Sermon Study for January 23rd, 2011.
JOHN 1:29
29 Τῇ ἐπαύριον βλέπει τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐρχόμενον πρὸς αὐτόν, καὶ λέγει, Ἴδε ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ὁ αἴρων τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου.
29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
With the words Τῇ ἐπαύριον "the next day" John first introduces the topic of a week's chronology. Similar references are peppered throughout the rest of this chapter up to the first verse of chapter two. These things are given by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and when we take them at face value we arrive at this chronology of this first week of our Lord's ministry among us. Like the final week of his ministry, there is a "silent day" about which we are told nothing.
■ Day 1 (John 1:19-28) — John is questioned by the Pharisees. He denies being the Christ.
■ Day 2 (John 1:29-34) — John proclaims Jesus as the Lamb of God.
■ Day 3 (John 1:35-42) — Andrew (and John?) are sent by John to Jesus, and Peter (and James?) join them.
■ Day 4 (John 1:43-51) — Jesus leaves for Cana and calls Philip and Nathanael.
■ Day 5 (John 2:1) — Not described; passed over for "the third day" after day 4.
■ Day 6 (John 2:1-11) — Jesus attends a wedding at Cana and performs his first miracle (the wedding may well have taken more than one day; Jesus uses the image of a wedding banquet several times in his ministry).
A question that needs to be answered about this week is, was Jesus baptized at this time (perhaps during "Day 2"?), or had this taken place already? John the Apostle does not actually describe Jesus' baptism; it may well have taken place before this. In fact, since Mark tells us that Jesus was driven into the wilderness "at once" (Mark 1:12) after his baptism, it seems likely that Jesus had been baptized a little more than forty days before this week. Perhaps this week in John's Gospel marks Jesus' return from his 40-day temptation in the wilderness by Satan (Mark 1:13).
JOHN 1:30-31
30 οὗτός ἐστιν ὑπὲρ οὗ ἐγὼ εἶπον, Ὀπίσω μου ἔρχεται ἀνὴρ ὃς ἔμπροσθέν μου γέγονεν, ὅτι πρῶτός μου ἦν. 31 κἀγὼ οὐκ ᾔδειν αὐτόν, ἀλλ' ἵνα φανερωθῇ τῷ Ἰσραὴλ διὰ τοῦτο ἦλθον ἐγὼ ἐν ὕδατι βαπτίζων.
30 This is the one I meant when I said, 'A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' 31 I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel."
John explains now that even he didn't know who the Christ would be, but the purpose of his baptism was that the Christ would be revealed to Israel. The other Gospels tell us that when John had baptized Jesus, something remarkable took place.
This kind of a riddle is called a mashal. It seems to have either a double meaning or a hidden meaning. You could call it a riddle or an enigma. Typically, a mashal's meaning eludes its hearers the first time they come into contact with it. Although John the Baptist uses a mashal, and the Apostles are not opposed to using them in the Epistles of the New Testament, Jesus himself preferred another more illustrative and expansive saying: the parable.
In this mashal, it might be easy for us to see the meaning, since we've been led by John the author up to this point.
Ὀπίσω μου ἔρχεται ἀνὴρ "A man who comes after me" (that is, after John the Baptist) is Jesus, and this makes complete and perfect sense when we remember that John was Jesus' forerunner, just as Malachi had foretold (Malachi 4:5-6).
ὃς ἔμπροσθέν μου γέγονεν, "...has surpassed me," From our perspective, this would almost be giving it away: Who else could surpass one of God's prophets but God himself? However, in the culture of the first century AD, the prophets' glory and respect for them grows the further back in time we go. In other words, Malachi was greater than John because Malachi lived 400 years before John. And Isaiah was greater than Malachi because he lived about 400 years before Malachi. And David was greater than Isaiah because he lived about 400 years before Isaiah. And Moses was greater than David because he lived about 400 years before David. And Abraham was greater than Moses because he lived about 400 years before Moses. Don't get caught up in my ball-park "400 year" tallies--the point is that the longer ago the man lived, the greater he would be considered to be. And yet, John says, the one who was coming after him had surpassed him.
ὅτι πρῶτός μου ἦν "because he was before me." The "before" here is πρῶτoς (protos), "before" in the sense of chronology. If John had meant that Jesus was "before" him meaning "standing right in front of," he would have said pros rather than protos. Jesus is before all of us in time, because he is our Maker. He is God.
John used this enigma to carry out his task as the messenger of God, the prophet who foretold Jesus, and yet without saying anything that would in any way limit or constrain Jesus. John's task was to point to Jesus, not to tell Jesus what to do. In view of the Apostles' confused ideas of who and what Jesus was even at the end of his ministry ("Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom of Israel?" Acts 1:6), and in view of John's own confusion (Matthew 11:2-3), it was better that he just carried out his task faithfully. he pointed to Jesus.
Our witness to Jesus begins there, pointing him out. This is our Savior, who came to take away our sins. And in him, we have freedom from death and hell and from the devil himself. And so we ask God to help us in our other freedom: The freedom to resist temptation; to say no to sin, through Jesus. His blood bought us, and we look to him for our strength and for healing.
The baptism took place in the water of the Jordan River (this seems to have been late summer or early autumn of 26 AD, when Jesus was 30 years old). As Jesus was wading out of the water (Matthew 3:16) and looking up to heaven saying a prayer (Luke 3:21), heaven opened and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove flew down and landed on him, and God the Father said, "You are my Son, whom I love. With you I am well pleased" (Mark 1:11). This sign, all three Persons of the Trinity together at once and the voice of the Father speaking, was an epiphany showing John and everyone else present that Jesus is truly the Son of God.
A little over three years after this incredible week, at the end of another incredible week, this Lamb of God would indeed take away the sin of the world.
JOHN 1:32-34
32 Καὶ ἐμαρτύρησεν Ἰωάννης λέγων ὅτι Τεθέαμαι τὸ πνεῦμα καταβαῖνον ὡς περιστερὰν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ, καὶ ἔμεινεν ἐπ' αὐτόν: 33 κἀγὼ οὐκ ᾔδειν αὐτόν, ἀλλ' ὁ πέμψας με βαπτίζειν ἐν ὕδατι ἐκεῖνός μοι εἶπεν, Ἐφ' ὃν ἂν ἴδῃς τὸ πνεῦμα καταβαῖνον καὶ μένον ἐπ' αὐτόν, οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ βαπτίζων ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ. 34 κἀγὼ ἑώρακα, καὶ μεμαρτύρηκα ὅτι οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ.
32 Then John gave this testimony: "I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' 34 I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God." (NIV)
Τεθέαμαι, perfect middle indicative 1 sg θεάoμαι "See, notice" almost with a sense of "with my own eyes--this was no vision or dream." We get our word theater from this root word, a place were we see a play or vision or speaker without needing it to be described by someone else.
καταβαῖνον pr m ptc, the participle relates an action John witnessed, and the aorist ἔμεινεν "remaining, lighting, landing" depicts an action John relates as a simple fact. The Spirit (as a περιστερὰν, a dove) actually landed on the Lord.
κἀγὼ in verse 33 is a negative, "But I..." leading into οὐκ ᾔδειν, "had not known him" (pluperfect indicative, 1 sg oἶδα, know, understand a report). This is one of the best examples of the definition of a pluperfect in Scripture because it is so clear that John means that before this he didn't understand something, but now he does.
John was a witness to the entire Trinity, visible and present at the baptism of Jesus. He knew that this was yet another proof that Jesus is the Son of God. Martin Luther used this testimony from John to warn us not to listen to people who scorn baptism:
"One must be on one’s guard against (those) who speak sneeringly of Baptism and [say] that it is mere water and of benefit to no one. They gaze at this sacred act as a cow stares at a new door. For they behold a poor preacher standing there, or, in an emergency, a woman who baptizes. They take offense at this and say: “Well, what can Baptism accomplish?” They also claim that whoever does not believe is not baptized. Thus they slander and blaspheme the most venerable Sacrament, and that merely because they do not see farther than a horse or a cow; they see only the water. The thing they take note of is that the persons, the preacher or the midwives, are lowly people who dip water with their hands and sprinkle it over the infant. A sow or a cow can see that much. They are befuddled. Consequently, they blaspheme about Baptism.
"But it is recorded here that all three persons of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, together with all the elect angels, were present at Christ’s Baptism, although invisibly; and heaven was open for the occasion. In fact, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit still attend our Baptism today. Otherwise few people witnessed Christ’s Baptism, and it passed without any fanfare. John the Baptist’s hand, which performed the Baptism, was there; nevertheless, the heavenly hosts of the angels were also present." (Sermon on John 1:32-34).
Dr. Luther also used the testimony of John to describe the most important teaching of the Bible:
"The first and chief article is this: That Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, died for our sins, and was raised again for our justification (Romans 4:25). And he alone is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29); and God has laid on him the iniquities of us all (Isaiah 53:6). Likewise, all have sinned and are justified freely and without their own merits by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, in his blood" (Luther, The Smalcald Articles, Second Part, Art. I,1-3). The Son of God came to save us. That's a message to which we all need to witness.
JOHN 1:35-37
35Τῇ ἐπαύριον πάλιν εἱστήκει ὁ Ἰωάννης καὶ ἐκ τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ δύο, 36καὶ ἐμβλέψας τῷ Ἰησοῦ περιπατοῦντι λέγει, Ἴδε ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ. 37καὶ ἤκουσαν οἱ δύο μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ λαλοῦντος καὶ ἠκολούθησαν τῷ Ἰησοῦ.
35 The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!" 37 When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. (NIV)
This was now the third day of this first week of Jesus' ministry. Once again, John pointed to Jesus and said, Ἴδε ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ "Look, the Lamb of God!" John's message did not change. John didn't go on to explain everything about Jesus' coming ministry; he didn't know any more than the Holy Spirit had told him. His task was to point out Jesus.
Now two of John's disciples understood. Their teacher had been John for a short while, but now that the Savior was here, they followed Jesus. One of them was Andrew, the brother of the Apostle Peter.
If we could learn something about the theme of each of the four Gospels by the first words Jesus speaks in them, we ht find that in Matthew there is a tendency to show the fulfillment of Scripture. The first thing Jesus says there is "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness" (Matthew 3:15).
We might find that in Mark there is an urgency about the gospel message and a call to repentance. The first thing Jesus says there is "The time has come. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" (Mark 1:15).
We might find that in Luke (written for a man named Theophilus who was undoubtedly looking for answers to questions about Christianity) there is a plain honesty about the message of forgiveness. The first thing Jesus says there is "Why were you searching for me? Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" (Luke 2:49).
And what do we find in John?
JOHN 1:38a
38 στραφεὶς δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς καὶ θεασάμενος αὐτοὺς ἀκολουθοῦντας λέγει αὐτοῖς, Τί ζητεῖτε;
38 Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, "What do you want?"
More literally Jesus asked, Τί ζητεῖτε; "What are you seeking?" These are Jesus' first words in this Gospel. I think that a study of the first thing Jesus says in each of the Gospels seems to reveal something of the character of that Gospel, but I would not go so far as to say it was the intention of the authors to do so.
Lutheran Pastor Abraham Calov (1612-1686) said, "We are accustomed to seek what we have lost, or what otherwise is beneficial or desirable for us. But what was there more desirable, more longed for during forty centuries past on the part of so many illustrious men, the patriarchs, judges, kings, prophets, and all the saints of the Old Testament, than this Lamb of God, which John's testimony on the heights between the Old and the New Testament declared to be present at last?"
How many people are seeking things they shouldn't? And how many people are not seeking the things they should? We need to understand that Jesus asks this question to us; not just to Andrew and his friend. Jesus didn't ask the question out of a yawning boredom or a gruff indifference to these men. Jesus asked it the way you would ask a new friend about his life. What is it you do? What is it you want? What brought you here? What are you seeking? And Jesus already knew what they were seeking, but more importantly Jesus also knew the answer, the way to get what they were seeking.
And it is Jesus himself who is the answer, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus holds out the whole promise of the gospel in those words, "What are you seeking?" Those words are like the words of a mom smiling over a huge Thanksgiving Day table spilling over with food: "What would you like, my darling?" It's all there for us, offered by our loving God. We don't have to dig to get it; we don't have to lock ourselves away in a cave to realize it. We don't have to starve ourselves to unlock its secrets. "What are you seeking?" It's Jesus himself and his forgiveness, and here he is, offering himself.
Lord, I want to go to heaven. I want my sins to be washed away. I don't want to sin anymore. I want to worship God with a clean heart. I want to be a child of God.
This is what we seek. And he will answer: Come and see.
JOHN 1:38b-41
οἱ δὲ εἶπαν αὐτῷ, Ῥαββί {ὃ λέγεται μεθερμηνευόμενον Διδάσκαλε}, ποῦ μένεις; 39λέγει αὐτοῖς, Ἔρχεσθε καὶ ὄψεσθε. ἦλθαν οὖν καὶ εἶδαν ποῦ μένει, καὶ παρ' αὐτῷ ἔμειναν τὴν ἡμέραν ἐκείνην: ὥρα ἦν ὡς δεκάτη. 40Ἦν Ἀνδρέας ὁ ἀδελφὸς Σίμωνος Πέτρου εἷς ἐκ τῶν δύο τῶν ἀκουσάντων παρὰ Ἰωάννου καὶ ἀκολουθησάντων αὐτῷ: 41εὑρίσκει οὗτος πρῶτον τὸν ἀδελφὸν τὸν ἴδιον Σίμωνα καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ, Εὑρήκαμεν τὸν Μεσσίαν {ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον Χριστός}:
They said, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?" 39 "Come," he replied, "and you will see." So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour. 40 Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. 41 The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ). (NIV)
Later in his ministry, Jesus would call these same men to follow him as his disciples, and still later he would send them out as four of his twelve Apostles. But for this day, just the third day of his ministry, he simply spent the day with them. Andrew and his brother Simon Peter were two of these men. And the other two? One is probably James, and the other we can assume to be the John who wrote this Gospel. His clue to his own eyewitness of the event is the time: the tenth hour (about four in the afternoon). John remembers even the time of day when he met Jesus and Jesus called him.
The Apostle John downplays his own part in his Gospel. Matthew records the day when Jesus called him away from his table as a tax collector (Matthew 9:9-13). Mark may possibly tell us about himself in his unique and certainly humble mention of the young man who fled in the Garden (Mark 14:51-52), and his mother may have owned the house in whose upper room the Last Supper took place (Mark 14:12-26; cp. Acts 12:12). Luke says "we" in his account of the Acts whenever he himself was present (Acts 16:10, etc.). John would rather be vague ("the disciple Jesus loved") than pepper his Gospel with mentions of his own name.
Maybe we can learn something from John. Like the Baptist, John the Apostle wants to point to Jesus. That's what Andrew did, too: "We have found the Messiah!" Of course, the reality is that the Messiah has found us, but we can excuse Andrew's exuberance. How can we help but jump and shout about our Savior? Go find your brother, or your friend, or your mom, or your old friend from High School, and deliver the news: We have found the Messiah! The Messiah has found us! And that means eternal life.
JOHN 1:42
42 ἤγαγεν αὐτὸν πρὸς τὸν Ἰησοῦν. ἐμβλέψας αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν, Σὺ εἶ Σίμων ὁ υἱὸς Ἰωάννου: σὺ κληθήσῃ Κηφᾶς [ὃ ἑρμηνεύεται Πέτρος].
42 And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas" (which, when translated, is Peter). (NIV)
The previous section also ended with a ἑρμηνεύεται "being interpreted" statement (vs. 38, "which, when translated, is Teacher").
The Hebrew language has a wonderful way of accommodating its expressions to the limits of the language itself. Hebrew has difficulty being precise in its grammar, and so the people who spoke Hebrew--the writers of the Old Testament--tend to describe a teaching or a fact more than one way, often through parallel statements. Sometimes this can be cumbersome for the reader, but we can appreciate that by talking in a sort of circle all around a subject, the Hebrew authors drew lines around what they meant: "This, but not that."
On the other hand, the Greek of the New Testament is one of the most precise languages in history. To say something in Greek is not like walking around the perimeter of an idea; it's more like shooting an arrow into the exact center of the idea: "This, and only this."
The Greek of verse 42, for example, tells us in clear language that Jesus looked at Andrew's brother Simon on this day and said (let me be clumsy but accurate in translating): Σὺ εἶ Σίμων ὁ υἱὸς Ἰωάννου: σὺ κληθήσῃ Κηφᾶς "Now (at this time) you are Simon. But (in the future) you will be Cephas / Peter." From the beginning, Jesus shows that he is a prophet. Within a few years, the whole church would be calling this man Peter rather than Simon.
The name Κηφᾶς Cephas is Aramaic for the Hebrew word כֵּיפָא Kephaʼ, "stone, rock." Simon and his brother must have wondered what would bring on this new nickname. More than a year later, when asking his disciples about who people thought he was, and who they themselves thought he was, Jesus would receive this answer from Simon: "You are the Christ, the Son of God." Perhaps by then Andrew's brother had forgotten about this prophecy altogether, but Jesus hadn't forgotten. "(Now) You are Peter (Greek masculine Πέτρος petros "rock"), and on this rock (Greek feminine Πέτρα petra, "bedrock") I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it" (Matthew 16:18).
Peter's confession, You are the Christ, is one of the bedrock foundations of the Christian church. Even though Peter himself was not always very solid, the facts of Jesus' perfect life and his atoning sacrifice are all that we need. They are the bedrock we stand on for all eternity. He truly is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
________________________
SPECIFIC SIN / LAW: The world is sinful and needs the Lamb of God
SPECIFIC GOSPEL: Jesus is the Lamb of God whom came to take away the sin of the world.
TELIC NOTE: "What do you want?" (Jesus' first words).
Theme: What Do You Want?
1. Do you want a Saver? (someone to get you out of trouble)
2. Do you want a Savior? (the one who rescued you from all your sins)
(I'm not happy with this theme and parts -- I'll keep working at it).
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Job 1:8
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל הַשָּׂטָן הֲשַׂמְתָּ לִבְּךָ עַל עַבְדִּי אִיּוֹב כִּי אֵין כָּמֹהוּ בָּאָרֶץ אִישׁ תָּם וְיָשָׁר יְרֵא אֱלֹהִים וְסָר מֵרָע
8 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.”
The Masorah Parva note for יְרֵא אֱלֹהִים is worth noting, although this particular kind of note is not as valuable for exegesis as other notes. It says that the phrase who fears God occurs four times (Mm 3450: Gen 22:12; Job 1:8; 2:3 and Eccl. 7:18), and that this is one of four zugnayin or "pairs." Kelley-Mynatt-Crawford (The Masorah of BHS) has a good introduction to these kinds of notes (chapter 4, and pp. 102-103). Here the reference (Mm 3561) points out that all three times who feared / fears God occurs, the verb יְרֵא is accented with merka and the name of God אֱלֹהִים is accented with tipha. It has been argued that such notes show the great care the Masoretes took with the text.
God's judgment of Job doesn't have to meet anybody's criteria except God's. God says Job was upright. A sinner, yes, but upright. Guilty of being born sinful, yes -- but also innocent before God because Job trusted God for all his blessings and for his salvation, as well. The ancient believers like Job and Adam didn't land in some celestial waiting room after they died until Christ's resurrection set them free from the bonds of sin and death. They trusted in God, and that trust was the channel for God's own righteousness. It was the gift of faith.
"He fears God and shuns evil." The whole life of the believer is there. To fear God is to have the inner love and respect for God that is faith. To shun evil is to live out that faith in one's life. Job did both. He believed, and he let his light shine.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Job 1:7
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל הַשָּׂטָן מֵאַיִן תָּבֹא וַיַּעַן הַשָּׂטָן אֶת יְהוָה וַיֹּאמַר מִשּׁוּט בָּאָרֶץ וּמֵהִתְהַלֵּךְ בָּהּ
7 The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.”
מֵאַיִן is an adverb with the preposition מִן prefixed.
The longer Mp note concerns the word תָּבֹא, "Occurs 71 times written defectively, four of them in this book, and all of them in Proverbs are like this except four." The four in Job are Job 1:7; 2:2; 3:7 and 29:13 (תָבֹא in Job 3:24 does not have the dagesh). The four plene forms in Proverbs are Prov. 2:10; 22:24; 24;25 and 27:10.
God's question to his formerly faithful emissary is double-edged: "Where have you come from?" could point as easily to God himself as to the location from which the devil just this moment appeared. But the devil ignores the Lord's subtlety and makes a play on his own name instead: מִשּׁוּט mishuth he says ( qal infinitive construct; the root is similar to satan) he says, "From roaming." Earlier we saw the angels depicted with a hithpael "arranging themselves" before the Lord; now the devil uses the hithpael מֵהִתְהַלֵּךְ to describe his roaming back and forth throughout the world. He is not part of their number any longer. He doesn't do what the angels do. He is the enemy.
There are some who don't think the devil was really there before the Lord with the angels, but somehow projected his voice or thoughts into the assembly of the sons of God. While I respect the sentiment, I would strongly caution anyone against saying that the text of the Bible does not mean what it says in such simple language. How did the devil slip into heaven before God? The text doesn't say this was in heaven. God can appear wherever he wants, however he wants. But what is important is that the conversation really took place.
Job 1:6
In the early days of our nation, many men had left their Christianity behind to become Deists. One of their beliefs was that God was little more than a clockmaker who fashioned the world, wound it up, and let it go without further interference. We see their error, but do we sometimes make the same mistake with Satan? Do we ever think of the devil as a "wicked clockmaker"? Do we think the devil and his mischief are working somewhere else, but that he doesn't really touch our lives?
וַיְהִי הַיּוֹם וַיָּבֹאוּ בְּנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים לְהִתְיַצֵּב עַל יְהוָה וַיָּבוֹא גַם הַשָּׂטָן בְּתוֹכָם
6 There was a day when the angels came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.
This verse causes a great many people to wonder what's going on. The angels (the Hebrew says בְּנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים "sons of God," another term for the angels) came before God, and our author uses the hithpael infinitive לְהִתְיַצֵּב to depict a sort of back-and-forth motion to the way they arrange themselves before God, the way new soldiers line up by looking at each other's shoulders as they snap to attention. The angels are all specially arranged before God, but then here is another one בְּתוֹכָם"in their midst," and after the beauty of the first expression, there is a definite rudeness to the later word, "in their midst" (NIV "with them"). He wasn't part of God's heavenly arrangement. He had abandoned his place, and now he showed up like a bug in the sugar bowl.
Who is this "other one"? He is הַשָּׂטָן ha-Satan, the Satan, or simply Satan as we call him. The Hebrew word satan means "prosecuting attorney," or "opponent." It can simply stand for a human adversary in a courtroom (Psalm 109:6), but usually in the Bible this word is a title for the devil. The devil's two main mischiefs are present in his two names. "Devil" (Greek διαβόλος diabolos) means "liar," and shows us that he will do anything, speak any lie, twist any truth, to get us to sin. Once he has led us astray, off goes the "devil" hat and pop! on goes his "Satan" hat, and he begins to accuse us: How could you? God will never forgive your sin. You aren't worthy of forgiveness. How could God be so cruel as to make rules that make you unhappy?
There is only one way to heaven; one single degree setting on a compass with 359 other degrees that don't lead to eternal life. The devil doesn't care which degree we take, as long as it isn't that one that points to Christ.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Job 1:4-5
וְהָלְכוּ בָנָיו וְעָשׂוּ מִשְׁתֶּה בֵּית אִישׁ יוֹמוֹ וְשָׁלְחוּ וְקָרְאוּ
לִשְׁלֹשֶׁת אַחְיֹתֵיהֶם לֶאֱכֹל וְלִשְׁתּוֹת עִמָּהֶם
לִשְׁלֹשֶׁת אַחְיֹתֵיהֶם לֶאֱכֹל וְלִשְׁתּוֹת עִמָּהֶם
וַיְהִי כִּי הִקִּיפוּ יְמֵי הַמִּשְׁתֶּה וַיִּשְׁלַח אִיּוֹב וַיְקַדְּשֵׁם וְהִשְׁכִּים
בַּבֹּקֶר וְהֶעֱלָה עֹלוֹת מִסְפַּר כֻּלָּם כִּי אָמַר אִיּוֹב אוּלַי
חָטְאוּ בָנַי וּבֵרְכוּ אֱלֹהִים בִּלְבָבָם כָּכָה יַעֲשֶׂה אִיּוֹב כָּל הַיָּמִים
4 His sons used to take turns holding feasts in their homes, and they would send someone and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5 When they finished a round of banquets, Job would send (someone) and sanctify them. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them. Job thought, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” Job did this all the time.
Job's children liked to party. They wanted to spend time together, and when they partied, they really partied. Job didn't try to talk them out of it. He was glad they got along. He was happy they wanted to spend time together. But he was also concerned for their souls. He didn't see anything that wrong with what they were doing, and he didn't hear them say anything or act any way that made him think they were sinning against God. But still he was a good and loving parent, and he prayed for them, "just in case they are sinning on the inside, in a way I can't see."
How often do we turn to God in prayer? We pray asking God for things – we ask him to forgive us, we ask him to give us this and that, we ask him to restore our health, our family, our freedom. All of these things are good to pray for, but Job showed us that we can pray for other people, too. "God, forgive my friend who has sinned." Whoever we are, wherever we are in life, there are people we can pray for: God, forgive my parents. Forgive my child. My wife. My cellmate. A guy I know. Job knew that only God forgives sins. We know it, too. When we turn to God and admit our sins to him, he promises that he forgives us through the blood of Jesus.
Sometimes a regular custom can turn into a bad habit. But there are good habits, too. Some of our habits, like washing our hands whenever we use a restroom, are healthy and shouldn't be given up. Others, like abusing alcohol, can be damaging. Even lethal. Daily prayer is a habit that's easy to get into. It isn't hard. Don't dishonor God by saying things like "whoever you are" or "if you're really listening" or the blasphemous reference to God as "he or she" that a priest was recently depicted as saying on Days of Our Lives. When we pray in Jesus' name, God listens. It's as simply as that. Just talk to God. It’s a good habit.
Job's act of making a burnt offering showed that he held the position of family priest. This was the usual practice before God changed it with the laws he to Moses on Mount Sinai. In Abraham's family, Abraham made the sacrifices. In Job's family, Job did it. The offering wasn't specified by God or regulated, but Job made it a custom, a good habit, to make a burnt offering for each one of his children: all ten of them. It was one way that he showed that he wanted to be right with God, and that he wanted his family to be right with God, too.
We don't have burnt offerings available to us, so how will you show that kind of faith in your life today? Maybe today is a good day to say a prayer for somebody else.
NOTE: We can't tell from the text how often Job's children had their get-togethers. Did they meet about once every month? If that were the case, we might think that they met on each of their particular birthdays. Since the get-togethers are each called "a period of feasting," it seems like these things ran for more than a single day. What these parties tell us is that Job's children all enjoyed one another's company, and made an effort to be together. I know of very few families--my own included--who get together up to ten times every year (or more). Certainly distance has something to do with this in many cases, but Job must have been delighted that his children got along so well even into their adult years.
Luther on this passage:
It is said of Job that he was “simple [pure] and upright” (Job 1:1). “Upright” because he was aimed and directed in his heart toward the future grace and glory which by faith he knew in the spirit were to come, but “simple” because he did not at the same time involve himself in earthly things but by uprightness kept himself pure in faith in what was to come. LW 11:376
Job 1:b-3
Job 1:1b
וְהָיָה הָאִישׁ הַהוּא תָּם וְיָשָׁר וִירֵא אֱלֹהִים וְסָר מֵרָע
This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. Spiritually, Job had nothing to be sorry about. Although he was born in sin as we are and freely admitted it (7:21), there was no part of the law that Job had not fulfilled. How can we say this? Nowhere in the book is there any reference to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob or the Israelites, nor any rumor of Israel's exodus from Egypt. In fact, all the evidence points to Job living long before the exodus--probably at least four hundred years before. That means that in Job's time, there were no Ten Commandments yet. There were no laws about sacrifices, priests, cities of refuge, ceremonial cleanliness, bathing after leprosy, circumcision, or any of the other requirements of the law. There was only the Noahitic covenant (Genesis 9:8-17) in which God promised unconditionally never again to destroy the world by means of a flood (although the fear of such a thing is mentioned by Jesus as being a sign of the Last Days, Luke 21:25).
Job 1:2-3
וַיִּוָּלְדוּ לוֹ שִׁבְעָה בָנִים וְשָׁלוֹשׁ בָּנוֹת
וַיְהִי מִקְנֵהוּ שִׁבְעַת אַלְפֵי צֹאן וּשְׁלֹשֶׁת אַלְפֵי גְמַלִּים
וַחֲמֵשׁ מֵאוֹת צֶמֶד בָּקָר וַחֲמֵשׁ מֵאוֹת אֲתוֹנוֹת וַעֲבֻדָּה רַבָּה
מְאֹד וַיְהִי הָאִישׁ הַהוּא גָּדוֹל מִכָּל בְּנֵי קֶדֶם
2 He had seven sons and three daughters, 3 and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East. Job had a lot to be happy about. He was rich. In a time when people didn't use coins or cash, he had enormous wealth: thousands of animals, servants to take care of them and fields to feed them. He also had a fairly big family of ten children ("ten" here isn't a symbolic number: notice that "ten" isn't in the text). What do you suppose was important to Job? His wealth? His family? Certainly he was concerned about both – but look carefully at our passage: "He feared God and shunned evil."
Job's fear of God wasn't just the kind of fear we normally think about. His fear was a respect for God. He was afraid of what God would do to him because of his sins – we all must be – but Job knew that the answer to all of his sins was also the very same God. Job was "blameless." Are you blameless before God? Was Job? Later in this book, Job admitted that he was a sinful man. He cried out to God, "Show me where I have been wrong" (Job 6:24). On the outside, Job seemed blameless to everyone who knew him, but he still knew that on the inside he was a sinful human being who needed a Savior.
Job 1:1a
Job is not a fairy tale. It is not a fable. It is not a morality play set against an ancient backdrop. Although it is told with poetry, we take it, along with the rest of Scripture, to be the truth, given to us by God through the pen of an inspired writer. These things actually happened as we have them recorded for us. The men and the woman who speak in this book did not for the most part speak in poetry, but the words we have, though stylized somewhat by the author, are nevertheless the true message about what happened. We begin with the context:
Prologue
אִישׁ הָיָה בְאֶרֶץ עוּץ אִיּוֹב שְׁמוֹ
1 There was in the land of Uz a man whose name was Job.
Many ancient places took their names from the early people who settled there. For example, after the flood, three of Ham's sons were named Cush, Mizraim and Canaan. Mizraim is the Hebrew name for Egypt; Cush is the land south of Egypt (modern Sudan). Uz was the name of one of Shem's grandsons through his youngest son Aram. He might possibly have given his name to Job's fatherland. However, there were two other men named Uz. One was the oldest son of Abraham's brother Nahor. Luther was of the opinion that this man gave his name to the fields where Job's flocks and herds grazed. Another possibility is found in the genealogies of Genesis 36 and descendants of Edom and some other rulers of that land. This included Uz, the grandson of Seir the Horite. In Jeremiah 25:20, the "kings of Uz" are described as "foreign people" who's land is associated with the other Canaanite nations like the Philistines, Edomites, Moabites and Ammonites including the Temanites (Jer. 25:23).
Although we cannot say with certainty which of these men named Uz (if any) was the namesake of the land of Uz, we can say one of two things about the location and date of the events. No Israelite, Moabite or Ammonite is mentioned in Job at all. This would seem to point to a time either before or not long after Abraham and Lot settled in Canaan. The Temanites are mentioned, and these are the people of Teman, another name for Edom south of the Dead Sea. A raid is made on Job's herds by Chaldeans (a people living near Babylon), and so the eastern bank of the Jordan might be a location. However, the distant Sabeans also carried away Job's oxen and donkeys, and they were a people living very far away (Joel 3:8), probably the southern end of the Arabian peninsula.
Uz, then, seems to be a place someplace east of the Jordan, either up near the Sea of Galilee or down around the southern tip of the Dead Sea. Either place would fit the context of the book.
The most important fact to take away from this opening sentence is that this did not happen "once upon a time," or "in a land very far away," but in a specific place. It happened to a real man. The suffering in Job was real suffering, and the mistaken accusations that pepper the book were real mistaken accusations. Job was every bit as real as Abraham and Abraham Lincoln. And more importantly, Job looked for an advocate, a Redeemer, to rescue him from his troubles and to rescue him from his sins, and that Redeemer was equally as real: Jesus Christ, who redeemed every one of us from our sins. Through faith in Jesus, we have the promise and the reality of eternal life forever in heaven.
NOTE: Job's name means something like "the sufferer" or "the oppressed," but we don't necessarily need to associate him with the Jobab in Scripture as some suggest. There was a Jobab who was king of Edom who was a Bozrite (1 Chron. 1:43), and although he might have been a contemporary of Job, we don't need to assume he was the same man, even though Job will be called "the greatest man among all the people of the East." One does not need to be king to be considered the greatest man in a country.
Luther's thoughts on this:
Prologue
אִישׁ הָיָה בְאֶרֶץ עוּץ אִיּוֹב שְׁמוֹ
1 There was in the land of Uz a man whose name was Job.
Many ancient places took their names from the early people who settled there. For example, after the flood, three of Ham's sons were named Cush, Mizraim and Canaan. Mizraim is the Hebrew name for Egypt; Cush is the land south of Egypt (modern Sudan). Uz was the name of one of Shem's grandsons through his youngest son Aram. He might possibly have given his name to Job's fatherland. However, there were two other men named Uz. One was the oldest son of Abraham's brother Nahor. Luther was of the opinion that this man gave his name to the fields where Job's flocks and herds grazed. Another possibility is found in the genealogies of Genesis 36 and descendants of Edom and some other rulers of that land. This included Uz, the grandson of Seir the Horite. In Jeremiah 25:20, the "kings of Uz" are described as "foreign people" who's land is associated with the other Canaanite nations like the Philistines, Edomites, Moabites and Ammonites including the Temanites (Jer. 25:23).
Although we cannot say with certainty which of these men named Uz (if any) was the namesake of the land of Uz, we can say one of two things about the location and date of the events. No Israelite, Moabite or Ammonite is mentioned in Job at all. This would seem to point to a time either before or not long after Abraham and Lot settled in Canaan. The Temanites are mentioned, and these are the people of Teman, another name for Edom south of the Dead Sea. A raid is made on Job's herds by Chaldeans (a people living near Babylon), and so the eastern bank of the Jordan might be a location. However, the distant Sabeans also carried away Job's oxen and donkeys, and they were a people living very far away (Joel 3:8), probably the southern end of the Arabian peninsula.
Uz, then, seems to be a place someplace east of the Jordan, either up near the Sea of Galilee or down around the southern tip of the Dead Sea. Either place would fit the context of the book.
The most important fact to take away from this opening sentence is that this did not happen "once upon a time," or "in a land very far away," but in a specific place. It happened to a real man. The suffering in Job was real suffering, and the mistaken accusations that pepper the book were real mistaken accusations. Job was every bit as real as Abraham and Abraham Lincoln. And more importantly, Job looked for an advocate, a Redeemer, to rescue him from his troubles and to rescue him from his sins, and that Redeemer was equally as real: Jesus Christ, who redeemed every one of us from our sins. Through faith in Jesus, we have the promise and the reality of eternal life forever in heaven.
NOTE: Job's name means something like "the sufferer" or "the oppressed," but we don't necessarily need to associate him with the Jobab in Scripture as some suggest. There was a Jobab who was king of Edom who was a Bozrite (1 Chron. 1:43), and although he might have been a contemporary of Job, we don't need to assume he was the same man, even though Job will be called "the greatest man among all the people of the East." One does not need to be king to be considered the greatest man in a country.
Luther's thoughts on this:
"Augustine and Ambrose think that this Jobab is of the family of Esau and that he is Job, and there are many conjectures linked with this opinion. For the letters agree and also the names of his friends, and of these Eliphaz the Temanite seems to have had his origin from Teman in the land of Edom, and likewise Bildad and Zophar. If this is true, it agrees well with history, for Job was very wise in God’s Law and embraced the doctrine and circumcision of his father Esau." (LW 6. Although he concedes the possibility here, elsewhere he makes it plain that he didn't think Job and Jobab were the same man, but he allows that they could have been. Yet he makes a convincing and scholarly counter-argument, also in volume 6, against the common argument that Job and Jobab are spelled too differently as inconclusive).
Job Introduction
I. AUTHOR AND DATE(S) OF JOB
Author and Date of Writing - Unknown; a sage in Israel like Asaph or Solomon. perhaps someone who lived about the time of David or Solomon, which was the "Age of Wisdom Literature" in Israel.
Date of Events - Much earlier, during the time of the patriarchs like Abraham, around 2000-1800 BC.
Job is not a fairy tale. It is not a fable. It is not a morality play set against an ancient backdrop. Although it is told with poetry, we take it, along with the rest of Scripture, to be the truth, given to us by God through the pen of an inspired writer. These things actually happened as we have them recorded for us. The men and the woman who speak in this book did not speak in poetry, but the words we have, though stylized somewhat by the author, are nevertheless the true message about what happened.
We don’t know when Job was written. Some ancient believers thought that Moses had written the book and they even placed Job after Deuteronomy in their Bible. Many scholars in our own time think that it was written later, perhaps by Solomon or a writer in Solomon’s time, but there is nothing in the book to insist upon this later date. One possible clue, although not definitive, is the relationship between the psalms of Asaph and the book of Job.
Although we can’t date the time when Job was written, we may be able to place the time when the events took place. Based on place names and other factors, Job seems to have lived during the time of the patriarchs, perhaps the 1800’s BC or a little earlier. Job's great age at the end of the book reminds us the days of the patriarchs. Job was the priest in his family, something that was in place until the time of the exodus. Also, there is no reference whatsoever to Israel, which would seem to indicate that the events happened before there was a nation of Israel living in Canaan.
There are other factors that point to the age of the Patriarchs for the events in Job. The attacks by Sabaeans (Job 1:15) and Chaldeans (Job 1:17) are reminiscent of the nations and methods of the "War of the Coalition" in Genesis 14. Also, during that war, the Amalekites and Amorites were defeated by a relatively small force (cp. Genesis 14:7 and 14:14-16). Since the Amalekites were descended from Esau's son Eliphaz, they would have been a small group at this time. Also, the name Eliphaz occurs in Job, although probably a family name and not the same man. We will discuss the relationship of Job's friend Bildad and Abraham at another time.
FROM MARTIN LUTHER'S PREFACE TO JOB (1545):
1. Suffering. Job suffers tremendously in this book, and perhaps that is one of the places where most of us connect with the book the most. When we suffer, we think of Job and read about Job and realize that here was a man who probably suffered more than we do. Job suffered the loss of his fortune, the loss of his ten children, the loss of his health, and these things also led to trouble in his marriage (2:9; 19:17). When we suffer in any part of our lives, there is sure to be some point of contact with Job, and the comfort Job looked for is the comfort we are looking for, too.
2. Patience. I have heard Job described as an incredibly patient man, and I have heard Job described as an incredibly impatient man. One thing is certain: Job did not give up on the Lord, although his faith scraped the bottom a few times. Job gave up trying to understand and finally listened to God, and it was then that Job's confession of his sinfulness became evident to everyone.
3. Defending our faith. Job is accused time after time of being sinful, which is equated with unbelief by his friends. But when Job defends his faith, he throws himself at God's feet, and that's a great example for any of us.
4. The storm. Throughout the book of Job, there is a storm on the way. In the first chapters, we get the impression from the words of Job and his friends that their land is dry and that a wind is blowing (6:17, etc.). Then in Job 13:25, one of Job's friends compares Job's words to Job troubling a dry leaf blowing past, and from that moment references to an oncoming storm front increase. Distant rain and a murmuring thunder (28:26) eventually give way to "the roar of (God's) voice" thundering all around the men (37:2-5). Lightning that was merely close (36:30) becomes a first-hand show in God's personal questions (38:24, 35). There is no reason not to take this storm from which God speaks as anything other than the Glory of the Lord itself. I will point out references to the coming storm in the comments with the symbol:
5. The creatures: Yam, Tannin, Rahab, Behemoth, Leviathan.
יָם Yam (7:12) is "the monster of the deep," perhaps a personification of the power of the ocean. The Hebrew word means "sea" and usually just stands for the ocean.
תַנִּים Tannin (30:29) is "jackal" in the NIV, but many translations see a reference to Tannin, a dragonlike sea monster. Like Rahab (see below), Tannin or "the great monster" was sometimes also a nickname for Egypt (Ezekiel 29:3). Note that even a map of Egypt shows the Nile resembling a long, uncoiled serpent slithering near Canaan.
רָהַב Rahab (9:13), an ancient mythological sea monster. Job's mention of a mythological creature is not evidence of belief in the creature any more that if I were mention Scylla and Charybdis or their modern equivalent, a rock and a hard place. Rahab was a monster associated with the Red Sea in particular, and perhaps for that reason it also became a nickname for Egypt and for wicked nations in general (cp. Isaiah 51:9-10).
בְהֵמוֹת Behemoth (40:15-24). Although there is sometimes a suggestion that this creature could be the hippopotamus (an obscure Egyptian word for the hippo, p-ih-mw, even sounds a little like behemoth), the hippo's tail doesn't come even close to that of the behemoth's in 40:17, nor does the description of his "sinewy muscles" in the same verse. Another creature is probably meant. Chapter 40 provides a detailed look at this creature.
לִוְיָתָן Leviathan (3:8; 41:1-34), has a description that goes so far beyond that of the crocodile as to make any association with a known animal impossible. However, in some references outside Job, such as Psalm 104:26, the leviathan could simply be a whale. It is likely that although a specific creature is meant here in Job, leviathan (Hebrew, "winding / wound thing") simply means any kind of large sea creature.
FROM LUTHER'S PREFACE TO JOB (1545):
1. The Job Sandwich. At its simplest, Job is constructed like a sandwich. A large section of poetry (chapters 3-41) is surrounded by a two slices of prose (non-poetic) bread, with a prologue (chapters 1-2) and an epilogue (chapter 42).
2. The Three Cycles. Within the poetic middle of the sandwich are three well-ordered cycles of speeches followed by three groups of speeches by Job, another friend and God himself. Job's three friends Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar (I sometimes think of them as "Ell, Bill, and Mr. Z") each speak to Job, and Job replies to each one of them in turn. In general, Eliphaz tends to focus on the wisdom of nature and of common sense ("Do you limit wisdom to yourself?" Job 15:8). In the same way, we might generalize Bildad (a descendant of Abraham? -- More on this later) as focusing on the wisdom of the past and, to quote Fiddler on the Roof, Tradition! ("ask the former generation and find out what their fathers learned..." Job 8:8). The third man, Zophar, doesn't add much to their arguments. His words are the most caustic and indignant ("Oh, how I wish God would speak!" Job 11:5) but he presents a general feeling of "Yeah--what they said!" ("Are all these words to go unanswered?" Job 11:2).
This pattern: Eliphaz, Job, Bildad, Job, Zophar, Job, occurs three times. The last time, Bildad has only a very short speech and Zophar doesn't speak at all, which seems to be an indication that Job's friends are running out of gas in their accusations against him. In the exact center of this cycle, when Job replies to the second friend in the second round, we find the literary climax of the book: Job declares his faith in the coming Savior, saying I know that my Redeemer lives! (Job 19:25).
3. The "Useless Chatterer." There was another friend, a younger man named Elihu, who doesn't speak until all the others have finished, but who goes on with four speeches of his own (chapters 32-37). At first his words seem very captivating, but Luther characterized him as a "chatterer." He doesn't add anything of use, although some of his words have good doctrinal applications.
4. Hebrew Parallelism. Parallelism is a way stating a thing, and then stating it again so that the meaning is understood. Languages like Hebrew use parallelism to increase the emotional effect of poetry, and sometimes to tighten the definition of what is being said. Hebrew poetry has three main types of parallelism and several other, minor types. In parallelism, the first of two (or more) lines is reflected in some way by the second. The main types are:
I. Synonymous parallelism, in which the second line (the B line) restates the same thought as the first (the A line).
B. and life to the bitter of soul? (Job 3:20)
II. Antithetic parallelism, in which the second line restates the first line in negative terms (or vice-versa).
B. but would overwhelm me with misery (Job 9:18)
III. Synthetic parallelism, in which the second line completes or expands the thought of the first. Sometimes this is done with question and answer, or with an illustration or contrast.
A. When I lie down I think: How long before I get up?
B. The night drags on, and I toss till dawn. (Job 7:4)
A. God does not restrain his anger,
B. even the cohorts of Rahab cower at his feet (Job 9:13)
5. Poetic Structure of Job. In the Bible, different styles of poetry take on different forms. Proverbs (in or out the book by that name) tend to be written in two lines (regardless of the book in which they appear), are often stated in positive-negative terms, and often have a definite rhythm:
Avoth yoc'lu boser (3 stresses)
WeShineh habanim tiqhena (3 stresses)
The fathers eat sour grapes,
and the children's teeth are set on edge. (Ezekiel 18:2)
Laments (including the entire book of Lamentations) are sad songs that describe grief or distress over a sad or disastrous event. They often employ a particular rhythm called a qinah alternating with more regular patterns. Liturgical poems in the Psalms present songs with refrains that could be sung by choirs. There are several other styles of poetry: the hymn (praises to God), the thanksgiving psalm, the royal (or Messianic) psalm, love poetry (like Song of Solomon), didactic or teaching poems, prophetic poetry, and more.
In Job, the poetry tends to remain within the "proverb" or "wisdom" category. Most of the thoughts are in short, two- or -three line groups, and larger groups are often called stanzas or strophes (I pronounce this word in two syllables, rhyming it with the name Sophie, but many people make it sound like stroaf). Generally, three strophes (or six in some cases) make a chapter.
6. Strophe, Antistrophe, Epode. I am not an expert in Hebrew poetics. I will help us recognize different styles of parallelism, I will call attention to various forms of wordplay, and I will usually present devotions based on individual strophes in the poetic section.
But I am going to advocate a certain pattern I feel is present within the speeches, and you must feel free do disagree with me on this point. In many of the speeches in Job, there seems to be a definite pattern in which a speech has three main parts. In the first part, a point is made, in the second part, a kind of counterpoint or negative application is made, and in the third part, another direction is taken which might be the result of the first two or simply a new idea introduced to the conversation. I would call this thesis, antithesis and synthesis, except that those terms have definite meanings in poetry, and those meanings are not what I see in Job. The structure is not that tightly nailed down.
The pattern in Job reminds me of a classical poetic style known as the ode, although Job is not an ode. In an ode, there is a main point chanted by a chorus (which travels across the stage from one side to the other, called a strophe), then a counterpoint chanted while the chorus (or another chorus) travels the other way, called an antistrophe, and finally the chorus stops in the middle (or both of them meet) to chant in the middle of the stage a third poem called an epode (pronounced EP-o-dee). Job is not an ode, and was written hundreds of years before Pindar wrote any odes, but this three-part style seems to fit the pattern of the book. I think it is possible and perhaps even likely that Pindar or some other Greek poet developed the idea of the Ode from a knowledge of Job.
For example, in chapter 3, Job complains:
I. May the day of my birth perish! (verses 1-10, the strophe)
II. Why didn't I perish on that day? (verses 11-19, the antistrophe)
III. Why are light and life given to the miserable? (verses 20-25, the epode)
Final couplet: I have no peace (this placement of short two-line couplet is common throughout the book).
In some places, this pattern is turned around by Job's friends, who often state an antistrophe and then a strophe with another antistrophe rather than a comfortably resolving epode. If this is the intention of the author, it forms the literary equivalent to disharmony to the arguments of the friends: they are not helping Job in his suffering. In God's speeches in the last five chapters, perfect harmonious poetry overtakes us like elegant music silencing the chaos.
AN OUTLINE OF JOB
Job 1-2....... Prologue (Job's fortune and family lost)
Job 3........... Job's complaint
Job 4-14..... The first round:
A. Eliphaz, and Job's answer (4-7)
B. Bildad, and Job's answer (8-10)
C. Zophar, and Job's answer (11-14)
Job 15-21... The second round:
A. Eliphaz, and Job's answer (15-17)
B. Bildad, and Job's answer (18-19)
The center of the friends' section: "I know that my Redeemer lives," 19:25.
C. Zophar, and Job's answer (20-21)
Job 22-26... The third round:
A. Eliphaz, and Job's answer (22-24)
B. Bildad, and Job's answer (25-26)
Job 27-31... Job: Four speeches (or two long speeches)
Job 32-37... Elihu: Four speeches.
1. God is good. 2. God is just. 3. God is just. 4. God is good.
Job 38-41... God: Four speeches.
Job 42......... Epilogue (Job's fortune and family restored)
FROM LUTHER'S PREFACE TO JOB (1545):
But this is written for our comfort, that God allows even his great saints to falter, especially in adversity. For before Job comes into fear of death, he praises God at the theft of his goods and the death of his children. But when death is in prospect and God withdraws himself, Job’s words show what kind of thoughts a man—however holy he may be—holds toward God: he thinks that God is not God, but only a judge and wrathful tyrant, who storms ahead and cares nothing about the goodness of a person’s life. This is the finest part of this book. It is understood only by those who also experience and feel what it is to suffer the wrath and judgment of God, and to have his grace hidden. (LW 35)
IV. GRACE AND THE PROMISE OF SALVATION IN JOB
"I know that my Redeemer lives," declared Job (Job 19:25). He longed for salvation, and he knew that there was such a thing. Job's confession in that place also shows that he looked for a physical resurrection from the dead: "After my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God" (19:26).
There is a valid question that runs throughout the book: How can a mortal be righteous before God? (9:2, 25:4; etc.). Although the five men who speak never quite come to a satisfactory answer, we are still left remembering Job's confession of faith and his eyes which looked so longingly to God for help. We don't need to understand everything about God's plan of salvation to treasure it. We revere the Almighty; we respect his holiness and his righteousness, and we remember that without those qualities, our rescue and indeed our creation would never have been possible. So when our lives careen over bumps and pitfalls, we look to God for help and we don't assign him blame. We ask him for forgiveness, not for explanations. And we lift up our eyes to him, adore him, and give him thanks.
If this is too brief an explanation, then let's summarize a few points about this great book:
1. The Lord permitted incredible suffering and agony to fall on Job, a man God himself had described as "righteous" and also said that "there is none like him."
2. Job's suffering included every aspect of his life: Enemies stole his property, killed his servants, a storm brought about the death of his children, he was afflicted with a terrible disease, and his wife and his friends turned on him. There was no corner where Job could hide, and no one was in Job's corner.
3. Job had been a leader, well known and renowned throughout his part of the world, but he became an object of ridicule and scorn.
4. All of these things brought on inward suffering, too, as Job was forced to contemplate his place in God's kingdom and whether God was punishing him for some sin or for some other reason altogether.
5. Despite Job's insistence that he was righteous before God (something God himself had earlier confirmed), Job is confronted with the fact that despite his righteousness (and, although he never quite says it, because of his righteousness), he is made to suffer horribly.
6. How does wisdom play its part in all of this? God finally reveals that his ways (his wisdom) are unknown to us. His wisdom was there is every part of the creation. To paraphrase Prof. Mark Paustian, God doesn't explain everything about his ways to us for the same reason a live person doesn't explain his entire world to a cartoon character. There are parts of the three-dimensional world that a two-dimensional creature could never fully understand. And so it is with us and God. Job's suffering permitted and even forced Job to contemplate these things, and despite the degree of his suffering, Job never let go of his faith in God. He never cursed God.
Luther was commenting on the Psalms when he said:
Author and Date of Writing - Unknown; a sage in Israel like Asaph or Solomon. perhaps someone who lived about the time of David or Solomon, which was the "Age of Wisdom Literature" in Israel.
Date of Events - Much earlier, during the time of the patriarchs like Abraham, around 2000-1800 BC.
Job is not a fairy tale. It is not a fable. It is not a morality play set against an ancient backdrop. Although it is told with poetry, we take it, along with the rest of Scripture, to be the truth, given to us by God through the pen of an inspired writer. These things actually happened as we have them recorded for us. The men and the woman who speak in this book did not speak in poetry, but the words we have, though stylized somewhat by the author, are nevertheless the true message about what happened.
We don’t know when Job was written. Some ancient believers thought that Moses had written the book and they even placed Job after Deuteronomy in their Bible. Many scholars in our own time think that it was written later, perhaps by Solomon or a writer in Solomon’s time, but there is nothing in the book to insist upon this later date. One possible clue, although not definitive, is the relationship between the psalms of Asaph and the book of Job.
Psalm 50:3 - God speaks from a storm (Job 38:1)Asaph, a contemporary of David, was at the very least well acquainted with the language and themes of Job, but as to whether he was the author, we can't say for certain.
Psalm 50:6 - God is the Judge of all (Job 19:6)
Psalm 50:10-11 - God knows and rules every animal (Job 38:39-39:30)
Psalm 50:18 - The close relationship of the thief, the adulterer, and deception (Job 24:14; 31:5)
Psalm 50:22 - The terrible destiny of those who forget God (Job 8:13)
Psalm 50:22 - Use of Eloah rather than Elohim as the term for God (Job 3:4 and a total of 41 times in Job out of 59 altogether throughout the Bible)
Psalm 73:1 - Emphasis on "unmixed" purity (Hebr. tahár) before God (Job 4:17; 14:4; 28:19)
Psalm 73:3 - Why do the wicked prosper? (Job 8:22; 9:24; 10:3; 21:7, etc.)
Psalm 73:13 - Emphasis on moral purity (Hebr. zacháh), (Job 8:6 and 7 other times in Job)
Psalm 74:2 - To redeem is an act of God (Job 33:28)
Psalm 74:7, 10 - Special emphasis on "the Name" of the Lord (Job 1:21; although throughout the Asaph psalms: 75:1; 76:1; 79:6; 79:9; 80:18; 83:16).
Psalm 74:14 - Leviathan (Job 41:1-34)
Psalm 75:3 - the pillars of heaven and earth that quake or stand at God's command (Job 9:6; 26:11)
Psalm 75:6 - Using "east" and "west" to describe people from all over (Job 18:20)
Psalm 75:7 - God is the one who judges and raises his hand against the wicked. (Job 21:22)
Psalm 76:8-9 - The God who judges is to be feared. (Job 12:16-17)
Psalm 77:3 - The groans of the dying and condemned rising to the Lord (Job 3:24; 23:2; 24:12)
Psalm 77:7 - Will the Lord reject forever? Has is mercy vanished to the end? (Job 9:15; 30:15)
Psalm 77:15 - see "redeem," Ps. 74:2 above.
Psalm 78:1 - The command to "listen to" or "hear" teaching (uncommon; cf. Job 33:33).
Psalm 78:17 - How often God's people have rebelled! (Job 24:13; 34:37)
Psalm 78:26 - The south wind commanded by God (Job 37:17)
Psalm 78:35 - God is the Redeemer (Job 19:25) - this title only occurs 2 other places outside Isaiah, but see 74:2 above.
Psalm 78:42 - see "redeem," Ps. 74:2 above.
Psalm 79:11 -Groans rising to the Lord (see 77:3 above)
Psalm 80 - Hear, O Shepherd of Israel! O God, restore us! (Job 8:6)
Psalm 81:14 - If only... (Hebrew lu, Job 6:2; 9:33; 10:19; 13:5; 14:13; 17:13;23:3)
Psalm 82:1 - In the midst of the "gods," God judges. (Job 1:6; 2:1)
Psalm 83 - Surrounded by enemies. (Job 16:13; 17:2)
Although we can’t date the time when Job was written, we may be able to place the time when the events took place. Based on place names and other factors, Job seems to have lived during the time of the patriarchs, perhaps the 1800’s BC or a little earlier. Job's great age at the end of the book reminds us the days of the patriarchs. Job was the priest in his family, something that was in place until the time of the exodus. Also, there is no reference whatsoever to Israel, which would seem to indicate that the events happened before there was a nation of Israel living in Canaan.
There are other factors that point to the age of the Patriarchs for the events in Job. The attacks by Sabaeans (Job 1:15) and Chaldeans (Job 1:17) are reminiscent of the nations and methods of the "War of the Coalition" in Genesis 14. Also, during that war, the Amalekites and Amorites were defeated by a relatively small force (cp. Genesis 14:7 and 14:14-16). Since the Amalekites were descended from Esau's son Eliphaz, they would have been a small group at this time. Also, the name Eliphaz occurs in Job, although probably a family name and not the same man. We will discuss the relationship of Job's friend Bildad and Abraham at another time.
FROM MARTIN LUTHER'S PREFACE TO JOB (1545):
The book of Job deals with the question, whether misfortune comes from God even to the righteous. Job stands firm and contends that God torments even the righteous without cause other than that this be to God’s praise, as Christ also testifies in John 9:3 of the man who was born blind.II. THEMES IN JOB
Job’s friends take the other side. They make a big and lengthy palaver trying to maintain God’s justice, saying that he does not punish a righteous man, and if he does punish, then the man who is punished must have sinned. They have a worldly and human idea of God and his righteousness, as though he were just like men and his justice like the justice of the world. (LW 35)
1. Suffering. Job suffers tremendously in this book, and perhaps that is one of the places where most of us connect with the book the most. When we suffer, we think of Job and read about Job and realize that here was a man who probably suffered more than we do. Job suffered the loss of his fortune, the loss of his ten children, the loss of his health, and these things also led to trouble in his marriage (2:9; 19:17). When we suffer in any part of our lives, there is sure to be some point of contact with Job, and the comfort Job looked for is the comfort we are looking for, too.
2. Patience. I have heard Job described as an incredibly patient man, and I have heard Job described as an incredibly impatient man. One thing is certain: Job did not give up on the Lord, although his faith scraped the bottom a few times. Job gave up trying to understand and finally listened to God, and it was then that Job's confession of his sinfulness became evident to everyone.
3. Defending our faith. Job is accused time after time of being sinful, which is equated with unbelief by his friends. But when Job defends his faith, he throws himself at God's feet, and that's a great example for any of us.
4. The storm. Throughout the book of Job, there is a storm on the way. In the first chapters, we get the impression from the words of Job and his friends that their land is dry and that a wind is blowing (6:17, etc.). Then in Job 13:25, one of Job's friends compares Job's words to Job troubling a dry leaf blowing past, and from that moment references to an oncoming storm front increase. Distant rain and a murmuring thunder (28:26) eventually give way to "the roar of (God's) voice" thundering all around the men (37:2-5). Lightning that was merely close (36:30) becomes a first-hand show in God's personal questions (38:24, 35). There is no reason not to take this storm from which God speaks as anything other than the Glory of the Lord itself. I will point out references to the coming storm in the comments with the symbol:
5. The creatures: Yam, Tannin, Rahab, Behemoth, Leviathan.
יָם Yam (7:12) is "the monster of the deep," perhaps a personification of the power of the ocean. The Hebrew word means "sea" and usually just stands for the ocean.
תַנִּים Tannin (30:29) is "jackal" in the NIV, but many translations see a reference to Tannin, a dragonlike sea monster. Like Rahab (see below), Tannin or "the great monster" was sometimes also a nickname for Egypt (Ezekiel 29:3). Note that even a map of Egypt shows the Nile resembling a long, uncoiled serpent slithering near Canaan.
רָהַב Rahab (9:13), an ancient mythological sea monster. Job's mention of a mythological creature is not evidence of belief in the creature any more that if I were mention Scylla and Charybdis or their modern equivalent, a rock and a hard place. Rahab was a monster associated with the Red Sea in particular, and perhaps for that reason it also became a nickname for Egypt and for wicked nations in general (cp. Isaiah 51:9-10).
בְהֵמוֹת Behemoth (40:15-24). Although there is sometimes a suggestion that this creature could be the hippopotamus (an obscure Egyptian word for the hippo, p-ih-mw, even sounds a little like behemoth), the hippo's tail doesn't come even close to that of the behemoth's in 40:17, nor does the description of his "sinewy muscles" in the same verse. Another creature is probably meant. Chapter 40 provides a detailed look at this creature.
לִוְיָתָן Leviathan (3:8; 41:1-34), has a description that goes so far beyond that of the crocodile as to make any association with a known animal impossible. However, in some references outside Job, such as Psalm 104:26, the leviathan could simply be a whale. It is likely that although a specific creature is meant here in Job, leviathan (Hebrew, "winding / wound thing") simply means any kind of large sea creature.
FROM LUTHER'S PREFACE TO JOB (1545):
To be sure, when Job is in danger of death, out of human weakness he talks too much against God, and in his suffering sins. Nevertheless Job insists that he has not deserved this suffering more than others have, which is, of course, true. Finally, however, God decides that Job, by speaking against God in his suffering, has spoken wrongly, but that in contending against his friends about his innocence before the suffering came Job has spoken the truth. So the book carries this story ultimately to this conclusion: God alone is righteous, and yet one man is more righteous than another, even in the sight of God. (LW 35)III. LITERARY AND POETIC FORMS IN JOB, AND AN OUTLINE OF JOB
1. The Job Sandwich. At its simplest, Job is constructed like a sandwich. A large section of poetry (chapters 3-41) is surrounded by a two slices of prose (non-poetic) bread, with a prologue (chapters 1-2) and an epilogue (chapter 42).
2. The Three Cycles. Within the poetic middle of the sandwich are three well-ordered cycles of speeches followed by three groups of speeches by Job, another friend and God himself. Job's three friends Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar (I sometimes think of them as "Ell, Bill, and Mr. Z") each speak to Job, and Job replies to each one of them in turn. In general, Eliphaz tends to focus on the wisdom of nature and of common sense ("Do you limit wisdom to yourself?" Job 15:8). In the same way, we might generalize Bildad (a descendant of Abraham? -- More on this later) as focusing on the wisdom of the past and, to quote Fiddler on the Roof, Tradition! ("ask the former generation and find out what their fathers learned..." Job 8:8). The third man, Zophar, doesn't add much to their arguments. His words are the most caustic and indignant ("Oh, how I wish God would speak!" Job 11:5) but he presents a general feeling of "Yeah--what they said!" ("Are all these words to go unanswered?" Job 11:2).
This pattern: Eliphaz, Job, Bildad, Job, Zophar, Job, occurs three times. The last time, Bildad has only a very short speech and Zophar doesn't speak at all, which seems to be an indication that Job's friends are running out of gas in their accusations against him. In the exact center of this cycle, when Job replies to the second friend in the second round, we find the literary climax of the book: Job declares his faith in the coming Savior, saying I know that my Redeemer lives! (Job 19:25).
3. The "Useless Chatterer." There was another friend, a younger man named Elihu, who doesn't speak until all the others have finished, but who goes on with four speeches of his own (chapters 32-37). At first his words seem very captivating, but Luther characterized him as a "chatterer." He doesn't add anything of use, although some of his words have good doctrinal applications.
4. Hebrew Parallelism. Parallelism is a way stating a thing, and then stating it again so that the meaning is understood. Languages like Hebrew use parallelism to increase the emotional effect of poetry, and sometimes to tighten the definition of what is being said. Hebrew poetry has three main types of parallelism and several other, minor types. In parallelism, the first of two (or more) lines is reflected in some way by the second. The main types are:
I. Synonymous parallelism, in which the second line (the B line) restates the same thought as the first (the A line).
לָמָּה יִתֵּן לְעָמֵל אוֹר
וְחַיִּים לְמָרֵי נָפֶשׁ
A. Why is light given to those in miseryB. and life to the bitter of soul? (Job 3:20)
II. Antithetic parallelism, in which the second line restates the first line in negative terms (or vice-versa).
לֹא־יִתְּנֵנִי הָשֵׁב רוּחִי
כִּי יַשְׂבִּעַנִי מַמְּרֹרִים
A. He would not let me regain my breathB. but would overwhelm me with misery (Job 9:18)
III. Synthetic parallelism, in which the second line completes or expands the thought of the first. Sometimes this is done with question and answer, or with an illustration or contrast.
אִם־שָׁכַבְתִּי וְאָמַרְתִּי מָתַי אָקוּם
וּמִדַּד־עָרֶב וְשָׂבַעְתִּי נְדֻדִים עֲדֵי־נָשֶׁף
A. When I lie down I think: How long before I get up?
B. The night drags on, and I toss till dawn. (Job 7:4)
אֱלוֹהַּ לֹא־יָשִׁיב אַפּוֹ
תַּחְתָּו שָׁחֲחוּ עֹזְרֵי רָהַב
A. God does not restrain his anger,
B. even the cohorts of Rahab cower at his feet (Job 9:13)
5. Poetic Structure of Job. In the Bible, different styles of poetry take on different forms. Proverbs (in or out the book by that name) tend to be written in two lines (regardless of the book in which they appear), are often stated in positive-negative terms, and often have a definite rhythm:
אָבוֹת יֹאכְלוּ בֹסֶר
וְשִׁנֵּי הַבָּנִים תִקְהֶינָה
Avoth yoc'lu boser (3 stresses)
WeShineh habanim tiqhena (3 stresses)
The fathers eat sour grapes,
and the children's teeth are set on edge. (Ezekiel 18:2)
Laments (including the entire book of Lamentations) are sad songs that describe grief or distress over a sad or disastrous event. They often employ a particular rhythm called a qinah alternating with more regular patterns. Liturgical poems in the Psalms present songs with refrains that could be sung by choirs. There are several other styles of poetry: the hymn (praises to God), the thanksgiving psalm, the royal (or Messianic) psalm, love poetry (like Song of Solomon), didactic or teaching poems, prophetic poetry, and more.
In Job, the poetry tends to remain within the "proverb" or "wisdom" category. Most of the thoughts are in short, two- or -three line groups, and larger groups are often called stanzas or strophes (I pronounce this word in two syllables, rhyming it with the name Sophie, but many people make it sound like stroaf). Generally, three strophes (or six in some cases) make a chapter.
6. Strophe, Antistrophe, Epode. I am not an expert in Hebrew poetics. I will help us recognize different styles of parallelism, I will call attention to various forms of wordplay, and I will usually present devotions based on individual strophes in the poetic section.
But I am going to advocate a certain pattern I feel is present within the speeches, and you must feel free do disagree with me on this point. In many of the speeches in Job, there seems to be a definite pattern in which a speech has three main parts. In the first part, a point is made, in the second part, a kind of counterpoint or negative application is made, and in the third part, another direction is taken which might be the result of the first two or simply a new idea introduced to the conversation. I would call this thesis, antithesis and synthesis, except that those terms have definite meanings in poetry, and those meanings are not what I see in Job. The structure is not that tightly nailed down.
The pattern in Job reminds me of a classical poetic style known as the ode, although Job is not an ode. In an ode, there is a main point chanted by a chorus (which travels across the stage from one side to the other, called a strophe), then a counterpoint chanted while the chorus (or another chorus) travels the other way, called an antistrophe, and finally the chorus stops in the middle (or both of them meet) to chant in the middle of the stage a third poem called an epode (pronounced EP-o-dee). Job is not an ode, and was written hundreds of years before Pindar wrote any odes, but this three-part style seems to fit the pattern of the book. I think it is possible and perhaps even likely that Pindar or some other Greek poet developed the idea of the Ode from a knowledge of Job.
For example, in chapter 3, Job complains:
I. May the day of my birth perish! (verses 1-10, the strophe)
II. Why didn't I perish on that day? (verses 11-19, the antistrophe)
III. Why are light and life given to the miserable? (verses 20-25, the epode)
Final couplet: I have no peace (this placement of short two-line couplet is common throughout the book).
In some places, this pattern is turned around by Job's friends, who often state an antistrophe and then a strophe with another antistrophe rather than a comfortably resolving epode. If this is the intention of the author, it forms the literary equivalent to disharmony to the arguments of the friends: they are not helping Job in his suffering. In God's speeches in the last five chapters, perfect harmonious poetry overtakes us like elegant music silencing the chaos.
AN OUTLINE OF JOB
Job 1-2....... Prologue (Job's fortune and family lost)
Job 3........... Job's complaint
Job 4-14..... The first round:
A. Eliphaz, and Job's answer (4-7)
B. Bildad, and Job's answer (8-10)
C. Zophar, and Job's answer (11-14)
Job 15-21... The second round:
A. Eliphaz, and Job's answer (15-17)
B. Bildad, and Job's answer (18-19)
The center of the friends' section: "I know that my Redeemer lives," 19:25.
C. Zophar, and Job's answer (20-21)
Job 22-26... The third round:
A. Eliphaz, and Job's answer (22-24)
B. Bildad, and Job's answer (25-26)
Job 27-31... Job: Four speeches (or two long speeches)
Job 32-37... Elihu: Four speeches.
1. God is good. 2. God is just. 3. God is just. 4. God is good.
Job 38-41... God: Four speeches.
Job 42......... Epilogue (Job's fortune and family restored)
FROM LUTHER'S PREFACE TO JOB (1545):
But this is written for our comfort, that God allows even his great saints to falter, especially in adversity. For before Job comes into fear of death, he praises God at the theft of his goods and the death of his children. But when death is in prospect and God withdraws himself, Job’s words show what kind of thoughts a man—however holy he may be—holds toward God: he thinks that God is not God, but only a judge and wrathful tyrant, who storms ahead and cares nothing about the goodness of a person’s life. This is the finest part of this book. It is understood only by those who also experience and feel what it is to suffer the wrath and judgment of God, and to have his grace hidden. (LW 35)
IV. GRACE AND THE PROMISE OF SALVATION IN JOB
"I know that my Redeemer lives," declared Job (Job 19:25). He longed for salvation, and he knew that there was such a thing. Job's confession in that place also shows that he looked for a physical resurrection from the dead: "After my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God" (19:26).
There is a valid question that runs throughout the book: How can a mortal be righteous before God? (9:2, 25:4; etc.). Although the five men who speak never quite come to a satisfactory answer, we are still left remembering Job's confession of faith and his eyes which looked so longingly to God for help. We don't need to understand everything about God's plan of salvation to treasure it. We revere the Almighty; we respect his holiness and his righteousness, and we remember that without those qualities, our rescue and indeed our creation would never have been possible. So when our lives careen over bumps and pitfalls, we look to God for help and we don't assign him blame. We ask him for forgiveness, not for explanations. And we lift up our eyes to him, adore him, and give him thanks.
If this is too brief an explanation, then let's summarize a few points about this great book:
1. The Lord permitted incredible suffering and agony to fall on Job, a man God himself had described as "righteous" and also said that "there is none like him."
2. Job's suffering included every aspect of his life: Enemies stole his property, killed his servants, a storm brought about the death of his children, he was afflicted with a terrible disease, and his wife and his friends turned on him. There was no corner where Job could hide, and no one was in Job's corner.
3. Job had been a leader, well known and renowned throughout his part of the world, but he became an object of ridicule and scorn.
4. All of these things brought on inward suffering, too, as Job was forced to contemplate his place in God's kingdom and whether God was punishing him for some sin or for some other reason altogether.
5. Despite Job's insistence that he was righteous before God (something God himself had earlier confirmed), Job is confronted with the fact that despite his righteousness (and, although he never quite says it, because of his righteousness), he is made to suffer horribly.
6. How does wisdom play its part in all of this? God finally reveals that his ways (his wisdom) are unknown to us. His wisdom was there is every part of the creation. To paraphrase Prof. Mark Paustian, God doesn't explain everything about his ways to us for the same reason a live person doesn't explain his entire world to a cartoon character. There are parts of the three-dimensional world that a two-dimensional creature could never fully understand. And so it is with us and God. Job's suffering permitted and even forced Job to contemplate these things, and despite the degree of his suffering, Job never let go of his faith in God. He never cursed God.
Luther was commenting on the Psalms when he said:
"In this he [anyone who suffers] is regarded as low and as cursed by God according to the ʻunwisdomʼ of carnal men, who do not know that salvation is of the Spirit under judgments of this kind and under the sufferings of Christ. Therefore they do not deign to see him, but despise him. They are fearful where there is no fear, they abhor the poverty, trouble, and contempt of the faithful people in the world, as did the friends of Job. But they who fear God alone and neither love nor fear anything that is of the world, whether bad or good, rejoice and congratulate him, because they see his spiritual good things which he has in hope. LW 11,467.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)