappropriate, just as the friends had been wrong to seek wisdom by asking the sages, mere men (<a href='B:220 8:8'>Job 8:8</a>; <a href='B:220 21:29'>Job 21:29</a> s:w:); it is for God to question us. For we and not God are in the dock. And Job's vow of silence in :5 was not in fact answering God's previous questions.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Will you even annul My judgment?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As noted on :5,6, this could be seen as a criticism that Job hadn't said more. He had simply accepted he was condemned and vowed silence. The phrase is used of how Israel had broken covenant with God through breaking His judgments in the sense of His commands (<a href='B:30 26:15'>Lev 26:15</a>). Job at this point absolutely represents the exiles, who had broken covenant and needed to repent and accept the new covenant offered to them (s:w. <a href='B:300 11:10'>Jer 11:10</a>; <a href='B:300 31:32'>Jer 31:32</a>).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Will you condemn Me, that you may be justified?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The final speeches of God and Elihu brought home the point that the righteousness achieved by man was not comparable with God's righteousness (e:g. 40:7-10). Any attempt at self justification is to condemn God as a false accuser. We are left to draw the conclusion: that the only way for man to be just with God is through the imputation of God's righteousness to man, by absolute grace:&nbsp;We must give due weight to the words of the prologue, that God saw Job anyway as "perfect", as justified:&nbsp;The sense may be that God is saying 'You are justified, by My grace; you don't have to condemn Me by self-justification in order to be justified. You are justified by My grace without your effort'. God's justification of Job and Job's innocence are thereby reconciled.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Or do you have an arm like God? Can you thunder with a voice like Him?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The reference is to the thunderstorm which was perhaps still ongoing. God's arm is often associated with His salvation. Man cannot save himself, as he has no saving arm like God's; and to attempt to do so is to justify ourselves, thereby condemning God (:8).</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Now deck yourself with excellency and dignity. Array yourself with honour and majesty-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This alludes to the garments of the priests, for glory and beauty. Job had already been stripped of his glorious priestly robes, as we learn from <a href='B:220 19:9'>Job 19:9</a>: "He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head":&nbsp; The stripping of Job 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>). 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>). Job's stripping and inability to reclothe himself was therefore to elicit repentance in him. And this is what is now finally achieved at the end of the book. God is of Himself "clothed with majesty and strength" (<a href='B:230 93:1'>Psa 93:1</a>), "with glory and beauty" (<a href='B:230 104:1'>Psa 104:1</a>). Job need not seek to play God by using legal rituals and religious clothing. This was not going to help Job.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Pour out the fury of your anger-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Heb. "the floods of wrath", preparing the way for Job to be taught that he need not fear such floods himself (:23).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Look at each one who is proud, and bring him low-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This judgment of pride is God's work, and not Job's. If God alone is the judge and the One who can condemn, all Job's struggles over issues of justice ['judging'] were thereby inappropriate. And that is true today, in a world where judging issues of justice appears to be the passion of every man.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Look at each one who is proud, and humble him. Crush the wicked in their place-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job has observed that the wicked prosper, whilst he the righteous is suffering. God reminds Job that He has the power to condemn, and He will do so- looking at literally each one who is proud, throughout time and space. Job cannot do this. His unspoken desires that the wicked be judged by himself are addressed here. He obviously felt the injustice so deeply- that he suffered, whilst the wicked prospered. God's answer is that Job is incapable of judging them. But He will. Recognizing our inability to condemn and judge will help us in coping with the painful issues of injustice which surround us.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Hide them in the dust together. Bind their faces in the hidden place-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The faces of the condemned were covered, as Haman's was. The judgment of the wicked was to be death in the dust (and not eternal conscious torment). The question is, can Job condemn men and turn them to dust? No he can't. So his struggles over issues of justice were misplaced, and were actually an implication that he thought that his arm could bring salvation.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Then I will also admit to you that your own right hand can save you-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The question is, can Job condemn men and turn them to dust (:13)? No he can't. So his struggles over issues of justice were misplaced, and were actually an implication that he thought that his arm could bring salvation.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> See now, Behemoth, which I made as well as you. He eats grass like an ox-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Behemoth" can be read as the intensive plural of behema, a beast. Whatever actual beast is in view, perhaps the hippopotamus, it is simply presented as a beast. The argument will develop, that Job is part of the same creation as Behemoth, the most awesome and terrifying things created by God. And if he is at peace with his place within that creation, he need not fear. See on :20,23.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Perhaps we are to see in this a reference to Nebuchadnezzar being made to eat grass like an ox. The wild beasts of Judah's aggressors were all under God's control, even the most apparently mighty of them. Leviathan and Behemoth are monster figures appearing at the end of the book of Job, to form a kind of inclusio with the opening reference to Satan; and they are clearly part of God’s final answer to Job’s “case”. Behe–mot can be understood as a reference to Mot, the Canaanite god of death.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'></p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Look now, his strength is in his thighs. His force is in the muscles of his belly-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> These descriptions would be appropriate to a hippopotamus. "Look now" could suggest they were standing by a river, and the animal arose out of it at God's command. The theophany in a whirlwind by a river, with lightnings, is what Ezekiel experienced. The hope was that the exiles would likewise be moved to follow Job's path through repentance to restoration.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He moves his tail like a cedar. The sinews of his thighs are knit together-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Again these descriptions would be appropriate to a hippopotamus. Job would have feared the beast as it moved its tail, for they arise out of rivers to feed on crops. But he need not fear, for the hippopotamus eats plants not men (:15). Again Job was being taught that in the face of apparently overwhelming opposition, his life would be preserved. And this was the lesson for the exiles too. See on :20.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> His bones are like tubes of brass. His limbs are like bars of iron-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Babylon's defences of brass and iron would likewise be no barrier to the restoration of God's people, for all was under His control (<a href='B:290 45:2'>Isa 45:2</a>), and Israel could be made as strong (<a href='B:400 4:13'>Mic 4:13</a>) seeing they were part of the same creation that had made this animal (:15).</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He is the chief of the ways of God. He who made him gives him His sword-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The primary reference may be to the very sharp teeth of the hippopotamus. This would be a connection to how the sword of Babylon had been Yahweh's sword. Even the most awful wild beast in Israel's experience, Babylon, was under God's control and manipulated by Him. Hence LXX "This is the chief of the creation of the Lord; made to be played with by his angels". It is God who not only created Behemoth, but can effortlessly control him in accord with His purpose. That’s the comfort of the message. Indeed the descriptions of the natural world which lead up to the Leviathan / Behemoth passages are there to underline this point; and it’s interesting that those passages zoom in upon the cruelties and even brutalities within nature. Yet these are all of God’s ultimate design and creation, and under His providential control. Job had earlier perceived this; for he responds to the friends’ allusions to an evil ‘Satan’ figure as the source of his suffering by observing: “Ask the animals::. The birds of the air::. [they show that] the hand of the Lord [and not any supernatural ‘Satan’] has done this” (<a href='B:220 12:7-9'>Job 12:7-9</a>).</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Surely the mountains produce food for him, where all the animals of the field play-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The animals of the field don't fear the hippopotamus, although Job did (:17). But he need not fear, for the hippopotamus eats plants not men (:15). Again Job was being taught that in the face of apparently overwhelming opposition, his life would be preserved. And this was the lesson for the exiles too. Job was to recognize that he too was part of the same creation that had brought forth the hippopotamus (:15), and if he did so, then he too could live at peace in the presence of such an awesome beast.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He lies under the lotus trees, in the cover of the reed, and the marsh-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "by the papyrus", perhaps a reference to Babylon's mastery over Egypt. But the connection is to some words of Bildad in <a href='B:220 8:11'>Job 8:11</a> "Can the papyrus grow up without mire? Can the rushes grow without water?". Bildad's idea is that Job's prosperity was like a quick growing papyrus which would soon wither (<a href='B:220 8:12'>Job 8:12</a>) because it had not enough water or mud. Bildad's reasoning is wrong, but clearly the Lord quarried His parable of the sower from parts of these ideas. For He speaks of the man who has no "depth of earth" as the one who responds eagerly to the word sown, but falls away "when affliction of persecution arises for the word's sake" because he has 'no root in himself' (<a href='B:480 4:5'>Mar 4:5</a>; <a href='B:480 4:17'>Mar 4:17</a>). Bildad was therefore not simply saying that Job's persecution was because he had sinned; but rather he implies that Job had lost his faith after the persecution arose, because he had no real root in faith. In this Bildad was also wrong, for Job continually seeks to God in his tribulations. Behemoth was quite at home in the "mire" or "marsh" (s:w. <a href='B:220 40:21'>Job 40:21</a>); and the connection is in order to demonstrate that even the "mire" was created by God and just as He saved Jeremiah out of the mire of the dungeon, so He could save Job and the exiles. And the only other usage of the word is in the description of the healing of the "miry places" (<a href='B:330 47:11'>Eze 47:11</a>) if the exiles were responsive to the prophetic call to restore the temple and city made in Ezekiel 40-48.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The lotuses cover him with their shade. The willows of the brook surround him-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Trees often represent nations, and here we have a picture of the nations being subservient to Babylon. LXX "And the great trees make a shadow over him with their branches, and so do the bushes of the field".</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, if a river overflows, he doesn’t tremble. He is confident, though the Jordan swells even to his mouth-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> As noted on :20, Job was to recognize that he too was part of the same creation that had brought forth the hippopotamus (:15), and if he did so, then he too could live at peace in the presence of overflowing, flooded rivers; which represent the invaders of God's people and His judgment of men (see on :11). Even if those rivers came up to his mouth, they would go no further. Just as Job had been promised in the prologue that his life would be preserved. And the swelling of the rivers of Israel's enemies would likewise not destroy Israel. They need not tremble as the faithless did in the times of Isaiah.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Shall any take him when he is on the watch, or pierce through his nose with a snare?- The idea is as GNB "The most amazing of all my creatures! Only his Creator can defeat him". And indeed God would overthrow Babylon and allow the exiles to return.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Can you draw out Leviathan-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Leviathan and Behemoth are monster figures appearing at the end of the book of Job, to form a kind of inclusio with the opening reference to Satan; and they are clearly part of God’s final answer to Job’s “case”. Leviathan appears to be the Canaanite version of the orthodox ‘Satan’ figure, perhaps a reference to the ‘Lotan’ of the Ugaritic myths. In great detail, these figures are deconstructed. They are shown to be created beings – created by the one almighty God of the Old Testament, to be completely under His control to the point that He can even tease them, so enormously greater is His power than theirs. These Canaanite ‘Satan’ figures are thereby shown to have no significant existence; and they certainly don’t exist as opposed to God. They are totally under His control. And yet these monster figures clearly have characteristics shared by known animals, such as the hippopotamus, crocodile etc. Those similarities are intended. It’s been well observed: “To say that Leviathan has characteristics of the crocodile and the whale is not to say that it is such a creature, but rather to suggest that evil is rooted in the natural world” (Robert S. Fyall, Now My Eyes Have Seen You: Images of Creation and Evil in the Book of Job (Leicester: I:V:P. / Apollos, 2002) p. 27) – and the point is so laboured in Job that the natural world is of God’s complete creation. ‘Evil’ in a form independent of Him, in radical opposition to Him, simply isn’t there.</p><h4>It’s significant that dragons in the form of serpents were common in Babylonian theology. Figures on vases show serpent griffins, there was one on Marduk’s temple in Nippur, and also on the Ishtar Gate in Babylon. These would have been familiar to Judah in Babylonian captivity; and we have suggested that the book of Job was edited there, under inspiration, for their benefit. They may well have seen a similarity between the Babylonian monsters and the Leviathan / Behemoth beasts. That God is greater than Leviathan and can do what He wills with him would therefore have had a special meaning to the faithful Jew in exile. In a restoration context, Isaiah comforted Judah that God would destroy “Leviathan the gliding serpent; He will slay the monster of the sea” (<a href='B:290 27:1'>Isa 27:1</a>). The real ‘monster’ faced by Judah in exile wasn’t a supernatural being; it was a concrete kingdom of men on earth, namely Babylon. God taught Job, and through him showcased to the watching world, that all such imaginations of Leviathan, monsters in the raging sea, crooked serpents etc. were vain – in any case, God had created them and used them to do His will with His people, symbolized as they were by Job. His sitting in dust and ashes is very much the picture of Judah sitting by the rivers of Babylon, bemoaning their losses. The language of Job’s captivity being ‘turned’ (<a href='B:220 42:10'>Job 42:10</a>) is the very term used about the restoration of Judah from Babylon (<a href='B:300 29:14'>Jer 29:14</a>; <a href='B:230 126:4'>Psa 126:4</a>).</h4><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>With a fishhook, or press down his tongue with a cord?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> God almost jokes with Job, that he had been trying to draw out Leviathan with a fish hook (<a href='B:220 41:1'>Job 41:1</a>), and I see that as a commentary upon so many human attempts to get a handle on the way God is the adversary / Satan figure in our lives. Shrugging it off as chance and bad luck, believing in a personal Satan in the sea or in Heaven, thinking God is punishing us::. all this is trying to capture Leviathan with a mere fishing rod. The book of Job isn’t an explanation for specific human suffering – and many who turn to the book looking for that come away disappointed. Rather is it an account of God’s sovereign power, putting meaning into the word “All–mighty” when applied to God. On a ‘doctrinal’ level it is indeed a deconstruction of the ideas of supernatural ‘Satan’ figures. But on a more personal level, it challenges us to follow in Job’s faithful footsteps, as it challenged Judah in captivity. See on <a href='B:220 42:2'>Job 42:2</a>.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>I suggested on <a href='B:220 40:16'>Job 40:16</a> that Behemoth was a hippopotamus which arose from a river. "Look now" could suggest they were standing by a river, and the animal arose out of it at God's command. The theophany in a whirlwind by a river, with lightnings, is what Ezekiel experienced. The hope was that the exiles would likewise be moved to follow Job's path through repentance to restoration. Here now God seems to bring a crocodile out of the same river, "Leviathan". Unlike the hippopotamus which is a herbivore, the crocodile was likely to attack and eat Job. He was thrown back to the promise of the prologue that God would preserve his life, just as He would the national life of Judah from every wild beast. Job's experience with Behemoth was to prepare him for the encounter now with Leviathan the crocodile.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Can you put a rope into his nose, or pierce his jaw through with a hook?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This and the following verses use the language of captivity. Prisoners were treated in this way in victory processions. The language is so relevant to the exiles who had been led away into captivity; and God could lead their captors captive, in a way only He could, just as He as it were led Job's captivity captive.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Will he make many petitions to you, or will he speak soft words to you?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is exactly how captives spoke to their captors; see on :2 (cp. <a href='B:110 20:32'>1Ki 20:32</a>).</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Will he make a covenant with you-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Captive kings were forced to make covenants with their captors; see on :2.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>That you should take him for a servant forever?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Just as Job is described as God’s “servant” (<a href='B:220 1:8'>Job 1:8</a>), so is Leviathan (Job 40:28; <a href='B:220 41:4'>Job 41:4</a>). No evil power uncontrolled by God is at work in Job’s life. We also need to give due weight to the fact that God speaks the Leviathan / Behemoth passages “out of the storm”, which had been gathering since <a href='B:220 37:2'>Job 37:2</a>. This is significant because storms were seen as manifestations of evil powers. Yet here (and elsewhere in Scripture), the one true God speaks out of such storms, to demonstrate how far greater He is than any storm god; and showing by implication that such storm gods don’t exist, and the ‘evil’ which supposedly came from them was in fact under His control.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>In pagan myth, Baal was temporarily conquered by Mot, and the Ugaritic poem about their conflict which was found in the Ras Shamra texts speaks of how Baal was made a “slave forever” (Umberto Cassuto, Biblical and Oriental Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1975) Vol. 2 p. 6). This very language is picked up in <a href='B:220 41:4'>Job 41:4</a>, where God mocks that in no way would He become a “slave forever”. The allusion shows that the one true God is in no way Baal. He is greater than Baal. Unlike Baal, He is in no conflict with Mot nor anyone. Baal’s sister, Anath, muzzled a dragon with great difficulty – but Yahweh muzzled Leviathan and then sported with him (<a href='B:220 41:1-5'>Job 41:1-5</a>). The poem challenges Baal to “Pierce through Lotan the serpent, destroy the serpent the seven headed tyrant” (Cassuto, ibid p. 7). Yet this is exactly the language picked up in <a href='B:290 27:1'>Isa 27:1</a>: “Yahweh will punish with His powerful, great and mighty sword Leviathan the serpent, Leviathan the serpent, and He will slay the dragon”. Yahweh’s utter supremacy over any other god is so great that it makes all ideas of cosmic conflict simply laughable. Psalms 92; Psalms 10 likewise: “Lo, thine enemies, I YHWH, lo, thine enemies shall perish, all evil doers shall be scattered” alludes to Part 3 lines 8 and 9 of the poem about the Mot–Baal conflict: “Lo, thine enemies, O Baal, lo thine enemies wilt thou pierce through, lo, thou wilt destroy thine adversaries” (Cassuto, ibid p. 8). Note too that Baal’s enemies, i:e. Mot and the demons of the underworld, are paralleled with “evildoers”. Human sinners rather than demons are the real issue.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Will you play with him as with a bird? Or will you bind him for your girls?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> God is not only the victorious captor of leviathan, but He can play with him as a pet, and even give him as a pet to His children. And God's children are His people. The same idea is in <a href='B:220 40:19'>Job 40:19</a> LXX "This is the chief of the creation of the Lord; made to be played with by his angels".</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Will traders barter for him? Will they part him among the merchants?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This alludes to how captives were sold into slavery; see on :2.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Can you fill his skin with barbed irons, or his head with fish spears?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> These weapons would have no effect on the head of a crocodile, which is covered by extremely hard skin. No human device or weapon could destroy the crocodile, only God could take him captive.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Lay your hand on him. Remember the battle, and do so no more-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea may be that if Job tries to lay hands on the crocodile, he will do it only once and will not live to do it again. Eliphaz claims that God is preparing to judge Job like a king ready to ride into the battle (<a href='B:220 15:24'>Job 15:24</a>). 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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Behold, the hope of binding him is vain. Won’t one be cast down even at the sight of him?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Vain" is literally "a liar". In <a href='B:220 24:25'>Job 24:25</a> he has boasted of the strength of his own speeches: "If it isn’t so now, who will prove me a liar [s:w. "vain"], 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 here 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. 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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> None is so fierce that he dare stir him up. Who then is he who can stand before Me?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The reference is to how crocodiles are seen sleeping by the banks of rivers, but no man dare "stir him up" or even creep near him. But despite God's awesomeness, Job at that point was standing before God. The "sons of God" of the prologue likewise stood before the Lord. The idea is that this can only be possible through God's grace, and Job and the friends had been unaware of how awesome it was to be able to stand before God.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Who has first given to Me, that I should repay him?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is quoted in <a href='B:520 11:35'>Rom 11:35</a> AV: "who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?". The context is Paul marvelling at God's utter grace. This was clearly how he was led to interpret this verse in Job. There is again legal language here; as if to say 'Who has put me under any legal obligation, forcing Me to do what you say and repay you what I owe you?". All Job's persistent demands to meet God in judgment were therefore inappropriate (<a href='B:220 9:34-35'>Job 9:34-35</a>; <a href='B:220 10:3'>Job 10:3</a>; <a href='B:220 13:3'>Job 13:3</a>; <a href='B:220 13:22'>Job 13:22</a>; <a href='B:220 23:3-7'>Job 23:3-7</a>).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Everything under the heavens is Mine-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Much of the language used about Leviathan and Behemoth is also used about God’s manifestation of Himself. Smoke from nostrils, flame from mouth (<a href='B:220 41:11-12'>Job 41:11-12</a>)= <a href='B:230 18:8'>Psa 18:8</a>; Strength before and dismay behind (<a href='B:220 41:14'>Job 41:14</a> Heb:) = Pestilence before and plague behind (<a href='B:420 3:5'>Hab 3:5</a>); Strong ones and leaders cringe in fear (<a href='B:220 41:17'>Job 41:17</a> Heb:) = Earth reels (<a href='B:230 18:7'>Psa 18:7</a>) and mountains tremble (<a href='B:420 3:6'>Hab 3:6</a>); Deep sea stirred up (<a href='B:220 41:23-24'>Job 41:23-24</a> Heb:) = Deep sea laid bare (<a href='B:230 18:5'>Psa 18:5</a>) ; Terrible teeth = Job felt that God was gnashing His teeth at him (<a href='B:220 16:9'>Job 16:9</a>); Breath carries men away = The breath of God’s mouth will carry away the wicked (<a href='B:220 15:30'>Job 15:30</a>); On earth there is not his equal (<a href='B:220 41:33'>Job 41:33</a>) = Only ultimately true of God. Leviathan is called the ‘cruel one’ (<a href='B:220 41:10'>Job 41:10</a>) – and the very same word is used by Job about God in His afflicting Job in <a href='B:220 30:21'>Job 30:21</a>. Leviathan, the seemingly overbearing power of evil in the world, be it in the early satan myths or Baylon, is in fact a manifestation of God to such an intense degree that effectively it ‘is’ God; God, ultimately, is the adversary / Satan to Job. The epilogue and prologue to Job are evidently related; see on <a href='B:220 42:6'>Job 42:6</a>.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I will not keep silence concerning his limbs, nor his mighty strength, nor his goodly frame-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "I will not be silent because of him: though because of his power one shall pity his antagonist". God pities Job because he had thought that in his own strength he could be right with God. This is perhaps what is in view in <a href='B:660 5:11'>Jas 5:11</a>, where we learn that at "the end of the Lord" in His relationship with Job, He showed Himself "very pitiful". This means that God is not shooting out these challenges to Job in anger or in offence at a mortal man, but rather in pity.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Who can strip off his outer garment? Who shall come within his jaws?-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The reference is to the scaly "coat" of the crocodile. If that cannot be taken off, there is no chance to open his mouth and enter between his jaws, where crocodiles have ""two rows of sharply pointed teeth, thirty or more on each side".</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Who can open the doors of his face? Around his teeth is terror-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This may be an answer to Job's complaint in <a href='B:220 16:9'>Job 16:9</a> that God "has gnashed on me with His teeth". <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'>It is God alone who can "open" or "shut up" Leviathan (:15). Ginzberg demonstrates that the Jews saw the monster ‘Rahab’ and Leviathan as the same entity; and twice Job stresses how infinitely greater than Rahab is Yahweh. When God starts speaking about Leviathan, He is therefore confirming the truth of what Job has earlier said about His power over Rahab / Leviathan. The context of Job’s comments was to answer the theories of the friends – and God is as it were confirming that Job’s deconstruction of their ‘Satan’ theories was correct. The same Hebrew words are used about God’s binding and loosing of the stars [which were thought to control evil on earth] and His binding, loosing and opening of Leviathan’s mouth (<a href='B:220 38:31'>Job 38:31</a> cp. Job 40:29). Whether or not Leviathan / a ‘Satan’ figure, or the bad stars, are for real::. God is in utter control of them, and there is thus no conflict, no war in Heaven, no ultimate dualism at all in the cosmos. Which is just the message we would expect from a monotheistic Old Testament book. Israel’s God is truly the Almighty.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>"Open" is the word for 'loosing'. 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> s:w:). 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><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>"Terror" is what the friends believed would come upon Job (<a href='B:220 20:25'>Job 20:25</a> s:w:). "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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Strong scales are his pride, shut up together with a close seal-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The scales of the crocodile resemble shields. The idea is that this beast represents the enemies of God's people, with none of their soldiers breaking rank, just as the prophets envisage Israel's enemies. But these are also all designed and created by God and can be manipulated by Him at will.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> One is so near to another, that no air can come between them-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Air" here is ruach, the usual word for wind or spirit. If "air" was all that was meant, a different Hebrew word would be used. The idea is that there is a designed unity here between the shields / scales which God's Spirit will not break apart. This is a unity created by God. Unity comes from Him alone. And this is what we see in functional relationships within marriages and true churches.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> They are joined one to another. They stick together, so that they can’t be pulled apart-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The idea is that they are soldered to each other by God; see on :16.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> His sneezing flashes out light. His eyes are like the eyelids of the morning-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> In <a href='B:220 15:12'>Job 15:12</a> Eliphaz condemned Job: "Why do your eyes flash?". 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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Out of his mouth go burning torches. Sparks of fire leap forth-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The crocodile which had crawled up to Job is now transformed by God into more than an animal (:20 too). He starts to appear like part of the cherubim vision. The "burning torches" is s:w. "burning lamp" in the theophany of <a href='B:10 15:17'>Gen 15:17</a>; <a href='B:330 1:13'>Eze 1:13</a>; <a href='B:340 10:6'>Dan 10:6</a> and <a href='B:20 20:18'>Exo 20:18</a>. This apparently frightful beast is actually a manifestation of Yahweh's glory. And that burning torch is how Yahweh's salvation shone forth for the exiles (s:w. <a href='B:290 62:1'>Isa 62:1</a>), and how the revived Judah could become (s:w. <a href='B:450 12:6'>Zec 12:6</a>).</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Out of his nostrils a smoke goes, as of a boiling pot over a fire of reeds-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This continues the language of God manifestation / theophany; see on :19. The "smoke" is s:w. <a href='B:10 15:17'>Gen 15:17</a>; <a href='B:20 19:18'>Exo 19:18</a> and other visions of God manifestation. "Goes" is the word for 'bring forth' in <a href='B:220 28:11'>Job 28:11</a>: "The thing that is hidden He brings forth to light". 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" (<a href='B:220 28:3'>Job 28:3</a>), 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. 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 (<a href='B:220 28:9-10'>Job 28:9-10</a>; <a href='B:220 28:28'>Job 28:28</a>). 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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> His breath kindles coals. A flame goes forth from his mouth-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "His breath is as live coals, and a flame goes out of his mouth". All this is the language of the cherubim. Leviathan, the great wild beast, was under God's control and Judah's whole experience with Babylon would result finally in the glory of Yahweh being revealed through this beast. The tragedy is that Babylon didn't fall as prophesied, at the time (it will in the last days, as Revelation 18 makes clear). The Jews preferred to remain in Babylon, and those who returned didn't act as they ought to have done. But it was the Divine intention that His glory be revealed through the fall of Babylon leading to Judah's exit from exile.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> There is strength in his neck. Terror dances before him-</p><h4> This would be true of the crocodile, whose neck is about the same diameter as its head. AV "Sorrow is turned into joy before him". "Sorrow" or "terror" is also translated "fear". This creature which would strike fear into any man actually turns fear into joy. Through this awful, terrifying beast under God's control, fear of judgment is turned into joy in God's presence.</h4>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The flakes of his flesh are joined together. They are firm on him. They can’t be moved-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The body of the crocodile is so compacted together that all its parts must move together, and the crocodile therefore has difficulty in turning. This theme is continued in the reference to him having a stone firm heart (:24). This is all similar language to that of the cherubim, who turned not as they went (<a href='B:330 10:11'>Eze 10:11</a>). See on :19,20. God's movement is likewise multi factorial, all touched by it are part of the wider plan to manifest His saving glory, and it moves one way- towards human salvation.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> His heart is as firm as a stone, yes, firm as the lower millstone-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> See on :23, which uses the same word for "firm".</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> When he raises himself up, the mighty are afraid. They retreat before his thrashing-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Likewise Job and all men must retreat before God's raising up of Himself in manifestation, as was happening in the ongoing theophany. Job has already perceived this in theory, saying that he can do nothing when God raises Himself up (s:w. <a href='B:220 31:23'>Job 31:23</a>). But now what he had heard by the ear, known in theory, his eye was seeing (<a href='B:220 42:5'>Job 42:5</a>). "Retreat" is AV "they purify themselves"; and the friends would soon have to do this, through Job's agency in offering for them as he had once offered for the purifying of his children. "Thrashing" is the word for 'destruction', commonly used of the exiles' destruction (<a href='B:290 51:19'>Isa 51:19</a> etc:). The exiles needed to see in that the raising up of God as leviathan, and to purify themselves in repentance.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> If one attacks him with the sword, it can’t prevail; nor the spear, the dart, nor the pointed shaft-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> No weapon formed could prosper against Leviathan, just as no weapon formed against Israel would (<a href='B:290 54:17'>Isa 54:17</a>)- if they were on the side of God's manifestation, if this theophany was for and not against them.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He counts iron as straw; and brass as rotten wood-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> All human strength was as nothing before leviathan; and Job grasps this lesson with both hands in the next chapter. See on :26.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The arrow can’t make him flee. Sling stones are like chaff to him-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Or "slingers". All the military strength and device of Gentile nations against Babylon would come to nothing. And yet Judah trusted desperately in Egypt and other Gentile nations to save them from Babylon. But God as the creator of this beast would remove it in due time. See on :26.</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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Clubs are counted as stubble. He laughs at the rushing of the javelin-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is all the language of Divine judgment (<a href='B:410 3:3'>Nah 3:3</a>; <a href='B:310 3:13'>Lam 3:13</a>). The horse doesn't fear that (<a href='B:220 39:23'>Job 39:23</a>), just as Leviathan doesn't (<a href='B:220 41:29'>Job 41:29</a>). He is as he is, not always wise, but free from the fear of judgment, not fearing the battle as men fear it. And this was perhaps how God wants His people to be, and this was in fact how Job was. See on :26.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> His undersides are like sharp potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "His belly is covered with jagged scales"—a thing which is true of the crocodile, but scarcely of any other beast. LXX appears to more pointedly refer to Babylon, the 'golden city': "His lair is formed of sharp points; and all the gold of the sea under him is an immense quantity of clay".</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He makes the deep to boil like a pot. He makes the sea like a pot of ointment-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Referring to how the path of the crocodile through water causes an impression of boiling water. The sea / water was seen as the habitation of evil, radical evil out of God's control. But Leviathan / the manifestation of God could make it boil, and yet also make it as placidly calm as a pot of ointment when he is finished. And that was what was about to happen to Job.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>"Boil" is the word used of Job's afflictions in <a href='B:220 30:27'>Job 30:27</a> 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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He makes a path shine after him. One would think the deep had white hair-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Referring to the white path of spray left by the crocodile as it passes through water. Job's experiences were of 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 caused by the passing of Leviathan, perhaps symbolic of the huge grief in Job's life, the pattern for Israel's future suffering at the hands of the beast::. 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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> On earth there is not his equal, that is made without fear-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "There is nothing upon the earth like to him, formed to be sported with by my angels". Again, we see taught the utter supremacy of God over the greatest of the wild beasts, Babylon.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He sees everything that is high. He is king over all the sons of pride- The idea may be that the crocodile is king over all the animals, even the proud lions- representative of Babylon, in the context of the exiles. LXX "He is king of all that are in the waters", speaking of Babylon's supremacy over the nations.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Then Job answered Yahweh-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job finally answers, and we are all ears. For God has said earlier that He doesn't accept Job's silence. He wants an answer of sorts, although there is no legitimate one. It has been observed that the Covenant name of Yahweh is not used in the speeches of Job and the friends. Instead they speak of God as El (power) or Shaddai (the fruitful one). This shows how they perceived God as the awesome power of the universe, the one who granted their physical blessings in response to their obedience to Him. 'God' was like a profitable insurance policy. But Yahweh is fundamentally a saviour-God, one who manifests Himself in men for their salvation, and is supremely manifested in the Son. Significantly, we are told in chapter 42 that Job finally spoke to Yahweh; it was to Him that he said: " I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee" (:5). He came to understand God's Name, His personality, in far greater fullness. He came to appreciate far more the extent of God's manifestation in the true friend which he looked forward to. Our sufferings and traumas have a like effect, if we respond as Job did. Note that both Jacob and Samson, in their time of spiritual maturity, also reached a higher appreciation of the names of God. Reflect likewise how Abraham told Isaac that “Elohim yir’eh”, the elohim would provide the sacrifice; but after the wonder of the ram being provided, he named the place “Yahweh yir’eh” (<a href='B:10 22:14'>Gen 22:14</a>). The experience of this foreshadowing of the cross led him to know the Yahweh Name more fully; and for this reason it can be shown that the cross was the supreme means of that Name being declared to men.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be restrained-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job has said this already in <a href='B:220 10:13'>Job 10:13</a> LXX: "Having these things in thyself, I know that thou canst do all things; for nothing is impossible with thee". Job at the end repeats these words, but really understanding and meaning them as a result of his sufferings, turning theoretical knowledge into experience (:5). In <a href='B:470 19:26'>Mat 19:26</a> the Lord explains the irrelevance of riches and human power to salvation and entering the Kingdom, saying that "with God all things are possible"- without money. This is almost quoting <a href='B:220 42:2'>Job 42:2</a>, where Job comes to the conclusion that all human strength is meaningless: "I know that You can do everything". It may be that Jesus is even implying that through the tribulation of his life he had come to the same conclusion as Job.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>I have pointed out that Job all through rejects the ideas promoted by the friends, the view of traditional wisdom (especially emphasized by Bildad, <a href='B:220 8:8-10'>Job 8:8-10</a>), that various supernatural ‘Satan’ monsters and figures were responsible for his experiences. Job began by saying that we receive both good and evil from God’s hand (<a href='B:220 2:10'>Job 2:10</a> cp. <a href='B:290 45:5-7'>Isa 45:5-7</a>). And he ends saying the same – that the Lord brought the trouble upon him (<a href='B:220 42:11'>Job 42:11</a>). He repeatedly sees God as the source of all his affliction. Hence God can say that Job has spoken about Him that which is right (<a href='B:220 42:8'>Job 42:8</a>). But Job came to realize the massive practical extent of what he had previously known in theory, what he had “by the hearing of the ear”. Now his eye saw / perceived that truly no plan of God can be thwarted, by any of the various ‘Satan’ monsters imagined by men (<a href='B:220 42:2'>Job 42:2</a>). We too may say that we believe in the omnipotence of God; but such a belief requires us to throw out all beliefs in supernatural Satan figures. And that’s not a merely intellectual exercise; to see the tragedies and cruelties of our lives as being ultimately from God and under His control is something which shakes us to the core. See on <a href='B:220 41:1'>Job 41:1</a>.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job is here quoting from God's accusation against him in <a href='B:220 38:2'>Job 38:2</a> LXX (see note there), and accepting it as true. His many words had darkened or hid the word / counsel of God.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Therefore I have uttered that which I did not understand-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job here directly engages with God's words in <a href='B:220 38:18'>Job 38:18</a>, using the same words as when God asked him if he could 'utter' his 'understanding' of the breadth of the earth. Those amongst the exiles who repented would be able to 'utter the understanding' once they perceived God's grace (s:w. <a href='B:290 40:21'>Isa 40:21</a>; <a href='B:300 9:12'>Jer 9:12</a>). Job had initially been sure that he could "understand" what God was doing (<a href='B:220 6:30'>Job 6:30</a>), but progressively came to realize that he could not "understand" God's ways (<a href='B:220 9:11'>Job 9:11</a>; <a href='B:220 23:8'>Job 23:8</a>). Now he realizes that even that confession that he didn't "understand" was inadequate, for if he really meant it, he would have not spoken as he had. It was through the work of the suffering servant that God's people would come to understand that which they had not understood (<a href='B:290 52:15'>Isa 52:15</a> s:w:). For in the death and work of the Lord Jesus there was a like theophany going on to that which Job was experiencing, and our response to it should be as his.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Things too wonderful for me, which I didn’t know-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job had earlier admitted that God's ways were too wonderful for him (s:w. <a href='B:220 9:10'>Job 9:10</a>), but now that theoretical knowledge of his own humanity was felt in reality (:5).</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> You said, ‘Listen, now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you will answer Me’-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> In his brief speech, Job engages directly with God's words, here in Hob 38:3; 40:7. His repentance and restoration were a direct result of his careful response to God's word, and this too was to be the path of Israel, if they would share in his restoration. God twice told Job that He was going to demand of him, and receive an answer (<a href='B:220 38:3'>Job 38:3</a>; <a href='B:220 40:7'>Job 40:7</a>). I suggest that God puts the words of repentance to Job, and Job then meekly repeats them. The same was intended to be true of the exiles' repentance (<a href='B:350 14:2'>Hos 14:2</a>).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>There appears to be a purposeful ambiguity in the text. GNB: "You told me to listen while you spoke and to try to answer your questions"; whereas LXX "But hear me, O Lord, that I also may speak: and I will ask thee, and do thou teach me". The LXX seems more likely, as the other readings then have little logical flow of connection with the next verse.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This must be connected with <a href='B:220 19:27'>Job 19:27</a>, where Job reveals that his perception of the Kingdom is that then he would see God with his own eye. But by now he has come to the realization that what the depth of Divine understanding which he thought would only be possible in the Kingdom, was in fact possible here and now. This same progressive, awesome realization that so much is possible here and now is something which both individually and collectively we must go through. He had thought this would only be at the resurrection (19:26), seeing a full relationship with God was, he felt, impossible in this life (28:12,20); but he came to see that even in this life, with the joy of a good conscience, the principle is even now realizable. He exalted that now, his eye saw God. It wasn’t all abstractly reserved for the Kingdom.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Job finally recognized that he had only heard of God "by the hearing of the ear". There had been no real spiritual vision of God, no real personal understanding- just hearing in the ear. Note how the Queen of Sheba alludes to Job’s words- she had heard in the ear, but her spirit failed when she saw with her eyes. In the theological context in which Job was, the idea of seeing God for oneself was a huge paradigm jump. Centuries later, righteous Isaiah was sure he would die because he thought he had seen Yahweh (<a href='B:290 6:5'>Isa 6:5</a>). Job reached the same spiritual peak of ambition and closeness to the Almighty which Moses did when he asked to be shown God's glory, with the apparent implication that he wanted to see Yahweh's face (<a href='B:20 33:18'>Exo 33:18</a>; <a href='B:20 33:20'>Exo 33:20</a>). This peak of ambition which characterized Job's maturity was partly due to the way in which God recounted His greatness before Job (e:g. ch. 38). And yet (as the above chart makes clear) an appreciation of the physical greatness of God was something which had consistently featured in Job's words. Yet he had to be taught that what he thought he knew and appreciated so well, in fact he didn't.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Abhor" is the word commonly used for spiritual rejection or condemnation. Job condemned himself; he recognized he as a sinful man of himself should be condemned. Perhaps God's imputed righteousness, whereby He counted Job as "perfect", had led Job over time to forget his own humanity and sin. And we who are justified in Christ can take a warning from this. Job had recognized that his flesh was 'abhorrent' (s:w. <a href='B:220 7:5'>Job 7:5</a>); but he had to stop making that an excuse for not perceiving that he himself was personally sinful. Whatever we view we take of our own nature, we must ever remember this.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The epilogue and prologue to Job are evidently related. Job begins sitting in dust and ashes and ends repenting in dust and ashes (<a href='B:220 2:8'>Job 2:8</a>; <a href='B:220 42:6'>Job 42:6</a>). The silence of the friends at the opening of the book is matched by the silence after God has finally spoken (<a href='B:220 40:4'>Job 40:4</a>). Job intercedes for his children (<a href='B:220 1:5'>Job 1:5</a>) and ends up interceding for his friends. Job begins with the description of being the Lord’s servant; and the book concludes on the same note (<a href='B:220 42:7-8'>Job 42:7-8</a>). The question of course is: ‘So what’s the equivalent of the ‘Satan’ figure in the epilogue?’. The omission is intended and obvious. Ultimately the answer is the essence of the whole book: the ‘Satan’, the adversary, is none other than God Himself, in His love.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>LXX "I have counted myself vile, and have fainted: and I esteem myself dust and ashes". This sounds as if Job now accepts in reality the truth of the mortality and frailty of man, whereas previously (and he has had much to say about it in his speeches) he was only mouthing the theory of it.</p>&nbsp;<p style='margin-left:1:415em'>“Wherefore I loathe my words and repent” (<a href='B:220 42:6'>Job 42:6</a> RVmg:). 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>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> It was so, that after Yahweh had spoken these words to Job, Yahweh said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends-</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. For other examples, see on <a href='B:220 20:15-16'>Job 20:15-16</a>; <a href='B:220 24:9'>Job 24:9</a>.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>For you have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job has-</p><h4> LXX "You have sinned". 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. After one of Eliphaz's speeches, Job responds with what appears to be a comment upon him, rather than God: "He hath made me weary: thou hast made desolate all my company. And thou hast filled me with wrinkles::. he teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me (surely Job speaks here about Eliphaz, not God): he gnasheth upon me::. mine enemy (satan) sharpeneth his eyes upon me. They (the astonished friends?) have gaped upon me with their mouth, they have smitten me::. they have gathered themselves together (as the friends did to Job) against me" (<a href='B:220 16:9-11'>Job 16:9-11</a>). Eliphaz was a Temanite, from where Job's afflicters came (<a href='B:220 6:19'>Job 6:19</a>). See on <a href='B:220 1:6'>Job 1:6</a>.</h4><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Eliphaz in <a href='B:220 22:3'>Job 22:3</a> was 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: "Is it any pleasure to the Almighty, that you are righteous? Or does it benefit Him, that you make your ways perfect?". 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:&nbsp;&nbsp;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'>Although Job did not speak wrongly about God (42:7;2:10) and kept patiently speaking the word of God despite the mockery it brought from the friends (<a href='B:660 5:10-11'>Jas 5:10-11</a>), this does not mean that Job or all that he said was blameless. The friends are not reprimanded for speaking wrongly about Job, but about God. Thus there was probably a fair degree of truth in their accusations concerning Job. Elihu also severely rebukes him, and unlike the three friends he is not rebuked for anything in the final analysis by God in Job 42; not to mention the accusation of 'darkening counsel without knowledge' (38:2) by the Lord Himself, backed up by four chapters of heavy reprimand of Job's reliance on human strength and wisdom. This led to Job retracting much of what he had said: "I am vile; what shall I answer Thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth::. I will not answer::. I will proceed no further::. I uttered that I understood not::. wherefore I abhor myself and repent" (<a href='B:220 40:4-5'>Job 40:4-5</a>; <a href='B:220 42:3-6'>Job 42:3-6</a>). This clearly establishes that much of Job's reasoning was faulty, although what he spoke before God was correct. Job was a prophet (<a href='B:220 29:4'>Job 29:4</a> cp. <a href='B:220 15:8'>Job 15:8</a>; <a href='B:220 23:12'>Job 23:12</a>; <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 therefore about other things. Elihu accused him of speaking "without knowledge" (<a href='B:220 34:35'>Job 34:35</a>), which Job admitted to doing (42:3).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The problem of reconciling the rebuke of Job's words with the statement that he has spoken what is right about God as opposed to the friends is the same as the frequent pronouncement that some kings of Judah walked blamelessly before God exactly as David did, when there is clear evidence in the record that this was not so. This may be because God imputes righteousness to a believer's whole life if his final acts are acceptable (cp. <a href='B:330 18:27-28'>Eze 18:27-28</a>). "Ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath" may refer to the response of the friends and Job to the rebukes of Elihu and&nbsp; the manifestation of God's power in the thunderstorm which must have been witnessed by the friends as well as by Job. Maybe they made some unrecorded response about God which was not right, whereas Job's supreme recognition of God's righteousness and humbling of himself was speaking that which was right about God. It has to be admitted that it is hard to understand all that Job says in the book about God as being "right", and he is specifically rebuked by God for his words.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Consider how Job shook his fist at God through many of his speeches- so much so that Elihu, on God’s behalf, had to rebuke him at the end. Finally, Yahweh asks Job to “declare thou unto me” (<a href='B:220 40:7'>Job 40:7</a>; <a href='B:220 42:4'>Job 42:4</a>): to make a declaration. And Job does, in a matchless humility:&nbsp; “</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>therefore have I uttered that I understood not</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes”. And Yahweh immediately comments to the unrepentant friends: “Ye have not spoken of [‘unto’] me the thing that is right [Heb. ‘prepared’], as my servant Job hath” (42:7). Evidently Job hadn’t spoken “right” earlier; but it’s as if God seizes upon this one recognition of failure and is so pleased with it. He was looking for repentance in Job, and triumphantly seizes upon it once it is stuttered out by him. And so with our preaching of the Gospel and in our seeking to win back brethren who go astray [and I do hope we all make some personal effort to do this</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>]: seek for response.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>As an example of how Job had indeed spoken wrongly about God, consider <a href='B:220 19:6'>Job 19:6</a>: "know now that God has subverted me". "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 now 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><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The words of God and Elihu brought Job to a shuddering spiritual climax. From his heart he cried: "I am vile::. I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes::. I am melted" (42:6 LXX). It was concerning this matchless confession that God could say that Job had "spoken of me the thing which is right(eousness)". God swept over the times when Job shook his fist at God, imputing righteousness to him on behalf of this confession. Thus the Spirit later speaks of the long-enduring patience of Job (<a href='B:660 5:11'>Jas 5:11</a>); God was able to look on his good side rather than the bad side, due to Job's confession of that bad side. To confess our sinfulness properly is to declare, by implication, righteous things about God.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Now therefore, take to yourselves seven bulls and seven rams-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Numbers and offerings understood to be necessary when approaching God (<a href='B:40 23:1'>Num 23:1</a>; <a href='B:40 23:29'>Num 23:29</a>).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>And go to My servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and My servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept him, that I not deal with you according to your folly-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will only accept him: for but his sake, I would have destroyed you, for ye have not spoken the truth against my servant Job". Job's earlier appeals to the friends to hear and listen may not be simply asking them to hear his words; they may be an appeal to them to hear and repent (<a href='B:220 13:6'>Job 13:6</a>). This desire for their repentance and understanding builds up within Job as the speeches progress. And again, this is preparing him for the Lord's final request to him- to pray for the friends and bring about their salvation. We note that the intercession of a third party alone cannot save; the friends had to offer "for yourselves" an offering. And yet in the final equation, <a href='B:220 42:8'>Job 42:8</a> implies that the forgiveness of Job’s friends was only because he prayed for them. What stronger motivation could we have to pray earnestly for each other? I have pointed out several times that Job suffered the judgment for sins which he had not committed, but the friends (and later Israel) had done. The endurance of suffering is always helped by appreciating that there is an element to it which is for the benefit and salvation of others. Hence Paul reasons in 2 Corinthians 1 that whatever we suffer is so that we may minister salvation and comfort to others; perhaps he had Job in mind, as a pattern for us all.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>For you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as My servant Job has-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job had not always spoken right of God; for He does not mock at the "sudden" suffering of His people, such as Job experienced in the sudden loss of all he had, as Job had wrongly claimed in <a href='B:220 9:23'>Job 9:23</a>. So we marvel the more at God's final statement that Job had spoken rightly about Him. This Divine comment may indeed simply be upon Job's statement of repentance. But all the same, we would expect God to clarify that was what He intended, and to offer some note that Job had indeed falsely accused Him. But God doesn't. He doesn't need to. He has completely justified Job by faith, clothing him with imputed righteousness. And His demonstration of His ways has in any case made the required point, and Job recognized that. See on :7.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went, and did what Yahweh commanded them, and Yahweh accepted Job-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> LXX "And he pardoned their sin for the sake of Job". We have another example of sin being forgiven for the sake of third parties in <a href='B:480 2:5'>Mar 2:5</a>; and there is huge implication in this for our own prayers and concern for others. Literally, "Yahweh accepted the face of Job", as in :8. In <a href='B:220 22:26'>Job 22:26</a> the friends had insisted that Job could not lift up his face to God. 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>). But now the friends are only saved because Job was allowed to lift up his face to God for them. 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><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The conversion of Job is a poignant lesson in interceding for others motivated by our own forgiveness; he prays for his friends, he mediates for them, after gratefully realizing that his own search for mediation with God in order to obtain forgiveness had somehow been answered, by grace (<a href='B:220 42:6'>Job 42:6</a>; <a href='B:220 42:8'>Job 42:8</a>).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>"Accepted" is literally 'accepted the face' of Job. The friends had mocked that if he confessed his sins, God would accept his face (<a href='B:220 11:15'>Job 11:15</a>; <a href='B:220 22:26'>Job 22:26</a>). There was complete appropriacy that finally this came true, to their salvation. We also see here God's disagreement with Elihu, who had argued that God didn't accept the faces of any man (<a href='B:220 34:19'>Job 34:19</a>). God was likewise prepared to accept the faces of the exiles, but their behaviour precluded this (s:w. <a href='B:460 1:8-9'>Mal 1:8-9</a>).</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Yahweh turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The language of Job’s captivity being ‘turned’ is the very term used about the restoration of Judah from Babylon (<a href='B:300 29:14'>Jer 29:14</a>; <a href='B:230 126:4'>Psa 126:4</a>). The idiom of turning the captivity is clearly used to connect with the exiles returning from captivity when they repented. That was the intention, anyway. And they were to pray for those who had abused and misunderstood them, and they too could be forgiven.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Perhaps the Lord alludes to Job favourably at this point; 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> = <a href='B:220 31:30'>Job 31:30</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><p style='margin-left:1:415em'><a href='B:660 5:11'>Jas 5:11</a> comments: "Behold, we call them blessed that endured. You have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the result that the Lord intended, how the Lord is full of pity and is merciful". Job was a prophet (<a href='B:220 29:4'>Job 29:4</a>), one of those referred to in the preceding <a href='B:660 5:10'>Jas 5:10</a>: "Brothers, take for an example the suffering and patience of the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord". "Full of pity" is very intense in Greek- elsewhere it is translated "bowels", "inward affection". Thus the position of Job touched the Lord's heart in a way few other human experiences are said to in the word. The tremendous pity which God showed for Job would also be shown to the friends if they fully fellowshipped his example by their patient endurance. Perhaps the "pity" in view is God's pity to the friends rather than Job. <a href='B:660 5:13'>Jas 5:13</a> "Is any among you suffering? Let him pray" uses &nbsp;the same word translated "affliction" in <a href='B:660 5:10'>Jas 5:10</a> concerning Job's hardships. The idea is that we should channel all our feelings and words through prayer, rather than indulge in the circular talking of Job and the friends which was the exact opposite of "Yes, yes::. no, no". &nbsp; <a href='B:660 5:16'>Jas 5:16</a> continues the Job allusions:&nbsp;"Therefore, confess your sins to each other, and pray for each other, so that you may be healed. The supplication of a righteous man avails much in its working". Job confessed his sins and prayed for his friends, and they were forgiven.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Yahweh gave Job twice as much as he had before-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This is the historical basis for the restoration prophecy of <a href='B:290 61:7'>Isa 61:7</a> "Instead of your shame you shall have double". The idea may simply be that they inherit double what they ought to, such is God's grace to them and desire to load them with double blessing (<a href='B:290 40:2'>Isa 40:2</a>; <a href='B:450 9:12'>Zec 9:12</a>), just as He gave double to Job as representative of restored Israel (<a href='B:220 42:10'>Job 42:10</a>). The revival of Job's fortunes is surely behind the Lord's promise to each of us in <a href='B:490 18:10'>Luk 18:10</a>, that whoever loses house, brothers, wife or children shall receive them many times over in this life, and salvation in the age to come. This means that the Lord understood Job's path as that of every man.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Then came there to him all his brothers, and all his sisters, and all those who had been of his acquaintance before, and ate bread with him in his house. They comforted him, and consoled him concerning all the evil that Yahweh had brought on him. Each one also gave him a piece of money, and each one a ring of gold-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The 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:&nbsp;&nbsp;LXX "and each one gave him a lamb, and four drachms' weight of gold, even of unstamped gold". The gift of a lamb would perhaps hint at their need for forgiveness; and they gave him the lamb to offer it for them as the family priest. Again, the sufferings of Job, like those of the suffering servant, were finally towards the salvation of others.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> So Yahweh blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> The friends had all spoken of the restoration of Job's prosperity at this "latter end", if he accepted their false accusations of him (<a href='B:220 5:18'>Job 5:18</a>; <a href='B:220 5:26'>Job 5:26</a>; <a href='B:220 8:20-21'>Job 8:20-21</a>; <a href='B:220 11:13-19'>Job 11:13-19</a>). That restoration now came about, but not on their terms. But rather, according to God's pure grace. It is this "latter end" which may be in view when James speaks of God's tender pity at "the end of the Lord" (<a href='B:660 5:11'>Jas 5:11</a>). The end of the Lord was the "end of Job". God and His child were intimately bound up in their destinies. That became evident in the end of Job, and it was a parade example to God's child Israel.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The friends had insisted that Job had lost his blessings because of disobedience, but his "latter end" (s:w:) would "increase" if he repented. Hence <a href='B:220 8:7'>Job 8:7</a> "Though your beginning was small, yet your latter end would greatly increase". Job's "latter end" did increase (s:w. <a href='B:220 42:12'>Job 42:12</a>) and Bildad lived to see it, and thereby realized how wrong his judgment had been. Bildad's words may be a recognition of how Job arose to wealth from small beginnings, implying that his "latter end" would only really increase if he were repentant and Godly (:5,6). The fact Job's latter end did increase was therefore evidence that God accepted him as Godly. The same word is used of the "latter end" of Israel, which will likewise be "increased" and blessed; and could have been so for the exiles had they followed the path of Job (<a href='B:290 41:22'>Isa 41:22</a>; <a href='B:290 46:10'>Isa 46:10</a>; <a href='B:300 29:11'>Jer 29:11</a>; <a href='B:300 31:17'>Jer 31:17</a>).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand female donkeys-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> This may be intended to demonstrate that his wealth was exactly double what he had before. For someone living on the edge of the wilderness, from where whirlwinds could blow in and Bedouins invade, these were huge numbers. It would have to follow that he had a huge retinue of servants able to care for them all.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He had also seven sons and three daughters-</p><h4> The connection is with <a href='B:290 49:20'>Isa 49:20</a> "The children of your bereavement shall yet say in your ears", or LXX "For thy sons whom thou hast lost shall say in thine ears". The idea of receiving back children who had been once slain is clearly alluded to in Job's experience, who is set up as representative of the Jews in exile. The language of the LXX suggests their resurrection of lost children. The idea is obviously that Job's situation was restored. But the loss of children is not capable of restoration in any meaningful sense. One wonders therefore if his slain children were resurrected. All his sufferings were the innocent suffering the judgment for others' sins. And those others were his friends and family He was not just suffering for himself. 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. If indeed his experience of representative suffering led to the resurrection and salvation of his sinful children, we would have an even more powerful and detailed prefigurement of the work of the Lord Jesus, the ultimate suffering servant. See on <a href='B:220 21:12'>Job 21:12</a>.</h4>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> He called the name of the first, Jemimah-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Day of Yah", looking forward to how Job's restoration was a foretaste of the coming day of Yahweh at the restoration of Israel.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>And the name of the second, Keziah-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Possibly 'scraped or peeled by Yah', perhaps referring to the scraping off of leprosy (s:w. <a href='B:30 14:41'>Lev 14:41</a>), as Job had scraped his skin.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>And the name of the third, Keren Happuch-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> "Keren" is 'horn' or 'hill', recalling how Job's horn had been in the dust (s:w. <a href='B:220 16:15'>Job 16:15</a>), perhaps referring to his own reproductive organ, and thereby recalling his ultimate degradation (representing Israel's, <a href='B:310 2:3'>Lam 2:3</a>) now so gloriously restored. "Happuch" is 'colours', looking ahead to the final restoration of Israel decked with "fair colours" (s:w. <a href='B:290 54:11'>Isa 54:11</a>).</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> In all the land were no women found so beautiful as the daughters of Job-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Perhaps they looked ahead to the revival of the daughters of Zion, which was to become the most beautiful place in the land (<a href='B:230 48:2'>Psa 48:2</a> s:w:).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Job gave his daughters an equal inheritance with his sons- something which would have been unusual in those times. Through all his sufferings, Job came to see the value and meaning of persons before God, be they male or female; he overcame the background culture, the thinking of his surrounding society, and openly showed to all the immense value he had come to place upon each and every human being, regardless of their gender:&nbsp;</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> After this Job lived one hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons’ sons, to four generations-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'> Seeing his sons may be another hint they were resurrected. Seeing Job lived after the time of Abraham, this was a great lifespan for the times.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'> So Job died, being old and full of days- The very language used of the death of the patriarchs, as if to show that although Job was not directly their seed, he was in spirit.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>I have suggested that the sufferings of Job are framed in language which connects with the sufferings of Hezekiah and also Israel, whom he epitomized, at the time of the Assyrian invasion. Hezekiah and Israel are both types of Christ (note how so many of the curses on Israel for their disobedience came upon Christ on the cross). The suffering servant of Isaiah often concerns all three of them. Thus Job's sufferings point forward, via Hezekiah and Israel, to Christ. His final vindication when he prays for his friends, lives many years, and sees his sons (<a href='B:220 42:8'>Job 42:8</a>; <a href='B:220 42:16'>Job 42:16</a>) thus connects with the prophecy of Christ making "intercession for the transgressors" who persecuted him- i:e. the Jews- and seeing his seed, prolonging his days, after his crucifixion and resurrection (<a href='B:290 53:10'>Isa 53:10</a>; <a href='B:290 53:12'>Isa 53:12</a> - note how Isaiah 53 is a chronological account of the events of Christ's death, resurrection and ascension). The description of Job as the son of man and a worm uses identical language as that used about Christ on the cross in <a href='B:230 22:6'>Psa 22:6</a>. Thus the friends for whom Job prayed are equated with the Jews who persecuted Christ, for whom Christ made intercession both on the cross and after his ascension.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>LXX adds: "And then he died at a very great age. And Job died, an old man and full of days: and it is written that he will rise again with those whom the Lord raises up. This man is described in the Syriac book as living in the land of Ausis, on the borders of Idumea and Arabia: and his name before was Jobab; and having taken an Arabian wife, he begot a son whose name was Ennon. And he himself was the son of his father Zare, one of the sons of Esau, and of his mother Bosorrha, so that he was the fifth from Abraam. And these were the kings who reigned in Edom, which country he also ruled over: first, Balac, the son of Beor, and the name of his city was Dennaba: but after Balac, Jobab, who is called Job, and after him Asom, who was governor out of the country of Thaeman: and after him Adad, the son of Barad, who destroyed Madiam in the plain of Moab; and the name of his city was Gethaim. And his friends who came to him were Eliphaz, of the children of Esau, king of the Thaemanites, Baldad sovereign the Sauchaeans, Sophar king of the Minaeans".</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Blessed is the man who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>This Psalm can be understood as a general introduction to the Psalms, summing up the way of the Godly. We should note from this verse that the teaching is not that we should have nothing to do with sinners; but rather that we should not walk in their way nor share their judgments of situations. This is the art of being the light of the world- to be in the world, as the Lord Jesus was, to engage constantly with it, but to walk, stand and judge in God's way. It is the "way" of sinners which will perish (:6); our judgment is therefore according to our overall "way", rather than occasional actions of sin or righteousness. <a href='B:230 1:1'>Psa 1:1</a> seems to allude to Lot's progressive apostasy, speaking of the righteous man not walking, standing or sitting with the wicked- in other words, the righteous man will learn from Lot's mistakes.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Any serious reading of the Psalms raises repeated questions as to the original context of each Psalm. Some were written by David, but only parts of them seem to apply to his life; some verses clearly apply to other historical contexts, especially the situation of the exiles in Babylon and the restoration. A verse here and there has clear relevance to the Lord Jesus, but the surrounding verses don't. Some verses are quoted in the New Testament but the surrounding contexts don't appear to fit the context in which the verse is used. I suggest the resolution of all this is to understand that the Psalms were written largely by David for use in the future temple, or in the sanctuary as it existed at his time; but under Divine inspiration, they were rewritten and reapplied to various later historical contexts. This explains why some verses in a Psalm are very relevant to e:g. the restoration from Babylon, but other verses aren't; they remain only clearly appropriate to David. This also helps explain why the Septuagint (which is the preferred version for quotation in the New Testament) is in places very different from the Hebrew (Masoretic) text. The points of major difference are likely a result of this process of rewriting.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'><strong>The Inspired Re-Writing Of The Old Testament In Babylon</strong></p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Briefly, here are corroborative reasons for thinking that perhaps the whole existing canon of Old Testament Scripture was [under inspiration] edited, re-written and codified during the exile in Babylon:</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>- According to Jewish tradition, Ezra edited and produced the Pentateuch in its present form in Babylon (Carl Kraeling, The Synagogue (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956) pp. 232-235 reproduces plates from the synagogue wall at Dura-Europas showing Ezra doing this in Babylon). This would account for the record of Jacob in exile being so verbally similar to the allusions made to it in the restoration-from-Babylon prophecies in Isaiah. There was certainly great scribal activity in Babylon- 2Ma_2:13 speaks of Nehemiah founding a library of the Jewish scriptures there. This gives another perspective on the way Nehemiah’s prayer in Nehemiah 1 is so full of references to Deuteronomy- if the latter had just been re-written and presented to the Jews in Babylon. The commands to build the tabernacle are repeated in Exodus, and there is the record of Israel's golden calf apostasy set in the middle of them. <a href='B:20 25:1'>Exo 25:1</a> to <a href='B:20 31:18'>Exo 31:18</a> give the tabernacle building commands, then there's the golden calf incident, and then the commands are repeated in Exodus 35-40. Surely this was edited in this manner to give encouragement to the exiles- the commands to rebuild the temple had been given in detail in Ezekiel 40-48, but the exiles failed- and yet, the implication runs, God was still willing to work again with His people in the building of His sanctuary despite their failure. There is good internal reason to think that the Pentateuch likewise was re-written in places to bring out the relevance of Israel's past to those in captivity. Consider the use of the word pus, 'scatter'. It was God's intention that mankind should scatter abroad in the earth and subdue it (<a href='B:10 1:28'>Gen 1:28</a>); but it required the judgment of the tower of Babel to actually make them 'scatter' (<a href='B:10 11:4'>Gen 11:4</a>). Thus even in judgment, God worked out His positive ultimate intentions with humanity. And this word pus is the same word used with reference to Judah's 'scattering' from the land into Babylonian captivity (<a href='B:330 11:17'>Eze 11:17</a>; <a href='B:330 20:34'>Eze 20:34</a>; <a href='B:330 20:41'>Eze 20:41</a>; <a href='B:330 28:25'>Eze 28:25</a>). The intention, surely, was to show the captives that they had been scattered as the people had at the judgment of Babel / Babylon, but even in this, God was working out His purpose with His people and giving them the opportunity to fulfill His original intentions for them.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>- The Talmud claims that the majority of the prophetic books were re-written and edited into their present form during the captivity, under the guidance of a group of priests called "The Great Assembly" (M. Simon and I:W. Slotski, eds, The Soncino Talmud: Babba Bathra 14b - 15a (London: The Soncino Press, 1935) Vol. 1 pp. 70,71). There are many verbal points of contact between Chronicles and the returned exiles.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>- Time and again we encounter the phrase "to this day" in the historical books of the Old Testament (e:g. "the Syrians came to Elath, and dwelt there to this day", <a href='B:120 16:6'>2Ki 16:6</a>)- and each time it appears the reference is to the time of the restoration, when presumably those books were edited and rewritten as relevant for the Jews, either those still in Babylon or those who had returned to the land. A good case can be made, for example, that the book of Judges was rewritten at that time in order to show that God's people don't need a King in order to be His people, but rather they can be ruled by Spirit-filled leaders (See W:J. Dumbrell, 'No King In Israel', Journal For The Study Of The Old Testament Vol. 25 (1983) pp. 23-33).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>- The way Deuteronomy refers to cities East of Jordan as being "on this side Jordan" (e:g. <a href='B:50 4:41'>Deu 4:41</a>; <a href='B:50 4:49'>Deu 4:49</a>) would suggest that the editor of the book was writing from a location East of Jordan- likely Babylon. The comment in <a href='B:60 15:63'>Jos 15:63</a> that "the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day" sounds very much as if it were written in the captivity, lamenting the way that the local tribes still lived in Zion. "The children of Judah" is very much a phrase used about the exiles. Thus books like Joshua were written up in the captivity in order to show Judah how they were repeating the sins of their forefathers, and appealing to them thereby to learn the lessons. It's even possible that the lament that "Geshur and Maacath dwell in the midst of Israel unto this day" (<a href='B:60 13:13'>Jos 13:13</a> RV) is a reference to "Geshem the Arabian" and Sanballat dwelling amongst Israel at the time of their return (<a href='B:160 2:19'>Neh 2:19</a> etc:).</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>- It has been observed that the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings have certain similarities. For example, they all quote the Deuteronomy version of Israel's earlier history, leading to the suggestion that Deuteronomy was the first of the collection, a kind of introductory background history. The curses listed in Deuteronomy 28 are all especially relevant to the situation in Judah before the Babylonian invasion, and a number of the curses are alluded to in Lamentations as being descriptive of the situation after the final destruction of Jerusalem. Some of the curses can have little other application, e:g. <a href='B:50 28:41'>Deu 28:41</a> speaks of begetting children, "but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity". Other relevant passages are <a href='B:50 28:36'>Deu 28:36</a> (a king taken captive), 49,50,52. These "former prophets" (Deuteronomy - 2 Kings) appear to have been edited during the exile as history which spoke to the concerns and needs of the exiled people of God (The similarities of style, language and indications of common editing are explained in detail in Martin Noth, The Deuteronomistic History (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1981); there is a good summary in Terrence Fretheim, Deuteronomic History (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989). See too M. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy And The Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972)). This combined history speaks mainly of the southern Kingdom, which was the group who went to captivity in Babylon; and it explains why this captivity was justified, as well as giving many examples of where repentance could bring about a restoration (<a href='B:110 8:46-53'>1Ki 8:46-53</a> is specific). This history addresses the questions which concerned the captives- does God abandon His people for ever? Are Israel entirely to blame for what happened? Is there hope of restoration after receiving Divine judgment and breaching His covenant? Can God have a relationship with His people without a temple? To what extent will God always honour the promises to Abraham and David? Should other gods also be worshipped? Reading these books from this perspective reveals how incident after incident was especially selected by the inspired editors in Babylon in order to guide God's people there. Take the story of Naaman's Hebrew "maid". Naaman had been the enemy of Israel, and that little child [Heb:] was one of the children of those taken captive. But she witnessed to her captor; he turned to Yahweh; and his skin became like that of "a little child" (<a href='B:120 5:14'>2Ki 5:14</a>)- like her. The message was obvious. The children of the captivity were likewise to witness to their captors and bring them into covenant with Yahweh.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>- A comparison of Psalms 14, 53 illustrate this process of re-writing at Hezekiah's time. These Psalms are both "A Psalm of David", and are virtually identical apart from <a href='B:230 53:5'>Psa 53:5</a> adding: "There were they in great fear, where no fear was; For God hath scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee: Thou hast put them to shame, because God hath rejected them". This surely alludes to the Assyrian army encamped against Jerusalem (<a href='B:140 32:1'>2Ch 32:1</a>), put into fear by the Angels, and returning "with shame of face to his own land" (<a href='B:140 32:21'>2Ch 32:21</a>). Yet both Psalms conclude with a verse which connects with the exiles in Babylonian captivity: "Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! When God bringeth back the captivity of his people, Then shall Jacob rejoice, and Israel shall be glad". So it would appear that the initial Psalm was indeed written by David; the version of Psalms 14 which is now Psalms 53 was added to and adapted in Hezekiah's time (<a href='B:240 25:1'>Pro 25:1</a>), and both versions had a final verse added to them during the exile. A number of Psalms appear to have some verses relevant to the exile, and others relevant to earlier historical situations. It would seem that an inspired writer inserted the verses which spoke specifically to the exilic situation. Psalms 102 is an example. <a href='B:230 102:2-12'>Psa 102:2-12</a>; <a href='B:230 102:24-25'>Psa 102:24-25</a> a appear to be the original lament; and the other verses are relevant to the exile. Psalms 22 likewise appears to have had vv. 28-32 added with reference to the exiles; other examples in Psalms 9, 10; Psalms 59; Psalms 66; Psalms 68; <a href='B:230 69:34'>Psa 69:34</a>; Psalms 85; Psalms 107; Psalms 108, 118.</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>- There are evident similarities between the vocabulary and style of Zechariah, Job and the prophets of the restoration. Thus both Job and Zechariah refer to the ideas of the court of Heaven, "the satan" etc. My suggestion is that Job was rewritten during the exile, hence the many points of contact between Job and Isaiah's prophecies about the restoration. When we read that Job has suffered less than his iniquities deserve (<a href='B:220 11:6'>Job 11:6</a>), this is the very term used to describe Israel's sufferings in Babylon (<a href='B:150 9:13'>Ezr 9:13</a>). Job, "the servant of the Lord", is being set up as Israel, just as that same term is used about Israel in Babylon throughout the latter part of Isaiah. Job's mockery by the Arabian friends perhaps parallels the Samaritan and Babylonian mockery of Judah; his loss of children is very much the tragedy of Judah at the hands of the Babylonians which Lamentations focuses upon. And Job's final revival and restoration after repentance would therefore speak of the blessed situation which Judah could have had at their return to the land. Job's response to the words of God and Elihu would then speak of Judah's intended repentance as a result of God's word spoken to them by prophets like Haggai and Zechariah. There are many connections between Job and the latter parts of Isaiah which speak about the restoration.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'>but his delight is in Yahweh’s law-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>David may have learnt this from Samuel's teaching that God doesn't delight in sacrifices but in obedience; and if God delights in obedience then our delight should be in the law / principles / commandments which are the basis of that obedience (s:w. <a href='B:90 15:22'>1Sa 15:22</a>). David's "delight" was in the things of the future Kingdom of God (s:w. <a href='B:100 23:5'>2Sa 23:5</a>); our "delight" in those things is reflected in our attitudes to God's word. And we shall be finally judged according to our 'delights', our dominant desires (s:w. <a href='B:250 3:17'>Ecc 3:17</a>; <a href='B:250 8:6'>Ecc 8:6</a>). The Lord Jesus was devoted to sharing Yahweh's "delight" (<a href='B:290 53:10'>Isa 53:10</a>). We shall be judged according to what are our dominant desires:&nbsp;</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>On His law he meditates day and night-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>David makes several allusions to Joshua. He speaks of how the man who meditates in God’s word day and night will prosper in his ways; and he uses the very same Hebrew words as found in <a href='B:60 1:8'>Jos 1:8</a> in recounting God’s charge to Joshua. But David’s point is that the man who does these things will not “walk in the counsel of the ungodly”- he won't give in to peer pressure. The fact that Joshua was wrongly influenced by his peers in later life would indicate that he didn’t keep the charge given to him. David speaks of how he "meditates day and night" on God's law (<a href='B:230 1:2'>Psa 1:2</a>), and also of how he meditates upon "God" at night (<a href='B:230 63:6'>Psa 63:6</a>) and in the day (<a href='B:230 71:24'>Psa 71:24</a>). "The word was God", and still is, in the sense that our devotions to God are to be according to His word; for in practice, what we see of God is largely through His hand and statements in history which we find in His word.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'>He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither; whatever he does shall prosper-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Bringing forth fruit in season is the language of the blessings which could come upon Israel for obedience to the covenant (s:w. <a href='B:30 25:9'>Lev 25:9</a>; <a href='B:30 26:4'>Lev 26:4</a>; <a href='B:450 8:12'>Zec 8:12</a>). But even if they weren't as a nation, the essence of these blessings was to be realized in the lives of individuals who were. Likewise had Judah been obedient and responsive to God's word, leaves which don't wither would have appeared around the restored temple system (s:w. <a href='B:330 47:12'>Eze 47:12</a>). Their lack of spiritual fruit precluded those potential prophecies coming true. But these words are quoted in <a href='B:730 22:2'>Rev 22:2</a> concerning our holding out of life to the mortal population at the Lord's return. The conclusion? If we witness now we are living the Kingdom life now, and therefore we will be perpetuated in that time. The fact we teach others to do righteousness will therefore be a factor in our acceptance (<a href='B:470 5:19'>Mat 5:19</a>); although not the only one. There is a connection between us 'freely giving' the Gospel now (<a href='B:470 10:8'>Mat 10:8</a>), and being given 'freely given' salvation at the last day (<a href='B:520 8:32'>Rom 8:32</a>; <a href='B:730 21:6'>Rev 21:6</a>). The freeness of God’s gift to us should be reflected in a free spirited giving out of the Gospel to others.</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'>The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>This is the language of the future condemnation of the wicked, alluded to in Daniel's vision of the image being reduced to chaff and driven away. But the essence of judgment is now. They are now like that, and this will be revealed in the future day of judgment (:5).</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'>Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous-</p><p style='margin-left:1:415em'>See on :4. The congregation of the righteous of today is connected to the crowd of justified ones at the day of future judgment; for they 'stand' in that they are made to stand, justified by grace. This is what Paul envisages in <a href='B:520 14:4'>Rom 14:4</a> in a judgment seat context: "Yes, he shall be made to stand up. For the Lord has power to make him stand".</p>


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<p style='margin-left:1:415em'>For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish- God 'knows' the way of all men. But the Hebrew sense of 'knowing' is not that of technical knowledge, but more of relationship. Our way of life in relationship with Him; whereas the wicked don't walk with that 'knowledge', and their way or path leads to eternal death.</p><h2></h2>


