0:01

Welcome to another episode

0:04

of 40 Minutes in

0:06

the Old Testament. 40 Minutes

0:10

in the Old Testament

0:19

is

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a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and

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hang out with Chad, myself, and a whole bunch of other people

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event.

1:01

We finished up last episode,

1:04

we finished up Job 6, which

1:06

means we ended sort of halfway through Job's

1:09

response

1:10

to his first friend. We got

1:12

halfway through that, so he has a two-chapter

1:14

response. It's a lengthy response.

1:17

Chapter 7 is

1:18

appropriately titled, Job Continues,

1:21

My Life Has No Hope.

1:23

This is an appropriate heading because

1:25

he indeed is continuing, and

1:27

he of course is going to tell you that

1:30

hope is in low supply

1:32

for him right now. Yeah,

1:33

he's had it pretty rough. He's going to spend

1:35

these first few verses, well,

1:38

more than just a few, a lot of the verses just basically

1:41

using poetic speech to describe

1:44

how bad he has it.

1:45

I mean, just how terrible his life is at

1:48

the moment.

1:49

And who can blame him, right?

1:51

I mean, no lie

1:53

detected. Yeah,

1:56

no one can say, oh, Job, I think you're exaggerating.

1:59

overreacting there, Job, aren't you?

2:03

Yeah, this is true speech.

2:05

If there's anyone who has a right

2:08

to lament and complain, it's definitely

2:10

Job. He starts out by

2:12

talking about life here as like,

2:15

basically, slave labor. Just

2:18

a hard job in which you're always looking

2:20

for a break and you never seem to get one.

2:23

Has not man a hard service

2:25

on earth

2:26

and are not his days like the days

2:29

of a hired hand.

2:30

And by that

2:31

days of a hired hand, I don't think

2:33

that Job means clock in at nine,

2:36

clock out at five. Are you talking

2:38

about nine to five at the bank? This

2:40

isn't nine to five and a nice

2:43

air conditioned building with your

2:45

cubicle. This is rough work

2:48

out the field. It's kind of how we feel, right,

2:50

Chad, where we sit down and record this podcast.

2:52

We're like, gosh,

2:54

is it not just hard dripping

2:57

down my brow? Is it not hard for us

2:59

hired hands out here? Hired hand

3:01

is, as this connotation,

3:03

I listened to a lot of old

3:06

West podcast, Chad, you know, and a

3:09

hired hand is the thing you do when you can't

3:11

do anything else, right? So you're not like

3:13

looking, like your life

3:15

goal is not to be what is described

3:18

as a higher hand. This isn't like what you dreamed

3:20

of as a kid. Like maybe I could go to a ranch

3:23

or a farm. And

3:25

this is more like a prodigal

3:27

son coming home and telling his dad,

3:30

give me whatever work you got. So

3:32

the hired hand just does whatever

3:35

he's told to do. I'll do the worst thing.

3:37

What do you mean? Clean

3:39

the pig size out? That's what

3:41

I'll do. You need me to whatever, whatever it is. So

3:44

it's all grunt work. It's the

3:46

connotation of hired hand is, is certainly

3:48

that of doing the

3:51

worst thing for a little.

3:53

Yeah. This is the to bring you back

3:55

memories of my teenage and college years. Yeah.

3:58

I mean, I had a great job.

3:59

store in

4:01

Chermock, Texas, but that meant like,

4:03

you know, the truck pulls up and you've got thousands

4:06

of bags to unload or salt

4:09

blocks to unload and then you get in college

4:11

and I worked on the roof

4:12

of the roof roof for several summers, which

4:14

is by far the hardest work that I've ever done.

4:17

So that's what he's talking about here. This is hard service.

4:19

This is the days of a hired

4:21

hand. Well he also uses

4:23

the word, you know, slave. He's like a slave who longs for

4:25

the shadow and like a hired hand who looks for

4:27

his wages. In his mind, a hired

4:30

hand and a slave are there's not a lot of daylight

4:32

between those two things.

4:34

Yeah, distinction with a difference really. Yeah.

4:36

I really like the image of a slave who looked

4:38

long for the shadow because it doesn't

4:41

say he actually gets the shadow. It's like he's

4:43

out in the sun, he's sweating, he's worn out

4:46

and he wishes they could go sit in the shade or

4:48

he wishes a cloud would hide the sun and he never

4:50

gets it. Yeah. It just keep on

4:53

working, keep on labor and keep on sweating.

4:56

So he says all of that in the first two verses and

4:58

then he says, so I,

5:00

so in an analogous way,

5:03

so I am allotted months

5:05

of emptiness and nights

5:07

of misery are apportioned to me. A

5:09

lot of this sounds like, by the way, the musings

5:13

of Kohelith,

5:15

the preacher in Ecclesiastes, vanity

5:18

of vanities, all this vanity, this

5:20

idea of emptiness and chasing after the wind

5:22

and the seeming

5:25

futility of human existence where

5:27

no matter what you do, I mean Solomon, of course, is

5:30

writing from a very different perspective. He had

5:32

lead, led, of course, a spoiled life

5:34

in which he pursued pleasure and whatnot. He would never was,

5:37

you know, engaged in hard service

5:39

or slave labor but

5:42

still you kind of have the same, same

5:44

perspective. It's empty, it's vain,

5:47

it's just kind of a vaporous existence. And

5:50

he starts in the second half of verse 3

5:53

to talk about

5:54

something that actually comes

5:56

up quite a bit over the weekend I was in Birmingham

5:58

speaking. at the Advent

6:01

down there. Great group of folks. One night

6:03

I was at the get-together and

6:06

one of the fellows and I were talking about the Psalms,

6:08

and he said, you know,

6:11

the older I get, the more

6:13

I notice, I guess because I can connect with

6:16

it, I notice how often the Psalm is

6:18

up at night.

6:19

We were kind of bemoaning the fact

6:21

that the older we get, the more we wake up at night. Not

6:25

because you have to run to the restroom, just because you just wake

6:28

up, you know. And I said,

6:31

yeah, because many, many times

6:33

the psalmist is his eyelids

6:35

are held open by God or he's tossing or he's

6:37

turning, you know, he can't get to rest.

6:40

And that's what Job is describing. Nights

6:42

of misery. Verse 4

6:45

says, when I lie down, I say,

6:47

when shall I arise?

6:49

But the night is long and

6:51

I'm full of tossing till

6:53

the dawn.

6:55

So, you know, you might look to you, like, oh, fine,

6:57

I go to bed, I

6:58

can rest,

6:59

I can just kind of catch up on my

7:02

sleep and be refreshed

7:04

in the morning and it turns out, no.

7:06

No, that the night is as bad as the day, if not

7:09

worse, because you expect to sleep,

7:11

you expect to rest, but instead

7:13

you toss and you turn and we all know how miserable

7:15

that can be. That's

7:17

going to where Job's at. And,

7:18

of course,

7:19

part of this is because what it describes in verse 5.

7:24

This is gross stuff,

7:26

but this is an apt description of what Job

7:28

is going through. My flesh is clothed

7:32

with worms and dirt. Just

7:34

imagine that imagery. Clothes and

7:37

worms. Yeah, what are you wearing?

7:40

Worms and dirt. My

7:43

shirt,

7:44

my pants, my shoes, that's

7:46

what I'm wearing. I'm clothed with worms

7:48

and dirt. My skin hardens

7:52

and then breaks out afresh.

7:54

So, it's just, you know,

7:56

kind of a scabby and then it's oozing

7:59

and it just, you know, nasty all

8:01

over which is you know exactly what we've heard

8:03

Job described as he's he's covered head

8:06

to toe in these sores and he's scratching them scraping

8:08

them with a pot shirt so

8:11

just a terrible terrible existence so no no

8:14

surprise I couldn't sleep yeah

8:16

how do you sleep when you're feeling that way you know no

8:18

matter where you you lie down

8:20

it hurts and

8:23

then he he kind

8:25

of switches the image here to describe

8:27

the you know how

8:30

fast life it just seems to go

8:32

and the you know you wake

8:34

up one day it's it's over and he uses the image

8:36

of a of a weavers shuttle

8:39

so Dan do you know what weaver shuttle is because

8:42

I had no idea it's like a bus

8:44

that weavers take to the to

8:47

the weaver e

8:49

the best definition

8:51

I've ever heard so I was like I would this

8:53

has been a couple weeks ago I was like

8:55

what in the world is a weaver shuttle

8:57

so actually yeah I had to YouTube this I was

8:59

like oh okay that's what

9:01

weaver shuttle is so you're sitting at the

9:04

you know the the whatever

9:06

it's called where you where you weave and

9:09

you got these you got these threads

9:11

that are so you're sitting in front of it well they're stretched

9:14

out vertically in front of you but you got

9:16

to get the horizontal threads through there too that's

9:18

what that's what you're weaving course you're weaving the

9:21

the vertical with a horizontal and the weaver

9:23

shuttle is a tool that you use kind of move

9:26

that thread horizontally back and forth

9:28

left right right left so

9:30

there you go and evidently this is

9:33

really fast so my days

9:35

are swifter than a weaver shuttle there's a couple

9:37

of places in the old awesome award this analogy

9:40

is used and this

9:42

swift passing of the days like a weaver shuttle

9:45

they come to an end

9:47

without hope

9:48

and thus the the way that the ESV

9:50

has titled this section my life has

9:52

no hope

9:55

so that's uplifting yeah that's

9:57

great I feel much better now

10:00

that we've covered those six verses.

10:03

But you know, this is the way it works.

10:05

When there's no glamorizing

10:08

of suffering, there's no trying to, you know,

10:12

just kind of tone it down a little bit and

10:15

focus on the positive. Job is just

10:17

being very blunt. This is the way

10:19

it is. This is what I'm going through. This is what I look

10:21

like. This is what my days and my nights are like.

10:24

And then he shifts in verse seven.

10:27

He shifts in such a way that I believe

10:30

this is kind of where you have him.

10:32

If he hasn't been praying indirectly

10:35

already, then he's gonna really focus

10:38

on directing these next words to God. Remember

10:42

that my life is a breath. Ruach

10:45

is the Hebrew there, which is breath

10:48

or wind or spirit. Probably breath is a good translation

10:51

here. My life is a breath.

10:54

You breathe in, you breathe out, it's over. My eye

10:56

will never again see good. The

10:59

eye of him who sees me will

11:01

behold me no more.

11:04

So

11:05

God is looking at him, but

11:08

he won't be for long because he's gonna

11:10

pass away and he will be no

11:12

more. Why your eyes are on me, he says, I'll

11:14

be gone. As the cloud fades

11:16

and vanishes, so he who

11:19

goes down to Sheol does not come up.

11:21

He returns no more to his house, nor

11:24

does his place know him anymore.

11:27

That's a pretty common image in the Psalms where

11:31

when you go down to the place of death, which is what

11:33

Sheol is in the Old Testament, when

11:36

you go down to the place of death, that's it. There's

11:38

no coming up again. So it's over

11:41

and over in the Psalms, you have Sheol

11:44

or the place of death described as

11:47

the place in which there is no

11:49

return. And this doesn't mean that

11:51

there's a denial of the resurrection. It's just the

11:53

way in which death is described where

11:56

there you go, you're going down

11:58

and you're not right. not rising

12:01

up again. So it becomes an image

12:03

of

12:04

finality.

12:05

So once it's over,

12:07

it's over. Yeah, in the Old

12:09

Testament, it's not as though, you know,

12:13

there are illusions, of course. David

12:15

makes these illusions. We're gonna have Job straight

12:18

up make one of the great sort of confessions

12:21

eventually, right? There's

12:23

an acknowledgement of being with God or

12:26

that there's

12:34

something else, right? But

12:37

what the Old Testament doesn't have sort

12:39

of explicitly, at least I don't think,

12:43

and this is something that is so great

12:46

about Christ, is that it doesn't

12:48

give you like this explicit... not

12:51

that it's not hinted at by God,

12:53

but that the people, the

12:55

believers in God, don't have

12:58

this explicit theology of like

13:00

the resurrection of the body. Like this is

13:02

sort of, this is saved

13:04

for Christ. Like Christ is the one who reveals

13:07

exactly what this

13:09

is all going to look like.

13:11

Yeah, it's pretty meager. I mean, you have some

13:14

passages in Isaiah. Daniel is probably

13:16

the clearest indication of this, talks

13:19

about those who rise.

13:22

But it's not like, oh man, it's all over the place.

13:25

At least not explicitly. Now, when you

13:27

get to the New Testament and the resurrection of Christ and

13:29

you go back, well, you've got even passages like

13:32

Exodus 3, which Jesus quotes. I'm

13:35

the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

13:38

He's not the God of the dead, but of the living. But

13:41

not many people say in

13:44

Joshua's day, or even David's

13:46

day, would have read Exodus 3,

13:49

that verse, and thought, oh, obviously.

13:51

That means I'm going to be risen

13:54

bodily on the last

13:56

day. That's not how they interpreted

13:58

that stuff.

13:59

kind of got himself to come in the flesh and

14:02

say hey you know what this means? Well it doesn't mean

14:04

that there's a resurrection. Yeah this is like

14:06

you know

14:08

Peter will say you know that hey even

14:10

like the prophet stuff a lot of times they're writing

14:12

stuff and then they're studying what they

14:15

wrote like God's giving them a word but I mean they don't

14:17

know exactly what this means you know I mean Isaiah

14:20

when he's writing does he really understand

14:22

in detail exactly what he's talking

14:24

about like I think Peter would say no

14:26

he doesn't like he

14:29

doesn't understand as he's writing about

14:31

the suffering servant and stuff he's not he doesn't

14:34

Isaiah does not have like the crucifixion

14:37

in his mind like this is not this

14:39

is not how this works. He's

14:42

got you know his writings here he's got the Nicene

14:45

Creed on the other side he's like oh yeah

14:47

that's what I mean. Or a magic mirror and he's

14:49

looking down the corridor of timing and he can see

14:52

how this is gonna play out or something it's this

14:54

this is the word that God has given him and then

14:57

once you have the

14:59

cross that you did you look back and

15:01

you're like well this all makes sense and once

15:03

you have the resurrection certainly

15:05

I mean we're gonna get to Job doing

15:08

this exact thing like there's Job's

15:10

gonna make a confession that only

15:12

makes sense in the resurrection

15:15

of Christ.

15:16

Yes yeah but did Job fully understand

15:19

it or Isaiah or whoever no

15:21

no that's that that's just not

15:23

the way that that's not the way the

15:25

Old Testament worked the way I like to this

15:28

is not my my own analogy

15:30

but others have used this it's

15:32

the idea like say you're walking along a

15:35

dirt road

15:36

landscape is flat and

15:39

you're you see something in the distance

15:41

and you don't really know what it is I mean is it

15:44

is it an animal is it is it a person

15:46

is is something else you know something

15:48

is there but you can't quite make it out and then you

15:51

get a little bit closer you're like oh I'm pretty

15:53

sure that yeah that's a person is not

15:55

an animal but you can't tell if it's man or a woman you

15:58

go a bit closer you're like oh that's It's

16:00

a man I can tell now, but I can't tell if

16:02

he's 20 or if he's 50. So

16:05

it's kind of like that as you work your way through the Old Testament.

16:07

The farther along you get, the greater clarity,

16:10

the greater precision that you get. But

16:14

that being said, even when you get

16:16

to the Gospels themselves, of course, and you have these guys

16:18

who have traveled for three years sitting

16:20

at the feet of Jesus, they're still not

16:23

really fully getting it. The resurrection

16:25

has to happen. Any cost has to happen before

16:27

all of a sudden the veil is lifted and

16:30

there is clarity and precision. And

16:33

the death and resurrection of Christ is like finding

16:35

out

16:36

that Bruce Willis was dead the whole time in the sixth

16:38

sense, and all of a sudden the entire last 90

16:42

minutes that you spent watching this movie

16:44

make complete sense. Yeah.

16:46

And then you go back to Genesis

16:49

and you rewatch the whole Bible movie. Like,

16:51

oh! Yes, this is correct. Yes.

16:54

How did I not see that the entire time? Yes.

16:57

I use that movie all the time as an example of that.

17:00

Because I mean, it is. You feel kind of dumb,

17:02

actually. Yeah. When you get to the end of it and you realize...

17:04

This wasn't even

17:06

that hidden. It was right there.

17:09

Yeah. Yeah. You get shot in the

17:11

beginning, right? Yeah. Like, how

17:13

did you not see this? Sorry

17:16

if we spoiled that movie. I mean, it's been out for like 25 years.

17:19

So at this point, if you haven't seen it... Yeah,

17:21

if you haven't seen it, I don't know what to say.

17:23

That's your fault. I'm sorry. I'm

17:25

trying to... It's not on us.

17:28

So anyway, so that's verse 10. He ends

17:30

up in Sheol. Does

17:34

it return? Therefore, verse 11,

17:37

he says, because of this,

17:39

I'm not going to shut up. I'm

17:41

not going to restrain my mouth.

17:44

I'm going to speak in the anguish of my spirit.

17:47

I'm going to complain in the bitterness of

17:49

my soul. And he certainly

17:52

does that as he should. That

17:55

is the boldness of the

17:57

sufferer in the Scriptures.

17:59

Rather than simply having kind

18:02

of a stoic acceptance of

18:05

how bad life is

18:07

and just dealing with it, there's

18:09

a protest. There's a prayerful protest

18:12

that suffers in the Scriptures will

18:16

always go to, rather than simply saying,

18:18

well, forget it. Life is

18:20

bad. Nothing's going to change it. They

18:23

cry out to God. That's what he says here. I'm not going

18:26

to shut up. I'm going to keep

18:27

crying out in the anguish of my spirit. Well,

18:29

part of this is also, I mean, therefore

18:33

here is based on what him

18:35

saying, my life is a breath. Here,

18:38

here very shortly. I mean, how long can I live like this?

18:40

I mean, my days are surely numbered. So

18:43

the day is coming very soon where

18:46

people who are looking at me now, they

18:49

will look and not see me. Like, I will be gone.

18:52

Therefore, I'm not going to restrain my mouth. I'm

18:54

going to speak the anguish of my spirit. Why? This

18:57

might be the last day and I will

18:59

be heard. My days are

19:02

very limited. They are a mere breath. And

19:05

so since that is the

19:07

case, I am going to these

19:09

are the words that I'm going to say.

19:12

I'm going to take advantage of the time that I have.

19:16

Verse 12, Am I the sea or

19:18

a sea monster that you set a guard

19:21

over me?

19:23

Quite sure what to do with that. Some people

19:25

actually will personify this as Am

19:28

I Yom, which is the Hebrew word for sea, which

19:30

is personified in a

19:32

lot of ancient and eastern texts, or

19:35

Am I Tanin? That's the Hebrew behind

19:37

sea monster. Tanin occurs kind of like

19:39

Leviathan. Tanin is it's

19:41

one of these almost mythological creatures. So

19:44

Am I the sea? Am I sea monster that you set

19:47

a guard over me?

19:49

When I say my bed will comfort me,

19:52

my couch will use my complaint.

19:54

Someone says, hey, I'm

19:56

just going to get some rest. I'm going to go to bed. I'm

19:58

going to lay down on the couch.

19:59

Then verse 14,

20:02

you scare me with dreams and terrify

20:04

me with visions.

20:07

So much so. So again, this is going to get

20:09

back to the whole, uh, nighttime in

20:11

here. It's not as if he, uh, he can't

20:13

sleep is when he does go to sleep.

20:16

He has these terrible dreams,

20:18

nightmares,

20:20

like so bad. He says

20:22

that

20:24

I would choose strangling

20:26

and death rather than my

20:28

bones. That is rather than my,

20:31

my existence. So some translations

20:33

are written to this, uh, that my throat

20:35

would choose strangling. The reason they do that is because

20:38

the I, I would choose strangling

20:41

in Hebrew is, uh, nefesh,

20:44

nefesh can mean soul,

20:46

the spirit. It can just be a way

20:48

of referring to a person

20:50

or to yourself, but

20:53

it can also be, in some contexts, nefesh means throat.

20:56

Like literally physically your throat, which

20:59

fits actually here so that my

21:01

throat would choose strangling the course. It

21:03

is your throat that is strangled. So I

21:06

would choose strangling and death rather

21:08

than my bones. That is rather than kind of

21:11

continuing to exist.

21:13

Why? Oh, excuse me. She

21:15

says, I loathe my life.

21:17

I would not live forever.

21:19

Leave me alone. This is him talking

21:21

to God. Leave me alone for my

21:23

days are a breath. This

21:28

is a, I think Psalm 34

21:30

uses that, uh, uses that same expression

21:32

where, uh,

21:33

Psalm 39 rather, where he says,

21:36

look away from me,

21:37

that I may smile again before I depart and am

21:39

no more.

21:40

So it's just, it's just one of these, uh,

21:43

kind of strange, uh,

21:44

seeming contradictions where he's crying out to

21:46

God. He's saying, I'm not going to shut up. I'm going to keep crying out.

21:48

But same time he's like, God, just leave me alone. Go

21:51

away.

21:53

He, he

21:55

doesn't know what he wants, which I

21:57

can actually, I think a lot of us, we can, we can

21:59

appreciate. that like we're crying

22:02

to God at the same time we're like just

22:04

leave me alone

22:06

we want our space but we also want to be heard well

22:08

there seems to be a acknowledgement

22:11

here that that it is

22:13

God who sustains life and

22:16

certainly his life I mean he's got to be thinking how am I not

22:18

dead yet like what is going on well it

22:21

seems like I should be dead and

22:23

in fact I wish I were I wove

22:26

my life I would not live forever that

22:28

doesn't mean that just means that

22:30

I don't want to live forever that's what this

22:33

means right so I would not live forever

22:35

is I'm not looking to prolong

22:38

my life here so and

22:41

so since that's the case I would like you

22:43

to leave me alone for my days

22:45

are abreast so you so if you could just abandon

22:47

me maybe I could die that

22:51

would that this is this was going on here and

22:54

unfortunately for for job he's

22:56

gonna have to live forever sorry that's the way it

22:58

is but

23:01

but yeah he does it he doesn't want it right now and

23:03

so it's a weird

23:06

thing for I

23:07

think I mean there's I've known

23:09

people

23:11

who are very old

23:13

and suffering a lot who are like

23:15

not in this situation but would

23:18

be happy for God to I know

23:20

that my days are numbered it would be fine

23:22

with me if that number was now

23:25

you could I'm ready I'm ready to go right

23:28

job is in an extreme case of that

23:30

where he's saying maybe you should turn

23:32

your back on me so I can die already

23:35

yeah I've known a number of situations especially

23:38

with people who are elderly they're like listen

23:40

I maybe their spouse has died you

23:43

know a lot of their friends and they're like

23:45

why am I still here you

23:48

know or maybe they're you know they're suffering

23:51

from whatever it might be and they're like this

23:53

I'm I'm really tired I'm tired of fighting

23:56

this I just want to go

23:58

to be with Jesus yeah

24:00

So any day would be good, God.

24:02

Any day. Yeah. What was interesting

24:04

about this too is that you're right that Job's confused

24:06

because on one hand he's like, you've abandoned

24:09

me, and then on the other hand he's like, would you please turn

24:11

your back on me so I can die? Yeah,

24:14

right.

24:16

Well, I think this is just the life

24:18

of the Supper.

24:20

In the one hand,

24:22

you're angry at God

24:24

or confused about what he's doing. On the

24:26

other hand, you want him to be with you and to help

24:29

you, and your

24:31

life is confusing, your mind is confused,

24:33

and you're confused about God, and so you shouldn't

24:35

expect any kind of rational

24:39

prayers that are taking place. It's quite

24:42

in keeping with the situation that you're in that you're

24:44

all over the place. Come in and help

24:47

me, God. Leave me alone.

24:48

Be with me. Walk

24:51

away. Smile at me. Don't smile

24:53

at me. All that kind of back and forth. Well,

24:55

what Job's struggling with here

24:58

is, in

24:59

his mind, God has

25:01

so abandoned him that he's

25:03

keeping him alive, which

25:07

is a very strange place to be. You're

25:10

so opposed to me that

25:12

you won't let me die.

25:16

And this is the

25:19

worst of all possible scenarios in Job's

25:21

mind. Yeah, in other words, I

25:23

don't believe that you're

25:26

obviously not helping

25:29

me, but

25:31

you're also not completely

25:33

removed from me, which

25:36

is the worst case scenario.

25:38

Yes, yeah.

25:40

You've locked me up in this

25:42

cage where I can't die, but you will come

25:45

see me. Yes. Give me anything that I

25:47

need. Now,

25:49

verse 17 is interesting because this sounds exactly

25:52

like a parody of

25:55

Psalm 8, which we recorded

25:57

last week. Yeah, yeah. That is nice. So,

26:01

yeah, so, you know, Saul-Mate

26:03

is this great, first

26:05

of all,

26:06

humble question, you know, what

26:08

is man that thou art mindful of him, the Son of Man,

26:11

that you think of him? Yet,

26:13

you

26:14

know, you made him for a little while lower than the angels

26:16

and crown him with glory and majesty. So this

26:18

whole, you know, what is man?

26:20

We seem so small, but you've just given

26:23

us this grandeur and this glory,

26:25

which of course culminates in Christ. So

26:27

you got that.

26:29

But then listen to this, verse 17,

26:32

what is man

26:34

that you make so much of him

26:36

and that you set your heart on him,

26:38

visit him every morning and test

26:41

him every moment? So

26:45

you begin by thinking, oh, he's maybe going to kind of shift

26:48

her into a psalm. What is man? But now he's saying

26:50

like, what is it with you, God?

26:52

Why do you make so

26:54

much of us in the sense of

26:56

testing us every morning

26:58

in every moment of our lives?

27:02

Would that you would just not

27:04

make so much of us so that we could have

27:07

a little bit of peace and tranquility

27:09

in this brief life that we have? How long will

27:13

you not look away from me nor

27:15

leave me alone till I swallow my

27:17

spit? So here we

27:19

have, you know, God's looking at him. He

27:22

won't look away from him. He won't leave him alone

27:24

so he can swallow his

27:26

spit, whatever that means. I guess he's

27:29

wanting to... I

27:31

don't know. I don't know what that means. Nor

27:34

leave me alone till I swallow my spit. Is that

27:36

just talking about what we, you

27:38

know, physically or is this a metaphor

27:40

for something else? I really don't know.

27:43

Yeah, this is a wild

27:46

thing to say, right? So,

27:49

yeah, David, of course, is like, hey, man, what is...

27:51

why is man such a

27:54

big deal to you that

27:56

you've, you know, that you've given him

27:58

all these wonderful things and just...

27:59

It's like why is man such a big deal to you

28:02

that you won't just let him die. That's it.

28:04

That's it I mean it really it's a parody on

28:06

soul mate

28:08

With very very different outcomes

28:11

numbers 20 with we're at the end of this chapter

28:13

verse 2021 so

28:16

Esv

28:18

and I'm not sure about other translations. I'll

28:20

check it while we're talking here But Esv

28:23

has an if at the beginning of this if I

28:25

sin What do

28:27

I do to you you watcher

28:30

of mankind and

28:33

So that's Esv new market standard has have

28:36

I sinned?

28:37

question mark

28:40

King James has I

28:41

have sinned

28:44

What shall I do unto unto

28:46

you now the reason you have all these various

28:48

kinds of translations is because there is no

28:50

if in the Hebrew So

28:52

Esv has added that because they think it

28:54

makes sense here other translations Don't

28:57

have it there. I think it probably

29:00

makes more sense just to take it out

29:02

For him for Job is saying yeah,

29:04

I'm a sinner I've sinned

29:06

and

29:08

When I do I do that to you what

29:10

what am I doing to you you watcher of mankind?

29:12

Kind of keeping your eye on humanity.

29:15

Why have you made me your mark? Why have it? Why

29:18

have I become a burden to you? Why

29:21

don't you just pardon my transgression and take

29:23

away my iniquity? For

29:26

now I shall lie on the earth

29:28

you will seek me, but I shall not

29:30

I shall not be I know that's that's what

29:32

makes most sense to me in that

29:34

in that context. Yeah, you don't need it if I sin there

29:39

if it's I mean if you just have I sin

29:41

it is just a confession of Of

29:44

course I sin And

29:47

it is interesting to do this like yeah, I sin

29:49

but how's it hurting you exactly

29:51

right? Yes

29:54

Guys must as my sin in some way affected

29:56

you well if I said I suppose it's

29:58

gonna affect me it's not gonna affect God. So

30:01

what do I do to you? You watch her at mankind. It's like God

30:04

is guarding humanity, making

30:06

us his target. Am

30:09

I a burden to God when this takes place? And

30:11

the answer, of course, all these rhetorical questions

30:13

is no. I'm

30:15

not a burden to you.

30:17

So why

30:20

is my life as difficult as it is? And if

30:22

there's some sin, why don't you just pardon that and take it

30:24

away? But as it is,

30:26

I'm about to die, and

30:28

where I'm going, you

30:30

can look for me, but I won't be there.

30:32

No, this is more kind of the show talk.

30:35

You can look for me, but I won't be around because I'll be in

30:39

the grave. Yeah,

30:40

I do like this

30:43

part of a sort of confession of

30:45

who God is, where Job

30:47

is certainly acknowledging, of course, I'm a sinner,

30:51

but you are acting sort of differently

30:56

than I understand you to be, which

30:58

is that you are treating me, in Job's

31:01

mind, it

31:04

feels like him. You are treating

31:06

me only according to

31:08

my sin. So I've become your

31:11

mark. This is like you have marked me

31:13

out. I've become like this burdensome

31:16

thing to you. But why

31:18

is it then that you wouldn't just pardon my

31:20

transgression to take away my iniquity? Because this

31:23

is how I understand you to be for

31:25

everyone else. Why are you not this for

31:27

me? Why

31:30

am I different?

31:32

And that's that's Joe's basic confusion.

31:35

I mean, not here, but throughout the book, like what

31:38

he knows of God and what he

31:40

is experiencing, there's this dissonance

31:43

that is existing that he's trying

31:45

to figure out. I mean, that is the struggle all to

31:47

the book. Like I, the God

31:49

I've known, and the God

31:51

that I am now experiencing are

31:54

so different that I don't know what to make of

31:56

it. Yeah.

31:57

And that's a, it's a terrible place to be in. Obviously,

32:00

it is for Joe, but it

32:02

is for any of us where God doesn't

32:05

seem in our experience to

32:07

be consistent with who He's promised

32:09

to be or who He's been for us in the past. That

32:13

leads, of course, to all kinds of questions and struggles

32:16

and internal deliberations

32:18

and external laments and everything we're reading in

32:20

the book of Joe. All right, we'll shift to eight.

32:23

This is the first speech of one

32:25

of the other friends. This guy's name

32:28

is Bildad the Shuhite.

32:30

He's been listening to Joe, and he's going to jump

32:33

in here. Bildad seems

32:35

to me kind of a theological simpleton. That's

32:38

the best way that I can explain him.

32:41

Bildad's theology, the Bildadian

32:43

theology, we'll call it, things

32:46

are very simple. You're either good or you're

32:48

bad. If you're good,

32:51

God will reward you.

32:53

If you're bad, He

32:54

will punish you. It's

32:57

a very simplistic, very

33:00

moralistic view of

33:02

God's dealings with humanity.

33:04

He says to

33:06

Job, basically, how long will

33:08

you keep on just being a blabbermouth?

33:13

How long will you say these things? In the words of your mouth,

33:15

be a great wind. You're

33:18

just talking and nothing

33:20

is coming out but just these bursts

33:23

of air. There's no real

33:25

substance to them, in other words.

33:28

Does God pervert justice

33:30

or does the Almighty pervert the right?

33:34

Now verse 4, talk

33:36

about a low below here.

33:40

If your children, Job's children,

33:43

if your children have sinned against him,

33:45

he has delivered them into the hand of their transgression.

33:48

In other words, Job,

33:51

I want to be the

33:53

bearer of bad news to you, but

33:55

your children got what they had coming.

33:58

All your children who died. they

34:00

must have sinned against God and He inscression.

34:04

So learn from their example

34:06

Job, this is what happens to sinners.

34:10

They got together,

34:11

they sinned,

34:12

God killed them.

34:13

That's more or less what He's saying.

34:15

So you can understand from

34:18

Job's perspective why these friends are

34:20

such miserable comforters.

34:24

Imagine showing up at somebody's house and saying,

34:26

you know,

34:29

your child died or your children died,

34:31

but you know, this is what happens

34:34

when you're sinner.

34:35

Yeah, well,

34:37

people do this kind of stuff too, like

34:40

this sort of a does God pervert justice

34:42

or does the Almighty pervert the right? This

34:46

is what happens

34:48

when somebody is suffering,

34:50

a

34:51

theologian shows up instead

34:54

of a pastor and just says, well

34:56

I hear the things you're saying and let me ask you this,

34:59

sounds like you're saying that God has perverted

35:02

justice or that Almighty doesn't always

35:04

do what's right. Maybe you should

35:06

check your theology Job.

35:09

This is not helpful.

35:11

Not helpful, no. No, this

35:13

is a kind of

35:15

a, this is the fair say-acle approach where

35:18

if you're good you're blessed, but you

35:20

know, if something happens to you evidently you're bad.

35:23

You kind of reason backwards, right? Also

35:25

a terrible thing happened to you or somebody else. Well

35:27

then let's let's kind of walk backwards.

35:30

A terrible thing happened. That

35:32

must have been because you did a terrible thing

35:35

and therefore the terrible thing

35:37

you're experiencing is God

35:40

getting his pound of flesh for what you've done. Or in

35:42

this case, Job's. Job's good. Yeah.

35:45

Or I mean, this is the kind of friend I feel

35:47

like if he went and explored the Psalms a little

35:49

bit, he'd be like, David's a terrible theologian.

35:52

It sounds like he questions the

35:54

goodness of God sometimes. It sounds like

35:56

he questions if God

35:58

is in the right. sometimes. It sounds

36:01

like he doesn't have I'm

36:06

going to in the midst of his suffering and frustration

36:09

I'm gonna go correct

36:11

his theology. Yeah

36:13

and unfortunately, bildads

36:15

are still among us. Not

36:17

great comforters. No. So

36:21

verse 5 he's saying to Job,

36:24

you know, learn from the mistakes of

36:26

your children and what you need to do if

36:28

you will seek God

36:30

and plead with the Almighty for mercy.

36:33

You know, if you're if you're are

36:36

this could be also translated if

36:39

you

36:40

become pure and upright.

36:42

There is no verb in the Hebrew here

36:45

so yeah kind of supply the verb

36:47

and it could be are or it could be

36:50

become. So if you are,

36:52

if you become pure and upright,

36:54

well then God is gonna rouse

36:56

himself. He's gonna literally get out of bed. He's

36:58

gonna wake up for you and restore

37:00

your rightful habitation. I tell you what Job, even

37:04

though your beginning was small,

37:06

then your latter days will be very great. He makes

37:08

it sound like it's so easy.

37:10

Yeah. You know,

37:12

learn from what's happened to these other

37:14

sinners

37:15

and just turn to God,

37:17

plead with the Almighty. If you become pure

37:19

and upright, well

37:21

then God is going to reward you in fact.

37:24

He's gonna make your latter days better than your former

37:26

day. Hey, repent harder

37:28

Job.

37:29

Repent harder. More sincerely. Yeah.

37:32

Then finally God will do

37:34

these great things for you. This is a great

37:36

thing to show. Job,

37:38

have you sought God in any of this

37:40

though? It's

37:42

bizarre. This is bizarre. Well you

37:44

haven't saw them the way that you need to seek them. Don't

37:46

you understand? I mean, I'm listening

37:48

to your words Job and these are not

37:50

the words that you should use. Different

37:53

words Job and if you use the right

37:55

words

37:56

then of course God is gonna

37:58

love that string of words. They're gonna enter

38:01

his ear and they're gonna stir up

38:03

his heart and he's gonna rise up

38:05

for you job Of course, but these are not

38:07

the words to use you're using all the

38:09

wrong words You have to use some

38:12

some pure and upright words Yeah,

38:15

dude, not only for not really Really

38:17

impressed God with your with your purity

38:19

and sanctity. These are gonna do great things for

38:21

you

38:22

He's almost kind of a name and in claimant Theologia

38:26

at least he he's bordering on that for sure. Yeah

38:28

the verse Verses 8

38:31

through 10 and we'll probably wrap up with this basically,

38:35

he says You know,

38:37

we don't live long. We're here yesterday We're

38:40

going tomorrow And so we need to just

38:42

think about the wisdom of the past

38:44

and learn from it He says inquire,

38:47

please a bygone ages consider

38:49

what the fathers have searched out

38:51

We

38:52

are but of yesterday. We know nothing

38:55

our days on earth. Well, there's just basically

38:57

a shadow Will they

38:59

that is these people of bygone

39:02

ages? Will they not teach you and tell you in other

39:04

words out of their understanding? Now

39:06

this is a this is a great example of where

39:09

we see this so many times in job

39:11

Where certain things are said by

39:14

the friends of job,

39:15

which is you know on the surface? There's

39:17

some truth in them. Should we Should

39:20

we study the past should we learn from

39:22

should we stand on the shoulders of all

39:25

of Giants? I think that's the sea Image

39:28

of course, I mean we're all learning from

39:30

people who've gone before us and our

39:32

lives are limited So there's

39:35

only so much we can learn so we learn from others. So

39:37

on the surface, it's great I mean that that's

39:40

true. We all should learn from the past But

39:42

the implication here in in

39:45

this context and build that speaking is

39:47

that job, you know You need you

39:49

just need to study

39:50

the past a little bit more and

39:52

then you'll figure out that

39:54

That sin has consequences

39:56

and your children were sinners. They suffer

39:58

the consequences and if you don't one to start the content

40:01

if you want to get out of this terrible situation which you find

40:03

yourself and then you just need to Pray more

40:05

fervently and God will reward you in the end

40:07

you study history. It's worked out that way time

40:10

and time again

40:11

Do this is there that the words?

40:15

That dick that can be true, but

40:19

You can only these are the words of like

40:21

a non-sufferer

40:23

Right. So like these are the words of somebody.

40:26

Do you only say these words if

40:28

you feel like God is pretty

40:30

pleased with me right now so

40:33

I feel I feel confident in

40:35

giving you these words and

40:39

That's a wild place to be

40:41

where you would you where you'd be so confident to

40:43

say let me tell you the secret Jim

40:45

You got to read some history and

40:48

then you know, you just implement what

40:50

you learned there That's what I do after

40:52

all and I'm not sitting

40:54

on a sheet covered in boils

40:57

so

40:58

Do that?

41:00

Real simple solution Yeah,

41:04

non-sufferer non empathetic non-sufferers

41:07

come up with these simple simple solutions If

41:09

you do a B will result and

41:11

the sufferer is just sitting there shaking

41:13

his head or her head thinking you Have

41:17

no idea do you? But

41:20

we're not finished with build that yet. He's got a few more things to

41:22

say. He's got this long Analogy

41:24

wants to tell Joe and so

41:27

we'll finish it up at our next

41:28

episode. All right, Chad I will see

41:30

you next week. See you then