00:00:00:27 – 00:00:27:52
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining us. Continuing through the book of job here. We’re in the 18th chapter, the second cycle of speeches, the second speech of the second cycle of speeches, as again, Bill dad steps up to the microphone. Job has just responded to Eliphaz again. Not breaking a lot of new ground here, contending that he is, innocent, that he’s not deserving of his situation.

00:00:27:57 – 00:00:53:06
Clint Loveall
And now Bill, dad steps in. Not a particularly pointed a little bit, maybe rough in the beginning. Here. Just read the first couple verses. No, we’ll summarize maybe a lot of the rest. Bill, dad answered, how long will you hunt for words? Consider, and then we shall speak. Why are we counseled as cattle? Why are we stupid in your sight?

00:00:53:11 – 00:01:25:26
Clint Loveall
You who tear yourself in your anger shall the earth be forsaken because of you, or the rock be removed out of its place? A really interesting insinuation here as Bill dad. Read it. Partly he’s simply saying to Joe, why won’t you listen? Joe, why are you thick headed? Why? Why won’t you get what we’re saying? But you also begin to hear a theme that’s going to come up a little bit, Jobe.

00:01:25:26 – 00:01:59:46
Clint Loveall
If you are right, then everything else is wrong. In other words, Joseph, what you were saying was correct then we can’t trust our understanding of the rest of our existence. It. Who are you to put everything out of place? Shall the earth be forsaken because of you? In other words, are you willing to say that you are right if it means saying that everything else in the creation, including the creator, perhaps is wrong?

00:01:59:51 – 00:02:26:36
Clint Loveall
And then from there, Bill, dad repeats some of what we heard Eliphaz say yesterday. Job, you know how it works. Let me tell you again how it works. The wicked get punished. They go down to harm. Bad things happen to them. They’re not trustworthy. They’re not blessed. And really, most of this speech could be characterized with that kind of language.

00:02:26:36 – 00:02:51:24
Clint Loveall
Just, job, you know? You know, how it works. God is against the wicked. We all know this. And I don’t know, Michael. Maybe there’s more to add to that, but essentially, it seems to me that largely this is a condensed version of what we’ve heard. And and I don’t I’m not sure that that part of it, adds a lot new to the discussion.

00:02:51:28 – 00:03:17:16
Michael Gewecke
I would agree. I want to just point out a thing that I alluded to yesterday. I think it’s really important that we see how these friends are doing some really remarkably different interpreting of job circumstance than what job is. And I have to preface this really briefly by saying, I’ve not done I’m not a Hebrew scholar, and I’ve not done a lot of Hebrew work on this book.

00:03:17:16 – 00:03:40:28
Michael Gewecke
So I want to make that clear. What I’m looking at here, Clint, is the English translation, but chapter 16, verse nine, Speaking of God, job says, God has torn me in his wrath and hated me. He’s not washed his teeth at me. My adversary sharpens his eyes against me. A very clear invective, a rhetoric against God in this instance, right?

00:03:40:33 – 00:04:02:47
Michael Gewecke
I then think when we skip ahead here, it’s very fascinating, isn’t it, that Bildad says, verse four, you who tarry yourself in your anger, right? You are the one doing the tearing job, not God. I think once again, you’ve got to hedge this because that this book, the language, you know, those may not be the same.

00:04:02:47 – 00:04:04:19
Clint Loveall
Words, all this stuff here.

00:04:04:19 – 00:04:34:30
Michael Gewecke
But what you got to say is that one of the core ways of these friends pushing back against job is to say job. While it doesn’t make sense to you that you’ve done something wrong, while you claim that to be true, ultimately we see you as the one responsible for the choices which are now resulting in the pain that you’re blaming God for.

00:04:34:35 – 00:04:44:17
Michael Gewecke
And in a way, they’re both on their own loop clan. I mean, as long as they keep going in that loop, they’re never going to connect because they’re both in their own cycles.

00:04:44:22 – 00:05:10:50
Clint Loveall
Well, and this isn’t this isn’t quite as personal as we’ve seen and as we will see again. But what Bildad seems to say is, look, here’s what we know, job. God punishes the wicked. The wicked suffer. The wicked have bad things happen to them. The wicked have to deal with struggle and punishment in life, and it’s bad for them.

00:05:10:55 – 00:05:46:07
Clint Loveall
And by implication, Things are bad for you. What? What could that mean? What might we infer from that job? And there is an obviousness through the eyes of the friends that they can’t understand why job can’t see it. Consequently, job can’t understand why they won’t listen to him if we move to his response in chapter 19, how long will you torment me and break me in pieces with words?

00:05:46:12 – 00:06:18:31
Clint Loveall
Verse five and six, if you magnify yourselves against me and make my humiliation an argument against me, no, then that God has put me in the wrong. Possibly that may say God has wronged me. The translation is is interesting there and closed his net around me. So in other words, if you want to speak the truth, friends quit speaking against me.

00:06:18:36 – 00:06:44:34
Clint Loveall
I have been a made a victim, I call aloud, but there is no justice. And here we get this, uncomfortable language. We found some of this yesterday. I call aloud, there’s no justice. He has walled me up. He has stripped my glory from me. He breaks me down. He has kindled his wrath upon me. Very much here.

00:06:44:34 – 00:07:27:28
Clint Loveall
Casting God in the role of the one who has done the damage. Verse 13, he’s put my family far from me. He’s made my acquaintances estranged, my relatives and my close friends have failed me. Job here speaks of himself on an island, isolated, suffering by himself and, I mean, there’s no interpretation here, Michael. It’s very clear what Joe believes is the genesis of this experience.

00:07:27:28 – 00:07:34:00
Clint Loveall
He he puts it at the feet of God. He did. I mean, I, I think that would be impossible to argue.

00:07:34:04 – 00:07:58:34
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. Well, and I would argue also, Clint, that his connection to his friends is, obviously a flashpoint in the way that this story is being told. Verse 21, have pity on me. Have pity on me. Oh, you, my friends, for the hand of God has touched me. And look at this connection that comes next. Why do you like God, pursue me?

00:07:58:39 – 00:08:24:59
Michael Gewecke
Never satisfied with my flesh. That is a very biblical, poetic way of saying, why is it that you are doing the same harm that God is doing? Which is a stunning statement to make, by the way, to a tribute, God, to being the one who’s not satisfied, to the God who’s pursuing, and then to say, oh, and by the way, you’re no better than God.

00:08:24:59 – 00:08:30:54
Michael Gewecke
I mean, that’s whoa. That’s quite a claim being made both about God and also about these friends.

00:08:31:08 – 00:09:05:47
Clint Loveall
Yeah. Again, some some moments seen through job’s eyes and heard through job’s words that are uncomfortable, that are, on the border for his friends over the border of what an appropriate thing to say would be. And then late in this chapter, we get to a fascinating verse, if you know, verses from job or maybe, you know, verses that you don’t know are from job, this is this is a thing that probably people have heard.

00:09:05:47 – 00:09:37:50
Clint Loveall
This is often, it’s a verse that is often part of the liturgy of a funeral, for instance, or a burial. In verse 25 of chapter 19, job says, for I know that my Redeemer lives, and that the last he will stand upon the earth, and after my skin has thus been destroyed, then in flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side.

00:09:37:55 – 00:10:11:10
Clint Loveall
This is most often taken as an expression of job’s confidence in the face of suffering. A rare proclamation of faith in the midst of a long and bitter complaint. The difficulty of this verse is that at the highest level, the translation here is incredibly difficult. I think even experts in the language would have to tell you that we we have to take some guesses here.

00:10:11:15 – 00:10:38:30
Clint Loveall
The idea of Redeemer, which is not probably, you see, even in my Bible that’s capitalized here as if this is a a prefiguring of Christ, which it may be spiritually, but in terms of the text as it is written, the word here is Goel. It means, somebody on my side. It is possible that job is claiming that ultimately God will be on his side.

00:10:38:34 – 00:11:05:09
Clint Loveall
It is also possible that job is either advocating that he hopes someone will take up his case, or that he is lamenting that no one will take up his case to stand against God and and stand beside God to make the argument. So, it’s a beautiful verse. We use it in beautiful ways, but we may or may not.

00:11:05:09 – 00:11:26:47
Clint Loveall
In doing so, capture the complexity and the nuance of perhaps what the author had in mind. It’s extremely difficult to translate, and therefore it’s extremely difficult to say with confidence that we know how it should function in the story. Having said that, it’s a beautiful verse.

00:11:26:58 – 00:11:47:27
Michael Gewecke
Well, so I think a really introspective way to engage the case like this is to recognize when we come to verse 25, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that last you will stand upon the earth. We look inside ourselves, and even as I read, there’s a kind of triumphant jump like, yes, my Redeemer Capital. You know, English Bible.

00:11:47:27 – 00:12:14:31
Michael Gewecke
Yes. We’re talking about job is making an expression of faith here. And I think how quickly we rush to the assumption that that’s what’s happening here, when literally everything that surrounds that island is an endless ocean of grief and pain and suffering and complaint about that calling God the one who, you know, strikes and slashes and cuts open my kidneys and right, like there’s very, very violent, very, very sharp language of suffering.

00:12:14:36 – 00:12:38:08
Michael Gewecke
And so here, I think when we know this within ourselves, even this desire, for this beautiful profession of faith, and then we recognize, well, here is Redeemer, the Redeemer that we think of in the Christian sense. Is this a Redeemer who’s going to be someone who later, even on the other side of death, is going to then take job’s case and is going to stand for job?

00:12:38:13 – 00:12:59:26
Michael Gewecke
This idea, last one standing on the earth could could have this idea of dust. So like, you know, but ultimately, when everything is settled, will there be an opportunity to give the account to God? That job has been wanting this whole time, right? Is there a way to close the loop that at this point, Jobe complains it’s unjust that he can’t close it?

00:12:59:31 – 00:13:35:04
Michael Gewecke
Here’s the thing no matter what it meant to its original readers or to its writer, I think that we are right to understand that in Christian theology, which we like to skip to sure up there is a cosmic response to job’s complaint. When Jesus Christ bears the stripes of the whip, when he bears the cross and loses his life, I clearly God not only is willing to come near, God is willing to take on the very suffering that Jobe is expressing is unjust.

00:13:35:09 – 00:13:57:41
Michael Gewecke
That being said, our desire to backport that here into this book should be cautioned, because I think there’s a way in which Jobe may not be making the profession of faith that we would like him to be making, but rather he may be expressing that there’s still a hope that God could get his comeuppance if you extend time out far enough.

00:13:57:52 – 00:14:25:34
Clint Loveall
So a couple of things that just, I think, continue to get to the point. We say here, stand upon the earth. That word is is probably something like dust. He will stand upon the dust, possibly even he will stand upon job’s dust, because he says, after my skin has been destroyed, then in flesh I shall see God. And if your Bible is honest with you, you’ll have a footnote there that says, we don’t know.

00:14:25:39 – 00:14:52:43
Clint Loveall
We don’t know what the Hebrew phrase there actually means. I shall see, God is a best guess by highly educated people, but it’s not with certainty. Then I think the other telling thing, Michael, is that if you read the end of the chapter, if you say, how will we persecute him? The root of the matter found in him, then be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishment.

00:14:52:48 – 00:15:18:48
Clint Loveall
So you may know there is a judgment. And it seems to be the case that Jobe is saying there will be a day that his friends have to answer for the wrong words they’ve said about him. In other words, after I’m gone, a redeemer may stand to argue my case against those who have wronged me, and they will be judged for their bad words.

00:15:19:03 – 00:15:55:12
Clint Loveall
Now, again, that’s as much speculation as the rest of it. But it is. It is not entirely clear what the purpose of this verse is, but it is clear that Jobe is saying, I believe that I my case will be vindicated even if I am gone before it happens. And so Jobe here is protesting again. His innocence with a confidence that sooner or later people are going to know that he’s right.

00:15:55:12 – 00:16:20:18
Clint Loveall
And as for the rest of it, we do our best again, beautiful words. One of my actually one of my favorite verses in the Old Testament. I make it a point of saying this verse at nearly every funeral that I’m a part of. It’s a beautiful expression. We just should be careful before we confidently proclaim we know what it means in the context of Jobe.

00:16:20:18 – 00:16:21:47
Clint Loveall
We have to be careful with that.

00:16:21:52 – 00:16:36:48
Michael Gewecke
I think that’s really well said. I’m not going to try to add to it there. I think the only note I’m going to throw in here is a very, very practical one. I just want admit that from the start when you are studying the Bible yourself, I think coming in here to verses 25, 26 and 27, this is a great example.

00:16:36:48 – 00:16:56:53
Michael Gewecke
If you’ve got a study Bible, a Bible that maybe has comments at the bottom of it, you’re going to see, right? Even here in the text, it may be hard to see, but you see the little letter B and D and F and G. When you see that in your Bible, that is the editors of your Bible, your, your translation trying to tell you, hey, there’s a lot going on here.

00:16:56:58 – 00:17:23:05
Michael Gewecke
This is an aside. This is if you come into a dense text like that, where all of those, footnote letters are just kind of jammed together. That’s often the place that you get a quick visual understanding. Oh, there’s a lot of weight here. There’s a maybe even some questions here as how to take this, because they’re trying to give you some context for decisions that they had to make that were bigger than just the one word that you have in that translation.

00:17:23:05 – 00:17:27:54
Michael Gewecke
So it’s a quick and easy way for you to understand when you should slow down like this.

00:17:27:54 – 00:17:58:12
Clint Loveall
Yeah. I think it’s also often a helpful way to catch the nuance of a text that isn’t particularly clear cut. Most texts are fairly straightforward, but there are some. And again, we’ve we said it early on in this book. This book is notoriously difficult for translators and linguists. It it this is the pinnacle of trying to translate Hebrew.

00:17:58:17 – 00:18:41:48
Clint Loveall
That is difficult that at least in regard to the scripture. So, a little bit of looseness, a little bit of messiness, but don’t let those moments throw you off of the the big picture, which is still where we’ve been. The friends believe Joe to be guilty. Joe knows, as the reader does, that he’s innocent and he is struggling not only now with the reality of the suffering he’s received from the hand of God, but from the lack of support, empathy, and listening that he gets from his friends who are so busy protecting their worldview that they’re unwilling to give Joe a hearing.

00:18:41:52 – 00:19:13:39
Michael Gewecke
And they’ll be really, really brief for Clint. But this is a devotional piece that we might miss if we pass by verses 16 hear all the way through 19. All of these, my servant gives the answer. Breath is repulsive to my wife, loathsome to my family. Young children despise me. Intimate friends of horror. Me. If you’re a person who’s experiencing or has experienced deep grief, if you’ve experienced great suffering, this feeling that the world is dark and closes in on you is likely an experience that you can relate to.

00:19:13:39 – 00:19:26:09
Clint Loveall
And I would add to that, Michael, that in that experience, a pat answer, the everybody knows kind of input is almost certainly unhelpful.

00:19:26:16 – 00:19:36:32
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. And that’s that’s the word is if that’s where you are today, may the the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ be with you in what is a horrendous moment.

00:19:36:32 – 00:19:42:22
Clint Loveall
And know that you’re not the first the others, that that way has been walked before.

00:19:42:27 – 00:19:56:07
Michael Gewecke
But we have to continue on the job. And because that’s not the only part of the story, that’s a real part of the story. It’s not the only part. And so we certainly hope you’ll continue along with us. Like subscribe. So you don’t miss studies like this. We will see you all tomorrow. Thank you.