40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Job 24:13-26:4 (Episode 408)

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

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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 and check out all the podcasts that are living over there. And while you're over there, make sure you check out everything else that 1517 is doing. That would be books, articles, videos, other podcasts, events. Go get all the information for that stuff over at 1517. You can also become a supporter of everything that 1517 does. I mean, you might notice that all our stuff is free.

It's free because of the generous support of people like you. so you can become a supporter by clicking the Donate link on the homepage there or go down in the show notes and find the Support the Show link, and you can click on that and become a supporter. Thank you so much to those of you who do that. Chad, last week, Job is dishing out an answer, you know, so Eliphaz says, I've got it figured out. The issue here is that Job's wickedness is very great.

I mean, it's so great. Let me tell you how great it is. and then just manufactures some wickedness. I mean, just invents some wickedness wholesale and says, these are the things that Job does, some things we have no evidence of. In fact, we have every reason to believe that none of that stuff is true because none of that stuff is the kind of stuff

that God would boast about someone for doing, and God definitely did some boasting in Job. Job replies to Eliphaz, and it's a long reply, so we got through some of it. And Job's whole argument is, look, none of that's true. He does some more talking about God. His argument is kind of like, listen, your argument is that I'm so wicked that I just don't concern myself with God at all. I don't care about God.

But actually, my main question is, where is God? I can't find Him anywhere. I would love to have a conversation with Him. I'd love to bring my complaint. In fact, if I could find out where God was and could go see him, I'm 100% convinced that I'll come out vindicated. I have an ironclad case here. I just need him to hear it.

I don't know if someone has misinformed him. I don't know if he has me confused with someone else. But I'm telling you, if I could make my case, I'm going to win this argument. And that's kind of a gist of where we ended up. we ended up in 24, we got through the first 13 verses, and Job is going to continue on for a little bit here. Yeah, he's going to talk quite a bit in this chapter about, well, he has already talked about, and then we're going to pick it up from there, talk about how, yeah, he's wanting his day in court, but he's basically saying, hey, there's a lot of people who really should be

in court because they're guilty, and here's a list of the things that they've done. So those first 12 verses of Job 24, he talks about how the poor are mistreated. You know, they're wondering about for food, their clothing's being taken away from them, they're sitting out in the rain at night. You got people who are even like snatching babies from the bosom of their mother. Just a lot of bad stuff going on, done by bad people, who at least it seems are getting away with it. In fact, he finishes verse 12 by saying that the soul of the wounded cries out for help, and yet God charges no one with wrong. So what's up with all that? He's not done with that. He's going to pick up with that same thread in verses 13 and following by talking about people like murderers

and adulterers and thieves, basically people who, what seemed to be the common theme between these they like to work under cover of darkness. So he's going to pick up with that group in verse 13. So I'll read 13 through 17. He said, there are those who rebel against the light, who are not acquainted with its ways and do not stay in its paths. The murderer rises before its light that he may kill the poor and needy. And in the night, he's like a thief. The eye of the adulterer also waits for the twilight saying, no, I will see me. And he veils his face in the dark. They dig through houses by day. They shut themselves up. They do not know the light for deep darkness is mourning to all of them, but they are friends with the terrors of deep

darkness. So of course, light darkness is, uh, is the, the twin themes here. And basically all these guys they're uh we got to get the literal and metaphorical happening at the same time because he's saying these guys like to work under cover of darkness like literal darkness so the adulterer you know he waits till it's dark he sneaks out so he can go wherever he's going to meet up for for his tryst but he's not going to be seen darkness is going to cover him same with thieves or breaking into houses or the murderer all these guys love darkness because it hides their deeds at the same time with the literal you also have the metaphorical of course because deeds of darkness and things done in darkness is a common biblical theme you see it in new testament as well sons of light

sons of darkness where you basically have as it says in verse 17 deep darkness is mourning to all of them so they've exchanged darkness for light and light for darkness they call good evil and an evil evil good so this is kind of continuing the same thread that he used in the first 12 verses basically saying look at all these guys they're they're doing these things they're they're living in the darkness they're using darkness as they're as they're covering and they say and this is from the middle of verse 15 no i will see me and i think they don't mean just none of my neighbors are going to figure out what's going on i think this is kind of the the same kind of practical atheism we often see in the Psalms, where you have people acting as if, living as if

there is no God, as if there's not going to be any kind of judgment, God doesn't see what they're doing, they can live any way they want to, and there's not going to be any kind of divine punishment that results from their deeds. Yeah, Job seems frustrated that it seems to be working, right? He's like, not only do they do these things, but this, like, under-the-cover-of-night thing. That shouldn't work, but it seems like it is. Yeah, it seems to be fairly profitable for them, because they're continuing this, or they're getting away with what they're doing. Even though, and this is implicit in all of this, even though Job would be suggesting, I'm not an adulterer, I'm not a murderer, I'm not a thief, I haven't made darkness into light, and yet look what's

happening to me i mean you don't see a murderer who's lost all of his family and his health and sitting on an ash heap scraping sores but this is where i'm at yeah well it seems like you there's a this argument too is that like how frustrating is it because obviously a part of this is like rebuffing again like some of their arguments are like well you know job i mean if you i mean if you weren't wicked this wouldn't be happening obviously uh job was doing this hey so there's a there's these people doing this stuff at nighttime under the cover of darkness. They're like the children of darkness.

And you know it. I know it. Why doesn't the Lord know it? Like, surely he... What's your theological argument against this? Like, you know this is happening. I know this is happening. What, do we assume that the Lord doesn't know this is happening? Surely, if we know it, he knows it. And yet,

I'm the one over here on an ash heap, scraping boils with pottery. my house is completely destroyed all my children are dead explain that one yeah how does this fit into your theological system

the thieves, the adulterers, the murderers they say no eye will see me and Job's like well you can understand why they would say that because they're getting away scot-free with all of these kinds of secret undercover of darkness activities yeah I mean

who wouldn't be frustrated with this right i mean we just we simply read this and it's frustrating well you might imagine job living through it it'd be like it's one thing if it's happening and you just like you're like well you know it's happening it's like a whole nother level of frustration if somebody comes to you and makes the sorts of arguments that his friends have made and then you have to be like okay like you know it's annoying you know how you don't go out at night in certain places because like you know something bad is probably going to happen to you because that's like where's people up to no good doing no good things okay that's annoying but what's really really annoying is what you're

telling me that like no bad deed goes unpunished while we know that's going like that that we know that this is going on and now you're pretending like you don't know yeah yeah they're just they're they're ignoring ignoring reality everybody knows this happens and they're saying the opposite. This is more their ivory tower theologizing, where none of their words actually match reality, and yet they would rather stick with their self-deceptions than acknowledge the truth and try and deal with it theologically. Okay, bad stuff does happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people. How are we going to explain this? How are we going to grapple with this? They just refuse to even go there because it doesn't match their preconceived

notions of the way that God should operate in this world. I think for them, there is no mystery with God. They've got God figured out. They know that He's a tit-for-tat kind of God. You do good, He does good to you. You do bad, He does bad to you. That is the extent of their understanding of the way God works in this world with humanity, and they just simply won't even consider the possibility that there's more to it, that there's a mystery here, that there's more to learn. Well, and I think that you said this a couple episodes back, I think this is like the crux of it, is that there is no category in their mind for an innocent sufferer. Like, it doesn't fit at all, a square peg in a round hole in their theology, like this does not fit.

And then you take that and you run with that to the Gospels, and you can see exactly why the cross of Christ makes no sense to people who are trapped in this kind of theologizing. And this was very much kind of the Pharisees' way of thinking about things, and probably not even just the Pharisees, because Jesus' own disciples, when they saw the blind man, right? Oh, yeah. It wasn't like some Pharisees walked up to Jesus and said, hey, Jesus, see that blind guy? Who sinned, him or his parents? No, these were Jesus' own disciples that said this hey that guy's blind who messed up yeah did he do something did his parents do something because obviously he can't simply be enduring something that is not the cause of of sin

so even for them you know the category of innocent sufferer or someone just suffering because we're living in a fallen world or categories that they just couldn't couldn't deal with well i mean and then jesus has to go to like an event example right and say like hey You remember when that tower fell? All those people? You were like, man, I wonder what they did. Well, let me tell you. They didn't do anything you're not doing.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So repent. Yeah. Oh. All right, so that whole talk of darkness and light and thieves and murderers and whatnot, that takes us through 17.

Now, verse 18 introduces a bit of an enigma, Uh, and, uh, I've, I've, I've run into, to several different theories behind it's, it's 18 through the rest of this chapter. So verse 18 through verse 24 or 25, uh, you can, you can probably pull five Job commentaries off the shelf and come away with, uh, at least three different opinions, if not five different opinions as to what's going on here. the uh the basic basic issue or problem is that what is said in verses 18 through the rest of the chapter does not sound like words you would expect coming from job uh in fact it sounds exactly

like something that his friends would say so there's various theories that are put forward here those who like me and i i agree with those who say this doesn't sound like job at all say either that Job is quoting his friends. In fact, that's the way that the ESV has couched this entire discussion. So if you look at the ESV, verse 18 begins with, you say, so Job is speaking, but he says, you say, swift are they on the face of the waters, et cetera. But if you look in the Hebrew, there is no you say. It just begins with swift are they the face of the waters so the esv has inserted even they really don't tell us they've inserted you say into their translation because they understand this to be job quoting the words

of his friends so that's one possibility of explaining the overall friends like theme of these verses others suggest that actually verses 18 through 25 are the words of zophar except somewhere along the way in the process of textual transmission the opening phrase and Zophar said has been omitted the reason they say it Zophar is because

we have three speeches by Eliphaz we have three speeches by Bildad we have two speeches by Zophar so some people think this was actually his words and somehow they got shifted around in the text

and the introduction of Zophar's speech was left out. However you want to frame this, as Zophar's missing speech or as Job quoting his friends, I think either one of those, it's pretty obvious when we begin to read through these that we're not dealing here with something that matches what Job has been saying all along,

but it certainly does match what his friends have been insisting upon, especially the general theme is upon the short-lived nature of the wicked, or the short-lived nature of the success of the wicked, that it's not going to last very long before they fall on their faces and are facing judgment. So just a bit of background there is to,

if you look at your translations, you're going to see various kinds of ways of rendering this. I do actually think the ESV has done it right by inserting you say at the beginning of verse 18, as a way of alerting us to the fact that Job is probably then quoting his friends, or if not quoting, then summarizing the gist of the argument that they have made. So anyway, that's a bit of an introduction to what's coming up. Well, it'd be hard to believe that a couple of things wouldn't happen.

I mean, one, in this conversation, it'd be hard to imagine that no one would interrupt anyone else. So maybe you have that. It would also be unlikely that you might not bring up something that somebody else had said, right? Where you'd say, like, hey, you said this. Let me respond to that point. So, I mean, yeah, it makes total sense that this would happen. It doesn't seem out of place. Yeah, I mean, we still argue this way legitimately or illegitimately today.

I mean, if we're having a debate, argument, discussion, whatever, with somebody else with whom we disagree, we'll often say something like, so what you're saying is blah, blah, blah. And maybe that's a fair assessment of what they say, or maybe it's an unfair assessment of what they say. But we often do restate the argument of the person that we're having a discussion with as a way of perhaps bringing some clarity or perhaps in sarcasm. There's all different ways, all different reasons to do this. I do this all the time when I'm arguing. I'm taking notes in my mind

to use against you later. And so it's a very common thing for me to say in an argument is, earlier you said, and then I will say what you said, and I'll be like, and now you've contradicted that, or that's not true because,

you know, whatever it is. So I think that's a pretty common thing to do. Yeah, yeah. Or you'll restate their argument, but take it to its logical and often ridiculous conclusion. So what you're really saying is... Right. So if what...

You've said this. Well, if that's true, then it follows that this and this and this and this are true, and you're going to take it to its... My wife loves it when I do that. I'm sure. I'm sure. Yeah, it's probably a...

It's her favorite. Her favorite conversation. I'm sure your wife loves it when these words come out of your mouth. So what you're really saying is, I'm sure she loves that. Yeah. Yeah. I do know that every time someone on social media says that in response to something that I've written, I mean, and I'm talking about 99% certainty here, that what they're saying I'm saying is not what I'm saying. Yeah, I think this is true. Anytime someone has done that to me where they're like, so what you're saying is 99.9% of the time I disagree with whatever the next thing out of their mouth is.

Yeah. Oh, yes, it is. It's very hard to be objective and to state with great honesty what our opponent is saying. So anyhow, all that introduction here to 18 and the following. So Job speaks, and he says to his friends, You say, swift are they on the face of the waters. Their portion is cursed in the land. No treader turns toward their vineyards.

drought and heat snatch away the snow waters so does sheol those who have sinned the womb forgets them the worm finds them sweet they are no longer remembered so wickedness is broken like a tree don't you just love the way the bible is like unafraid of taking about 10 metaphors and just shuffling them all together you know when uh when we're in high school we learned i don't mix metaphors yeah and then you read the bible and you're like uh i think that's all they do is mix mix metaphors together so we got all kinds of images here we got uh we got water things going on we got agricultural things going on we got uh water stuff we got weather stuff womb worms everything and that's in three verses the the basic message of course is that uh is the

the brevity of the and of the life and of the any any kind of success of the wicked so they're kind of like i think this opening line swift are they in the face of the waters it's kind of the image of uh foam it's on the surface of the waters you know it's it's there for a second then it's blown away. And then he shifts to the agricultural image. Their portion is cursed in the land. No treader turns toward their vineyards. What does that mean? Well, it means that a treader is one who's going to tread on the grapes to crush them, of course, to begin the process of making wine. Well, no treader turns toward their vineyards because their vineyards are unfruitful. They don't have any grapes to tread, so there's no work for him to do there.

So they're experiencing the loss of their harvest. And then you have drought and heat snatching away the snow waters. So, I mean, I just got off the phone with my mom this morning. And they live up in the Texas Panhandle. They got like, I don't know, eight or nine inches of snow, which is awesome. Me too. Oh, you did too? Yeah.

So my brother-in-law, Scott, is a farmer and a rancher. And so when you get snow in the winter, it's awesome because the snow, of course, is going to melt slowly and it's going to saturate the ground. It's great for your crops. So snow is great for people who are involved in any kind of farming or ranching. But in this case, you have the snow waters being snatched away by drought and heat. So it doesn't do any good. You can get all the snow you want, but if you have drought and heat, then it's not going to do the ground any good. It's going to, it's going to evaporate. And he says, that's the way it works with those who have

sinned. Sheol is going to be the drought and heat that snatches them away. And of course, the implication is this happens fast. You know, sure, you, you might, you might enjoy your sinning for a while, but it's not going to last. Sheol is going to reach up from the grave with a claw and grab your ankle and yank you down into shul. And then the womb forgets them, I guess meaning that this place where they spent so much time is going to be forgetting them because they are no more. Now, there's no doubt about what this line means.

The worm finds them sweet. Oh, man. I think I have to explain that one. worm is happy to find them in its lunchbox. They are no longer remembered, so wickedness is broken like a tree. So this is Job, of course, just summarizing the basic argument that his friends have made in lots of different ways, that the righteous will live long, the righteous will be blessed, but the wicked will not. They will be short, and they are cursed. Then he picks up with verse 21 uh again kind of quoting more of what his friends are saying they that is the wicked

what do they do well they wrong the barren childless woman they do no good to the widow to emblems of people who are suffering different things one childless one husbandless one that doesn't have children one doesn't have a husband they do wrong to those people yet god prolongs the life of the mighty by his power they rise up when they despair of life he gives them security and they are supported and his eyes are upon their ways so god lets them go on for a little while they are exalted for a little while as he says in verse 24 and then so maybe they have a little bit of life and you know maybe they despair but they rise up they get a little security they're They're supported, and God's watching them.

His eyes are on their ways. And after he's exalted them just a little while, then, bam, they're gone. They're brought low. They're gathered up like all the others. They're cut off like the heads of grain. And then he wraps up this chapter. If it is not so, who will prove me a liar and show that there is nothing in what I say? so a challenge

laid down there if it's not the case then prove me wrong yeah so you have to wonder like so this is where like who you think is talking or if you think Job is quoting someone

else like this gets a little weird right so I'll throw out a proposition here so if Job is quoting somebody Zophar whoever and he's saying, all right, you said this stuff. Okay, because it kind of sounds like,

so Job has been talking a while about, what are you talking about, man? There's like wicked people all over the place, prospering like crazy. What are you even saying to me right now? This is insane, this argument, it makes no sense. And it sounds like this is like maybe a responsive argument, like, no, no, no, no, no.

Oh, they're going to get cut down. They might get exalted for a little while, but it's going to happen. Like, you just wait, you just wait. and Job of course his argument is like well if they lived to like ripe old ages

when everybody else like yeah I mean yeah everybody dies like of course how is that punishment like exactly like so they

they get to live the same way that everyone else lives and then you know at the end though worm food well that's everybody so

what's the difference and so he gets to this end here and he says if it is not so who will prove me a liar and show me that there is nothing

in what I say I think you can't take this as Job saying, you said this, and I just did prove you a liar and prove that there's nothing in what you say by the argument I just made? Yeah. Is that how you take that? That is how I take that, yeah. I think it makes

the most sense to assume that Job begins verse 18 by referencing the words of yeah, so far, or whoever, whichever one of the friends. And then when you get to the very end of verse 25, it's like Job

is no longer quoting them, but he's kind of summing up his argument. Yeah. Yeah. So I proved you wrong. So show me where I'm a liar. Show me where my argument has failed, because I've definitely shown where your argument has failed. That's the way that I read this closing section of 24. Yeah, me too. It's been a long response by Job. Some of his own words, and some quoting the words of his friends and then demonstrating the falsehood of their of their arguments and so now we uh we come to the end of 24 and we have a bill dad's gonna give it a shot yeah bill that's gonna yeah he's gonna give it a shot but it's pretty it's pretty short shot uh so chapter 25 is only six verses bill dad's response is definitely the the shortest response

of any of his friends and you you kind of get the i get the impression in a way uh that it's it's the argument is losing steam. They've said a lot. They've had a lot to say, but at least Job's not done by any means. But it's like his friends are out of words. They're out of anything to say. They've said all they really had to say. And as we've noted multiple times, there's not a whole lot to their argument. In fact, you can summarize their argument with a basic syllogism uh you know if you if you sin you uh if if you're suffering it's because you're a sinner uh job is suffering and therefore job is a sinner who deserves this kind of suffering that's been their basic argument all through these chapters and in different sorts of ways

and of course you know they've they start out by kind of speaking kindly about him but then shifting to his current circumstances and there have been times when they've said hey if if you'll only get right with God, then your end is going to be even better than your beginning. So they have offered hope to him if he repents. But most of their words have been nothing more than either explicit or implicit accusations against him, that he's got some secret sin for which God is punishing him. And you can only keep repeating that so long before you finally run out of words, and I think that's kind of where they're at. Well, I mean, so chapter 25 of Bildad's going to give this you know i mean it's really five verse response uh right yeah and he he says

something like i'm surprised that chapter 26 isn't like one word like where job's like where it just says and job replied what like because i i when i read phil dad's response to this that's my i'm like, what? I don't even know if Bildad says anything that's untrue in this next part. Everything he says is like, yeah, but it has nothing to do with anything. Maybe you've got some insight here, but you're like, I think you're right that they've run out of words. So he says some stuff about god that my reply would be like okay and like i don't what are we what are we talking about here like like what do you what is that what does that have to do with anything like it'd be like if this response could basically be like well you know god is is different than us

like okay like i don't what like you know you're not god what it's it's very strange to me this response. I don't think it feels disconnected. Also one of these arguments where, say there's four or five of you, or four to relate it here to Job. Say there's four individuals sitting around

and three, it's three against one. Maybe one of the guys says something early in the argument that you're listening and you're like, oh, that's a pretty good line. I'm going to use that in a few minutes. Because Bildad basically doesn't say anything here

other than what Eliphaz has already said. It's one of these, yeah, and what Eliphaz said earlier, that's right, and then he repeats it. So he just doesn't have anything to offer here. We'll read the five verses here. We'll let our listeners draw their own conclusions. Dominion, this is Bildad, the Shuhite, dominion and fear are with God. He makes peace in the high heavens.

Is there any number to his armies? Upon whom does his light not arise? How then can man be in the right before God? How can he who is born of woman be pure? Behold, even the moon is not bright, and the stars are not pure in his eyes. How much less man who is a maggot, and this, sorry, it just cracks me up,

this man who's a maggot, oh and the son of man who is a who's a worm so yeah that's it that's bill dad's argument right there uh he starts out by the basic gist of his argument is that yeah god is very unlike us he's way up in the heavens uh he he's great he's powerful he's uh he's omniscient he's all these things he's all the omnis right so if he's that then who are we you know compared to god we're this maggot this worm that's that's it uh and the only part of the argument really that even resembles an argument against job is verse four how then can man be in the right before god how can he was born of a woman be pure and of course the implication of that is job you're not in the

right before God. There's no way that you are pure before God. Evidently, you have embraced impurity. Evidently, you've embraced wrong, and because of that, then this all-powerful God is punishing you with what you are receiving. Yeah, well, it's weird, because Job's argument isn't that, like, I'm perfect. I mean, like, his whole argument is, like, everything being equal, why is this happening to me? Like, I'm not...

Like, there's people that are out there doing crazy stuff, and this isn't happening to them. Like, I'm not sitting here telling you that, like, I've never sinned. We've heard that from Job himself. Like, this is not... Like, it's almost like you just go through this. It's like, dominion and fear are with God.

He makes peace in the heavens. Right. Is there any number to his armies? No. Upon whom does his light not arise? No one. How then can a man be right before God? How can he who is born of a woman be pure?

They can't. Even the moon is not bright and the stars are not pure in his eyes. Correct. How much less a man who is a maggot and the son of man who is a worm? Sure. but i don't like what like what does this have to do with like that doesn't explain any like because yeah sure like how can a man be right before god any man but i mean they can't but that still doesn't understand why i'm being singled out it doesn't explain this

yeah because they're already he's already proven that the the universe does not operate according to predictable laws of cause and effect because if it did all these wicked people would be obliterated right so job has demonstrated this so yeah this this a string of uh kind of flat platitudes is all that this this amounts to yeah it's not an argument it's just a string of relative truisms which don't contribute anything to anything to the discussion and by the way so that that's it as far as like the three friends they're done i mean there's there are no more arguments coming from them so uh eliphaz has had his speech and uh bildad now finishes his speech and zophar has nothing more to say now we are going to meet

another guy we have a surprise right a surprise coming here in a few more chapters some guy we we haven't heard of before but these three friends that's it so their their speech peters out on calling people maggots and worms and that's it so now job's gonna you got like a a five verse response and then job's gonna give you like a six chapter library he's just gonna go on yeah now that now that they're quiet job has a lot that he's he's going to say and he's starting out it's starting out start starts out with uh some sarcasm we have seen uh job's sarcasm plenty of plenty of times so you got to give the guy credit he may have been suffering a lot but he still had some some uh rhetorical energy behind him that's why i think that that he took this uh

this chapter 25, exactly the way I'm saying it, where he's like, uh-huh, and then answers it initially with sarcasm, like, oh, all right, guy. So we have three no's. No power, no strength, no wisdom. Here's how he starts out. This is the first two verses of his response.

How you have helped him who has no power. How you have saved the arm that has no strength. how you have counseled him who has no wisdom and plentifully declared sound knowledge just yeah uh this is this all the use these use by the way are in the in the hebrew they are uh are singular so he's not even though of course he is in a way addressing all three friends uh he's specifically seems to be responding to Bildad, who has just given us this list of platitudes. Oh, Bildad, wow. You know, you really helped me, the one with no power. You saved me, the one without any strength. And man, I don't know what I would do if you hadn't been here to

counsel me, because I have no wisdom of my own. But here you are counseling me and giving me the sound knowledge, fixing all of my theological problems with your five-verse response. Yeah, I mean, this is like saying, man, now that you put it that way, I mean, I feel saved and wise. Yeah, strong. Thankfully, you are in my life to give me what I needed. so uh that's the opening uh sarcastic uh rebuttal on the part of part of job and he does have one more thing to say i guess it's really uh the first four verses uh his sarcasm is going to continue into the next verse where he says and i'm adding the the tell me build that but tell me build that with whose help have you uttered words and whose breath has come out from you

it's almost like uh i mean obviously you must be inspired that can't be your own breath that's exiting your mouth this must be the words of the spirit that have inspired you to say these this this sound knowledge this wisdom that is uh coming out of your out of your mouth yeah i mean it must be you sound like an angel i mean i just can't i just can't get over how good that was yeah so that's that's his opening uh opening response uh opening rhetorical volley against against Bildad. Now he's going to kind of shift the tone a bit. So there's some things in here which are similar to the Genesis account, many of which were different, but we'll get into that next week. We're going to have him talk about how you have Sheol and Abaddon. He's going to talk

about the earth hanging on nothing, which is a pretty cool image for the Bible to use. So a lot of creation kind of things coming up here, and we'll unpack all of that when we pick up the conversation this coming episode. All right. Well, that is it. We will find out. We're going to hear a lot from Job in the coming weeks. We have weeks of words out of Job's mouth coming up, so hopefully you will stick around for that. Chad, I will see you next week. All right. See you then. We'll see you next time.