Today started out with another cycle of speeches between Job and his friends. However, it came to an end because they couldn’t get Job to confess his guilt, and Job couldn’t acknowledge something that wasn’t true.
Eliphaz began speaking and was trying to explain that since all things have their origin with God, man giving back what God has given him does not enhance God in any way. God is indifferent to man’s goodness; because goodness is expected of him. It isn’t until he becomes wicked that God pays attention.
In his earlier speeches, Eliphaz was the least caustic and at first even offered consolation. Now however, he was reprimanding Job for all kinds of social sins against the needy, naked, widows, fatherless, etc. The only proof he had for Job’s alleged wickedness was his present suffering, even though Job emphatically denied the behavior he was being accused of.
Eliphaz made one last attempt to reach Job and said,
In many ways it was a commendable call to repentance: Submit to God, lay up God’s words in your heart, return to the Almighty and forsake wickedness, find your delight in God rather than in gold, pray and obey, and become concerned about sinners.
But Eliphaz’s advice assumes (1) that Job is a very wicked man and (2) that Job’s major concern was the return of his prosperity. Job had already made it clear that he deeply yearned to see God and be his friend.
Job spoke and was still frustrated with his apparent inability to have an audience with God, who knew that he was an upright man, and plead his case. Job had always submitted to God, as Eliphaz told him he must do. Job treasured God’s words more than his daily food.
He admitted that God was testing him, not to purge away his sinful dross, but to show that Job was pure gold. Even though Job was not an Israelite he still worshiped the one true God and had stayed on the right path.
Job continued on with a description of the terrible injustice that often exits in the world. He said that God judges the wicked, but he does so on his own good time. Job wished, however, that God would give the righteous the satisfaction of seeing it happen.
Bildad spoke but added nothing new to the conversation, other than considering heaven as a place of warfare where God used his celestial troops to establish order.
Job spoke a poem about the vast power of God with colorful and highly figurative language, which was the theme of Bildad’s final speech. Job continued to question where God was.
What God had revealed of his dominion over natural and supernatural forces amounts to no more than a whisper. Job was impressed with the severely limited character of man’s understanding.
Zophar chided Job about his inability to fathom the mysteries of God, but the knowledge possessed by Job’s three friends was not superior to that of Job himself.
It is difficult enough to comprehend the little that we know about God, how much more impossible it would be to understand the full extent of his might!
Job continued to maintain his faith in God, despite his perception of denied justice. Job reminded his friends that the truly wicked deserve God’s wrath, but he was not in that category.
Next was a striking wisdom poem that answers the question Job had been asking, “Where can wisdom be found?”
The poem consists of three parts: (1) precious stones and metals are found in the deepest mines, (2) wisdom is not found in mines, nor can it be bought with precious stones or metals, (3) wisdom is found only in God and in the fear of him. God alone was the answer to the mystery Job and his friends had sought to fathom.
[…] Lord’s confrontation of his people in Psalm 50. This psalm has many points of contact with Psalm 25. In traditional Christian usage it is one of seven penitential […]