PSA Bible Reading Challenge 2023-2024

While the last chapter was primarily an account of God’s ability to create the earth and all the inanimate objects and plants, this next chapter is God’s providence over all of the wildlife of the earth.  We hear about goats, wild donkeys, wild oxen, ostriches, horses, and the hawk.  That is quite a selection of strong and powerful animals.  I love the verses about the oxen (vs.9) which talk  about the confidence we might have to leave it by the crib.  I know I shouldn’t, because the author did not intend this, but I can’t help but think of the ox and the cattle around the crib of our savior.  We can assume from these verses that they were gentle and that Mary and Joseph had no reason to fear them.

God continues to lay out his credentials to Job as if to show him that he really has not right to question or bring God to trial.  We often want to bring God to trial, especially when we feel that we are being unfairly treated.  I hope and pray that in the end we remember that it is God who has created, it is God who makes decisions based upon grace, and not judgment, it is God who loves us and does all things for our good.

The Lord responds, and boy does He respond.  All of the commentators say that his response is directed at Job and in fact we find that in the first verse.  His response in this chapter, at least, is divided into the creation of the natural universe and the creation of animals.  Water is emphasized extensively in this chapter  because it was, and it remains, the source of all life in that region.  So many wars have been fought over time because of water.  

One of my favorite lines is seen in vs.3 where God commands Job to gird up his loins like a man.  So, this girding up was done before a person went into battle to make sure that everything was just in the right place.  God tells Job that if he wants to put God on trial he better be ready because God is going to come at him.  He better be ready to defend himself because God is going to respond in a way that a person will not be able to defend themselves.

We often find ourselves girded up for battle against God.  But all along God really calls us to gird ourselves up for a life that can be lived in freedom. The battles that we think we have to fight against God, really do not exist.  We are really fighting against our own selves when we do that.

This is the end of the conversation, or the monologue of Elihu and it is also the end of anyone speaking besides God, who comes next, and Job, who will come again a bit later.  Elihu finishes this part by proclaiming the presence of God in nature serves to remind us that God is God, and we are not.  God has created, God has put the heavens in their place.  God has made  the animals to live and to roam upon the earth.  The phrase that should give us pause is seen in vs.14: “Hear this, O Job; stop and consider the wondrous works of God.”  

We find in vs.23 a statement that reminds me of Karl Barth who called God: “Totally other.”  God is totally other.  Wait, I mean, God is totally other, while at the same time Jesus came upon this earth as one of us.  God may be totally other, but at the same time God is with us, Emmanuel.  Let’s be clear, we are not God, but God did take the form of a slave.   Read Philippians 2:7 and remember that God chose to become one of us in every way, except he was without sin.  It is also an inspiring voice.  For some reason this song is in my head.

Once again Elihu speaks in a way that is reminiscent of what we would expect God to say.  And yet it also smacks of what the friends of Job said at one time.  Look at vss.11-12.  We read: “If they listen,  and serve him, they complete their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasantness.  But if they do not listen, they shall perish by the sword, and die without knowledge. “

This is absolutely what we think the world ought to look like.  This is exactly the kind of justice we would think God would have.  But it is not what we see played out in the world.  There is a possibility that Billy Joel is more right than Elihu on this one.  Certainly when the young die they get more press.  But it causes us to realize that we live our life for Jesus not because he is going to pay us back in long life or riches.  We life our life for Jesus simply because we are grateful for the grace that we have been given as a result of His ultimate sacrifice for us.  

Elihu continues to castigate Job and asks a rhetorical question that maybe Job could have asked at one time in his life.  What advantage have I?  How am I better off than if I had sinned?  Elihu actually comes up with a good answer.  He says if you are righteous then you actually are able to return something to God.  If you are wicked then it not only affects you but also those around you.  

Elihu accuses Job of empty talk and speech which multiplies ignorance.  There is some wisdom here in Elihu’s talk.  He continues on for a few more chapters and we don’t really have a response to him once he finishes speaking, so we might do well to pay attention to what he has to say.  So much of what Elihu has to say resonates with what Job said earlier in chapter 7.

The desire of this Elihu, who is not counted as one of Job’s friends by the way, is that Job would be: “tried to the limit, because his answers are those of the wicked.”  There are quite a few accusations here against Job which I’m not really sure would hold up under a court of law.  Elihu also states that Job’s perspective is one of: “It profits one nothing to take delight in God.”  One more thing he adds to the list of accusations is that Job “goes in the company with evildoers and walks with the wicked.”  

Job is being portrayed here in a very, very negative light.  There isn’t much we can do to defend him except let Elihu speak himself out, which he hasn’t done yet and he won’t do at least for one more chapter and maybe more.  The accusations against Job are simply from the perspective of one who thinks that Job has to be guilty because of his life situation.  He may not  even know Job, but just knows that state that he is in and so he has to be someone that God has  turned His back on him.  

Be careful to judge anyone based upon their life situation.  Are all homeless people dangerous, or criminals, or psychotic, or could it just be that most of them are just one paycheck away from not having made it.  When we generalize any groups of people who tend to be needy and say that it is because of these stereotypical reasons, we don’t do the individuals justice.  We need to do them justice by giving them the benefit of the doubt, because the them is really us.  

So after that big wind up Elihu launches but it is not anything like what I expected.  I expected him to really come down hard on Job and to call him out for his unfaithfulness and just get over it like everyone else does.  But instead there is a very intellectual approach to the whole matter at hand.  He begins by building up his own credentials by stating that he is no different from Job.  Both of them are the clay and God is the potter (vs.6), so he understands what it feels like to be in Job’s position.  

But he begins in a very passive, aggressive way to chastise Job in vs.9 by accusing him of pretending that he is clean and without transgression.  He doesn’t mock him, but calls Job out because Job insists that there is no iniquity in him.  He calls Job out for accusing God of being his enemy for no reason.  

He then tries to give Job a tutorial on how we are able to hear the voice of God in the midst of suffering.  He speaks about God revealing Himself to us through dreams (which is true by the way), and encourages him to follow the example of those who confess their sin so that God is given the opportunity to send His angels to redeem the guilty one from the miry pit.  He insists that it is God’s intention and desire to draw everyone out of the pit.  God’s purpose is to draw everyone out of the darkness and into the light.

I can’t really argue with that.  I kind of like Elihu at this point.  He is reasonable, he argues with conviction, and yet not with disdain.  We do need people in our lives who will call us out on the mat but in a way that is gentle and kind and allows us to see our faults.  Now Job didn’t really need his faults to be lifted up, but we do.  His speech continues in the next chapter.  Let’s see if he keeps the same tone as this chapter.

What the who, Elihu?  It is interesting how the narrator describes how the friends of Job ceased to speak to him because he declared himself righteous in his own eyes.  They knew that there was no wiggle room for Job to declare the obvious sin that he was committing which resulted in God’s obvious punishment.  Job simply stated that none of this is obvious.  God’s providence stretches far beyond our wisdom.  That is nice to hear when we struggle, that God’s providence stretches far beyond our understanding, so when we don’t understand life, that’s okay.

But then comes Elihu who is not classified as a friend of Job, but rather as an innocent bystander who becomes curious and interested in this conversation and in the end becomes absolutely enraged at the lack of courage and lack of ability of these friends of Job to put him in his place.  Chapter 32 is basically a wind up for Elihu before he addresses Job and puts him in his place.  

He does strike me as someone who is a bit full of hot air and not necessarily one who is as gifted or skilled or full of wisdom as he might think that he is.  Be wary of anyone who states: I am full of words, the spirit within me constrains me.  Basically this person is saying that I would say a lot more but I know that I better not.  You normally find that this person then goes on to say way more than they should have said.  Look out for Elihu.

It seems like we come to the end, well, because it states: the words of Job ended.  But not really, we have the words of Job that come later on, but this is definitely the definitive ending to his defense of why he is not being punished by God, but rather that he remained righteous even in the midst of these calamities that he is experiencing.  

It is interesting that he lifts up sexual sin as a potential for why God might have punished him, if that were the case with him.  Look at vs.1, 7, 9, and vs.10.  But he assures us, the readers, that this simply was not the case.  He had remained faithful to his wife and to his God.  Even though his wife was not his strongest supporter, still he declares that he has remained faithful even in all this.

He creates hypothetical scenarios in regards to what should happen if he had been unfaithful not just to his wife but also to God.  If he had withheld anything from the poor then his arm should be broken from his socket.  If he had just trusted in gold alone then thorns should grow in his land instead of wheat and barley.  He insists that he has not prayed calamity upon his detractors, but rather he has been faithful to the Lord.  He is defending himself strongly here against all accusations.

I want to cherry pick a few verses which I think might resonate with us today, in this day and time.  Look at vs.22 and I can’t help but think of Hurricane Florence as the author states: “You toss me about int he roar of a storm.”  With the impending storm it is hard to think about much else, as you see people leaving and you hear the shrill warnings you wonder if anything is going to survive.  But we have experience that not all things will come to pass as they say, but we are called to prudence.  

I know that there are a few readers out there who read vs.17 and say, AMEN!  “The night racks my bones, and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.”  I feel very fortunate that I do not suffer from pain and the gnawing of my bones but I know that there are many out there who not only experience constant pain, but have no end in sight to the pain.  Take comfort in the words of Job that he has experienced the same reality and yet God, in the end, does come to deliver him.

This entire chapter is a reflection that while Job’s glory days are behind him, right now he is experiencing a situation where those whom he used to employ, are now mercilessly mocking him and taking delight in his current reality.  You know that he has to be speaking about his friends Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar.  Maybe at one time they had worked for Job and he had been lord over them, and now their children are rising up against him and speaking against him in unkind ways.

Isn’t it something when glory days are over and you find yourself humbled in a mighty way.  But God remains faithful even if it feels like “you have turned cruel to me.”