I had time on my lunch break yesterday so I read “ahead”. I will admit, I had many questions. What is he saying? I am confused? Uggg Poetry! But I work with 2 ladies and we bounced the scriptures off of each other and we made “some” sense of it. (I will admit, I love like this book, I am anxious to get back to Genesis 😂)
Job is flipping the script. If the friends are telling him to repent, be righteous so he can “prosper” as he once did…then why do the ‘wicked’ (unbelievers) live prosperous lives every day? George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Daniel Radcliffe, Uma Thuman, Jodie Foster, Bruce Willis….they seem to be doing ok.
“Why does good stuff happen to bad people and bad stuff happen to good people”…timeless question!!
Job starts with “Listen (Linda 😂), carefully to my words”. Job knows that they have not “listened”, they have their responses ready before they even hear his words. Then he flips their theory. It should have stopped them and given them a moment to think.
7 Why do the wicked live on,
growing old and increasing in power?
8 They see their children established around them,
their offspring before their eyes.
9 Their homes are safe and free from fear;
the rod of God is not on them.
10 Their bulls never fail to breed;
their cows calve and do not miscarry.
11 They send forth their children as a flock;
their little ones dance about.
12 They sing to the music of timbrel and lyre;
they make merry to the sound of the pipe.
13 They spend their years in prosperity
and go down to the grave in peace.
14 Yet they say to God, ‘Leave us alone!
We have no desire to know your ways.
15 Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him?
What would we gain by praying to him?’
Chapter 22- FINAL ROUND. Round 3
Did Eliphaz listen to him? Nope! He then starts throwing “possibilities” to Job of what he might have done to sin…
- “Is it for your religion that he rebukes you?
- Is not your wickedness great?
- Are not your sins endless?
- Did you demand security from your relatives for no reason?
- Did you strip people of their clothing, leaving them naked?
- Did you withhold water to the weary and food from the hungry?
- Did you think you were a powerful man?
- Did you send widows away empty-handed?
- Did you break the strength of the fatherless?
- Then in verse 13 Elipahz paraphrases what Job has been saying…but paraphrases it incorrectly, twisting what he was saying (because he was not listening!
(He can make 100 guesses, they are all wrong!)
Eliphaz does have some pearls of wisdom about submission and repentance. But there are 2 factors here: Job does not know about the conversation between God and Satan so he has nothing to reveal. Next, Eliphaz was tying it to “external” prosperity…we submit for internal prosperity.
Chapter 23.
My heart breaks for Job. He has no explanation for such a calamity, other than the advice from his friends that he has secret sins he needs to repent from. He longs to talk to God! He feels so lost.
“But if I go to the east, he is not there;
if I go to the west, I do not find him.
9 When he is at work in the north, I do not see him;
when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.
10 But he knows the way that I take;
when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.
11 My feet have closely followed his steps;
I have kept to his way without turning aside.
12 I have not departed from the commands of his lips;
I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread.
Hang in there….we can get through this book.
Reading the Bible - 2021 