40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Job 1:13-2:10 (Episode 385)

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

Satan goes to work, and Job loses everything. Job's response is mourning, and yet during unimaginable suffering, he does not sin against God. Satan comes after Job's body and still, he will not curse God, even though his wife says he should. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 1517 Podcasts The 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 on Youtube What's New from 1517: 2023 HWSS Conference Livestream Signup Free 2023 Advent Resources 2024(May 3-4) NWA Tickets are Now Available! Join the 1517 Academy All Charges Dropped, Vol. 2 More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. And while you're over there, make sure you check out the events page. Scroll down to that Here We Still Stand regional event in Bentonville, Arkansas, known as NWA. That's Northwest Arkansas. And you can come hang out with Chad, myself, a whole bunch of other 1517 folks for two days in, you know, basically the best place since Eden.

You know, you want to check that out? You don't want to live life in a fallen world without at least checking out the best thing since Eden, which that would be, of course, where I live. I mean, I didn't choose to live here for no reason. I'm not that kind of person. So come check it out, and that's the first weekend in May. We'll have a good time. You'll enjoy it. Chad, we are in the first chapter of Job.

We did a bunch of kind of talking about the book, laying down some stuff, got into the first initial part of this story, which of course is, you got a guy, seems like a real good guy. I mean, maybe talked about as well as anyone in Scripture is talked about, and he's a blameless guy. He's upright. He's in the land of Uz. He's not part of Israel. He's just out there loving God, you know, making sure that his kids are walking in the ways of the Lord, you know, doing a couple of sacrifices just in case, you know, they mess up along the way. And God's pretty proud of this guy. He's pretty aware of what he's doing. And so when the devil shows up one day from, you know, roaming around like a prowling lion, God points Job out, which

is exactly probably what we find you do not want God to do. This is not something you want him to do to you. Maybe, maybe, not that most of us, I think, have to worry about this, but it may not be the best thing in the world for you to be the most righteous person in the world. God might point you out to the devil. The devil might say, you know what, let me play a couple games with him. Why don't you lower that hedge of protection you got around him and let me at him for a little while, and we'll see just how faithful this guy turns out to be. This is kind of where we ended, that God said, all right, you go ahead and have at him. Here's the one rule. You can do kind of whatever you want, but you can't kill him.

Which, of course, somewhere in the middle, Job might be wondering, why am I not dead yet? Yeah, well, I mean, as soon as we get past chapter two, he curses the day of his birth. So I think that's pretty obvious that I wish that I were dead. I wish, in fact, I had not even existed as where he's at. And that's quite a leap between chapter two and three, because at the end of chapter two, I mean, even his wife

can't convince him to basically commit commit suicide by cursing god that's more or less what she's encouraging him to do but yeah we'll get we'll get there first of all we have to go through this first series of losses so there'll be two losses the first are all of these losses that are described in job 1 13 and following and then after that we'll have the loss of job's health which is pretty grotesque actually when you start looking at all the things that happen to him So verse 13, now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house. So we've already heard how they kind of took turns, you know, oh, this Saturday, where are we going to be? My place.

So they all get together, whether it was special days or birthdays, whatever it was, they'd all get together. Doesn't this kind of imply like a closeness to this family? It sort of adds to how kind of terrible all this is. I mean, you are talking about, you know, he's got a lot of kids, and they seem that they all take turns, like, having dinner parties at each other's houses. And so this family does seem like a family that is at peace with one another. They seem close. Yeah, that's an important thing to keep in mind, especially in these first two chapters, that, you know, everything that is described about Job and about his family is just the cream of the crop. I mean, maybe we could make an argument with regard to his wife, but just as far as the

kids go and Job goes, I mean, it's just like you said at the beginning, no one else in scripture is described in this way. No one else is ranking quite on the scale of righteousness that Job is apart from Christ himself. So anyway, they're together. All the kids are, they're having a, you know, they'll get together, they'll party, they're drinking wine enjoying themselves and there came a messenger to job the first of many first of four and he said the oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them and the sabians fell upon them

and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of your sword edge of the sword and i alone have escaped to tell you so this uh i alone have escaped to tell you is going to be the the phrase that recurs throughout the section each time a messenger shows up he's going to tell job some some terrible thing that's happened and then uh to accent the fact that this was a near total destruction but then the messenger will say i'm the only one who who escaped so the sabians come along and they they the oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them so they come and they take the livestock which job is a job is not only very righteous but he's also very rich so he has a bunch of livestock so he's just lost his oxen just lost his donkeys and the servants struck

down the servants with the edge of the sword presumably the servants would have been armed and they tried to defend themselves and the flock and the sabians whoever whoever they were uh they they cut him down probably from the uh arabian peninsula so that's uh that's first and then each of these is stacked on top of each other so it's like this messenger shows up and he barely barely finishes delivering the report and then another servant runs up and he's out of breath because he's been uh retreating from this this terrible thing that's happened and so he begins to talk. So you got to imagine Job is hearing one and then barely they finish, somebody else shows up with the next message. So while he was yet speaking, verse 16, there came another

and said, the fire of God fell from heaven. I'm assuming that this refers to lightning as the fire from God does elsewhere. So some kind of terrible storm, lightning storm. The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them everybody's burned up and once more i alone have escaped to tell you so two down verse 17 while he was yet speaking there came another and said the chaldeans so people from kind of the area mesopotamia the chaldeans formed three groups made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge the sword i alone have escaped to tell you so the taking of livestock destruction of servants death and stealing of all these things that are belonging to job that's the first three

now notice how this was introduced it was introduced back in verse 13 with kind of a uh it's not quite a cliffhanger that's not the right expression to use but a suggestive description why now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house okay so far well that doesn't seem to fit into any of these losses yet right so we're like waiting like there's is there some implication about they're all together when all this is happening i mean well based on like the first 12 verses as you get to the end of those 12 verses, and you get to verse 13, and you know what

has just happened in the heavens. 13 is ominous. Oh, yeah, very ominous. Oh, man. And the devil, of course, is a maximizer of suffering, so you know,

if verse 18 was instead verse 14, the rest of this doesn't matter. yeah he probably would not have been heard no the rest of the reports so uh the worst is saved for last while he that is third the third messenger while he was yet speaking there came another and said your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in

their oldest brother's house and behold a great wind tornado i suppose a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house and it fell upon the young people and they are dead and i alone have escaped to tell you so uh just indescribable loss i mean i can't wrap even begin to wrap my mind around i mean it'd be it'd be bad enough if say you know say you're at work and you get a call from your wife or your neighbor whoever and says uh hey just so you know uh we just had a tornado come through town and it wiped out your house totally well that would be shocking you know that'd be kind of one of those one of those events in life that you never forget that you go and you know tell people about the rest of your life or you

know say you uh basically everything you own gets uh taken stolen destroyed whatever it might be that would also be something which would be life-altering which you would uh just you know and always kind of be there, at least in the periphery of your vision, the whole rest of your life, because it was such a catastrophic loss. But for all of that to happen, one on top of the other, this, and then that, and then this again, and then finally, worst of all, that you lost every single one of your kids in one fell swoop. Yeah, there's no way that I can begin to even fathom

what that would do to a person. Well, I mean, Chad, you can probably, in one way, i might be wrong here uh but i've never lost a kid so i have like no idea what this is like uh you have uh which also maybe tells you that you know something with this would be like or maybe that actually informs you that if you lost all of your children at once that you actually have no idea what that would be like right i mean like it's it would yeah it would seem almost uh you're familiar with a uh with a pain that is of that kind but like is it possible to fathom what that would be like amplified 10 times over no no i can't i mean i i don't know how honestly

it wouldn't just kill me on the spot yeah it was uh yeah the pain of losing luke was just incalculable i mean it's it just you cannot describe what it's like so to take that and to compound it not two or three times but ten times over it seems like it would just kill you right it seemed like it would kill you on the spot yeah like you would just fall over dead at the at the news that's not what job did verse 20 says that rather than falling over he arose tore his robe shaved his head then he fell on the ground and worshiped and he said naked i came from my mother's womb and naked shall i return the lord gave and the lord has taken away blessed be the name of the lord and then as a closing remark at the end of this chapter we're told in all this

job did not sin or charge god with with wrong that could be translated literally it's he did not give unseemliness to God. Other translations are under it, he didn't blame God, didn't charge God foolishly, but you get the gist of it. He's not blaming God for all these things that are happening. Didn't basically say that God was wrong in these things happening. This is how you know that Job is, in fact, better than me. This is how you know that Job is better than any person I've ever known in my entire life. Because, let me tell you, dude, I mean, apart from like an intervention of the Holy Spirit himself, there is zero chance that this is my response. Yeah, maybe the tearing the robe and the shaving the head and falling on the ground, whatever the modern equivalence of that would be.

I mean, I literally, I fell to the ground when I heard the news about Luke, but I didn't fall to the ground and worshiped. And I just fell to the ground because it just, it's one of those things that literally knocks you off your feet in the most horrendous of ways. But that's not what Job does. He tears his robe, which of course is the, we've seen that multiple times throughout these books. It's the outward expression of the inward tearing of your heart, more or less. Yeah. You know, so rend your heart, not your garments is what the prophet says. shaving of the head is uh part of the expression of of grief because you like part of mourning is

you you you take away from yourself all those things that maybe beautified you or were normal whatever it might be that's why you change your clothes put on sackcloth or whatever shave your head falls to the ground but the worshiping part uh yeah that that is that's hard to hard to imagine And then not only that, but what he said, and it's a, there's, his confession is, is truthful. It's on point. I mean, it's very similar to what, what Paul said, you know, Paul in, uh, first Timothy six says that we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of the

world. That's more or less what Job says. I came into this world with nothing. I was naked. And when I leave this life, I will also be the same way. The Lord gave everything that I had. I mean, the livestock, the servants, and the children. All of these were gifts from God, and the same Lord that gave these has now taken them away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord. I think if I'm in this situation, probably I'm outright angry with God. Probably. If I'm not, I'm at least, you know, Psalm 13 with God in this sort of, God has most certainly forsaken me and forgotten me. Yeah. I'm certainly in that place, if this happens, where if I'm not outright angry with him, I'm like, well, God has obviously abandoned me. yeah i think the first first probably uh reaction that most people are going to have is just almost a numb shock like you know it's remarkable to me that his first reaction

is godward you know that he would uh that his first reaction would not be to just be in shock or be confused or just to be utterly overwhelmed by all of these losses to an extent to where he didn't know what to do what to say the fact that his first reaction is to engage in these morning rituals and then to have this confession about god giving a god taking away and blessing the name of the lord is yeah it's it's uh something which is unique probably in all human history yeah it's also it's i think it's interesting too that you have a couple of different things i mean So the devil uses sort of this natural kind of disaster to take out his children as opposed to like three bands of Chaldeans or whatever that he uses to take out something else.

If you would reverse that as well, then your reaction is like to amass everyone you know and tell them to get their weapons because you're about to go exact vengeance. But, you know, when you have it layered up like this, I mean, going and finding the people who killed all your flocks or whatever is, I mean, who cares? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's not going to gather everybody together. Hey, we're going to war against the civilians. No. Like you said, after he hears this last, he probably quickly forgot about everything else.

Yeah. Yeah, that's all that matters. so and this um you know this last this last verse in all this job did not sin or charge god with with wrong i mean it basically means that uh he proved satan wrong the whole basis of this was uh that satan says oh yeah yeah yeah well tell you what you you take the hedge away and let me have adam and he'll curse he'll curse you to your face but he didn't he did quite the opposite he worship bless god that's sort of round one to job right yeah it's around one to job uh and and to job's god so satan uh you're wrong it didn't work you thought it was going to work but you uh but

you were uh gravely mistaken so that's uh that's job one uh and unfortunately that's not the end of job sufferings because we've got job two coming up we have another conversation between god and satan is going to take place in the heavenly realm so chapter two again there was a day when the sons of god these angelic beings we talked about last episode came to present themselves before the lord and here we have uh the satan also coming among them to present himself to the lord so this is a repeat same kind of heavenly scenario that we saw last time and another kind of dialogue that follows along the same path at least at first because god says to satan where'd you come from and satan answers from going to and fro on the earth and from

walking up and down on it and then what's more god says to him have you considered my servant job there's none like him on the earth a blameless and upright man who fears god and turns away from evil so all that is basically the same thing that we saw before satan appears angels there god strikes up a dialogue says hey have you considered my servant job now what changes is at the very end of kind of halfway through verse three he still holds fast his integrity although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason so this word for integrity is very close to the word for uh blameless that we saw back in verse one of chapter one it's kind of the same idea you know that he's he's blameless he's got integrity uh he's holding fast to this uh

despite everything that's happened to Job. And this line is like a little bit troubling, right? Where you have this, hey, he's holding fast to his tiger. Yeah, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason. You're like, wait a minute. Why don't you say, even though you challenged me to let you torment him or cause him to suffer,

this sort of God taking responsibility is that's something that you've got to struggle with yeah and I think it's you have to struggle with it and it rings

true with the whole rest of the book too because at least when Job after this chapter when Job begins to lament argue, complain, demand his day in court of course Job doesn't know what happened with regard to satan and all that but job always is concerned about what god is doing he's never concerned about like how dare you let satan do all these things to me so even

the way that joe presents his arguments is that like god is responsible for this not anybody else i do like i think there's a lesson there uh about job is never devil focused like i mean god he's always God-focused, so we might be tempted. And maybe you would say, oh, well, Job, you're wrong. What you should be saying is the devil has done this. But Job doesn't ever think that way, and maybe we ought to think less that way, that like, oh, the devil's really got it out for me. I mean, he even says, the Lord has given, and the Lord has taken away. And I think what we would like to do sometimes is say, no, no, the Lord has given, but the devil has taken away. But Job doesn't think the devil has that kind of power no no yeah well it's pretty typical the old

testament understand that the buck always stops with god yeah they understand they understand what sovereignty means right yes yes you know even though they're they might acknowledge the fact okay the babylonians did this or you know whatever it might be ultimately that is one thing that is very clear from all kinds of old testament narratives is ultimately how they understand that nothing happens outside of God's involvement, let's put it like that. So Satan does not, as it were, hold sway apart from being underneath God. Yeah, this is Luther's, the devil is God's devil. And this is not to say that God is sort of working with the devil, but what it means is that the devil has a higher authority. They are not some sort of

equals uh do you even see not only does do the people in the old testament view it that way but you see god say things like this uh what is it in habakkuk which we'll get to someday uh you know when he's crying out and god will say things like behold i am sending the well he said i think i'm sending the chaldeans right and so yeah and you're like wait a minute what like what do you mean you're sending them it's like they want to come over here and destroy these people and god is saying is god sending them well what are you saying is i'm not stopping them and then later on he'll say how dare these chaldeans come against my people yeah and you have to be willing to hold all these things together yeah so i just this weekend i was uh leading a men's retreat up in

in the rockies it's a little ways outside of colorado springs and we were talking about joseph and there's that great line you know in in when joseph's dialogue with his brothers uh so you sold me here but god sent me here so we want to say oh wait wait no which is it did did the brothers sell you there or did god send you there but the the bible won't allow for those sort of sort of like separated dichotomies it's like okay you sold me here yes obviously you did wrong doing that but god sent me here yeah that's how it is i did god did god hold those things in tension yeah did god send the chaldeans or did he hold the chaldeans responsible for the hubris of coming against his people and the answer is yeah that's how that happened that's how this happened

yeah or my favorite example that always is in uh in acts uh when peter says you know basically you crucified the messiah according to the predetermined foreknowledge plan of god yeah so you know you don't get off the hook uh for your sin just like you know all these raiders or whatever they don't get off the hook for that either or the chaldeans uh but at the same time you have to acknowledge that uh the hand of god was involved in this in some way because nothing happens outside of his sovereignty yeah i think that we mentioned sovereignty more in this episode than we all have in all the other episodes yes well and it is when you think about sovereignty there's one way to think about it uh some people will in the midst of suffering you know they'll say something

like well you know god's in control and i actually don't like that uh because i actually don't think that's very comforting uh because if you read the bible you're like yeah well uh he is but also uh there's a lot of pain and suffering and hardship that god allows in his sovereignty so i don't know that like god being in control is like really that like hey don't worry there's an all-powerful being you're like okay like but i don't know if he's for this against this involved in this like is he exercising that that power uh for my good the the only way that you can you can be comforted in the sovereignty of god is through the cross like so this is then the comfort uh like is that hey, there's someone who is sovereign who has made particular promises,

who has followed through on those particular promises for your good. So sovereignty in and of itself is not comforting. No, sovereignty across from the cross is terrifying. Yes. Yeah, so sovereignty, true, but the only way that I know that this all-powerful God is actually for me is in the cross. then all of a sudden yeah okay then i can take comfort in the fact that there's all powerful god because i know that that all-powerful god became he became one of us and was crucified for us and

for our salvation there's comfort but just kind of the blanket statement oh god is in control or god is all-powerful that doesn't mean anything what what if this all-powerful god is my enemy out to get me yeah or if i mean if you're just if you don't the cross tells you who god is man Otherwise, it's just like, hey, there's an all-powerful God, and all this could really do is just make you angry. It's like, yeah, well, I wish he would wake up and exercise some of that sovereignty on my behalf. He obviously doesn't care about me. I mean, if you're just suffering and you don't have the cross, this just means that God is indifferent at the very best to your suffering. But the cross tells you otherwise.

Yeah, and there's nothing distinctly Christian about acknowledging the sovereignty of God. No. Well, that's pretty much across monotheistic religions, that knowledge, yeah, he's all-powerful. Okay, that doesn't really get you anywhere. The only way you get somewhere toward comfort is knowing that this sovereign God is actually for you in Jesus Christ. And that this God has promised, like, in this life you will have trials,

you will have hardships, you will suffer many things, but take heart, I have overcome the world. This is like the only way to have actual comfort. It's not that you will not suffer in this world, but that He has overcome this world. And there's a promise for you in the midst of suffering and on the other side of suffering. Yeah. Amen. All right, so verse 3. God has said this about Job.

So Satan's going to respond. And the first thing he says when he answers the Lord is skin for skin. so just sound just sounds evil doesn't it i mean that's it really does it just sounds like that sounds like the emperor from star wars something he like you got some voice like that just sounds like halloween on 11 dude like skin for skin what is what is that for skin yeah yeah yeah so you i i checked out the commentator there's like five different uh explanations of that the one here's the one i found most convincing and i think it rings true here so the most convincing argument is that if you the god is saying that satan is saying to god if you touch his skin he's going

to want to strike back against your skin so just like you know you hit somebody in the face their first reaction is going to hit you back in the face so you touch his skin he's going to like launch an attack against you by cursing you so that's one explanation whatever it means it's It's pretty sinister-sounding, skin for skin. Yeah, it almost seems like, hey, I'm trying to get—you're saying that he will not do this thing in and with his body, which is curse you, which is something you would do with your mouth. This is something you would do with your person, right? Even if it is just words, this would be something you would say. and so there is this

does seem like there is sort of this well you've done a lot of stuff to him but if I want to elicit a response out of him out of his body I'm going to need to touch his body right so like

you let me at his body and we'll see what that body does my guess is that tongue will start saying things yeah so skin for skin all that a man has he will give for his life but stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh and he will curse you to your face so yeah you've you've taken away all this stuff external to him i mean if you can

consider your kids external to you i mean it's they are but they're not but anyway uh you touch his actual body bones and flesh and that will result in him cursing you to your face and god says to satan behold he is in your hand that's kind of a little uh switch there satan says stretch out your hand and touch his bone and flesh the lord says satan behold he's in your hand and then he adds only uh literally it's like guard his life or keep his life usually translated spare his life so you can do what you're gonna do where you touch his bone and his flesh the only thing you can't do and this you know gets back more to the he can only go as far as god lets him go uh you can't you can't kill him he's gonna stay alive so uh satan went out

from the presence of the lord and struck job with something that was just uh just incredibly painful uh debilitating disfiguring that had a stench to it uh just imagine the worst worst possible physical condition you could you could ever have that would afflict you from your head to your toe uh just make you like no longer to where people could even recognize you well that's what you're looking at here so it's translated here as loathsome sores yeah you're about everywhere too like the soles of your feet to the crown of your head oh yeah yeah no no no no position to sit in or lay in to be comfortable i mean just just all just just everywhere yeah i think most commentators think this is like some sort of leprosy whatever it was you know uh

some sort of leprosy kind of kind of disease uh so anyway that's that's what he has and uh takes a takes a pottery shard piece of broken pottery and he starts to kind of scrape himself while he sat in the ashes so just in case you didn't already have this grotesque image in your mind now picture him sitting on the ashes and the ashes is used in different ways i mean of course we're familiar with sackcloth and ashes uh ashes could also refer to basically the city dump place where they burned you know the garbage or whatever so maybe that's where he's at maybe he's just in some place where ashes were collected and i don't know why he would be there except maybe just kind of continue this theme of mourning and and grief dude i know i know this

at this point even though theologically i know that this is incorrect i might be saying to chad if this all happened to me dude we had to figure out why god's so upset with me like what did i like i i'm trying to figure out exactly why he is so opposed to me right now like what is it what is going i mean i don't know how could you possibly like all this stuff happens in a row to be like i'm being judged there's no like there's no other explanation i am i am completely being judged right now oh yeah i'd be doing that i've been in a major inventory of all my my past actions to figure out what it was that really turned God against me.

Yeah, even though I know that's not how this works, but at this point, my theology might change based on experience, right? Yeah, oh yeah. I'm with you. Mine would too. So, there he is.

Not only did he experience all of the loss of all his possessions, and worst of all, his children. Now, he's lost his health. And at least his wonderful wife is around. to comfort him through all this. That was nice of the devil to leave her around so that she could be a source of...

She's still there, and she's got something to say in verse 9. So his wife comes up, and she's been called some pretty terrible things. So let's look at this morning. Augustine calls her the devil's accomplice. Chrysostom calls her the devil's best scourge. Calvin calls her the organ of Satan.

look up Luther, I don't know what he has to say and there's a sampling anyway of different things that people have said about her before we get to her speech I mean, I do have you have to kind of step back and be like yeah, but

everything that Job lost she did too it wasn't like she is somehow separated from these losses, these were her kids and Job's kids her possessions and Job's possessions now the way she reacts to it though

you could think, imagine this so this all happens before you get your body afflicted with loathsome sores if you're his wife you might be thinking it doesn't seem like she's maybe

the best person in the world whose fault is this? is this Joe's fault? maybe this is her fault I don't know So you're sort of both have lost everything. But now Job is now afflicted, and I'm sure in this moment she's like, ah, I think we know which of us it was. Yeah, if you're basing your theology on evidence,

the finger, the accusing finger would be pointing at Job. I don't have sores. I mean, I'm heartbroken, but I'm not sitting around in ashes scraping my skin from head to toe. So there could be a little, so there could be, I feel like there's some accusation in this. I mean, obviously, I'm sure she's hurting, but also at this point, perhaps she is angry and would also like to know, what exactly did you do, Job, that caused this all to happen?

Because this is quite obviously your fault. Yeah. So she says, do you still hold fast your integrity? What's strange is that she's echoing the very words of God, right? He says to Satan, Job still holds fast his integrity. she says do you still hold fast your integrity and then she has this famous line infamous line curse god and curse god and die do you think that this hold fast your integrity is a dig here like to me that uh it might be wrong here but i read this as are you still pretending yeah i hearing

it from the mouth of god is one thing you know he says to satan do you still hold fast your integrity all right we understand that's coming from god it's truthful but yeah you do kind of pick up maybe the uh the same words but but kind of twisted yeah are you are you still fast your integrity are you still pretending like you are righteous yeah yeah like look around dude like nobody's buying this it certainly seems that way based upon what she tells him to do you know if she really believed he had integrity then she would have said well okay well then continue to bless god and and maybe he grant you healing whatever you know not curse god and die not basically say say something which is going to result in god smiting you dead it's more or less

so this is a she said why don't you just commit suicide by cursing god yeah it seems like it seems like a a statement that is saying you can stop pretending like god is for you or that you and god are in some kind of good relationship like you're you this is you are playing a game that everyone can see through um yeah so why don't you just say what we all know and notice her view of god too i mean she thinks that if he curses god he's gonna die it's also it's also a a twisted view of god that you know if you curse him it's over yeah he's gonna he's gonna smite you down so she has a very kind of uh tit for tat we'd all be we'd all be dead chad yeah we'd all be dead long ago so he responds this way you speak as one of the foolish women would speak

shall and this is the other uh kind of the lord gave or the lord has taken away line of job this is the other kind of summary line of his is the way he views this shall we receive good from god and shall we not receive evil so tov and ra are the two hebrew extremes there and evil could be translated it's it's it's one of these words raw is one of these words that can be you know everything from ugly to bad to unpleasant to evil so we're just looking at two extremes here shall we receive this good but not this bad and then uh we have a summary statement in all this Job did not sin with his lips. Now that concluding phrase with his lips, I know some rabbis took this to mean that he was sinning in his heart. He just didn't sin with his speech. I don't know about

that. I'm not bought. I'm not sold on that idea just because at least at this point, everything that's been presented about Job shows him as blameless and a man of integrity. So maybe that's what's implied there i think it's basically saying that uh listen he didn't he didn't do what she said to do he didn't curse god uh he just kept on saying the right kind of thing and believing the right kind of thing yeah and i don't know how all the ancient rabbis viewed it and stuff but like i know in modern more modern rabbis at least a lot of the ones i've heard uh that that distinction wouldn't matter that much anyway uh because ultimately what what's going on in your heart not the issue. It would be

what you do with your lips or what you do with your hands. I mean, it's very much did you do the action, not did you desire to. Yeah, it's a very external works-oriented kind of righteousness. Yeah. And

we're at the end of our 40 minutes, so we'll... Actually, it worked out well. I mean, it's not the end of the chapter, but it's the next thing we'll have the introduction of Job's three friends, which actually would be a good way to transition into what follows, because we're going to have this back and forth between Job and his three friends

over the course of the next bunch of chapters. So we'll pick that up next time. Sounds good. All right. Well, join us next week. It's a bummer so far. Job, round two goes to Job. We are going to see what kind of friends he has. Let's see what kind of buddies he has

and if they can help him out or not. We'll discover that next week. Chad, I'll see you then. All right, see you then.