00:00:00:36 – 00:00:25:28
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody, thanks for joining us. Thanks for closing out the week with us. We are continuing our way through the book of Job. We’re in the 25th chapter. The second, I’m sorry, the third speech that we will now hear from Bill. Dad, though it is very short and mentioned yesterday that this cycle of speeches does not have a speech from so far.

00:00:25:31 – 00:00:53:50
Clint Loveall
The third speaker and there are some guesses about what may have happened. There is also some conjecture that in the 25th chapter here, some of Bill dad’s words are attributed to job by mistake. There’s just no way to know that. But it’s a difficult there’s some difficulty in the flow of of this. So Bildad doesn’t have a lot to say.

00:00:53:55 – 00:01:15:45
Clint Loveall
He he restates his case. You can see the gist of the argument in verse four. How then can immortal be righteous before God? How can one born of woman be pure if even the moon is not bright and the stars are not pure in his sight, how much less immortal? Who is a maggot and a human who is a worm?

00:01:15:50 – 00:01:49:00
Clint Loveall
This is a counter, a direct counter to jobs argument that he is righteous, that he is not guilty, and not certainly not as much as we saw. Certainly not as much as we saw from Eliphaz. There’s no real insult in this, but Bill, dad makes a short, succinct case, though, that he doesn’t buy it, that he continues to hold out the idea that job is not innocent.

00:01:49:00 – 00:01:51:55
Clint Loveall
And so that’s the statement here.

00:01:52:09 – 00:02:14:43
Michael Gewecke
I think, Clint, that is going to be we don’t want to linger here and rehash too greatly, but it’s just worth noting that there are times when people will have a debate and can say to each other in good faith, oh, I see your perspective. I just think it makes more sense to me to be on this side over the other.

00:02:14:43 – 00:02:39:31
Michael Gewecke
And I interpret this text to be one where these two parties don’t see each other at all. And I just read this response to be ultimately, who? How then can the moral be righteous? But before God? How can one born the woman be pure as a way of saying, Joel, what you’re saying is at its fundamental, foundational level, wrong.

00:02:39:45 – 00:03:05:50
Michael Gewecke
What you’re trying to make an argument for is categorically false and impossible. So, you know, to me, six verses, it makes it clear in its brevity there’s nothing else that needs said. What has been said has been left, said the absence of another speech in the way I think only intensifies that. It just simply says, listen, we’ve had a lot of exchange of words.

00:03:05:50 – 00:03:09:36
Michael Gewecke
We’re on the treadmill and you’re wrong. There’s no other way to look at it.

00:03:09:36 – 00:03:44:36
Clint Loveall
You’re wrong. Yeah, this argument has run its course. There’s nothing more to say. An interesting thing here. As we move into chapter 26, it says, job answered. And there’s not a lot of argument in this. In fact, in some ways it seems to support what jobs friends have been saying. Maybe jobs opponents at this point. What’s interesting is that chapter 27 also begins with job again, took up the discourse that’s led people to wonder if chapter 26 really should be attributed to Bill.

00:03:44:36 – 00:04:12:21
Clint Loveall
Dad. Again, I don’t know how at this point we would ever sort that out, but I would say the meat of Joe’s response is found in chapter 27 as Joe responds and says, God has taken away my right. The Almighty has made my soul bitter. As long as my breath is in me and the Spirit of God in my nostrils, my lips will not speak falsehood.

00:04:12:24 – 00:04:35:16
Clint Loveall
My tongue will not utter deceit. Far be it from me to say that you are right until I die, I will not put away my integrity from me. I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go. My heart does not reproach me for any of my days. In other words, I will not back down. Bill. Dad, so far eliphaz I will not change my tune.

00:04:35:16 – 00:05:12:43
Clint Loveall
I am not guilty. I do not deserve this. You are saying things, charging me with my own responsibility for this suffering, and I know it not to be true, and I will not say otherwise. And in a strange way here this is jobs reference to his integrity. And and again, we I don’t know if we would, we would tend to hear the word integrity and think his blameless job is simply saying, I will only speak what I know to be true.

00:05:12:48 – 00:05:21:07
Clint Loveall
And to your point, Michael, you don’t know. I do know, and you’re not going to get me to say otherwise.

00:05:21:09 – 00:05:48:19
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. And I want to sort of tease out some of the theological basis of this, I think, because verse two is a good illustration of this as God lives, who’s taken away my right, and the Almighty who has made my soul bitter, leads right into verse three. As long as my breath is in me, and the Spirit of God is in my nostrils, that’s the tension that jobs been trying to argue for the entire time.

00:05:48:19 – 00:06:05:38
Michael Gewecke
I think we see it clearly. God is all at once the one who’s taken away. But God is also the one who’s giving the breath of life. And we’ve seen Joe complain about both of those. As far. Why does a God just let me go? Why isn’t he let me go to the earth so that I can be done with this suffering?

00:06:05:38 – 00:06:24:40
Michael Gewecke
And then also, why doesn’t the God who I believe lives give me the opportunity to say my peace? Why does God let me come and make my case, make my argument? Why isn’t God let me stand up for myself in the midst of my suffering? Why does God get to be a judge that has no witness brought against him?

00:06:24:55 – 00:06:46:19
Michael Gewecke
You know, that’s the polarities of faith here that, like job on one hand, just confesses that he believes the truth, that that God is the one who’s giving life and also is pushing against that God who is giving life. And that’s that’s what suffering has done for job. Joe finds himself in a circumstance in which he believes and he’s grieved.

00:06:46:21 – 00:07:01:14
Michael Gewecke
He he has faith. And yet that faith has driven him to a place of darkness and loss and pain and and even rebuke against God in a way. And I think we’re just kind of seeing that teased out as we near the end of these.

00:07:01:16 – 00:07:32:07
Clint Loveall
You made the comments along these lines yesterday. These are difficult things for us to hear. The idea that job would argue that he is righteous, that Joe would argue that he’s he’s in the right, that he’s undeserving of this. And theologically, for us in the Christian faith, that’s that’s a difficult premise. Don’t forget, though, and I think this is the point you made, Michael, and it’s worth repeating.

00:07:32:12 – 00:07:54:09
Clint Loveall
We already know that to be true. The book has already told us that. So at this point, when we hear jobs argument, rather than think, oh, jobs kind of full of himself, he’s simply restating what the book has already told us about him. And in that way, I think we can understand when he makes a claim to his integrity.

00:07:54:14 – 00:08:22:55
Clint Loveall
Job will not take the easy path and say, well, I guess I deserve this. He’s unwilling to do that. And in the book I believe that is celebrated as integrity. This next little part, again, an interesting and a challenging piece of interpretation. He moves down and I would just jump in here with verse 11, I will teach you concerning the hand of God, that which is with the Almighty, I will not conceal.

00:08:23:00 – 00:08:49:50
Clint Loveall
In other words, I know the truth. All of you have seen it yourselves, and then you have become altogether vain. Maybe something along the lines of you all should know better. And then fascinating. From verses 13 to 23, we have in jobs words, words that sound very much like they should come from the friends, right? The wicked don’t prosper.

00:08:49:52 – 00:09:15:57
Clint Loveall
They may look good, but they get punished. These are the exact kind of things that his friends have been saying. We mentioned before that in this last cycle of speeches, we only get two of the friends. There is some speculation that perhaps at one point this was the third speech by so far. And somehow in the transmission process, it it got warped or it got missed.

00:09:15:57 – 00:09:54:57
Clint Loveall
And so now these words are attributed to job. They’re difficult in jobs mouth. It’s a difficult argument to hear from Joe, because in some ways it’s the counter of everything else he’s been saying. I think this is one of the not more than a few. This is one of the several places where the Book of Job just kind of leaves us with a question mark, and we have to either admit that we don’t really understand the change of tone, or wonder if there’s some other explanation for why it feels of order here.

00:09:55:07 – 00:10:13:14
Clint Loveall
Michael and I aren’t going to be able to settle that. There are people who have spent decades working on these kind of problems. We just want you to know it’s there. And if you’re reading this thinking, oh, that doesn’t sound like something job would say, you’re right, and you’re not the first to notice that and be troubled by it.

00:10:13:14 – 00:10:40:33
Michael Gewecke
So the problem, Clint, is we always want to simplify stories to fit into nice categories. But job has resisted that as a book intentionally the whole time. So I think that we shouldn’t be surprised as it continues to do so. May my enemy this is for seven be like the wicked and may my opponents be like the unrighteous.

00:10:40:38 – 00:11:06:00
Michael Gewecke
Let’s for a moment just say that this is Joel. But you know, let’s say the book is constituted as it was intended. Why would that be written? I want to just submit that maybe job is not as far from his friends as we might like to think. Maybe that’s not a maybe jobs difference. A perspective has now come because of what has happened to him, and it has changed what he thinks in some circumstance.

00:11:06:00 – 00:11:27:00
Michael Gewecke
But the reality is, punishment and consequence may still be a part of jobs understanding of wickedness in the world. To say, hey, listen. No, I think that the wicked get their justice or it’s I think that it’s a generational curse that God brings down on them. I think this it’s just not the case for me. I’m an exception.

00:11:27:00 – 00:11:49:14
Michael Gewecke
I know that’s not the case. I know that the accuser got it wrong on me, and the friends can’t process that. And and we’re held in our interpretation of it by the prelude that we had. We also can’t just write off and say, well, the friends are probably right. They made a good argument. We’re held in the tension because of what we know.

00:11:49:16 – 00:12:09:55
Michael Gewecke
That’s I think what makes this so masterful is that so often in life and now I’m way far from the text, Clint. But this happens all the time. We we seem like we’re miles away from someone, when really it’s one small thing and that’s the only difference. But that small thing is a huge thing. And I think you could read Jesus and the Pharisees and the New Testament that way.

00:12:09:57 – 00:12:21:19
Michael Gewecke
They share a lot of things. It’s just the things that they don’t share are are so important that the gap seems miles wide. I wonder if there’s something like that happening here in job.

00:12:21:21 – 00:12:52:33
Clint Loveall
It could be. And again, this book is notoriously difficult to piece together and find a coherent map through it. There are just places, and I would argue this as probably one of them, that make that extremely challenging and difficult. As we get through that, though, we move into the 28th chapter, and the 28th chapter is a transition in some sense of job finishing.

00:12:52:38 – 00:13:34:36
Clint Loveall
His response to the friends and then beginning in verse 29, would get this long speech, as Joe now says something else, though again, chapter 29 starts with job again, took up the discourse, and chapter 28 presents us the picture of job already speaking. So not easy. But job starts this 28th chapter with the idea of miners, those who search in the earth for treasure, those who can dig holes and take in lights and know what to look for, and that they can find these things that have been hidden to the world.

00:13:34:48 – 00:13:58:36
Clint Loveall
And then the transition happens in verse 12, but where shall wisdom be found? Where is the place of understanding? Mortals do not know the way to it. It is not found in the land of the living. The deep says, it is not in me, and the sea says it is not with me. It cannot be bought for gold, and silver cannot be weighed out for its price.

00:13:58:36 – 00:14:24:12
Clint Loveall
It cannot be valued with the gold, precious sapphires, gold and glass. Verse 20. Where then does wisdom come, and where is the place of understanding? It is hidden from the eyes of all living, concealed from the birds of the air. God understands the way to it. He knows its place. For he looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heaven.

00:14:24:12 – 00:14:56:50
Clint Loveall
Truly the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom and to depart from evil is understanding. This is a celebration of wisdom. Again, are these jobs words? They don’t sound like what he’s been saying, though they do sound wise. They do sound important. That ultimately the human quest for meaning is going to end. Asking God for revelation.

00:14:56:50 – 00:15:24:48
Clint Loveall
We are not capable of attaining those things on our own. They belong to God. They are known to the mind of God, and they are mystery to the mind of men and women. And so fear of the Lord respect all of the Lord. That’s where wisdom is found departing from evil. That is understanding. This is an interlude I think of sorts.

00:15:24:50 – 00:15:49:36
Clint Loveall
Michael, this is job is found in a category of literature that we call wisdom literature. And it is often the case in wisdom literature, the Proverbs, even the Psalms. To extent where there is a celebration of wisdom, Ecclesiastes would be another example. And so it’s not surprising to find this here, but it’s a little bit unnerving because it disrupts the flow.

00:15:49:36 – 00:16:04:36
Clint Loveall
And it’s not clear. Is this job is this somebody else? Is this a narrator, an outside? Why are these words here, though? They’re wonderful words and point us in some really good directions, but they’re also confusing.

00:16:04:40 – 00:16:30:38
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, this is an incredibly personal reading. I think in some ways this is more confusing to me than the previous chapter, because the case I would make is I think Jobe has been arguing that God is an unjust accuser, because if God knows the truth, then God knows he shouldn’t have brought this calamity upon job. And so then to end this by saying that the Lord is the one who understands.

00:16:30:43 – 00:17:00:28
Michael Gewecke
He’s the one who sees under everything, under the heavens. You know, he measures everything. He decrees all the rain. Like this kind of understanding of God’s action in the world, this high theology of what we would call God’s providence or God’s ability, God’s sovereign ability to make choices and to rule and overrule I. This stands at odds, I think, in a way, for the the argument of injustice that job has been making about God.

00:17:00:31 – 00:17:28:28
Michael Gewecke
So I don’t know what to do with that. I’ll just say this though. Isn’t it interesting how oftentimes we find ourselves in the in the murk, the mire of life. We find ourselves muddied. And it’s in those moments, somehow we get clarity. We get real clarity about some of the things that are truly wise. Maybe there’s a small reflection of that here at job is suffering, job is experience.

00:17:28:28 – 00:17:58:07
Michael Gewecke
Some of the worst job is fighting with friends, right? And somehow, in the midst of it, he’s able to give some of the most beautiful words in the Old Testament, right? That the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding that it’s deeply meaningful. It’s powerful. It is true, I think, as we are people of faith reading it, that does not mean that it just happily jives in the text to make sense in all of the context.

00:17:58:09 – 00:18:19:19
Clint Loveall
I want to be clear because I. I don’t think I could make a good argument that this is what the text is saying, but I think it is significant that we now turn briefly to this concept of wisdom in a book. Fundamentally.

00:18:19:24 – 00:18:24:45
Clint Loveall
Populated by questions of suffering.

00:18:24:50 – 00:19:15:14
Clint Loveall
The link that jobs friends are making is that righteousness is wisdom and equates to prosperity. Job hasn’t gone so far as to say this, but it is interesting that somebody felt comfortable inserting a celebration of wisdom between speeches about why a person is suffering, and the link between suffering and wisdom is a potent one. It is. We often learn from suffering, things that comfort cannot teach us, things that are very difficult to learn in periods of ease.

00:19:15:19 – 00:19:53:50
Clint Loveall
Is that what the book is saying? I think you’d have to be very careful with that, but it’s a fascinating place to put those kind of ideas. They stand out almost as as foreign to the the story, the narrative. Again, maybe those are simply the words of one of the friends and they got jumbled. Maybe. But to celebrate wisdom in the context of suffering is, I think, intriguing.

00:19:53:50 – 00:20:05:55
Clint Loveall
And again, I want to be clear because I think I’m standing outside of the text now looking in. But there’s some there is something there.

00:20:06:00 – 00:20:36:26
Michael Gewecke
This is the end of what I have in terms of the constructive sort of academic conversation. But I’ve always thought, you know, it’s really fascinating how how these stories in the ancient world were passed on and how not every manuscript is the same because humans are copied. There’s a lot of interesting things there. But someone read this and it made sense to them, you know, even if this wasn’t the original, but somebody read this in this order and they thought to themselves, no, this captures the meaning it.

00:20:36:26 – 00:20:52:43
Michael Gewecke
And I think so, regardless of the first order thing, there’s still meaning to be had in exactly how this has come to us. And I think your point, it really helps illustrate what that might be. I think it could be a lot of things, but I think that helps us see what it might be.

00:20:52:45 – 00:21:13:07
Clint Loveall
I don’t know that I’ve ever thought of it that way before, Michael, but there is a sense in which in the book of Job, there is something to be said for reading each piece of it. Individual. You could turn to almost anything in this book, and if it stood on its own, you would say, oh, that makes sense to me, right?

00:21:13:09 – 00:21:43:14
Clint Loveall
Including the case of the friends that to be righteous is to be blessed. Yes. That that or to to turn to jobs page and say, oh, to feel like one suffers unjustly. Yes, I understand that those words as well. It’s the putting those things together that seems difficult in this book. So if one were to just read this 28th chapter, irrespective of the context of the rest of job, it really wouldn’t cause a problem.

00:21:43:16 – 00:22:07:21
Clint Loveall
You’d say, oh, it’s beautiful that there’s wisdom in it. It makes some sense. But then when you read chapter 27 and six, now you’ve got to go on the 29th 30. That’s where job, that’s where job will give you some headaches. It’s it’s trying to trying to follow a flow through a book and whether that’s intentional or not.

00:22:07:21 – 00:22:42:24
Clint Loveall
And if it’s intentional, it is absolutely genius. To your point, one of the realities is that deep suffering is like that. It’s episodic today. I’m okay, now. I’m not okay. Five minutes ago, I was okay. Now I’m not. Again, I felt like I had some hope. Now I’m crying. I there’s a sense in which this book does to a reader what the experience of suffering has done to job.

00:22:42:24 – 00:22:57:40
Clint Loveall
And again, if that’s intentional, that’s that’s the highest praise I think that could be offered for human writing. It’s it’s effect on people is stunning.

00:22:57:45 – 00:23:17:33
Michael Gewecke
Now, I think it’s a great word and the perfect last word for this study. Certainly glad that you’ve joined us. Hope that there’s been something in this that is encouraging, challenging, and maybe even comforting if you find yourself in suffering, we’re glad to have you with us. Hope you’ll continue with us along this study. Like this video helps others find it in their own study of job.

00:23:17:36 – 00:23:21:06
Michael Gewecke
Subscribe so you don’t miss studies like this. We will see you all on Monday.

00:23:21:07 – 00:23:22:02
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody!