ESV Chronological Plan, Day 29 | Job 40-42

LOOK | WHAT DOES IT SAY?

Read Job 40:1-42:17

THINK | WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

(A)  God's challenge to Job. At various points in this final speech, God essentially challenges Job to do what God does. Christopher Ash has a good gospel-centered insight here: "A deeper truth needs to be unearthed here. God is not saying simply that the job of dealing with evil is harder than Job thinks—undoubtedly that is hard work. Rather, God is saying that Job has not begun to understand what will be necessary to win the victory over death and the one who holds the power of death, that is, the devil; for only by the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ will this victory be won (Heb. 2:14). Strangely, even as Job does not understand this, in his own sufferings he is foreshadowing that victory."

(B) You have not spoken rightly of Me, as my servant Job has. This seems surprising, given that God has been taking Job to task for the last few chapters. But regarding Job's friends, Ash writes "They may have said all sorts of correct things (and they have); but their message as a whole is simply wrong. Their message denies the grace of God because it has no place either for undeserved suffering (Job and later Jesus) or undeserved blessing (the grace we now have in Jesus)... By contrast, God says that Job has spoken rightly of him. This may surprise us, given all we have just heard about how God has had to rebuke Job. Although God’s verdict may just refer to what Job has just said (42:1–6) in penitence, it seems more likely that it refers overall to what Job has been saying throughout the book, and in dialogue with his erroneous friends. For, even as Job has to repent of what he has said, there has been a fundamental heart of faith that lies beneath what he has said. Job has grappled honestly with God in a way that his comforters have failed to do."

(C) The Septuagint ending of Job. This gets a little more technical--but when the Jews were taken into exile by Babylon, many of them did not return to Judah when it was rebuilt. They stayed out in the lands where they had built their lives, throughout the times of the Persian, Greek, and Roman Empires. Over time many of them reached a point where they only spoke Greek. Because of this, the Hebrew Scriptures had to be translated into Greek for people to read them; this translation was called the Septuagint after the Greek word for "seventy," which is the traditional number of translators who worked on the project at Alexandria. In the process of translating, sometimes the translators would add little commentary notes or sum things up for their readers--which still makes the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible important for Bible scholars today, as a sort of early commentary or adaptation of the Old Testament by Jewish scholars who lived much closer in time to when it was written. (The apostles also gave it their approval by often -but not exclusively- quoting from it while producing the various writings of the Greek New Testament). All that to say, here is the ending of Job according to the Septuagint, which includes some extra detail about Job: 

"17a And it is written that he [Job] shall rise again with the ones whom the Lord shall raise up. 17b This man is described by the Syriac book as dwelling in the land of Uz on the borders of Edom and Arabia. And his name before was Jobab. 17c And, having taken an Arabian wife, he fathered a son, whose name was Enan. And he himself had as father Zerah, from the sons of Esau. And his mother was Bosorra, so that it made him fifth from Abraham. 

    17d And these were the kings who were ruling in Edom, which territory also he himself ruled: first, Bela, the son of Beor, and the name of his city was Dinhabah. And after Bela, Jobab, who was called Job. And after this, Husham, who was serving as leader from the territories of Thaiman. And after this, Hadad, son of Bered, who destroyed Midian in the field of Moab, and the name of his city was Avith. 17e And the friends who came to him were Eliphaz, of the sons of Esau, king of the Temanites; Bildad, the tyrant of the Shuhites; and Zophar, the king of the Naamathites."

RESPOND | WHAT IS OUR PART?

We think that we are correct about most things, which is why we think the ways that we do. After all, it wouldn't make sense to think that we are wrong about some conviction or idea, and still persist in holding to it! When God shows up, he reveals everyone to have been wrong. Job is wrong about God and needs significant rebuke and correction; and yet, he is not so wrong as his wise friends have been, so God is able to say to them "you have not spoken rightly about me, as my servant Job has." 

When Jesus came to the earth, he found several different groups of Jewish thought. There were the Sadducees, the Essenes, the Hellenists, and the Pharisees. Of these, whose teachings did Jesus agree with most often and endorse? The Pharisees. In fact, on many specific beliefs that set apart the Pharisees from other groups -angels, the resurrection, the inspiration of biblical books other than the first five books of Moses, etc.- there is a straight line from the school of the Pharisees to basic Christian beliefs. And yet, this is the group that Jesus disagreed with and took to task most frequently, and they are the ones who confronted and then led the way in plotting to kill Jesus. No group was found to have it all figured out when Jesus arrived. 

So our response today might be one of humility. We are ever searching for the truth, and that search may get us closer than those who do not search (after all, we are not told to search the Scriptures because they are unknowable, but because they can be known), but we know that when Jesus returns to the earth he will make even the confusing or unclear things clear. I am pretty comfortably sure that as a Reformed Baptist (the theological position of the Fellowship of Evangelical Baptists, which is the denomination to which I belong) I am holding to and teaching pretty well the correct position on most of the main things that the Bible teaches. But I also love learning from Pentecostals, and Orthodox Christians, and Presbyterians, and certain Messianic Jews, and Lutherans, because together we are opening up the same Bible and asking questions, and learning together--some of us may be found to have gotten it more right than others when Jesus appears again, but I have a feeling we will all have a few things that we have been mistaken on. This leads us to the application for today, which I think is an application regarding our attitude--that this reading should cause us to be more humble.

PRAY | HOW DOES THIS BRING US CLOSER TO GOD?

This is a suggested prayer prompt: "God, help me to stand before you with an attitude of curiosity and wonder, knowing that I may never completely comprehend the complete truth of what you have revealed, but I can increase in joy as I come closer, through prayer and study and meditating on your character. Help me to have an attitude of humility, knowing that as much as I understand, there is also much more that I do not. Help me to hold strongly to what is clearly taught in Scripture, but to be more gentle and open where many strong Christians disagree. There is much that I do not understand. Use that realization to make me a more curious, joyful, humble person. And help me to actively anticipate the day when you will come back to the earth and make all things clear."