40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Job 15:1-16:9 (Episode 400)

Episode Date: January 10, 2024

Eliphaz can't believe the way Job is speaking about God. Has Job done away with the fear of the Lord? The three friends have no category for an innocent sufferer. And Job tells his friends they are miserable comforters. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 1517 Podcasts The 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 on Youtube What's New from 1517: Bible in One Year with Chad Bird Freedom Lessons Album Your God is too Glorious, 2nd Edition by Chad Bird Schweitzer's Psychoanalysis of Jesus Christ: & Other Essays in Christian Psychotherapy by John Warwick Montgomery NWA Conference May 3rd-4th 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 podcast check out all the other podcasts started living over there and while you're over there grab one of the last tickets to the northwest arkansas regional event that's the first weekend in may you can uh hang out with myself and uh and chad and a whole bunch of other people at that event if you're looking to hang out with chad every day you know what you need to do sign up for the bible in a year with chad yeah chad will take you through that bible give you a little uh little insights you can read along uh with chad bird there's a link in the show notes and you can get the information on how to do that it's a good

way to start your year also as you're starting the year now chad and i are not big new year's resolution guys because you know we've lived long enough to know that we're there's no need to like set yourself up for more failure and so we're not out there looking to make you know promises to ourselves that we don't keep however though if you're just looking for something uh maybe you start doing this new year how about becoming a supporter of this show and 1517 hey that would be a good one this i am confident you can do because all you gotta do is sign up and then you just become a reoccurring donor you can just support it for any amount any amount you want you can start that this year and uh you know you feel like you did you could feel like you

you made a commitment and you did it and you only really have to do it once and then it just does it for you and think about how great that will feel uh at the end of the year when you realize that you did in fact do that thing and so uh that's what chad and i are doing this year you know supporting 1517 you could join us in that uh there's a link for that in the show note as well uh we do need your support that's how all this stuff is available helps uh me do my job helps chad do his job uh it's all it's all funded by people who uh support this show support uh all the other work that chad does support 15 17 so we appreciate all you those of those you who do it and if you don't and you're able and you would like to uh we'd encourage you to do it

all right by the way if i sound different today it's because i'm in a whole different setup different room different mic snowed in couldn't make it to uh to the office today snowed in so i'm at my house and i'm having to do this from home with my home setup which i haven't used in a long time uh chad knew immediately as we jumped onto the screen here that something had changed i haven't been in this spot in a while i saw that uh that microphone i was like whoa that's that is i haven't seen that microphone in probably i don't know three or four years yeah a while yeah still works uh so here here i am snowed in and uh but it's all right we're gonna we're coming to you anyway so i'm coming to you all uh nestled up and warm uh it's cold

outside, but we're doing this thing. We are in Job chapter 15. We just finished up with Job giving a long response to Zophar and his other friends and God. He's responding to everybody. And we had some shots of hope, you know, sort of in the midst of a lot of, you know, kind of morbid and lament, but there was some hope in there. Job is sort of daring to hope, catches himself a little bit says some super true things and then thinks they're too good to be true but they are in fact a truth well now we're going to hear from eliphaz he's got a sound off again because he heard those words of hope and he doesn't hit his ears well at all yeah he starts out by basically calling joe a windbag so not not a great way to further the conversation uh with with an insult but that's

way he starts out. He says, Job 15, should a wise man answer with windy knowledge and fill his belly with the east wind? Should he argue an unprofitable talk or in words with which he could do no good? But you, here of course he's talking to Job, but you are doing away with the fear of God and hindering meditation before God. For your iniquity teaches your mouth and you choose the tongue of the crafty your own mouth condemns you and not i your own lips testify against you so yeah he starts out with the insult i mean you're basically just full of you're full of the wind you're a windbag job that's all you are you're uh you've filled your belly with the east wind and now it's coming out coming out your mouth you got all this unprofitable talk going on

but you know he starts out that way but then he actually shifts gears and he accuses job of uh not just kind of being full of nothing uh being a windbag but actually directing people away from god he says you are doing away with the fear of god you're hindering meditation before god and then he says your iniquity is the instructor of your mouth so i mean it's one thing to say to somebody oh you're just you know you're full of uh you're full of hot air it's another thing to say you're full of heresy or you're full of false teaching or you're leading people away from god so eliphaz has uh ramped up things here a little bit in his accusations against job yeah i mean what one of the things that's it's one thing to do what he's saying here is like hey

nice word salad there job there's a lot of words that meant nothing but i did detect something in those words and it was that you've completely tossed out the fear of the lord that's what you've done that's a wild thing right the only thing you've really done in all your speech is proven that you have no fear of god yeah it's quite the uh it's got the accusation to make and i i wonder if what's behind it is this idea that uh you can't you don't fear god if you're bluntly honest with him if you lament you know that you can't you can't do that obviously if you really feared god then you would uh you would only speak words of praise or only words of you know kind of level-headed petitions or whatever it might be yeah you don't you should only you

should only be saying holy holy holy no other words to god should come out of your mouth yeah yeah i think the idea here and i think this still exists chad it's one of the reasons that the psalms are instructive and even and of course job is instructive is that uh you wouldn't talk to someone you fear like that yeah i mean obviously if you're going to talk to someone like that you're not you don't have any fear of them and uh that is uh mostly coming from a place of not understanding what the fear of the lord is yeah right yeah it's it's it's a very small part of the the bigger picture what the fear of the lord is i mean it's so the fear of the lord is not just simply being afraid uh of of god but it's uh yeah it's reverence it's hope it's faith

it's all of those things that are packed into into that one idea so you can fear god and cry out to him with words like Job has. You can fear God and also praise him. You can fear God and do anything within that spectrum. People do still have this idea, though. I'll get pushed back sometimes when I talk about lament. Maybe it's a social media post or whatever it might be. And I mean, I'm paraphrasing here, but people will say something like, I would never talk to God that way. I always like to say, well, it's fine. But the psalmist did. Job did. People did all over the all over the bible they talked to god like like that and they were those who feared god uh because the fear of the lord is much more than simply being trembling and trepidatious before him

well let me put it this way like maybe this i don't know if this is helpful at all but if somebody says that i would never talk to god that way which is like what they and usually what they mean is in a candid way in an honest way what you're telling me is that uh you you i wouldn't talk to god as if i knew him and that might sound harsh but imagine you knew somebody imagine there's somebody there's a situation that you could notice that there could be a person who is in uh has immense amounts of power uh the governor you you meet the governor and the first time you meet the governor you realize this is somebody that has like a lot of power they have a lot of power over you directly and uh you probably treat them a certain way you know you

probably not going to, when I meet this person, immediately insult them. Or maybe I'm not going to start talking bad about their wife or whatever. I'm not going to do that. That would seem like an imprudent thing to do. But imagine, though, that the governor is actually someone that you know, someone you know very well, someone who knows everything about you, and someone that's known you your whole life and this is uh this is now someone who has told you that you can call them anytime and you could talk to them about anything in fact any need that you could possibly have he he not only says you can but he desires you to like bring it before him and this is somebody that uh is you're you're with every day well now i think that you might talk to that governor

differently because it's not just the governor this is someone that you have a relationship with this is someone you have a history with this is somebody that already knows like maybe they knew you from when you were a kid he knows all your all your weird stuff and your bad stuff and and you can have honest conversations with this person now does that mean that this person doesn't have any power over you anymore does that mean that you don't have any respect for his for the office that he holds no it doesn't mean that but you speak to him as someone that you know and i think that sometimes when people think about God, they don't think about talking to God as not just somebody that they know, but somebody who knows them best. There's no point in not being

honest with God. He already knows what you're thinking, so you just as well get the words out there. And it seems that Job is the one who knows this, and his friends don't know this, where Job's like, what are you talking about? God sees all this. God's not leaving me alone. God knows everything he's all powerful what's the point in not being honest with him exactly what is that what is what's the point of that yeah yeah well i mean yeah we the example you gave is great and we all know this because the the deeper the relationship we have someone with someone the longer that we've known them well then that has a direct connection to how honest we were able to be with them yeah yeah so uh it certainly stands to reason that not only should we be that way

toward god because of our connection to him in christ but also because he already knows he knows what's in our heart he knows what's in our mind so yeah uh be honest when you pray and let him let him know just like job he's a paragon example of that so first six verses we've got uh got a job insulted and then uh told that he's turning people away from god so not not a good start to By the way, I do think that people, you might want to put a pin in this, or like later on in Job, because, not to give away the ending or anything, but when God is not real happy with Job's friends, I think it's things like this that he's really unhappy with. This sort of accusation right here is something you should remember when you see how God responds. When Eliphaz is telling Job that his problem is that he's done away with the fear of the Lord, and when he says that his own mouth has condemned him and his lips are going to testify against him, I think this is the kind of stuff that God's like, yeah, you're going to probably need Job to intercede for you. I think this is the sort of things that if God is, as Job says, has the book and he's like writing stuff down, I think these words made it in.

Probably so, yeah. Yeah, God will save Job. He has spoken to me what is right. and you guys have not. And so you need him to, uh, to pray for you. Verse seven, he's gonna, he's gonna go on here to, uh, to ask Job some questions. Are you the first man who was born or were you brought forth before the hills? Have you listened in the counsel of God and do you limit wisdom to yourself what do you know that we do not know what do you understand that is not clear to us both the gray-haired and the aged are among us older than your father so uh he's pulling

here upon uh what kind of the antiquity right uh are are you are you drawing job from some sort of you know ancient wisdom are you the the first man who was born or do you have some sort of you know secret uh way of listening in on the counsel of god basically and of course these are rhetorical questions he's saying no you don't you don't uh you're not the you're not the first you're not adam you're not the first man who was born and you don't you're not some sort of prophet who is able to sit in on the counsel of god everything you know joe we know and of course the implication is here that we know better than you do.

Your understanding is clear to us. Do you get the feeling that when Joe's friends showed up and they started having this dialogue, as it progresses, they really don't know what to do with him? Oh yeah, they don't know what

to do with him. And I think it shows in kind of the tone of frustration that you begin to see more and more. You don't start out insulting someone if you haven't grown a little bit frustrated with them yeah you know after a while you're like listen idiot you don't start out a conversation that way you don't call them names until you've gotten to the point where you're like you just you're a fool you don't you you just don't understand

uh or you're a windbag and you're just full of hot air well it almost feels like they're the type of people and this still exists too but you know it's like there's uh they're used to believers and unbelievers and uh believers and unbelievers would certainly talk about god differently but they don't like job is like a real conundrum for them because it's it strikes me like they have never heard someone who is professing faith in god talk about god in this way and this is their they don't know what to do with it yeah that is a problem with a with the friends throughout i mean they have these they have these little cubicles like you said maybe two cubicles believers unbelievers but they have other cubicles too like okay if you're if

you're in this the cubicle of the good the believer well then good things are going to happen to you you know but if bad things are happening to you then logically evidently you're engaged in some sort of evil or you come into some sin in the past that needs to be repented of there's there's no room in their theological system for an innocent sufferer kind of what it boils down to. I have no theological category for that. And you'll see some of this in some of the other things that they say. They just are incapable of grasping the fact that someone can be innocent and suffer the way that Job is suffering. And so all they can resort to is just kind of beating that dead horse over and over and over, you know, we'll confess your sins,

what have you done? And stop talking about God that way. Yeah, and stop talking about God that way yeah job is a maverick they don't they don't know what to do with him and so um you know because they don't have an argument they tend to disinsult belittle shout him down or throw this uh their own word salads at job and uh hope that you know they're going to win the argument just by the accumulation of words and and you have to and you do wonder like okay what's the what's the thing here because why don't you just like walk away why don't you just be like no this guy's not whatever it again i have said this numerous times but i think it's true i think this argument is almost them concerned that god is uh there's like a guilt by association this is their friend

and he's saying all these things and they feel it is incumbent upon them to argue with him lest god think that they are the same way right and so they're taking up god's defense right like how dare you? The words, the blasphemy, the irreverence, I can't believe this, Job. And I'm going to have to, I have to give this big, long response to you, lest God believe that I would not get his back in such matters. I can't let this stand. Am I supposed to sit here and listen to you talk about God this way and say these things? Well, I can't do that. If I walk away, God might think that i'm not interested in defending him and then i might end up on a you know dust heap i don't want that if these guys would uh would live today and had social media accounts

they would have a heyday they'd be jumping on everybody's everybody's feed correcting them and uh insulting them and uh uh and i think that all that all comes back to the joke what says like you're not here out of love you're here out of fear yeah yeah they're yes they're not they're not there to comfort they're to basically this is a this is kind of a self salvation project that they have you know they're wanting to say it themselves we're not like you job and we're going to make sure that god knows we're on his team by trying to correct you and rebuking you when you speak that which we deem to be improper so uh we got these list of questions and uh they're gonna got one more to go here in verse 11 are the comforts of god too small for you

or the word that deals gently with you? Why does your heart carry you away? And why do your eyes flash that you turn your spirit against God and bring such words out of your mouth? Well, first of all, I don't know what these comforts of God that are too small for Job are all about.

I mean, I suppose, yeah, he's still alive. He's breathing air and presumably he's eating a little bit of food and water, but not a lot of divine comforts there in Job's life. so i don't this accusation falls flat as far as i'm concerned oh god is comforting you is that too small for you joe would probably be like well if this is comfort i'd sure hate to see when god comes after me yeah dude he's probably like yeah with friends like this who needs enemies right like good grief this is what are you talking about also like i sure hope you guys showing

up isn't the comfort of god because no that has been horrible yeah no comfort there why do your why does your heart carry you away and your water your eyes flash against why do your eyes flash well what a dumb question yeah it's like asking a guy who's like been dosed with water and he's standing outside and whether like you're experiencing things that why are you cold yeah yeah i wonder i wonder why why would that be happening to me um that you bring such words out of your mouth yeah these guys just they can't handle uh the kind of uh honest prayer that job is is daring to speak to god and then verse 14 what is man that he can be pure or he who is born of a woman that he can be righteous behold god puts no trust in his holy ones i'm

assuming he's talking about angels there and the heavens are not pure in his sight how much less one who is abominable and corrupt a man who drinks injustice like water this is the truest thing that he said yeah this is these examples where these guys you can't like again we don't follow the same don't want to fall in the same trap that these guys have placed themselves in where everything's black and white because yeah they say some they say some things which are completely wrong they say some things which are partially wrong partially right they say some things which are right they're just wrong contextually well the answer to this is like who said he did like like this is one of those things like where he's like look god doesn't put any trust

in angels yeah okay like man can't be pure uh someone who's born a woman can't be righteous job's like yeah yeah i know like that's like job's argument is not like i'm perfect his argument is i'm better than you and look what's happening to me yeah like the whole argument is that the proportionality like because he i mean like they're not listening like he's like i'm saying that thieves right now are in their den counting their money they're not on a trash heap scraping their boil what i'm saying is that god hasn't like i'm not more unrighteous than those who aren't suffering that's the whole argument yeah yeah yeah they keep throwing these uh theological words at him and thinking this is

somehow going to undermine his argument and job's like listen we don't disagree about that but it's it's it's not the point here this is not what we're discussing so he goes on uh verse verse 17 i will show you hear me and what i've seen i will declare what wise men have told without hiding it from their fathers to whom alone the land was given and no stranger passed among them so he's about to show him he's about to drop some you know old traditional wisdom on him i'm going to tell you what i've what i've heard and known what these old wise men have have uh passed down from father father to son and that line in verse 19 about to whom alone the land was given and no stranger passed among them i think that's basically

saying uh there were no foreign influences that might have diluted this ancient wisdom you know this is just this is this is pure stuff that i'm about to give you job so open your ears listen up and here's what he says you think you're going to be like wowed by this ancient wisdom he's about to drop on you like this is going to clear everything up and Job is going to just

kneel before his friends and say okay I give up you're right this is definitely a word salad coming up so verse 20 the wicked man writhes in pain all his days through all the years that are laid up

for the ruthless. Dreadful sounds are in his ears. In prosperity, the destroyer will come upon him. He does not believe that he will return out of darkness. He's marked for the sword. He wanders abroad for bread saying, where is it? He knows that a day of darkness is ready at hand. Distress and anguish terrify him. They prevail against him like a king ready for battle. Because he has stretch out his hand against god and defies the almighty running stubbornly against him with a thickly bossed shield because he's covered his face with his fat and gathered fat about his waist and has lived in desolate cities and houses that none could inhabit which were ready to become heaps of ruins i don't know if i should just keep reading this or not this is all he goes on and on

But if you're listening to kind of the flow of this, to me, it just comes across as ridiculous because it's so contradictory to what we all know to be reality. Oh, yeah, the wicked man writhes in pain all his days. Dude, do you know any wicked men? Because I know some wicked dudes. I know some unbelievers. Let me tell you, they're not writhing in pain all day. I mean, they may be experiencing a pretty good life. so i feel like job has already addressed this argument yeah like they completely ignored it

like because i feel like at the end of this and he yes he will just keep going i mean uh they will not be rich his wealth will not endure nor will he possess the land spread over the earth he will not depart from his darkness the flame will dry up his shoots let him not trust in emptiness deceiving himself for emptiness will be his payment and it will be paid in full before his time and his branch will not be green he will shake off his unripe grape like the vine and cast off his blossom like the olive tree for the company of the godless is barren and the fire consumes the tents of bribery they conceive trouble and give birth to evil and their womb prepares deceit and i feel like at the end of all this joke just go no yeah yeah it just shakes his

head like you guys you guys are just piling up words that have absolutely no no place in reality this is not the way that it works now well like obviously so yeah i don't know uh i don't know what what kind of world these these fellows are living in it sounds like they're in some sort of a monastery where they have no connection to to the real world oh and you might want to be like so you guys gonna break down all this there's nothing to break down here like all he's what he's saying is like hey bad things happen to bad people it's just that argument again like when people are wicked horrible things happen to them and job's already said but that's not universally true like sometimes bad things happen to bad people sometimes bad things happen to good

people sometimes good things happen to bad people like sometimes good things like i know this isn't true yeah yeah these uh these descriptions of of the wicked man just are not true not too true to reality and all he does in all of those verses that's verse 20 through 35 so for 15 verses he just goes on using different images and different metaphors uh some from nature some from war some from other things uh kind of even uses at the very end some language that you have in the prophets as well as the psalms about conceiving trouble and giving birth to evil and their womb preparing deceit i mean you have that different places in the in the bible but uh it all just is uh nothing more than an ongoing rehearsal of the same their same

worn-out argument that if good things are happening to you you are good if bad things happening to you you are you are bad and uh yeah job's already addressed that everybody knows this who has lived in the real world but these guys are either they're intellectually dishonest or they're just terribly naive about the way that this world operates but either way they're not going to break out of their kind of traditional wisdom categories where everything operates according to the category of if this happens then this will happen if you do good good will fall to you if you do bad bad will come to you but you know that's that that is if you're like the three friends and you're in a you think that you're righteous and things are going well for you

this becomes a position that's easy to believe yeah yeah and it makes you feel good about yourself oh my goodness look at me you know i'm healthy and my family's doing great i'm making money uh but this guy over here you know free house is down you know his wife has cancer and his kids are a mess and he just lost his job blah blah blah so evidently you know what i'm doing is right and god's blessing me what evidently what he's doing is wrong and god is taking him to task for it uh becomes a very kind of pat yourself on the back break your arm doing it kind of self-righteous uh feel-goodism about yeah about yourself well what's absent here is like obviously a theology of the cross i mean like this is all theology of glory kind of stuff right and

what the cross really does come and just like shatter all of this i mean any any if you're a christian the cross should completely obliterate all these disillusions because obviously christ is like the only one who is righteous the only one who's pure and he suffers immensely and then you go and look at his church and his bride and you look at the 12 people that he chose to to build the church they like yeah they had it sweet like it went great for them like they all like suffered and died horrible deaths and uh so yeah this is obviously the work of christ in the early church like obliterates any any thought that any of this is true some of the metaphors in there are are are memorable you know like this guy i love verse 26 running stubbornly against him with a

thickly bossed shield it's like this idea you're like a bam bam bam you're running against him uh and uh it's you're just bouncing off but then he's got the whole wherever the uh the fat part is i I can't see those verses there, but yeah. Oh, he's, I don't even know what this means. He's covered his face with his fat and gathered fat upon his waist. Yeah, triple chin, beer belly. That's every wicked person.

You never saw a skinny wicked person. I know that. Yeah, imagine reading the second half of Job 15 to Jesus while he's on the cross. Just see how that fits with the truthfulness. We got a few minutes left, So let's get into Job's response. And you've got to love the ESV title to this chapter, Job 16.

Job replies, miserable comforters are you. So that's how it starts out. So verse 1 says, Job answered and said, I have heard many such things. Miserable comforters are you all. It's one of my favorite lines in all of Job. Now what's kind of cool about this, and you can't see this in translation, but the very last verse of the previous chapter

so the very last thing that Eliphaz is accorded to saying is they conceive trouble now in Hebrew that's Amal they conceive trouble and give birth to evil and the same word, the same Hebrew word Amal is translated here as miserable so you could even

translate it as troublesome comforters are you all or you could just go back to the end of 15 and say they conceive misery and give birth to evil. But you get the idea. Job has received the insult and thrown it right back in Eliphaz's face. Yeah, you have to wonder if this has anything to do with him saying like,

hey, are you despising the comforts of God? And he's like, I don't know. Are you guys some of those? Because if you are, yes, I am despising them. I am rejecting them. You consider yourselves among the many comforts that God has given me? And then, I mean, he kind of continues this throwing things right back at him because earlier, at the very beginning, of course,

Eliphaz said that Job was a windbag, just follow hot air. And now Job says, shall windy words have an end? So we have a little rhetorical sparring going on back and forth here between these guys. Guys do like to trash talk each other. so this is things have not changed a lot over the years so shall windy words have an end or what provokes you that you answer i also could speak as you do if you were in my place i could join words together against you and shake my head at you i i don't know how to take verse five that

i'm about to read it's either it's either joe being sincere and saying hey i could do a lot better job at this than you are or is joe being sarcastic anyway he says i could strengthen you with my mouth and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain um anyway he basically says uh listen if the if the tables returned and you were sitting here in the ash heap scraping sores off your body i could sit there and shake my head at you and i could join all these words together and I could talk like you're talking it's not very difficult uh but then I could also unlike you I could actually strengthen you with my mouth and from my lips I could give you some I could give you some solace at least that's the way that I'm reading that I don't I don't know

that it's sarcastic I think Job is saying listen I could talk and then I actually could do a lot better job than you guys are doing because I could actually give you some comfort yeah I think that's right then he goes on so uh verse six if i speak my pain is not assuaged and if i forbear how much of it leaves me so he can't win more or less if he talks then he hurts if he's silent then the pain is still there so silent or speaking and nothing is going to nothing's going to change well you had an example of this it's like i don't know you guys got here we sat here for like a week and there was no talking going on so uh guess what i was in immense pain and now that we're talking guess what uh i'm still in immense pain so does it really matter only he's probably not

a lot more agitated because he's had to he's had to deal with these guys now he's gonna shift gears There's verse 7 through 9 are some pretty intense lament here. He's talking about what God has done to him. I guess he's decided that, hey, you know what? You don't like the way that I'm talking to God? You don't like the way I've talked to God so far? Well, just hide and watch what I got to say now. Yeah, he just a little hold my beer like, oh, you think that I have?

I don't have any fear of the Lord, and you don't like the way that I'm talking about him? Here, hold this, and open up your ears wide for what's about to happen right now. Yeah, so this is just three verses. Surely now God has worn me out. He, and the Hebrew there is actually you, it's more like a direct address to God, but you or he, has made me desolate, has made desolate all my company. he has shriveled me up which is a witness against me my leanness has risen up against me it testifies to my face he has torn me in his wrath and hated me he's gnashed his teeth at me my adversary

sharpens his eyes against me well yeah so if his friends were troubled beforehand by job's uh in their in their opinion improper speech toward god well then there you go there's that i mean you can't get much uh more honest than than that well it seems like it's almost like he could take his friends be like joe surely you're not blaming god for this and job's like let me tell you exactly how much i'm blaming god for this up for you yeah yeah so uh god's won him out. He's made desolate all his company. Of course, Job did lose all his family, with the exception of Mrs. Job. Shriveled him up, witnessed against him. And Job, of course, is picking up on his physical condition here, where he says, my leanness has risen up against

me. It testifies to my face. So he's kind of become a living icon of what happens when God attacks you is is what he's communicating here and this is a kind of an animal image here verse nine he's torn me with it torn me in his wrath gnashed his teeth at me you know gnashing teeth uh is like this i always picture a uh a wolf you know it's snarling it's showing it's its teeth and striking out, gnashing his teeth, and even says that God has hated him. And then he calls him his adversary and sharpening his eyes against him. What's that phrase we use in English? You look daggers at someone? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think that's kind of the same idea here, sharpened his eyes against me uh and he you've all had like somebody look at you like dang if

looks could kill you know you just stab me to death right then i think that's kind of what what he's getting at here i think the hardest part of this too is just him coming right out just saying like but that god hates him and this is this is how he interprets this like that i'm hated by god yeah man that's a that's a unfortunately jobe is not the only one who's experienced that in the course of human history you know you if you interpret god's attitude toward you based upon painful external circumstances then sometimes the conclusion people come to is either that god has turned his back on me or doesn't care about me or is actively hatefully attacking me well what also seems that's true you can correct me if i'm wrong

here as we wrap up chad but in the old testament it seems that uh god's disposition towards you is is uh viewed as pretty binary um that god there is no like indifference uh on god's part uh job is like pleading for indifference but it's not something that uh they believe exists and so you'll see this like love and hate language happen a lot i mean maybe like the most famous version of it is uh jacob i loved esau i hated does this mean that god hate actually hates esau um you have god say of uh jacob when it comes to rachel and and leah that uh that he sees that leah was hated i mean did jacob really hate her but in the old testament those like it's one or the other there's not like a there's not like an in between uh and so i think that that's part of

what's happening here is that job is if if those are if you have a binary choice if it must be one of these options if you're job on the trash heap with the boils your family's all gone and you say do you think that god loves you or hates you and you have and those it's option a or b job is like it appears to me that if those are the option that god hates me yeah yeah oh the binary choice is definitely the way that uh the old testament presents it we see that all over the psalms too you know yeah this kind of love hate for or for or against and i mean in in joe's defense yeah that's it's it's a pretty hard pretty hard leap to be sitting there with the uh the boils on the ash heap and you know looking over at the grays of all your kids and and saying god

sure loves me yeah yeah uh but you know that's it's to go back to what we discussed just a few minutes ago um that is what the cross of christ testifies you know it does the father love the son absolutely the son's being crucified um and god god loves us and external circumstances don't dictate reality when it comes to god's attitude toward us it's the cross that tells us what god thinks of us, and that cross testifies loud and clear that God is for us and not against us, and that he does love us, even though we go through these Job-like doubts and questions sometimes. That's right, and we will have to leave it there, so we will continue next week with Job's response. He's got some more to say, not just in this chapter. Job is going to do what he has done

many times and continue into the next chapter, and so we'll get into all that next week. Chad, I'll see you then. All right, see you then.