Choosing Relief
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Choosing Relief
Choosing Relief
If we had thought the speeches of Yahweh would be the climax of the book
AND
That they would provide the solution to the problems of Job...
WE WERE MISTAKEN!
We are at the end of our Hero’s journey.
Someone who faced an evil put upon him without his consent.
This is who Job is, and we should never forget it.
Job had done nothing to deserve this.
It started with a judgement of Job
Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?
What are we to do with Job?
God has not directly answered the charges in the case brought before him.
It is not fair what is happening to Job.
Which leaves a question on the table...
Can wisdom be found in the unfair?
The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. That is something we read in scripture. Job was said to fear God, so he has the beginning of wisdom.
But through all this, the three friends and young man who ALL urged Job to fess up to his sin, when there was none.
The eloquent case Job laid out before God, asking for a face to face meeting and that once his case was heard, he would be found innocent.
IN ALL…Job is arguing that he does not deserve what has happened to him.
And he is correct.
Job is facing an enemy that he cannot fathom or understand.
He is facing creatures that no human or group of humans can tame.
The fight against evil, it would seem, is unfair.
To have a fair fight, you and your enemy must agree to fight fairly.
This is not possible, for what we face is an enemy...
We face an enemy that is unfair and without mercy.
God has declared that he alone is able to wrangle
Behemoth
Leviathan
That we SHOULD NOT even attempt to play in their space, as if we could put a seven headed sea monster on a leash and make it follow our commands.
Save God, Job would be dead. But he is not.
And here is his answer to the LORD.
(BTW…I really dislike the headings they put in our bibles, it clouds our reading, in my opinion) (Job’s Confession)
He has nothing to confess, as we will see.
Then Job answered the Lord:
Twice God said for Job to get ready to do battle.
Twice God said He would question and Job would answer.
Job is about to answer.
“I know that you can do all things;
no purpose of yours can be thwarted;
We skim over this as if we understand it, but for Job to utter these words under his circumstances is remarkable.
He is restating his case against God, that God could have and still can act in Job’s situation.
And if God’s purpose is to act, then that will be the outcome
And if God’s purpose is to not act, then that will be the outcome
It is quite amazing that Job can find the presence of mind to say this after all that has happened.
Job 42:3 (NET 2nd ed.)
you asked, ‘Who is this who darkens counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore, I have declared and I do not understand and I do not know the wonders before me.
I have modified the reading of this a bit...
Job is agreeing with God.
I declared
I do not understand
I do not know
The wonders-Could be the AWE of what has happened throughout the entire book.
In other words, Job is NOT RETRACTING anything he has said.
He is agreeing with God’s judgement that Job has questioned the council of God without understanding what is going on.
Job is left right where he was, BUT he has a response from God, of some sort.
You said, ‘Pay attention, and I will speak;
I will question you, and you will answer me.’
Interesting, God never said “Pay attention and I will speak.”
Elihu said that, but God did not.
God did say the second phrase.
And Job is answering God, even after God has shown up in this encircling wind.
And Job’s answer is this, “I was not there the day you laid the foundation. So I don’t know the answer as to where I was.”
But he is doing it in a way that simply covers every question
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye has seen you.
He is admitting that all he knew he had heard by someone teaching him.
All he knew is what he heard.
But now, Job has seen God. There is no doubt of God’s existence.
And, God has responded directly to Job in quite a mighty way.
A question we might ask is this:
Is seeing God enough?
So where does Job go from here?
What does he resolve to do?
Most translations have this:
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”
Some have this:
Therefore I despise myself,
and I repent in dust and ashes!”
Some read this way:
Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.”
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”
Therefore I retract,
And I repent in dust and ashes.”
Another is this:
Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent
In dust and ashes.
Notice in the King James, the “myself” is italicized?
Yeah, that word is not in the original.
THIS CRUCIAL VERSE with the LAST WORDS OF JOB
THE CLIMAX of the WHOLE DISPUTE
CONTAINS three major uncertainties
The verb, מאס, that typically means despise or reject. But there is no object in this verse for that verb.
The word מאס can also mean (homonym) flow or melt. This makes more sense as a word that means yield or submit.
There is a verb in this verse מאס that at first sight seems a common verb, but it has no object. This is not unusual in Hebrew, it often happens in poetry, but there is often a clearly implied object in its surrounding verses. Even here, there is none.
Here is my problem with this interpretation:
Why would Job hate himself for raising an issue of Justice to God
God at no time suggests Job’s argument is disgusting
Interpreters imply an object “myself” or “my words,” YET NEITHER ARE IN THE VERSE!
Does he despise himself because he did not win this war of words with God? That seems kind of foolish
…Alternative...
***** NEXT SLIDE *****
If we go with the homonym of the word, then we have another option:
I melt, or I submit
I have made my case, and I am withdrawing it since I cannot win
I have been defeated
This would better fit the meaning and outcome of the event.
We have two forms of this word that are used when a “man melts with fear before the LORD.”
Next...
Therefore I despise myself,
and I repent in dust and ashes!”
SECOND...
The word for repent has two likely meanings that we can choose from.
The verb נחמתי in this form can mean (a) “regret, be sorry, repent, relent.”
Or (b) “comfort oneself, be comforted, be consoled.”
By now you might be thinking…GET TO THE POINT!
But, when there is an opposing position that can be read in scripture, I owe it to you to tell you why. You can make up your own minds.
And we saw this at the start of the book.
REMEMBER BARAK? Bless God and Die? This poetic use of BLESS?
This verb has a rich history. Its first three uses are confusing.
Announcing the purpose of Noah (bring relieve or comfort)
How God feels in Genesis 6 about creating humans (regretted, felt sorry)
Here is my question:
What has Job done that he must repent?
God makes no mention of Job sinning and on criticizes Job speaking without understanding or knowledge.
Certainly not knowing the cosmic matters of how God orders the universe cannot be held against Job.
How could Job be guilty of “not being there the day the earth was made.”
Is he repenting of his dust and ashes? Again, it makes no sense.
IN ADDITION…when this verb is used without a direct object, it is only done by God, not a human.
It just does not work for me.
******* SLIDE *******
But comfort in oneself, that has a common use across the Hebrew Bible.
One can be consoled after a period of mourning.
Some refuse to be comforted after the death of someone.
It happens after the death of someone (a person) or something (Jerusalem) dies.
In all this, it is easy to forget that Job has lost things and his children.
He has been in mourning.
What these passages make clear is that to be comforted is not a matter of being on the receiving end of comfort from others, but a decision one makes for oneself, that one will accept comfort and thus cease the period of mourning and resume living their life. (Dr. David Clines)
So I submit, and I accept consolation for my dust and ashes. Job 42:6
(Dr. David Cline’s Translation)
What we have seen, what the author has not specifically pointed out is this:
We are witness to the mourning of a man in great loss
We are witness to the attempts of his friends to EXPLAIN why it happened
We are witness to the attempts of Job to assemble an argument for his innocence and the injustice that God has done to him
We are witness to God’s spoken response to Job, which does NOT ANSWER Job’s complaint.
We are witness to Job relenting, submitting to “what is” and taking up the living of life again, although forever changed.
And what we will see in two weeks is the author of Job exposing a significant truth and SETTING A TRAP for the reader...
The whole book is about mourning the effect of evil and death in our world.
It is a thought exercise in how to respond honestly and how to respond poorly.
It is confirmation that we cannot conceive of the evil in our world, even though it affects us.
It should drive compassion for those who are in the clutches of evil and give us courage to cry out to God about injustice, NOT TAKE IT IN OUR OWN HANDS.