	The Book of Job

by Fr. William Most


Introduction: 

     Job consists of a prose introduction and conclusion - 
which may have existed separately from the rest, and of a 
large poetic core. Satan - who seems not to be the same as the 
devil, merely an opponent - tells God that Job would not obey 
if he were afflicted. God gives permission to afflict Job 
greatly. So Job's suffering is permitted as a test - an idea 
that is a bit new, for usually  suffering had been considered 
as a divine punishment for sin (and it could be that). 

	Three friends of Job come, but do not really console 
him: they say he must have sinned or the affliction  would not 
have come. Job insists on his innocence. The fact that God 
could afflict an innocent man disturbs Job, he almost becomes 
angry with God at some points. Finally he asks the Almighty to 
answer him. God does speak from a storm: Would Job condemn God 
so he, Job could seem just? Job confesses he has not reacted 
well, he has tried to deal with things above him, he repents 
in dust and ashes. God directs Job's friends to ask Job to 
pray for them, so their fault may be pardoned. In the prose 
conclusion Job gets back much more than what he had lost.	

     	The Book of Job is concerned with the problem of 
suffering. Only part of the truth had been revealed at that 
time. Before, people had tended to think suffering was a 
punishment for sin. It sometimes is that,but not always.Yet 
that belief persisted even into the time of Christ.Cf.the 
question:"who has sinned" This man or his parents? (Jn 9.2-3).

	Job will make a degree of progress,namely, that it comes 
out clearly that not always is suffering a punishment for sin. 
Yet the positive value of suffering remained to be made clear 
by Jesus.

	There is however a problem: We know we are adopted 
children of God. Children, precisely because they are 
children, have a claim to be in their Father's house,which is 
heaven.  How and why then is there any need or role for 
suffering?

     The Council of Trent (DS 1532 and 1582) taught three 
things: 1)that we receive justification with no merit at all. 
Justification means the first reception of sanctifying 
grace,which in turn means that the indwelling of the Holy 
Trinity in our souls makes us sharers in the divine nature 
(2.Peter 1.4) and adopted children of God. 2)So we have a 
*claim* to go to our Father's house.A claim can be called a 
merit.Yet it is a different kind of merit.Although it is as it 
were a ticket to heaven, it is a ticket we get for 
free,without at all earning it. 3) Once we have this status of 
children,sharing in the very nature of the Father,any good we 
do has a special added dignity, which makes it suitable that 
He increase our ability to know Him face to face.Since that 
vision is infinite, but we are finite receptacles, our 
capability to receive could grow indefinitely, for it will 
never reach the infinite. That growth is what we call growth 
in sanctifying grace. And even though the first grace-the 
basic ticket itself - is not at all earned, there is a sense 
in which additions to the ability to see face to face can be 
earned. Yet we do not earn these as individuals.It is only 
inasmuch as we are a)members of Christ and b) like Him, that 
we get in on the claim which HE established.

	In this sense we could say what one student once said in 
a class about salvation: "You can't earn it,but you can blow 
it". That is, children do not have to earn the love and care 
of their parents. Yet they could earn to lose it.

	So now we have focused our problem. We can rightly say: 
All we have to do it to keep from earning to lose this ticket.

	How then does this fit in with this such texts as 
Romans 8.17: "We are heirs of God,fellow heirs with Christ, 
PROVIDED THAT we suffer with Him,so we may also be glorified 
with Him"?  Similarly Jesus Himself said that He is the  vine, 
and we the branches (John 15.1-6). The Father will prune a 
fruitful branch, to make it bear still more fruit. Again, the 
Epistle to the Hebrews (12.5-13)  quotes the Old Testament 
(Proverbs 3.11-12) saying that the Father disciplines us as 
children.That is a sign He cares for us,loves us.

	The solution is really easy: If we remained always 
perfectly innocent children,there would be no need at all for 
purification. But the problem is that we all do sin (1 John 
1.8). 

     Therefore: a)The Holiness of our Father wants His 
children clean enough to enter His house. Some sin so gravely 
as to even lose divine sonship. Others do not lose it,but 
become dirty children,who need a cleanup. 

     We could explain it this way:The Holiness of the Father 
loves all that is right and good.But a sinner disturbs the 
harmony of order,and disturbs His image which He had given us, 
not only in creating us to His own image and likeness, but 
still more by making us conformed to the image of His 
son (Romans 8.29). Sin disturbs that image,Mortal sin destroys 
the image of His Son in us; venial sin may as it were tarnish 
it. Put it another way: The scales of the objective order need 
to be rebalanced if we, His children,have put it even somewhat 
out of order by our personal sins. The sinner takes from one 
pan of a two pan scales something he has no right to have. It 
might he so grave as to cause him to lose divine sonship--
mortal sin.But it can be something lesser,which while it does 
not cause us to lose that sonship, yet it does mean we are 
bad,we might say,dirty children.We need to be cleaned up. The 
essential, the infinite work of rebalancing the scales is done 
by Jesus,our Brother,with whom He are heirs as Romans 8.17 
says. Yet the same line,Romans 8.17 also says we are heirs 
"provided that we suffer with Him." 

     As we indicated, by mortal sin we could even lose our 
status as sons  of the FAther and brothers and sisters of 
Jesus. Yet even lesser,venial sins,make us not clean enough to 
get in without some clean up or polishing.So that needs to be 
done. In other words, each one of us has an obligation to 
rebalance,by suffering,for the imbalance even smaller sins 
have caused.

               b)Just as a really good Father trains His 
children by discipline to make them grow up and be what they 
should be,so our Father in heaven,disciplines us  for the same 
purpose,as we said above,citing Hebrews and Proverbs.

               c)If we really love our Father,we will want to 
see that He gets the pleasure of giving to all those whom He 
wants to be His children.But some of them have even forfeited 
that position,while others are somewhat soiled. In either 
case,in order that He may be able to give His favors to 
them,they need to be open. But many of them do little or 
nothing towards rebalancing the scales for their own sins. So 
that they may be put in the condition to receive,we can by 
taking on difficult things, make up for them.This is love for 
them - it is also love of the Father,for it gives Him the 
opening to give to them, while at the same time it gives them 
the openness they need to receive. (So we see in passing:love 
of God and love of neighbor are found in one and the same 
action). Hence St.Paul said,in Colossians 1.24: "I fill up the 
things that are lacking to the sufferings of Christ in my 
flesh,for His body,which is the Church." Of course,nothing is 
lacking to the sufferings of Christ considered as
an individual. But the whole Christ,Head and members,can be 
deficient. Paul wants to do what we just said,to make up for 
the a lack of opening in other members of Christ.

	We gather,there is triple reason for suffering. It 
cleans up the tarnished image of the Father and of Christ in 
us; it helps us grow to spiritual maturity to be fully ready 
to enter His house; it helps give the Father the pleasure of 
being able to give to other, deficient children.      

	What was known of this beautiful picture at the tome of 
Job? As we said, many, such as Job's so-called friends, 
insisted that all suffering comes from sin. The book makes it 
finally clear that not always does suffering come from sin. 
But clearly, Job did not see the full expanses of the splendid 
picture we have just unfolded.

	Could they have reached at least part of this picture? 
There were grounds for doing that.First, they knew God is our 
Father-- cf.Isaiah 63.16: "Even if Abraham were not to know us 
or Israel to acknowledge us, You ,Lord, are our Father." And 
Hosea 11.1: "Out of Egypt I have called my son",that is, the 
whole people of Israel.Cf.also Jer 31.9.  But they did not 
know in how full a sense that is true.They knew He had made 
them,yet.But they did not know that He gave them a share in 
His own divine nature. Further,they knew that sin is a debt - 
that truth stands out all over the OT,the Intertestamental 
literature of the Jews, the New Testament and the writings of 
the Rabbis and the Fathers (on this cf.the appendix to 
Wm.Most, The Thought of St.Paul, pp.289-301). They knew 
further the atoning power of suffering for others. This came 
out specially strongly in the fourth Servant Song in Isaiah 
53. It was found also elsewhere in the Scriptures,cf 2 Mac 
7.37; Dan 3.35 & 40; Job 42.7-8..

     Yet,even though the grounds,we might say premises,for 
reaching these conclusions were present and were known,they 
did not draw the implications from them. Similarly, Jesus 
confuted the Sadducees who denied the resurrection by citing 
for them the text of Exodus 3.6: "'I am the God of Abraham, of 
Isaac,and of Jacob.' He is not the God of the dead but of the 
living". -  Yet,did most Jews draw that deduction from those 
early words? We doubt it very much. Similarly, although they 
had,as we said, the premises to reach much of the picture we 
have painted,yet they did not really reach nearly all of it. 
Instead in the conclusion to Job,the solution seems to be 
merely that God would give back more than what He had taken 
away,but do it in this life.

Job contradicts?  M.Duggan,in The Consuming Fire  
(Ignatius,1991)  has some unacceptable statements on Job; 1)On 
p.435: that the debate the very justice of God. So Job asks 
God: ..."is it right for you to attack me, in contempt for 
what you yourself have made....? (10.3). But Job is merely 
thinking his way through the puzzle.He is not really attacking 
God. If he were doing that then at the end God was angry at 
the "friends" of Job,and said (42.7) "...you have not spoken 
right of me,as my servant Job has done."   2) On p.436 Duggan 
says Job suspects God uses his power for purposes more 
destructive than constructive-- God casts down mountains in 
anger,shakes the earth's pillars.-- but these expressions 
merely bring out Job's understanding of the awful majesty and 
power of God. The language is borrowed largely from poems of 
Ugarit, when also came powerful descriptions of God's majesty 
in the Psalms. 3) On p.436 again Duggan says that Job wants 
his day in court, when he can prove the injustice of God! --
but Job is magnificent poetry, semitic expressions at that, in 
which Job vents his feelings .Again,he does not really charge 
God with injustice -- had he done that God would not have said 
in 42.7 that Job had spoken rightly.--A fuller 
explanation,based on theological method, for these texts will 
be given in our comments on chapters 9-10,below.

Genre: Is Job meant to be historical? Not likely. Just as  
Pope John Paul II said Genesis 1-3 was myth - not meaning 
fairytale,but rather an ancient story put together to bring 
out some things true in themselves (Cf.is Original Unity of 
Man and Woman. St.Paul Editions,1981 p.28 and note), so it is 
likely with the book of Job. Its real purpose is to explore 
the problem of suffering, of which we spoke above.	

Introduction: We learn that Job was a man of Uz. Its location 
is unknown. Some today put it somewhere in the desert south of 
the Dead Sea,perhaps near Edom (Lam 4.21.Cf.Jer 25.20). Others 
follow Josephus and Christian tradition in putting it south of 
Damascus.Cf.Gen 10.23. But location is not important.for the 
story is as we said above,just a vehicle for presenting some 
truths in beautiful poetry.

	At the start,Job is fabulously wealthy and blessed in 
sons and daughters.But then we are taken to the court of 
God.the sons of God are there,seemingly ,angels.B ut the satan 
is also there - the Hebrew word is just a general term for the 
opponent. In Numbers 22.22 (cf.22.32) an angel who blocks the 
way for Balaam is called angel and also is called the 
satan,the one who opposes.

	In Job the word has not yet taken on the special later 
meaning of a chief devil.He is merely an opponent. God asks 
satan if he has noticed Job.Satan replies:Job has no trouble 
fearing God:God has given him everything.But take something 
away and see what he will do.God gives permission,and satan 
takes away  everything from Job.Then God says:See what I said! 
Satan replies:Yes,but let me touch him personally and see.So 
it is done. Job  stricken with loathsome sores from head to 
foot.He sat in ashes scraping himself with a potsherd. His 
wife,a foolish woman, urged him to curse God and die.Job of 
course refused.

	Then three friends of Job heard of his trouble,Eliphaz  
the Temanite (probably an Edomite.Gen 36.4  says an Eliphaz 
was the firstborn of Esau,from who descended the Edomites,and 
Teman was son of Eliphaz:v.11); Bildad the Shuhite (Bildad is 
a nonHebrew name, perhaps standing for Lord Adad,the storm 
god.He knows wisdom tradition and uses it  against Job. 
Shuites were descendants of Abraham through Keturah and lived 
in the land of the east); and Zophar the Naamathite (no 
agreement of scholars on the location of Naamah. Perhaps it 
was somewhere in north Arabia or Edom). 
     They came to see him,and then sat on the ground without 
speaking for seven days and seven nights - a fine bit of 
semitic exaggeration of course.

Job's opening Speech: Chapter 3. Job curses the day of his  
birth in colorful language. He calls on those who curse the 
day to curse it - they would be men like Balaam who have a 
special ability of effective cursing. They can rouse up the 
Leviathan,the mythical monster of the sea.

     His whole speech amounts to saying: I wish I had never 
been born.He says that then he would be lying down with kings 
and other great men of the past. This could imply an 
expectation of an afterlife even before a resurrection. We 
will comment more on this matter in connection with 19.25 
below.

Eliphaz,in chapters 4 and 5:  He was from Teman, an Edomite 
city noted for wisdom. At first,it sounds as though 
E was really concerned with the welfare of J, but still could 
not resist the temptation to give J some good instruction: 
"You have instructed many,but you yourself are impatient." But 
he quickly adds:Who has ever perished when he was innocent-- 
implying J is not innocent.E is expressing the common old 
belief that all suffering is punishment for sin.Therefore Job 
must have sinned. Then to strengthen his point, he speaks,in 
an imaginative way,of a vision he had at night -did he really 
assert he had that vision? within genre rules not necessarily 
so. In it a voice asked: Can a man be righteous before God? 
God charges even his angels with error. But J is acting like a 
fool- in wisdom literature this means one who does not pay 
proper attention to God.

	But Eliphaz adds something,in 5.17-27: God exalts those 
who are lowly. God may wound, but He binds up again.If Job 
repents as he should, then he will see his descendants into 
his old age.The thought is the same as in Proverbs 3.11-12 
[Need not imply author of Job  had seen Proverbs or vice 
versa-- That thought was probably in circulation]. Yet Job has 
just lost all his descendants!

Job replies to Eliphaz' first speech: chapters 6 & 7:Job 
ignores the thought just mentioned.Probably his suffering was 
too great to appreciate the advice practically. And perhaps he 
would feel that to say that would be an admission of guilt - 
which Job insists he does not have. Further,there could be a 
realistic situation: often when another is speaking,the one 
who should listen does not really listen,he is preoccupied 
with what he wants to say next. So Job continues:	 Oh I wish 
God would crush me and cut me off.I have not denied what the 
Holy One says [We recall that the Holiness of God is that 
quality in virtue of which He loves all that is right.So Job 
is expressing the rightness of God].  Man's life is hard,says 
Job. 

     In 7.6-7 we read important words of Job:" My life goes by 
faster than the shuttle of a weaver.. my days come to their 
end without hope.... My eye will never again see good."   We 
note that Job sees no possible relief in this life. Therefore 
when in 19.25 he speaks of a future hope, it must be not in 
this life,but in a future life.(cf.also 13.15).We will discuss 
this more fully at 19.25. 

     In 7.20 Job  also says God frightens him with visions 
(v.14). He adds (v 20): "If I sin, what do I do to you, who 
scrutinize men?"  I spite of language,even used today,that sin 
offends God,Job  knows that God cannot be harmed. Yet God 
examines most closely the sins of men - very true.But His 
mercy is true too, He readily forgives those who repent. The 
last verse (31)  even seems to have J implying he might have 
sinned.That could merely be: Even if I have sinned,please 
pardon me. It is best taken as just emotional language,as so 
much of the poetic part of this work is.

First Speech of Bildad. He shows no sympathy for J.He calls 
J's words a great wind.He insists God does not pervert 
justice.He tells J to just pray to God and God will listen and 
reward J. God will not reject a blameless man- with the 
implication that somehow J is not  blameless.Eliphaz had 
seemed at first to have some feeling for J,but then lost 
patience. The other Two, Bildad and Zophar,seem to have no 
feeling at all for J.

Chapters 9-10:Job replies to first speech of Bildad: Some 
think Job here falls God unjust,and says He may afflict 
without cause. 

	Part of the explanation of the puzzle lies in the fact 
that the Jews normally attributed to God things they knew He 
only permitted: In Amos 3.6: "If evil comes to a city,has not 
the Lord caused it?" In 1 Samuel 4.3: "Why did the Lord strike 
us today before the face of the Philistines?" In the account 
of the plagues in Exodus, a few times the Pharaoh was close to 
letting them go, but then although a few times the text says 
that he,the king,hardened his own heart,mostly it says that 
God hardened the king's heart.

	But more importantly, we need to observe splendid 
theological method at work here: In studying divine things one 
can at times meet two conclusions, which seem to clash head-
on. Of course, then he will recheck his work, but the two 
still are there. Then he must not deny either or strain 
either.He must simply hold both,even if that seems utterly 
impossible.


     In accord with this method: First,we must notice one of 
two truths,expressed in verses 1-4: God is awesome justice,and 
no man can be just before God. He adds that God's power is 
tremendous - He can overthrow mountains, shake the earth,He 
made the stars. The helpers of Rahab 9 mythical sea monster, 
personifying chaos) cannot stand against Him. Secondly,He may 
afflict without cause: v.17: "He multiples my wounds without 
cause." But Job can hold both things: that God is supreme 
justice, and yet God may afflict without cause. Job does not 
know how to put them together. But in splendid theological 
method he holds to both. Later,in the revelation of Jesus, we 
could see how to put these together:there is another life,and 
likeness to Jesus in suffering is of supreme worth. But even 
at that time, they could and did say: God disciplines His 
children - even Proverbs and Job knew this.

	Semites did not find it hard to use this method of 
holding two things: They could readily take two seemingly 
incompatible statements without calling it a clash,and without 
drawing an implication. Thus in Matthew 4.6: "When you pray, 
pray in secret"- but yet in Mt:5.16: "Let your light shine 
before men, so they may see your good works." 

	The Fathers of the Church in the first centuries in a 
similar way made both negative and affirmative statements on 
two great questions: 1)Did Jesus really advance in wisdom  (Lk 
2.52 and 2) Did He know the day of judgment (Mk 13.32. Most of 
the Fathers wrote opposite statements on these two passages. 
(Cf.Wm.Most,The Consciousness of Christ, chapter 6,for over 
100 patristic texts). There are similar pairs of statements on 
the equality of the Logos with the Father in several 
Fathers,especially Origen,who both affirmed equality,and yet 
implied a denial of equality. Again on membership in the 
Church,we find very many Fathers who made both strict 
statements,sounding almost like L.Feeney,and yet made 
astoundingly broad statements. On this cf.Wm.Most, Our 
Father's Plan. Appendix.

	In confirmation we recall again that at the end of the 
dialogue,God says (42.7) that Job has spoken rightly.

	After such statements, Job returns to wishing he had 
never been born.

Chapter 11:First Speech of Zophar:	Instead of consoling Job, 
he is harsh,calls him man full of talk,and says God exacts of 
him less than he deserves! If only Job would repent,his life 
would be brighter than midday.

Chapters 12-14: Job answers Zophar: Zophar had seemed to claim 
wisdom.Job says he is as wise as Zophar:everyone knows the 
things Z has said.

	He says that God may shut a man in,and no one can open 
for him.This is the sort of thing we commented on in remarks 
on the reply of J to Bildad. God can make counsellors 
foolish,can take away the ability to speak from those who are 
trusted.God uncovers the deeps which had been dark.He makes 
nations great,then makes them fall.He takes away understanding 
from princes-- we think now of Isaiah 29.14 where God said 
since they did not worship Him rightly: "Wisdom will perish 
from the wise."

	So J says:What you know,I know too. He calls his friends 
"worthless physicians"- and they were that. J says He knows 
that if he were allowed to plead  his case before God,he would 
be vindicated,so convinced is he of his own innocence.

	But a man's life is short: why should God bother with 
him at all -- an echo of Psalm 8? Why should 
God bother to look at man? If a tree dies, it may sprout again 
- but when man breathes his last, there is no more.He never 
rises again to the present life.

	That thought leads into a difficult passage,strangely 
badly misunderstood by some,in 14.13-22.

	Did Job, as some say, deny a future life in 14:13 ff? 
Not at all. Here is an outline of what Job really said in 
chapter 14: In verses 10-12: Even though a tree may put forth 
shoots again, a man who dies does not come back, i.e, not to 
this life. In verse 13: Job indulges in a poetic fancy - he 
knows it is only a fancy: He wishes God would hide him in 
Sheol until His anger would pass, and then remember Job again. 
This is a fancy for certain, but we must remember Job is high 
poetry, and such poetry can indulge in fanciful things. Marvin 
Pope,In Anchor Bible, Job does take this view of verse 13, and 
Pope points out that Is 26:20 indulges a similar fancy: let 
the people of Judah hide in their chambers till God's wrath 
passes. Amos 9:2 ff. pictures the wicked as trying in vain to 
hide in Sheol, in Heaven, on Mt.Carmel or on the bottom of the 
sea. Verses 14-17 continue the fancy of verse 13: "If a man 
dies, will he live again? All the days of my service I would 
wait until my change would come. You [God] would call, and 
would answer and you would want the work of your hands. Then 
You would number my steps, and not keep watch over my sin. My 
transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and you would sew 
up my iniquity. Verses 18-22 return to reality: just as a 
mountain may lose strength and a rock be moved from its place, 
just as waters wear away even rock, so, in the end, God 
prevails, and destroys man's hope of this life. God sends him 
away. In verses 21-22: Man goes to sheol, and does not know 
whether his sons fare well or not, "His flesh on him has pain, 
and his soul mourns over him." To sum up: Job for a moment 
indulges fancy, then returns to reality: No one can win 
against God, he must go to Sheol. There he will not know what 
goes on on earth - as we saw earlier, even the souls of the 
just there, not having the vision of God before the death of 
Christ, have no normal means of knowing things on earth, 
unless God gives a special revelation. But Job adds that his 
flesh has pain and his soul mourns over him. This at least 
seems to imply some awareness after death.

Chapter 15: Second speech of Eliphaz: A wise man,he 
says,should not be so windy. Job is really doing away with the 
fear of God - yet Job had given a graphic picture of God's 
might in Chapter 9. Eliphaz continues, saying no man can be 
clean. Why God finds fault even with His angels! So man should 
 fear,and not trust in emptiness. He will be paid in full by 
God.

Chapters 16-17:Job's Second Reply to Eliphaz: Job calls them 
"miserable comforters.Is there no end to windiness he asks? 
God has worn me out,he has torn mein his anger.I was at 
easy,and He broke me,even though there is no violence in my 
hands.He claims his witness is in heaven while his friends 
scorn him. God has made him a byword for people,and upright 
men are shocked to see the state of Job.But his "friends" come 
on and on again after him!

Chapter 18:Second speech of Bildad: He asks Job: How long will 
Job hunt for words,and consider them as stupid cattle? The 
light of the wicked is put out.His skin is consumed by 
disease-- that was true of Job.West and East are appalled at 
him.

Chapter 19:Second reply of Job to Bildad: Job asks:How long 
will you friends torment me? This is ten times you have 
attacked me.If I sinned- he is not really admitting that,this 
is hypothesis-- my error remains within me,and does not harm 
others. It is God who has put me in these straits. He has 
walled up my way,and kindled His anger against me.He has put 
my brethren far from me.He is repulsive to his wife,even young 
children look down on him.He pleads:Have pity on me,my 
friends.For the hand of God has touched me. Why do you pursue 
me like God?.  He wishes his words were written in a book,or 
engraved in a rock with iron pen and lead forever.

	Next comes the most famous line in the entire book,about 
which there has been much discussion. He says he knows that 
his redeemer,his goel [the next of kin who had the right and 
duty to rescue his kinsman in dire need], lives and at last he 
will stand upon the earth. After his skin has been 
destroyed,yet Job will see God from his flesh. His own eyes 
shall behold this. His heart faints at the thought.

	Now this  passage could not mean a rescue in this life, 
for in 7:6-7 Job said: "My days have passed more swiftly than 
the web is cut by the weaver, and are consumed without any 
hope." So he had no hope for this life - the hope must have 
been for the future life. The NRSV,the RSV the NAB and the NIV 
all have substantially the thought as we rendered it above. So 
our rendering is at least not impossible). We will see more  
in our comments later on Qoheleth and on Sirach 14:16-17).

	What of fact that 19.25 seems early to speak of a 
resurrection? The argument is circular: We do not know 
anything so early,so this cannot be it!--What of fact that 
this 19. 25 does not seem to affect general thought of Job? It 
can be a flash in the pan,like the lines in the Psalms on 
seeing God,though on the whole that notion seems not known so 
early,unless we accept the revisions by Dahood.in the 
introductions to his three volumes of Anchor Bible,Psalms  On 
the basis of Ugaritic,a related Semitic language,he proposed 
retranslations of about 30 Psalm lines.If he is right, the 
knowledge of the Jews on the future would be much earlier than 
many suppose.

Chapter 20:Second Speech of Zophar: He becomes even more harsh 
now.From the beginning the exulting of the wicked is 
short.Wickedness is sweet in his mouth,but his food turns 
bitter in his stomach. He has crushed and abandoned the poor: 
with limitless greed.But God will send fierce anger against 
him.Utter darkness awaits him and a fire will devour him.The 
heavens will reveal his wickedness.

Chapter 21: Job replies to second speech of Zophar:Why should 
I not be impatient? Why do the wicked prosper and live long? 
They tell God to depart form them,they do not want to know  
His ways. One dies in prosperity.Another dies in bitterness of 
soul without ever tasting good. Job adds:I know your 
thoughts,your schemes against me.There is nothing left of your 
answers but falsity.

Chapter 22:Third Speech of Eliphaz: No man can be profitable 
to God,nor does it give the Almighty pleasure if a man is 
righteous.Is not your wickedness great? Then Eliphaz makes 
specific,totally rash charges,with no foundation.He says Job 
has stripped the naked,has sent widows away empty.That is why 
the snares are about him.So agree with God and you will he at 
peace.Return to Him and humble yourself. God abases the 
proud,but helps the humble. He delivers the innocent man.

Chapters 23-24:Reply of Job to Eliphaz: Job says his pain is 
bitter.He wishes he could present his case to God in court.He 
would be acquitted forever by 
God. God knows the way I have taken,when God has finished 
trying me,I will come out like  gold. Yet I am terrified at 
His presence.Why does the Almighty let the evil prosper? God 
pays no attention to the groan of the dying and the suffering.

Chapter 25:Third reply of Bildad:  Her seems to be giving up 
on Job.He repeats what Eliphaz said in chapter 22: How can a 
man be righteous before God? Even the moon is not bright or 
the stars clean in His sight--how much less man. Implication: 
You,Job,claim to be clean!

Chapters 27-31:Final Reply of Job to the Three:  What helpers 
you are! God is all powerful:Sheol is naked before Him.He 
hangs the earth on nothing,binds up the waters in thick 
clouds.The pillars of heaven shake at his rebuke.His power 
stills the sea and smites Rahab-- and these are only the outer 
edges of His power.

	As God lives,I will not speak what is false as long as I 
have breath.I will not put way my integrity. My heart does not 
reproach me.all of you have seen it yourselves:why have you 
become so vain? The wicked man does receive his deserts from 
the Almighty.

	But where can Wisdom be found? Man does not know the 
way.The deep says:Wisdom is not in me.Gold and silver and 
jewels  cannot equal wisdom.It is hid from the eyes of all the 
living. Abaddon and Death say they have heard a rumor of 
Wisdom.But God understands the way to wisdom.He knows its 
place.He said:Behold,the fear of the Lord: that is wisdom.

	O,I wish I were as I was in the past when God watched 
over me.When I went to the city gate,young men saw me,and 
pulled back.The aged rose and  stood.Princes put their hand on 
their mouth.For I delivered the poor,helped the fatherless.So 
the blessing of the one about to die came to me.I made the 
heart of the widow sing for job.I put on righteousness like a 
garment.I was eyes to the blind,feet to the lame,a father to 
the poor.I broke the fangs of the evil. So men listened to 
me,and kept silent.After I poke they did not speak again.-- 
But now even young men make sport of me,men whose fathers I 
would not have respected. Those who were wicked and ate the 
inedible now abhor me.The spit at the sight of me.Terrors are 
turned upon me.I cry to God and He does not answer.Yet I know 
God will not bring me to death. Did I not weep for the man 
whose day w s hard? I even made a covenant with my eyes,not to 
lust for a virgin. [Some think the reference is to looking at 
the goddess of fertility - but this is much less likely]. If I 
have walked in falsehood, if I turned aside from the way,then 
let me sow and other eat.If my heart gave in to the enticement 
of a woman,then let my wife grind for another.If I withheld 
anything the poor desired,if I caused the face of the widow to 
fall,or if I ate my bread without sharing it,then let my arm 
fall from its socket.For I feared calamity from God if I did 
not do right.I could not have faced His Majesty. Let the 
Almighty answer me! [End of the words of Job].

Chapters 32-37:The Long Speech of Elihu:  Commentators have 
discussed much the nature and quality of this long speech. The 
ideas he presents are not really different from those of the 
others.But he does show an overweening confidence in his own 
ability to express them. Yet he does express some things in 
fine poetic form.

	Elihu says that since he was younger,he waited for his 
elders to give their speeches. But he says he will not use 
their words. Yet his heart is full of things to say,like a new 
wineskin it is ready to burst.

	Job says that he is clean.But he is wrong in this.God is 
greater than  man.Why contend against Him? Man is sometimes 
warned in a dream or is chastened by pain.

	What man is like Job,who drinks up scoffing as if it 
were water? God will not act wickedly. God sees all the steps 
of man,He knows their works.But Job speaks without knowledge 
or insight.

	God put kings on their thrones,and if they serve 
Him,they finish their days in prosperity. But Job is full of 
the judgment on the wicked.He should beware so that his own 
anger  might drive Job into scoffing. Can anyone understand 
God's awesome power in thunder and lightning? Consider His 
wondrous works. He is clothed with terrible Majesty.

Chapters 38-41:God speaks to Job out of the storm: It might 
seem at first sight as though God is rebuking Job,yet at the 
end in 42.7-=8 God says Job has spoken rightly. The difference 
is this:Job has not understood the power and Majesty of God 
sufficiently, though he has known it somewhat.But in spite of 
all that, Job has not said anything contrary to God's will -
the difference is between defect in understanding,and defect 
in will.

	So we have here a long and poetically beautiful  
presentation of the awesome power of God in creation,going 
into some detail. Among other things God says He made Behemoth 
sense is uncertain.It may mean the same as Leviathan, standing 
for the mythical monster of the sea, which in mythology 
God can overcome and tame. Or since the word is a feminine 
plural,it might be an expression of the beast par excellence.

Chapter 4 2: Job answers God.Conclusion:  Job properly says He 
understands better the marvelous power of God,and is sorry he 
has spoken with insufficient understanding.So he despises 
himself in dust and ashes.

	Finally the Lord spoke to the three counsellors,and 
rebuked them: they had not spoken right as Job had 
done.Therefore they must offer a sacrifice of seven bulls and 
seven rams.But to gain acceptance,they must ask Job to pray 
for them.God will accept the prayer of Job. It is very 
significant here that Job is an intercessor,in spite of 
foolish Protestant claims that there can be no intercessor but 
Christ--based on 1 Tim 2.5.That verse speaks of a mediator who 
is a) by very nature, having both divine and human natures; b) 
is necessary -- only Christ was necessary; c) who can work by 
his own power-- secondary mediators depend on the power of the 
One par excellence Mediator. So Job is a mediator.And for that 
matter, so many times,Moses was a mediator between 
God and the sinful people.

	After all this was done,God restored to Job twice as 
much as He had taken away. This fact does not deny the 
essential message of the book which is this: suffering is not 
always due to sin. In Job  his suffering was not due to sin.It 
was for some other purpose the idea, that it is for 
instruction, "discipline' is present there,as it is also in 
Proverbs. But as we said in the introduction to this book of 
Job, the full purpose of suffering was still to be revealed in 
Jesus,even though the premises from which they might have 
reached a point at least close to that conclusion were already 
present.

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