Preliminary Thoughts on Esther 2007 March 20^th for April 17^th

Esther was a Jew who became queen to king Xerxes under circumstances of palace politics and intrigue. From this position she was able to learn of and play a key role in heading off an incident of genocide against her own people. The story reads like a novel and is therefore very memorable. Before spoiling it further, I’ll just let the text speak for itself beginning tomorrow.

Inasmuch as this book does not refer to the Law or Moses or worship or even God, but only to the Jews as a race, some wonder if it is historical or even belongs in the Bible. Since we are trying to stay away from extra-Biblical sources here as much as possible, and such sources would be required to answer such questions, we won’t get into that debate. Since this is a study of the Bible as delivered to us and we’re not discussing the issue of the canon either (Jewish or Christian), we won’t get into that debate either.

Esther 1 2007 March 21^st for April 18^th

Xerxes was ruler of a vast territory, spanning from Cush to India. His capital was Susa, in modern day Iran.

At one point he held an enormous party that lasted for months. All the nobles and commanders were present for this. He displayed all the wealth and beauty of his vast kingdom. He directed that everyone be given wine to drink as they desired.

The queen was Vashti. Vashti also held a big party, for the women.

One day when the king was rather loose from wine, he commanded the eunuch’s to go down and tell Vashti to come up to the king. She was a trophy wife and he wanted to display her beauty to all his underlings.

Vashti refused to appear. It does not say why. Any reason she may have had must be unimportant. Or perhaps any reasoning of any woman was unimportant. Or perhaps the king was supreme.

In any case, this provoked a legal crises. Xerxes was in the habit of consulting with his counselors before taking action and such a consultation was held. One of the advisors, Memucan, escalated the crises. He claimed that due to the disobedience of Vashti no woman anywhere would respect her husband henceforth. All the nobles would go home to rebellious wives thanks to the queen. He strongly recommended a law be passed heading this off right away.

Xerxes was pleased and passed such a law immediately. There were two aspects to it.

First, Vashti would never “enter into the presence of King Xerxes” again. She would be replaced by someone more worthy. There was no divorce in such a case, of course. She would still be the king’s wife but in permanent exile. The replacement would just be another head wife.

Second, “He sent dispatches to all pats of the kingdom, to each province in its own script and to each people in its own language, proclaiming in each people’s tongue that every man should be ruler over his own household.”

The worldwide reign of men was thus re-secured.

Although the historical peoples of the Bible were patriarchal, this is the first time we’ve seen it necessary to have a law on the books about it.

Esther 2 2007 March 22^nd for April 19^th

After the whole affair with Vashti, the king eventually calmed down but he still needed a new queen. It was suggested that all the beautiful young virgins in the kingdom be brought to his harem for him to try out. The one he was most pleased with would be queen.

Xerxes liked this idea, so it was done. One of the beautiful young virgins brought in was a girl known as Esther. Her given name was Hadassah but she was a Jewish orphan and a Jewish official, Mordecai, who had been brought into exile with King Jehoiachin, had taken her in brought her up from a girl as if she were his own daughter.

When she was taken to the harem, Mordecai forbade her to reveal her nationality.

All the girls brought to the harem were put into the custody of the king’s eunuch Hegai where they were given special food and treatment. Hegai was in charge of preparing them for twelve months, six months with myrhh and six months with perfumes and cosmetics. After this, they would be taken to the king for one night. They could take anything they wanted with them. After that night, they would be taken to the custody of a different eunuch, Shaashgaz, who was in charge of the concubines. They would not go back to the king again unless he asked for them by name.

During her preparation, Mordecai paced back and forth out in the street waiting for any news of how Esther was doing and how she was being treated. She was, in fact, being treated quite well. She was assigned servants and put in the best rooms in the harem. When her night came, she took nothing with her except what Hegai suggested.

After the parade of young virgins was over, Xerxes was most pleased with Esther. He threw a banquet for everyone and crowned her queen. After this he sent liberal gifts of celebration to all the provinces.

There is much detail in this story that would be in a well-made movie but which is not given here, like Esther’s special treatment, special presentation, and special selection.

One day later, Mordecai was sitting at the gate and overheard two of the king’s officials, Bigthana and Teresh, conspiring to assassinate him. He reported this to Esther who alerted Xerxes, giving credit to Mordecai for uncovering the plot. An investigation was made. The two were found guilty and they were hanged. Notation of this was made in the records in the king’s presence.

This incident will be important later.

Esther 3 2007 March 24^th for April 20^th

The king had an official, Haman, with whom he was very pleased. He was so pleased that he elevated Haman above all of his other officials. It does not say what Haman did to be so pleasing.

A command went out that all the subjects had to kneel down and pay homage to Haman. Mordecai would not do this. It does not say why. It could have been that Mordecai didn’t like Haman or thought he was unworthy of elevation. Since this is in the Bible, however, an implication might be that Jews do not pay homage to anyone but God. (There is an explicit case of this in the upcoming book of Daniel.) But this is only implied here, not stated.

In any case, Haman was enraged by this. The men under Xerxes rule are easily angered, it would seem, by any threats to their status. Rather than plotting to kill only Mordecai, he plotted to kill all Jews, having learned that Mordecai was a Jew.

Haman went to the king with an inexact request. “There is a certain people dispersed and scattered among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom whose customs are different from those of all other peoples and who do not obey the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them. If it pleases the king, let a decree be issues to destroy them, and I will put ten thousand talents of silver into the royal treasury for the men who carry out this business.”

The king approved this without asking any questions. In fact, he gave Haman his signet ring, the symbol of his utter power and authority, to do with as he wished. With this ring, Haman could do anything. And, the king told Haman to keep his money; it would be no problem.

So lots were thrown to decide on the exact date of the execution and an edict was written in all the languages and dialects of the kingdom. It was sent out by courier far and wide. In the inner circles of rule, this was a time for celebration, but no one else understood what was going on.

“The king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was bewildered.”

Esther 4 – 5 2007 March 26^th for April 23^rd

Mordecai learned of Haman’s plan to kill all Jews throughout the kingdom and was highly distressed. He went into the city as far as the King’s Gate and sat there mourning in sackcloth and ashes. (This was not permitted inside the King’s Gate.) Everywhere in the kingdom that the edict was taken there was similar mourning and distress among the Jews.

Esther’s servants came to her with the news of Mordecai’s lamentations and she, in turn, was distressed. She sent Hathach, a eunuch who attended her, out to find out what was the matter with Mordecai.

Hathach went out and Mordecai told him everything about the secret (privileged) edict, including the amount of money Haman had offered to the Royal Treasury to carry out the killings.

Mordecai requested of Esther that she approach the king to have something done about this, but she was afraid. The penalty for approaching the king in his inner court without being summoned was death. Esther had not been summoned to the king in thirty days. It is implied that her favor with the king might have ended or at least have paused for a time.

There was one exception, however. The king could extend his scepter as a grant of mercy on the spot, but the supplicant took his life in his hands to risk this. The plea had better be important.

Mordecai answered this fear. Did Esther think that her own race, the fact that she herself was Jewish, would be undiscovered? Did she think that she would be the only Jew left living after the fateful day? Had it not occurred to her that she might be in this position just for such a time as this? The implication is that she might be in this position by God’s protective hand.

She replied that she would go but that everyone should pray and fast for her for three days, as she and her servants would also do, then she would go to the king and, “If I perish, I perish.”

After the three days, she did go to the king, unsummoned, in his inner court. He looked upon her favorably and extended the scepter to her, which she accepted. Her life was saved. The king asked what she wanted. She said she wanted to prepare a feast for him and his official Haman. The king was delighted and accepted. The feast was prepared, everyone had a good time, and the king asked what her request was. Anything, “up to half of the kingdom,” would be granted, he said.

She asked that he and Haman attend another banquet on the next day at which time she would make her request. The king was happy to comply.

Haman, full of himself, was very happy about this too. He went home to his wife Zeresh and their friends and bragged about all his wealth and his large family and all of the honor that the king had bestowed on him. In particular, he was proud that he was the only official that seemed to be favored by Queen Esther.

The one thing that bugged Haman was Mordecai. He had seen Mordecai mourning and fasting in sackcloth at the King’s Gate on the way home and detested him all the more. Haman’s wife suggested that he ask the king for Mordecai’s execution at the banquet the next day and that he have a gallows built for the purpose. This suggestion excited Haman and he had a 75-foot gallows built right away.

Esther 6 – 7 2007 March 27^th for April 24^th

King Xerxes couldn’t sleep that night. He had the royal archives brought and read to him in his insomnia. They read of Mordecai and how he had informed the king of an assassination attempt some time ago.

The king asked what had been done to honor Mordecai. “Nothing,” was the reply.

Just at that moment, Haman came in to speak to the king about killing Mordecai. The king asked Haman what should be done to honor the person who the king wanted to honor. Haman could think of no one but himself who the king would want to honor, so he did it up grand. The person to be honored should be given a robe that the king had worn to wear and should be paraded around on the king’s horse with a crest on his head and someone should go around in front of the horse proclaiming that this is the way the king honors this person.

The king was pleased and commanded Haman to go do all of this for Mordecai, not omitting any detail.

Haman did all this as ordered and was mortified. He covered his head and went home to his wife who, in despair, said, “Since Mordecai, before whom your downfall has started, is of Jewish origin, you cannot stand against him – you will surely come to ruin!”

While she was saying this, the king’s eunuchs arrived to take him to the banquet with Xerxes and Esther.

After the dinner this night when Xerxes asked what Esther desired, she said that her only request was that her life be saved, and the lives of her people. “If we had merely been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept quiet, because no such distress would justify disturbing the king.” But her very life was in danger.

The king asked who had made such a plot. Her answer, “The adversary and enemy is this vile Haman.”

Haman was terrified. The king got up from the table and stalked out into the garden in a rage. Haman, knowing the jig was up, stayed behind. Just as he fell on the couch where Esther was reclining to beg for his life, the king came back in and said, “Well he even molest the queen while she is with me in the house?”

While he was saying this, the servants covered Haman’s face, a bad sign indeed. The eunuch Harbona informed the king that a gallows 75 feet high stood in front of Haman’s house, ready for Mordecai. The king’s command was simple and swift, “Hang him on it!”

And they did.

In only one day, Haman’s fortune turned from the best to the worst.

Esther 8 2007 March 28^th for April 25^th

As the estate of a traitor reverted to the crown, Xerxes proceeded to give the estate of Haman to Esther. Esther in turn put Mordecai in charge of it. Esther explained to the king Mordecai’s relationship to her and the king, having recovered it from Haman, gave his powerful signet ring to Mordecai.

Esther then made another plea. For a third time the king extended the scepter, saving her life.

“If it pleases the king,” she said, “and if he regards me with favor and thinks it is the right thing to do, and if he is pleased with me, let an order be written overruling the dispatches that Haman … devised and wrote to destroy the Jews in all the king’s provinces.” She begged for her family and her people to be saved.

The king was in favor of this, but a law or edict, once issued, could not be revoked. He told she and Mordecai to do whatever they could to salvage the situation. The king himself could not be bothered to wield his awesome power with any skill.

“At once the royal secretaries were summoned.” Mordecai dictated. The Jews throughout the kingdom, all 127 provinces, were instructed to gather together to defend themselves against the former edict and to plunder their enemies on that day. The edict was translated into all the languages. “The couriers, riding the royal horses, raced out, spurred on by the king’s command. And the edict was also issued in the citadel of Susa.”

Mordecai was highly honored. He wore “royal garments of blue and white,” and a large crown. A big celebration was held in Susa and fear of the Jews spread nationwide.

Esther 9 – 10 2007 March 29^th for April 26^th

When the day of the edict of the destruction of the Jews came, the tables were turned. Those who had hoped to destroy the Jews were themselves destroyed. In Susa itself, five hundred enemies of the Jews were killed, including ten sons of Haman. No plunder was taken, however.

When the king heard this news from inside Susa he wondered how many were being killed throughout the kingdom. He asked Esther again for whatever she wanted. She asked that the self-defense be continued through a second day and that the dead sons of Haman be hanged. An edict was issued and it was done.

Throughout the 127 provinces, the Jews killed 75,000 of their enemies in the two days. They were victorious everywhere but no plunder was taken, though the law would have allowed it.

This all happened on the thirteenth and fourteenth days of the month of Adar. By proclamation issued through Mordecai, these two days became a standing festival for the Jews. “A day of joy and feasting, a day for giving presents to each other.” Christmas! This was the festival of Purim from the word “pur” which means “lot.” Lots had been cast to decide the day initially under Haman’s proclamation.

Mordecai was highly honored in the entire kingdom and among the Jews. He was second to Xerxes himself and had vast authority. He had succeeded to Haman’s status. He sent messages of goodwill and assurance to the Jews in the 127 provinces and established the feast of Purim in the process.

Concluding Thoughts on Esther 2007 March 30^th for April 27^th

There is considerable discussion in the extra-Biblical material in my new Bible surrounding Esther about the book’s veracity and historicity. King Xerxes himself is the only character who is independently verifiable historically, through Herodotus. He was one of the three Xerxes’s, the third of which was defeated by Alexander the Great, ending the Persian Empire.

His queen of record was Amestris. Some historians think this was another name for Vashti, others think it was another name for Esther. Still others think that the book of Esther is historical fiction, arguing that there is no good archaeological confirmation for any of the specific events in it while other events seem to be exaggerations such as six months of feasting or a year of preparation for a new bride such as Esther. This extra-Biblical narrative offers refutation for most of this by pointing out that the six months might have been more than just a party; it might have been planning for a major military campaign such as the invasion of Greece conducted by one of the Xerxes’s. A year of preparation for a new queen would have been more than just softening baths; it would have included instruction in proper behavior at court and palace protocol and so forth. As for archaeology, “If every narrative from the ancient world had to be specifically confirmed by archaeology, we would have no ancient history at all.”

In part due to all this, Esther is the most controversial book in terms of canonization both in the Hebrew scriptures and in the Christian Bible, both Catholic and Protestant. Some, such as Martin Luther, argued that it should not be in the canon, as it was apocryphal. The Catholics, possibly in reaction, placed not only Esther but also other books related to Esther in their own sacred canon. Part of the problem for some was that the Feast of Purim itself gained a reputation for looseness and drunkenness, not the sort of thing we temperate Christians want to be associated with. Well, except for Mardi Gras…. No, that’s Catholic.”

Why is canonization important? Well, if our approach to understanding God is to jump around the Bible collecting up points we wish to make, then nailing our case shut by quoting II Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is “God-breathed and Is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness,” then it is extremely important what is “in” and what is “out.” Without getting into an hours-long discussion of this, let me just state that canonization is not that important to me. It is indeed the basis for what is “in” and “out” of the present study, but it is my firm belief that certain materials, certain facts, are true and God-breathed without needing to be part of scripture and certain things in scripture through varied misinterpretations can be misleading even if they were originally “God-breathed.”

It is humorous in this respect that I’m having trouble distinguishing between the words “canon” and “cannon” here. Many preachers use the canon as a cannon!

Most intriguing to me is the account that, in celebration of Purim today, the entire book will be read at synagogue and the congregants, with noise-makers, will cheer Mordecai and boo and hiss for Haman. I’d like to go to one of those!

In any case, this very dramatic story is in our Bible now and therefore we study and discuss it. It is the first recorded attempt at a holocaust against the Jewish people. The belief at the time of Xerxes would have been that the Hebrews were conquered, relocated from Palestine to Susa, and could be eradicated through one ‘simple’ ethnic cleansing. This was apparently Haman’s goal. Why he hated Mordecai and all Mordecai’s race so much is not stated, but Mordecai was clearly an individual of stature and potential, a threat to Haman and his position regardless of race or creed.

Unfortunately, this is not the last attempted holocaust and unfortunately some of the later ones were more successful. People to this very day feel threatened by Jews as a race and as individuals, justifiably or otherwise. History is largely inexplicable, short of animal passion invading human undertakings.

When Protestant children learn about Esther in their own upbringing, she is held up as an example in the style of Joseph, someone who faced possible death and hardship but was placed in a position of tremendous influence and power and took serious risks to do the right thing from that position. In that respect it is a morality play in which the moral is, “Do the right thing no matter what.”

This is, on the other hand, one of the many places from which you can also derive the Biblical principle, ‘Destroy your enemy before he destroys you!’

(All scripture is God-breathed, remember.)

My own emotion reading through the account of Mordecai, Esther, and Xerxes is that Xerxes was the only character who didn’t face grave difficulties in his own life. When he was cornered he could just say, “My word doesn’t change; do whatever you can,” and make any problem into somebody else’s problem. Everyone else had to wait to be summoned and was under capital authority from the king. Why do we make men thus? Do we imagine that it protects us from something if we go along and get along with such a ruler? Did it protect these people from Alexander?

Preliminary Thoughts on Job 2007 April 2^nd for 30^th

One book, one character in the Bible that everyone pretty much has the gist of is Job. “Why do good people suffer?” People don’t know the answer but they sure know the question. It’s obvious by inspection that things are not as they should be. People suffer and even die unfairly. One religious answer to this is that nobody is truly good. This is often extended to a notion that no one deserves good. But we get ahead of ourselves….

For what it is, Job is a remarkably long book. We’ll spend nearly two months in it.

The basic outline is that Job is a follower and worshipper of the True God. He does everything right and is blessed greatly in all ways. He has a large family and great wealth. Wealth in this period meant having ample flocks to eat well, the means for their sustenance (grazing space and water), and a stable place to stay. As priest of his family he goes out and sacrifices and worships every day in order to cover his sins and those of his family, even the ones they only might have committed or even merely thought about.

This was the moral model of the time, and to some extent, of our time. Do the right things, be good, don’t even think bad things, go to church, and you’ll be blessed. As a general principle it can be true in a statistically significant number of cases. As an absolute rule that applies to every case under creation, it never happens. Just turn on any newscast to see all the contemporary counterexamples unfolding right before your eyes.

What happens to Job is that the devil approaches God with a taunt. He says to God, “Sure, anybody who had such a good deal would be your buddy, but just let me poke him good and you’ll see, he’ll curse you and fall away.” God says, in two stages, “You can do anything you want, but don’t kill him.”

So, the devil goes off and kills all of Job’s family except his wife (who will be a player in the discussion that will follow) and all of his flocks. He takes away all of his wealth and then, as if that weren’t enough, makes him very sick.

Job accepts all of this as justice from God. He doesn’t know why, but he doesn’t complain, at first.

Job’s wife and friends then come and dialogue with him about his predicament. They tell him he must have done something wrong, just figure it out and curse God and die and it will all be over. They try many angles on this. That’s most of the book. Ultimately, Job is unmoved by these friends, but ultimately he does lodge his complaint with God. God is patient and listens for a long time.

At the end, God speaks, and Job’s final exam is not one for the faint hearted. It is not an exam that a human being could pass, in fact. Job fails, and resigns in humility. Then, God restores everything, his wealth and a new family.

No one thinks that Job is historical. (But how does anyone know what of ancient origin is or isn’t historical?) It is a piece of ancient poetry covering new ground with the question, “why do good people suffer?” It challenges the then-common assumption that the good are blessed and the evil are punished and destroyed. We’ll see lots of that in Psalms and Proverbs soon, but the book of Job is more philosophical, more pessimistic, beyond realistic in its own way.

Somehow I think I know all about Job before getting into it. Let’s get into it and see what it really says.

Job 1 2007 April 3^rd for May 1^st

Job was the greatest man of the east. He had seven sons and three daughters, 7000 sheep, 3000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 donkeys and many servants. His sons would have feasts and when they were done, Job would send to have them purified and offer sacrifices thinking, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.”

“This was Job’s regular custom.”

One day God was holding court in heaven and the angels were there presenting themselves and Satan was there too. The name “Satan” means “accuser.” An interesting meaning to the name of the ultimate enemy of God.

“Then the Lord said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

God was the one who did the set up on Job.

Satan replied, ‘Oh, sure, you have made his life safe, he’s wealthy, he has everything, who wouldn’t be your perfect servant under those conditions?’

So God said, ‘OK, go bust him and you’ll see, just don’t touch his person.’

Satan went off to do this.

This is the first time in the Bible that we have seen the inner workings in the courts of God.

One day, Job’s oldest son was having a feast when four servant-messengers came to Job in quick succession. The first said that the Sabeans had attacked and carried off all his oxen and donkeys from the fields where they were working. The second came and said that fire had fallen from the sky and burned up all the sheep and servants. The third reported that the Chaldeans had raided and captured all the camels, killing all the servants. The fourth messenger reported a great wind off the desert that had collapsed the house of the oldest son, killing all the children inside. All four messengers ended with the refrain, “and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”

Such was the catastrophe of Job. All that remained were the four reporting servants.

“At this point, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said:

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart.

“The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, may the name of the Lord be praised.”

“In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.”

As is considered appropriate in our heritage, Job humbly acknowledges his position in the creation as nothing. He has enjoyed his elevated status, now he endures his ruin.

Job 2 - 3 2007 April 4^th for May 2^nd

Another convocation of the angels occurred in God’s presence, and again Satan was there. God asked Satan where he came from and what he has been doing. “From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.”

God asked if Satan had noticed Job. “There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.”

Satan accused: ‘A guy will do anything to save his own skin.’

God replied, ‘OK, smack him personally, but don’t kill him.’

So Satan afflicted Job with sores from the top of his head to the bottom of his feat. He was in such great misery that his wife came out and said, “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!”

But he would not. He called her foolish. “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”

Interesting that their conception of “integrity” is holding fast to their beliefs, and that denying them was a matter of a simple curse.

Job had three friends, great men in their own right, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. They heard of Job’s trouble and agreed to come sit with him and commiserate. When they saw him, they didn’t even recognize him. They tore their own robes and wailed as if at a wake. All sat silent for a week. No one spoke.

Breaking the silence, Job spoke in eloquent poetry.

He spends the first verse wishing that the day that he was born had never occurred, had never seen light, had never even been on the calendar because, “it did not shut the doors of the womb on me to hide trouble from my eyes.”

In the second verse he wishes he had been born dead or died at birth. That way he would be asleep and at rest, just like the past kings of the earth whose great works now lay in ruins. Just like the captive who, in death rests from his labors and oppressions. Just like the slave who in death is freed.

In his third verse he decries misery in general. Why do people live, why are they conscious in such misery? What is the point of that? Why bother having life at all if it going to be like this? For some, the grave is their greatest desire but it eludes them. They can’t even end their suffering by dying.

“What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me.”

“I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.”

Don’t worry, I’ll worry, and see? Worry was justified.

Job 4 2007 April 5^th for May 3^rd

The friend Eliphaz ventures to speak.

Eliphaz relates that Job has taught many and helped weak people. But now, he finds trouble dismaying. “Should not your piety be your confidence and your blameless ways your hope?”

Isn’t it that the guilty are punished and the innocent are not? Can you think of counterexamples? Eliphaz relates a dream in which he was terrified when a form stood before him in the night and said, “Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can a man be more pure than his Maker?”

God even accuses the angels who work for him of error, how much more mortal men! Men just die in the night, their tents are pulled up and that’s just it.

The implication is that Job has sinned in some way so as to deserve this and just isn’t admitting it. The “piety confidence” statement seems tongue in cheek.

Job 5 2007 April 6^th for May 4^th

The poetic speech of Eliphaz continues.

Who will you turn to if you are foolish? You and your children are “far from safety,” helpless in court. Others come for your harvest; you suffer hardship.

“But if it were I, I would appeal to God.” God is far beyond us in understanding and capabilities. He does everything, makes everything happen. Nothing is beyond his attention, good or evil. He rescues the needy and puts down the crafty.

Don’t be alarmed at correction from God; it is a blessing; seek it. He will rescue you from calamity, famine, or death. You will have no problems while the world falls apart around you. Nothing will ever be missing from stock. Your children will be safe and many.

“We have examined this, and it is true. So hear it and apply it to yourself.”

This is the wisdom of Eliphaz.

Job 6 2007 April 10^th for May 7^th

Job replies to his friends.

It is too bad that his anguish cannot be measured and quantified. Do animals that are well fed complain? Similarly, he wouldn’t be complaining if everything were all right. But, “The Arrows of the Almighty are in me.”

He wishes that God would just put him out of his misery. At least then he could perish blameless and with integrity. What other hope is there? What future prospects are there?

One would think that one’s friends would be some help, but Job’s friends are “as undependable as intermittent streams.” Sometimes they overflow; sometimes they are empty. Caravans have to go out of their way looking for water and find nothing. They die rather than reaching their destinations.

Job’s friends have been no help. He has asked nothing of them, but they have not shown him his error, they have only said that there must be one. Do Job’s claims of uprightness count for nothing? Would he lie? Would he speak with malice?

Job 7 2007 April 11^th for May 8^th

Job continues.

Anyway, aren’t man’s days on the earth like hard labor? You can hardly stand it and wish for it to be over, like a slave’s day in the fields. But even night brings no rest. You toss and turn and wait eagerly for dawn. If you do go to sleep, nightmares are sent so that you would rather just be dead.

Why does God pay so much attention to man anyway? His days are very short then he is gone. You look for the departed but don’t find him.

Why is Job under guard like an animal or monster?

“I despise my life, I would not live forever.

Let me alone; my days have no meaning.”

God never blinks. Why is he so inscrutable? Why doesn’t he forgive this sin, or at least tell Job what it is? Why is Job the target?

Job 8 2007 April 12^th for May 9^th

Next, Job’s friend Bildad speaks.

“How long will you say such things? Your words are a blustering wind.”

Your children are dead because they sinned against God. Plead with him yourself to learn your sin and it’s penalty. You were just born yesterday; you know nothing. Look to the wisdom of the ages for answers to this. Can plants grow where they do not belong? Don’t those who reject God wither more quickly than grass?

What you trust in is fragile, like a spider web. Like a plant that is well rooted but around rocks. It is torn from its place and is gone, disowned, vanished.

“Surely God does not reject a blameless man or strengthen the hands of evildoers.” Once again you will prosper while your enemies disappear in shame.

Dad’s joke about Bildad the Shuhite was that he was the shortest man in the Bible. “Bildad the Shoe Height.”

Job 9 2007 April 13^th for May 10^th

Job replies to Bildad and begins with agreement, but he also laments, “How can a mortal be righteous before God?”

The problem is that men and God are not peers. God can go past and not be noticed if he so desires. He can snatch away or mock and who can stop him? Who can challenge him? Who can summon him into court? Who can arbitrate between man and God?

The greatest creatures of the sea fear God and cannot stand before him in a contest. God made the constellations in the sky. How is that like anything that a man can do?

Even if Job could plead his case with God what would he say? Even if he is innocent, his words will betray him as guilty. Sparring with God, could he make a point even one time in a thousand? (This foreshadows Job’s actual interview with God upcoming.)

“Although I am blameless, I have no concern for myself; I despise my own life.

It is all the same; that is why I say, He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.”

… destroys both the blameless and the wicked… This is a new theology, even today.

Job 10 2007 April 14^th for May 11^th

Job’s reply now turns to God. “I loathe my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul.”

He asks God why he is condemned. What are the charges? Does oppression please God? Does the prosperity of the wicked please God? Does God understand like men do? No one can be rescued from the judgment of God.

Job is a creation of God’s hand. God made him in all of his awesome complexity. Of course he would always be watching and know when any sin occurred. But, “Even if I am innocent, I cannot lift my head.” The torment comes in waves, wave upon wave.

Why did God bother to let Job be born? He would rather have been stillborn. He would rather never to have been seen by another person.

“Turn away from me so I can have a moment’s joy before I go to the place of no return, to the land of gloom and deep shadow,

to the land of deepest night, of deep shadow and disorder, where even the light is like darkness.”

This was the conception of death held by Job and his cohort. Sounds like Mordor.

Job 11 2007 April 16^th for May 14^th

Zophar speaks to Job, impatiently. The summary of his text is: Job has sinned and just doesn’t know it. How stupid can that be? When will you face facts? Reach out to God and put that sin away and goodness will return. The evil man is blind and stumbles; he has hope but his hope is only death.

“Oh, how I wish that God would speak, that he would open his lips against you and disclose to you the secrets of wisdom, for true wisdom has two sides. Know this: God has even forgotten some of your sin.”

Translated: Zophar wishes that God would speak up and silence this whiner. And, about Job’s being perfect and righteous with flawless beliefs? God has forgotten more sin than Job even remembers!

Take that!

Job 12 2007 April 17^th for May 15^th

Job replies to the drivel of Zophar:

“Doubtless you are the people, and wisdom will die with you!”

But, everybody knows all this stuff.

“Men at ease have contempt for misfortune as the fate of those whose feet are slipping.”

Job, despite his righteousness and blamelessness, has become contemptible to all of his friends. Meanwhile, “The tents of marauders are undisturbed and those who provoke God are secure – those who carry their god in their hands.” That is, idolaters.

But, even the animals, birds, and fish know all this about the good being upheld and the evil brought down and they all know that God has afflicted Job.

God is the one who motivates everything. If he builds it, it cannot be destroyed. If he destroys it, it is gone. He makes the fate of kings and nations, makes people wise and foolish. “He deprives the leaders of the earth of their reason; he sends them wandering through a trackless waste.”

I’ll say.

Job 13 2007 April 18^th for May 16^th

Job continues:

He already knows all that his friends have told him. “I am not inferior to you.”

“You, however, smear me with lies; you are worthless physicians, all of you!

If only you would be altogether silent! For you, that would be wisdom.”

Job is not pulling punches here.

Who told them they could speak this wickedness on God’s behalf anyway? Who made them God’s counselor? What if God examined them? How would that turn out?

“Keep silent and let me speak; then let come to me what may.”

Given an audience with God, Job would defend himself. He would present his case and plead his deliverance. He asks two things of God. First, “Withdraw your hand far from me, and stop frightening me with your terrors.” Second, “Summon me and I will answer; or let me speak, and you reply!”

Man is nothing to begin with, like a rotten garment eaten by moths he fades into garbage. Why does God, in addition to this, make a righteous man his enemy?

Job 14 2007 April 19^th for May 17^th

“Man is born of woman,” Job continues, “is of few days and full of trouble.”

He is gone like withered grass. He is impure. His days are fixed and finite. It is like going to work in the fields. When the day is done it is all over.

A tree, on the other hand, if it is cut down, it will sprout and grow again. If its roots rot in the ground, something will still come back up. When a man dies, it is not like that. He is put away in the ground and never exists again. Like water evaporating or streams drying up, but unlike a stream that may refill in a later season, a man never comes back.

His sons grow up and are honored, but he doesn’t see it; he has ceased to exist. They come to their own trouble; he doesn’t see that either.

“He feels but the pain of his own body and mourns only for himself.”

Job 15 2007 April 20^th for May 18^th

Eliphaz speaks again. How can a man spew such useless hot air? “You even undermine piety and hinder devotion to God.” But Job is condemned by his own mouth, not the mouths of his friends.

How come you think you are so wise? Are you older than the hills? There are men older than your father who are “on our side.” (Age and experience are equated with wisdom in the culture of Job.)

God doesn’t even trust the holy ones in heaven, how much less would he be concerned with the counsel of corruptible humans, born of women?

Look here: The wicked suffer, they live in other people’s abandoned broken down houses, they despair, they wander, they are in distress, they are tormented. The time of the wicked is short, he cannot be wealthy; he spawns evil and deceit.

The implication is: How come you think you are not wicked, Job?

Job 16 2007 April 23^rd for May 21^st

Job replies: You know, if we swapped places, I could make flowery speeches accusing you of things I don’t know about either. I could bring meaningless words of comfort.

But, God has worn me out; my own words do not bring comfort. I am scorned, thrown into evil, bound in pain, shattered, crushed.

“I have sewed sackcloth over my skin and buried my brow in the dust.

My face is red with weeping, deep shadows ring my eyes;

Yet my hands have been free of violence and my prayer is pure.”

It won’t be long before Job goes “on the journey of no return.” He pleads with God in heaven as a man intercedes for his friend.

“Oh earth, do not cover my blood; may my cry never be laid to rest!”

“…my eyes pour out tears to God.”

Job is in despair beyond human endurance.

Job 17 2007 April 24^th for May 22^nd

Job claims that he is surrounded by mockers and those whom God has made unwise. He feels that his days are short. He has become a “byword” for all people. His name means serious trouble. (This is still true today.)

Another bit of wisdom:

“If a man denounces his friends for reward, the eyes of his children will fail.”

When Job says this, does he still believe that the good are rewarded and the evil are punished, along with their children? Is he too mocking?

Job has given up on life. All of his dreams are destroyed, he is at the point of death and all of his friends are proving to be fools. He just wants to lay in the grave calling his father “corruption” and his mother and sister “the worms.”

“Who can see any hope for me?

Will it go down to the gates of death? Will we descend together into the dust?”

Job 18 2007 April 25^th for May 23^rd

Bildad was insulted.

“When will you end these speeches? Be sensible, and then we can talk.

Why are we regarded as cattle and considered stupid in your sight?”

He then chastises Job with a trite recitation of the common belief that the evil person can do no good. They can’t stay out of snares, they can’t have children, they can’t avoid punishment and poverty or disaster and calamity. Such a person is sickly and everyone is “appalled at his fate.” Everything goes badly for him.

Job 19 2007 April 26^th for May 24^th

Job responds:

“How long will you torment me and crush me with words?

Ten times now you have reproached me; shamelessly you attack me.”

“If it is true that I have gone astray, my error remains my concern alone.”

Now Job is moving into the area of appropriate interpersonal relations on the issue of his distress. This is new.

He cries out to God with another long list of sorrows. He seems to have become an enemy of God; all his honor is gone. Relatives are all gone; his guests and even his servants consider him a stranger.

“My breath is offensive to my wife; I am loathsome to my own brothers.”

Children ridicule; friends turn away. Why are his friends cruel to him as God has been?

But, and this is a famous passage from the Bible, usually taken out of this interesting context. A statement of faith:

“I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.

And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God;

I myself will see him with my own eyes – I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!”

This has been set to music in different eras.

And, Job continues, those who are calling him evil should look out for themselves!

Job 20 2007 April 28^th for May 25^th

Another statement of Zophar:

He is dishonored by Job’s rebuke and, based on his understanding of the wisdom of the ages, he must answer in disagreement.

Zophar recounts through many examples the ways of the wicked. Their joy and triumph are brief. They die young. They toil to produce food then are unable eat it. Although their evil is sweet to them and they don’t want to let it go, it all goes bad and they throw up and suffer from poisons and die.

“What he toiled for he must give back uneaten; he will not enjoy the profit from his trading.

For he has oppressed the poor and left them destitute, he has seized houses he did not build.”

His prosperity departs; he is destitute. God pierces him with arrows.

“Through he flees from an iron weapon, a bronze-tipped arrow pierces him.

He pulls it out of his back, the gleaming point out of his liver.”

How graphic.

He falls under God’s wrath.

It is worth pointing out that, although Job and his friends disagree about the interpretation of his fate with respect to God’s standards and actions, they do not disagree that God supports righteousness and is opposed to evil. This is a very distinctive characteristic of their God as opposed to the capricious and puerile gods of the mythologies of that era.

Job 21 2007 April 30^th for May 29^th

Job turns further into new theology:

“Listen carefully to my words; let this be the consolation you give me.

Bear with me while I speak, and after I have spoken, mock on”

Mock On!

He is saying that if they are not going to hear his complaint, the least they can do is listen and since that is all they will do, he will take that as consolation, as no one has offered any other consolation. One can only imagine what Shakespeare would have done with this sentiment.

Job is not complaining to men anyway, he is complaining to God. That is the source from which he wants his answer.

In any case, evil people are not brought down anything like these friends seem to believe they are. They live to old age, they see their families established, and they don’t have any trouble with their crops, livestock, or homes. On the contrary, they live well and are even arrogant about it:

“Yet they say to God, ‘Leave us alone! We have no desire to know your ways.

Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him?

What would we gain by praying to him?’”

This attitude echoes through all time, including our own. Plenty of good and evil today, all of it “scientifically” or at least pragmatically established in the practitioners minds.

Indeed, “how often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out?” Job asks.

How often does this sort of punishment actually occur? Not often enough that sayings haven’t arisen like, “’God stores up a man’s punishment for his sons.’” Evil people are not even rebuked in their own lifetimes so people who believe in a righteous God are found saying things like God will punish his children. But, Job says, God should punish that man himself so that that man himself will know what’s up. What does he care about his family anyway?

We even saw this lived out in the history of Israel. The interpretation of actual history versus prophecy given by the prophet often was that God did not punish the evil king in his own lifetime, for some reason or other.

Job continues:

“Can anyone teach knowledge to God?”

Some men die in their strength having had every good thing in life, others die after a horrid existence in which nothing good has ever happened to them. They lie side by side in the grave and are eaten by worms equally.

Death: the great egalitarian.

Job knows what they are thinking. ‘If he’s so smart, what has become of him?’ But, haven’t they ever looked at travelers? Some travel in safety and get by unscathed, their evil nature notwithstanding. When they do die, they are surrounded by high esteem, many mourners come to the funeral and people stand guard at his grave that is situated in a nice place.

“So how can you console me with your nonsense? Nothing is left of your answers but falsehood!”

Job 22 2007 May 1^st for 30^th

Eliphaz takes Job on.

What good is man to God? What difference would it make to God if you were blameless?

“Is not your wickedness great? Are not your sins endless?”

He then goes on with a long list of wicked things that Job must have done, turning away widows and orphans, charging usury, dealing unfairly with land and management and so forth.

“That is why snares are all around you, why sudden peril terrifies you,”

But isn’t God above everything, even the highest stars of heaven? Who are you to question him, to say, “What does God know?”

Eliphaz then goes through another detailed list of all the bad things that happen to bad people and all the good things that happen to good people.

“Submit to God and be at peace with him;” he says, “in this way prosperity will come to you.”

Job 23 2007 May 2^nd for 31^st

Job’s reply shows increasing bewilderment and despair. “If only I knew where to find him,” he says of God. He would go plead his case and get his answer. He would find out the charges held against him. Would God overwhelm him with great power? No, Job insists that he would be vindicated.

He insists again that his steps have been utterly close to God’s steps and that God’s word has been more important to him than his food. But, he does not find God in the east or west. When God works in the north, Job doesn’t see him, nor in the south.

If he could just be tested he would, “come forth as gold,” but God “stands alone, and who can oppose him?”

When Job thinks on this he is terrified, faint, but he is not silenced by impending darkness and death.

Job 24 2007 May 3^rd for June 1^st

Job continues. Why doesn’t God have times when people can bring complaints?

All sorts of evil is done without punishment from on high. People move boundaries of fields and plant and graze land that is not theirs. They take donkeys away from orphans because they can. They make life harder on the needy than it already is, people who already have to forage empty fields for a little food, who already sleep under rocks, who already lack clothes. All of these oppressed peoples cry up to heaven “But God charges no one with wrongdoing.”

Then there are those who rebel openly. They prefer the night to the light of day. The worst time for them is dawn because they don’t want their evil seen in the light for what it is. These are people who break in and steal, who conceal themselves to commit adultery thinking they can get away with it. They know God’s law and break it on purpose. Such people are like foam on the water. They go to the grave and no one cares. The are forgotten. They prey on childless women and are broken. (Job slips into the presumed consequences of evil.)

“But God drags away the mighty by his power; though they become established, they have no assurance of life.” They may feel security, but God is watching and they will cut down and gathered up like grain.

“If this is not so, who can prove me false and reduce my words to nothing?”

Is Job taking the other side in the last paragraph? Is he talking of all men, the just and the unjust? Is he despairing of God’s seemingly uneven dispensing of justice?

Job 25 – 26 2007 May 4^th for June 4^th

It is Bildad’s turn again, but he doesn’t have much more to say.

“Dominion and awe belong to God; he establishes order in the heights of heaven.

Can his forces be numbered? Upon whom does his light not rise?

How then can a man be righteous before God? How can one born of woman be pure?

If even the moon is not bright and the stars are not pure in his eyes,

How much less man, who is but a maggot – a son of man, who is only a worm!”

Job responds. Who have you ever helped? Someone who was weak? Someone who lacked wisdom? In so doing, what spirit spoke through you?

Job laments death, “The dead are in deep anguish…” but everything about death is revealed to God. He puts clouds in the sky full of water and decides whether they will rain or not. He other clouds them over the moon at will. He sets the expanse of the sky and the horizon where it meets land. He can make or destroy anything; he runs the whole creation.

“And these are but the outer fringe of his works; how faint the whisper we hear of him?

Who then can understand the thunder of his power?”

Job lacks no respect for the Creator; he is merely confused as to his dispensation of fairness.

Job 27 2007 May 7^th for June 5^th

Job continues. He does not understand why it has happened, but he will not change his stance:

“As surely as God lives, who has denied me justice, the Almighty, who has made me taste bitterness of soul,

as long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils,

my lips will not speak wickedness, and my tongue will utter no deceit.

I will never admit you are in the right; till I die, I will not deny my integrity.

I will maintain my righteousness and never let go of it; my conscience will not reproach me as long as I live.”

Then he says his enemies should be like “the wicked,” returning to the theme of punishment for the wicked. They have money, but not for long. Their children die by the sword or starve. “… their widows will not weep for them.” Others divide up their wealth. They are carried off in the middle of the night by calamity. There is no mercy for the wicked.

Job 28 2007 May 8^th for June 6^th

Job continues his discourse with a soliloquy about mining.

Men go out far from everything and dig shafts in the ground looking for precious metals and stones. They look through all the most forsaken places for these treasures. No bird or animal has been there or seen them.

Even so, this isn’t where wisdom comes from. In fact, where does wisdom come from? It’s not in the depths of the ocean, or the skies. It can’t be bought with any of these treasures. Indeed, man has no idea of its value. So where is wisdom anyway? Even Death and Destruction don’t know. They’ve heard rumors but that’s about it.

Only God knows. He sees everything and understands it all. He set up everything the way it is, the rain, wind, storms, everything.

“… then he looked at wisdom and appraised it; he confirmed it and tested it.

And he said to man,

‘The fear of the Lord – that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.’”

That is to say, wisdom is so far beyond mortals that the best thing to do is to just know and trust God’s ways.

Job 29 2007 May 9^th for June 7^th

Job’s enormous speech continues.

In this section, he remembers his past life with nostalgia. God was with him back then and so were all his children. “… my path was drenched with cream and the rock poured out for me streams of olive oil.” He was honored at the gate of the city where young men stood aside and old men stood in respect. Everyone murmured quietly on his arrival.

Those who lay dying blessed him, widows were happy to see him; he guided the blind and helped the lame. He protected strangers. He thought he would live a very long time and die at home.

Anytime he had something to say, people waited expectantly drinking in everything he spoke like fresh rain. If he smiled at them it made their day. He was their chief, their leader.

Job 30 2007 May 11^th for June 8^th

Job carries on:

His social condition has been reversed. There were men who, when he was at his height, he might have put out with the sheep dogs. These men’s sons now mock and sneer at Job. They are no use to him; they roam around in the desert eating tree roots.

Now that God has removed Job’s strength, these low people do not hesitate to sing songs of mockery and spit in his face. They can destroy Job without any help because he is so weak.

God has thrown him into the mud, reduced him to dust and ashes. It is a hard burden to bear; his skin is cracked and peeling, he cannot sleep or rest. God is silent in this, absent. Where is he?

It’s not like Job didn’t help the poor when he was able and mourn for their plight. But now he is a companion of desert animals, jackals and owls. He was expecting good and received evil.

Job 31 2007 May 11^th for June 11^th

Job concludes his discourse with a long list of sins he has not committed and virtues that he has demonstrated as a leader in his society.

He has not looked lustfully at a girl. He has not been false in any dealing. He has not been enticed by a woman. If he had, it would be right that his own wife find herself with other men. He has not denied justice to his servants. He has not turned away any who were poor or widows or orphans or who lacked clothing or food. He has not misused his influence with the courts against any such people.

He has not put faith in money or in the sun or moon or made any signs to them that could be construed as worship. To do so would be to be unfaithful to God. He has not jeered or gloated at the misfortune of others. His door was always open to travelers and strangers. He has not sinned and concealed it just because of what people would think.

Job merely wishes that he could know the indictment against him. He would wear it with pride if he just knew what it was. He has not abused his land either. If he has, “then let briers come up instead of wheat and weeds instead of barley.”

Job is finished speaking. His final speech is virtually an outline of a book on virtue.

Job 32 2007 May 14^th for June 12^th

When Job had finished speaking, his friends stopped answering him, “because he was righteous in his own eyes.” As the four old and wise men stood silent at this impasse, a younger man named Elihu spoke. He spends his first chapter establishing his credentials and establishing that his credentials are credentials.

They were old and he was young so he had kept quiet out of fear and respect, until now, he said. Wisdom was not only for the aged, however. Since it was the “breath of the Almighty” that gave wisdom and understanding, younger men could have it too.

Elihu had listened attentively and with understanding during the speeches of the others. Now that they had all run out of words and had become dismayed and silent, he would speak. He had a lot to say and would now say it. He told them to listen. He would not flatter or favor any man, but what he had to say had to come out.

Elihu was “very angry with Job for justifying himself rather than God. He was also angry with the three friends, because they had found no way to refute Job, and yet had condemned him.” Sounds like Elihu might have been interested in some form of justice, as was Job.

Job 33 2007 May 15^th for June 13^th

Elihu finishes up his credentials and turns to his first address on Job’s condition. Because he is alive, made so by the creator, a work of clay just like Job, he has the right to be heard.

Elihu has heard Job’s complaint, that he is righteous and without sin though he has been punished with shackles of distress and despair, but Job is not right in making such a complaint. Who is he to ask anything of God anyway?

God is above the ways of man. How does man even know God’s voice or what God has to say? Sometimes God speaks to man in dreams, sometimes terrifying ones, to keep the men straight and out of trouble. Sometimes he assigns suffering, suffering so great that food isn’t appealing. But there are also angels by him in the moment, to keep him from going all the way to death. Eventually he is restored and after confessing and admitting his evil and perversion, God delights in him again.

God may do this many times, two or three, to keep them out of the pit.

“Pay attention, Job, and listen to me; be silent, and I will speak.

If you have anything to say, answer me; speak up, for I want you to be cleared.

But if not, then listen to me; be silent, and I will teach you wisdom.”

Job 34 2007 May 16^th for June 14^th

Elihu continues by addressing all the wise men, including Job.

Job has done evil by claiming innocence when he is clearly guilty. His punishment from God is for this guilt. His ideas of justice are wrong.

God cannot do evil; he does only justice and does not pervert it. He was not appointed because he is already over everything because he made everything. “If it were his intention and he withdrew his spirit and breath, all mankind would perish together and man would return to the dust.”

God needs not go through due process. He knows who is evil and can destroy them, as they deserve, instantly. He favors no one, from the most important to the most forgotten. There is no hiding from God, nor is there any questioning of him. If God does something or if he does nothing who can challenge his behavior?

“Suppose a man says to God, ‘I am guilty but will offend no more.

Teach me what I cannot see; if I have done wrong, I will not do so again.’

Should God then reward you on your terms, when you refuse to repent?”

Elihu has implied that Job is sinful and unrepentant, rather than innocent and wronged.

“Job speaks without knowledge; his words lack insight.

Oh, that Job might be tested to the utmost for answering like a wicked man!

To his sin he adds rebellion; scornfully he claps his hands among us and multiplies his words against God.”

Job 35 – 36 2007 May 17^th for June 15^th

Elihu is still incensed that Job doesn’t understand the truth that God exalts the good and punishes the evil. “… what [is there to] gain by not sinning?”

Look up in the sky. See the clouds going by? What does it matter to God up there whether you are good or bad? It is for your own good that you refrain from sin, not his. God does not listen to empty pleas. He will not answer your complaints at your demand. “So Job opens his mouth with empty talk; without knowledge he multiplies words.”

But, Elihu says, bear with me and I will show you perfect wisdom. If people are good, God blesses them. They eat choice foods from their own table. They have prosperity throughout their lives. If they are afflicted it is because they have sinned. They die young. Don’t make or take bribes. Do you think wealth will help you in distress?

God has ultimate power. He directs the lightning, the thunder, and forms the raindrops. Even beasts in the field know when a storm is coming. Can anyone teach God anything? He is older than we can know. He understands things that we don’t even know exist. He governs nations in the way he pleases with this same utter power.

Job 37 2007 May 18^th for June 18^th

Elihu concludes with a description of a thunderstorm. All men and animals stop what they are doing and take cover. God flashes lightening and roars in thunder without holding back. Then comes the rain. Sometimes it is cold, water freezes. Sometimes it is clear and calm, the sky like a great mirror of “cast bronze.”

Does Job know how any of this is done? Can Job assist?

Does God care a whit what a man thinks, a mere mortal? Is he answerable to the needs or demands of such? Does he have any regard for the wise man? God is far beyond us in all respects, unreachable.

Job 38 2007 May 22^nd for June 19^th

Now God speaks.

“Then the Lord answered Job out of the storm. He said:

“Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?

Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.”

God then asks a series of questions. Where was Job when the earth was established? What are its measurements? Where was he when all this happened? How about the sea? The clouds? The darkness?

Who commands the dawn? Shakes the wicked out of the earth? Has Job ever been to the edges or depths of the sea?

Where does light come from? Darkness? Where are hail and snow stored? Who cuts the channels for streams? Who commands the rain? What about frost? Ice?

How about the stars, the Pleiades, Orion, the Bear? Do you know the laws that govern the heavens? Do you command clouds? Lightning? Thunder?

How about the heart, do you understand the heart? The mind? Wisdom?

(One might ask, “Do you understand women?”)

How does the earth stick together? Who feeds all the animals?

We see God here as in command of everything from the beginning of time. We see him as omniscient and omnipotent, and able to command everything unchallenged. This is why there is a “problem of evil” in our theology. If God is over everything and powerful in this way why is evil permitted?

It is tempting to fantasize that many of these questions are now answered. Skeptics take this leverage and say that man has outgrown God. We know the measure of the earth; we know how ice works, and lightning and thunder and the laws that govern the heavens. We know a lot about how nature works, but only to a certain level. We understand all of these in terms of fundamental particles, electrons and protons, or the entities that make them up. We observe and accurately measure gravity and we use our knowledge to control much in nature, but we don’t really know fundamentally what any of these things are nor do we know where they came from or why they bother to exist.

And, we know as little about the problem of evil as Abraham, or Job, or Adam did.

If we ask loud enough, perhaps God will question us similarly.

Job 39 2007 May 23^rd for June 20^th

God’s questioning of Job continues, now in a natural history vein.

Does Job know anything about how mountain goats or deer give birth or what their gestation is? Has he watched? Counted months?

What about the wild donkey whom God has given to live in the wasteland? They run free not caring at all about the shouting and commotion in town.

How about the wild ox? Does Job trust him to plow behind him (i.e., without direction from a master)? Does the ox bring in the harvest unbeckoned?

How about the Ostrich? She lays her eggs on the ground where they warm in the sand. She doesn’t care at all that some wild animal may trample and destroy them bringing her labor to nothing. If they do hatch she treats her offspring harshly. God has made her this way, that is, he has not given her any wisdom. But, when she flaps her wings and runs, you and all the other powerful animals stand aside!

How about the horse with speed, strength, and daring? Perhaps you can command him after a fashion, but did you make him that way?

And what about the hawk and the eagle? Can you tell them where to go or where to nest or how to feed or migrate? Do you know anything at all?

God’s questioning is harsh.

Today, we know much about these very things, but our knowledge only makes the array of questions more vast. What we now “know that we don’t know” is much more expansive than it was for Job. We are more clueless, not less.

Job 40 2007 May 24^th for June 21^st

God completes the first part of his speech:

“Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!”

“Then Job answered the Lord:

“’I am unworthy – how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth.

I spoke once, but I have no answer – twice, but I will say no more.’”

God then continues to speak out of the storm.

“Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.”

By what strength do you question my justice and “justify yourself.” Are you powerful? Is your voice like that of God? How about your arms? If so, speak and fight and crush the wicked yourself. Do this and I will admit that you can save yourself.

Look at “behemoth.” I made him, he is the greatest and strongest of creatures, yet I can do anything with him I like. When the river is at flood stage, it doesn’t bother him. His bones are like bronze, “His tail sways like a cedar.” Who can trap or control him aside from me?

Job 41 2007 May 25^th for June 22^nd

God concludes with a chapter on Leviathan, the great beast of the sea.

Can Job pull him in with a fishhook, trap and control him, make him a pet for his children, coerce an agreement with the great beast that he be his slave for life? Can Job fill Leviathan’s side with harpoons or wrestle him into submission? If he ever tries it he won’t try it again!

“No one is fierce enough to rouse him. Who then is able to stand against me?” God says.

“Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me,” says God.

Leviathan is fearfully and wonderfully made. He exhibits strength and grace. His outer coat is airtight, impenetrable. Can he be bridled? His mouth is enormous, full of fearsome teeth. He is as tough as a millstone. He breaths fire and boils water. Sword and javelin have no effect on him, when he thrashes, everyone runs away. Arrows and clubs are nothing to him. His underside is like potsherds and he leaves a trail in the mud.

“He makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment.”

“Nothing on earth is his equal – a creature without fear.

He looks down on all that are haughty; he is king over all that are proud.”

And the implication is that God made and commands Leviathan. God could do all of these things.

Job 42 2007 May 26^th for June 25^th

God is finished speaking. Job replies:

“I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted.

You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.

“You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’

My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.

Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

Job has seen God, as he said he would, and after forty chapters of complaining that he has been mysteriously treated unjustly, he concedes.

The remainder of the chapter and of the book of Job is the Epilogue:

God turns to Eliphaz and his “two friends.” “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.”

Job is thus reappointed priest. Eliphaz is the leader of Job’s opposition. Bildad and Zophar are just “two friends.” This is reminiscent of the Cuban Missile Crises when the Soviets would consistently refer to Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General as “the President’s brother.” Later, after difficult negotiations had been successfully completed, he was promoted to Attorney General in their communiqués.

In any case, the young Elihu is not even mentioned.

So the three of them, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar made the sacrifice as specified, Job prayed for them, and God accepted the prayer.

God made Job prosperous again, twice as prosperous as before. His brothers and sisters came and ate at his house and consoled him and gave him expensive gifts. His sheep, camels, oxen, and donkeys are all enumerated so we can check and see that they are all doubled. (I haven’t done this check. I trust them on this.)

He also had new children, seven sons and three daughters. The daughters are named: Jemimah, Keziah, and Keren-Happuch. They were the most beautiful women in the land and Job gave them inheritance among their brothers. Treating women as peers is worthy of special note in the Bible.

Job lived 140 more years and saw his children to the fourth generation. He died at a good old age, another biblical sign of a good life.

Concluding Thoughts on Job 2007 May 29^th for June 26^th

I have a fear of overt, public righteousness that it would make me a big target. Some flamboyant Christians following the lead of Paul, and perhaps of Christ, are proud of their great distresses, of the largeness of the target that they are. Which of us is foolhardy? (This is not as easy a question as it seems)

Job was a big target. His wealth, status, and righteousness, for himself and for his family were well known throughout his world.

I guess another part of my problem is that, in my experience, righteousness is usually associated with self-righteousness, which is largely understood to be an evil.

“Skin for skin,” Satan says. Just whack him and you’ll see. The accuser accuses Job of only responding to his rewards, in much the inverse way that it is assumed that God only rewards those who tow his line.

And so God permitted a random, undeserved whacking. When this wasn’t enough, God gave Satan a second chance. God never explained himself. In the end he did acknowledge Job’s righteousness and status with him. He did allow his restoration. I’m sure there are many dissertations on the effect and meaning of the epilogue to the book of Job where the restoration happens. If this were written today, the “happy ending” might be left off. It might be considered a little too … unlikely. But, it is important for Job to be vindicated. After his impossible test before God, Job is restored spiritually and God tells the friends that Job was right and God appoints Job is the intercessor for them.

The omnipotent reader knows what has happened throughout but the mere mortals Job, his peers, and the hot upstart Elihu, do not. Chapter after chapter, verse after verse the old belief is replayed that the good prosper and the bad suffer. The conclusion then is that since that is self-evidently true, Job must be sinful. Why doesn’t he just admit it?

The old truism turns out not to be true, actually, but the real nature of God, aside from his power and rulership over everything in creation, is not explored.

Does the book of Job really address the question of why the good suffer and the evil prosper? Is this the answer? God is mightiest so he can do (or permit) whatever he wants? We can’t possibly understand? No, it’s not that he is mightiest, it is that God is owner. So, God being the owner (and creator) of all creation and accountable to no one, does this mean he can do (or permit) whatever he wants? Well, yes. Does that make it right? Righteous? God only knows. Only God can declare. Perhaps it is infinitely fortunate that God is righteous, even if we don’t really understand either God or righteousness.

The most reverent read of Job is that we mortals, no matter how strong, accomplished, powerful, smart, or wise we are, are simply unable to fully comprehend why God does (or permits) what he does. Though it affects us, sometimes mortally, it’s none of our business. Do we tame Leviathan?

I am a less reverent reader. My admittedly limited observation of life, particularly human life, is that there is no equality and little fairness. There is some correlation of God-fearing righteousness with well-being, some cause and effect between gross neglect and sinfulness with despair and decrepitude, but there is enormous overlap of the reverse situations. The righteous suffer dreadfully. The evil live long lives, prosper, rule, and are interred with honor. Sometimes. Indeed, righteousness is often associated with suffering, sometimes self-imposed. It seems sometimes as if God is very aloof.

And, as we’ve said before, sometimes it seems that the mission of religion is just to explain its own veracity in the presence of all this non-sequitur.

I empathize with Job and all of his human friends. I would complain more violently and less eloquently if such things happened to me. It doesn’t feel to me like I’ve grasped, much less absorbed whatever lesson Job has for me.

© 2007, Courtney B. Duncan.