40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Job 31:1-40 (Episode 412)

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

Job talks about making a covenant with his eyes. He has not done anything evil. He has not failed to do what was right. He has not worshipped falsely. And he has not rejoiced in the downfall of those who hate him. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 1517 Podcasts The 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 on Youtube What's New from 1517: Remembering Rod Rosenbladt New 1517 Academy Course: The Early Church: Christ, Controversies and Characters with Bruce Hillman Preorder: Encouragement for Motherhood Edited by Katie Koplin Available Now: Be Thou My Song by Kerri Tom Here We Still Stand 2023 Videos are Available on YouTube Last Chance: NWA Conference May 3rd-4th More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

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we very much appreciate those of you who do that Chad, we are in Job 31. The title of the chapter is Job's Final Appeal, so we're coming down to Job making some final arguments here. Last week, you know, Job was starting to get a little melancholy, you know, he definitely was starting to think back on the good old days and how those days are gone, and God does not seem to be treating him the way that he used to, and he only knows how to sing sad songs now you know he if he tries to sing any kind of song besides that it just ends up being a sad song and uh you know he's he's hanging out with ostriches

apparently and if you don't know that reference you have to you have to go back uh that one i think i think that one has been lost to us i don't think we know exactly uh just doesn't work with us anymore doesn't work uh but apparently if your buddies are ostriches that's who you're hanging out with then you're in a joe blake situation pretty bad place yeah yeah just you know line doesn't make it into country songs anymore no it doesn't yeah lost my truck lost my girlfriend just hanging out with ostriches that would be funny if you had like a really sad song a country artist should do this if you're listening to this country artist you don't have to put that line in the song it can just be like a really sad song about losing everything

and you should just title it The Companion of Ostriches. The Ostriches. And everyone would be like, why is this song called this? Yeah, well, maybe somebody out there is a country artist. They'll take you up on it.

Yeah, so the last couple chapters, Job, first of all, thought back to the good old days, as you indicated, and then he sings his country song in chapter 30. And in this final chapter, It's not the last time Job will speak because, of course, he has a couple of responses after God begins to speak to him.

But this is the last of his long speeches, I guess we could say. This is the final of the speeches between Job and his three friends. And we're going to have a surprise newcomer in the next chapter who has a lot to say. And no one's going to talk back to him at all. He's going to be completely ignored. In fact, he's not going to come up at the last chapter. God's not going to talk about him. Job's not going to respond to him whatsoever. So we're going to meet this new character when we get to Job chapter 32. But first of all, Job chapter 31 is what's sometimes called among biblical scholars a negative confession.

And it basically follows the form of, if I have done X, then let Y befall me. So it's not simply saying, I'm not a murderer, I'm not a thief, I'm not an adulterer, I'm not whatever it might be. He is in the most emphatic sort of way saying, if I have done such and such, or if I behaved in such a way, Or even if I have, within my heart, thought certain things or desired certain things, then let such and such happen to me. Now, it doesn't follow that exact form throughout the entirety of the chapter, but that's the basic overall pattern. In fact, I was checking this morning, and the Hebrew particle, which is just im, that's translated if ordinarily, occurs 17 times in this chapter. and 16 16 of those are translated if so just going to give you a flavor for this begins in verse 5 if i have walked with falsehood verse 7 if my step has turned aside verse 9 if my heart

has been enticed verse 13 if i have rejected the cause of my of my servants so on and so forth so you have 16 of those throughout the entire chapter in which job is talking about basically his ethical purity his his life of righteousness that we heard a lot about back in chapter 29 but he's going to start out here in these opening opening the opening verse and then really opening us four verses by kind of setting the stage initially by talking about his refraining from in fact that's too weak of a term not just refraining from lust but making a covenant with his eyes so that he would not would not lost so that's the way it starts out i'll read the first four verses if i excuse not if i have made a covenant with my eyes how then could i gaze at

a virgin what would be my portion from god above and my heritage from the almighty on high is not calamity for the unrighteous and disaster for the workers of iniquity does not he see my ways and number all my steps so this the verb that's translated here is how then could i gaze at a virgin uh that's translated a lot of different ways in fact it's occurred several different times even in the book of even in the book of job um just if in fact in the last chapter verse 20 has i cry to you for help and you do not answer me i stand this job talking to god i stand and you only look at me. That's the same Hebrew verb, same verbal form.

So it carries the idea of looking intensely, looking closely. Here, of course, he's talking about not just looking intensely or looking closely at a virgin, but looking with some sort of lustful intent, which is often the way this is translated. So that's the way it starts out. Job is saying, listen, I have not even taken my eyes and directed them to look closely at a young woman so as to lust after her. So he phrases this in the strongest of ways with this idea of an eye

covenant so that he will not look at her. And of course, this is reflected even, of course, in the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus talks about looking at a woman to lust after her and having already committed adultery with her in your in your heart then he follows that up with saying you know basically if i did well then i would deserve the kind of things that god talks about in that he talks about in verse three so calamity and disaster because god sees our ways and numbers all our steps so that's kind of setting the tone for the rest of the chapter that is to come i'm pretty sure this is where you remember the um i think it is i don't know if people are still doing this or not but they're back in the day there used to be like this uh software or something

you could load up on your computer called covenant eyes you remember that and uh oh yeah i i don't but yeah that has to be where that came from yeah block certain websites or whatever that you i think it's like you it sends like it'd be like i think i don't i don't know how it works something like if uh yeah like i get you to download it and i download it and then like we all we just know what everything oh okay i see like accountability yeah like i can see i can i can see your search history yeah or yeah yeah and you can see mine yeah that kind of a kind of ability yeah yeah probably probably so that's got to be where that name came from right oh yeah it's got to be where that name came from. And it's, you know, it's a, it's unique expression too. I don't know that

anything like that is said elsewhere in the scriptures. The idea of making a covenant with any body part, you know, make a covenant with my feet that they should not walk in the paths of unrighteousness or make a covenant with my hand that it should not work iniquity or my ears that they should not listen to slander, whatever it is. I don't remember any other biblical occurrence where you have a covenant, me making a covenant basically with myself so as to refrain from a certain behavior but uh yeah that is uh that's a background for this idea of covenant covenant eyes so that just that's kind of getting the chapter rolling uh now beginning with verse five he's going to shift into this framework of a negative confession so by i'll read five through

eight next if i have walked with falsehood and my foot has hastened to deceit let me be weighed and adjust balance and let god know my integrity so that verse is in parentheses and then he goes on if my step has turned aside from the way and my heart has gone after my eyes and if any spot has stuck to my hands so all of this kind of leading into so if i've done blank blank and blank verse eight then has the the then forming from this this if statement then let me so and another eat and let what grows for me be rooted out so this is i don't know if this is to be understood kind of literally in the sense of uh you know let my crops fail or if it's more metaphorical maybe it's a little bit a little bit of both but he's basically here saying if i have

acted with others falsely uh deceitfully you know if i have turned aside from the right and the proper and the the unselfish and the honest way and he describes this in different sorts of ways like his heart going after his eyes or spots sticking to his hand if any of that's happened well then let all my labors be in vain basically you know if i if i'm a farmer and i go out and work hard and plow and sow the seed and do all the things necessary well then let somebody else come along and harvest that and eat it uh in fact even let what grows from me be rooted out so my crops be be ruined in some way so this is job stating in the strongest possible terms that he has not done these things of course she's calling an imprecation upon himself a curse upon himself

if he has in fact done any of this and of course the the logical conclusion to his words is that he has not done any of this. So that's the way that starts out. What's interesting about some of this, though, is that based on his friend's arguments about how this God works, and like, hey, Job, you must be unrighteous because all this stuff is happening to you, you do wonder as he's saying this stuff, like, hey, if I've done this, let bad things happen to me. If his friends were like, that's what we've been saying, dude, if bad things are happening to you. That's what we've been saying for the last 30 chapters, do you, Job? Take a look around,

right? If I had done anything bad, it meant all my crops would be destroyed. And they're like, well, they were. You're not helping your argument here, Joe. So that's the first if-then, or the first couple of if-thens. Now, the second section, or third section, however you want to number this, is going to revert back to to the lust part with which he began with the whole covenant eyes thing going on but here's going to focus upon uh not just kind of lusting after a virgin which is how

the chapter began but in uh committing adultery with his with his neighbor's wife and here's how he frames that if my heart has been enticed toward a woman and if i have lain in wait at my neighbor's door then let my wife grind for another and let others bow down on her for that for that and i'm thinking that that is referring back to adultery if he's committed adultery for that would be a heinous crime and that would be an iniquity to be punished by the judges for that would be a fire that consumes as far as abaddon and it would burn to the root of all my increase so here he's saying uh and it's not in just notice this it's not just saying if i have committed adultery like literally physically but even talks about if his heart has been enticed toward a woman again that's

kind of that you begin to pick up on the fact that what jesus says in the sermon on the mount where he can get to the very root cause of all these external sins i mean that's reflected it already in the old testament it wasn't jesus wasn't the first to say you can commit adultery in your heart job already says that right here so if if i've done that if i have had adulterous desires or if i have committed and laying in wait at my neighbor's door is just of course it's the idea that uh he's waiting for his neighbor to leave so he can go in and commit adultery with his neighbor's wife if i've done that he says then let my wife grind for another let others bow down on her uh grinding here is most likely all the scholars i've checked on this uh understand

this as a sexual euphemism i mean you do grind grain of course with stones and whatnot but this is probably nothing but a sexual euphemism that you used here especially when you have the second part of that verse saying let others bow down on her so in other words kind of a eye for an eye type deal lex talionis if i have committed adultery with another man's wife well then let another man or other men commit adultery with my wife. So kind of eye for eye, adultery for adultery going on here. You know what's weird is that I think that we had, I don't think we talked about this on the show, but there are certainly some rabbis and or just other commentators that, you know, will make this distinction between, you

like Christians and Judaism, and say that the big distinction is that Jesus comes along and all of a sudden your desires and the things you think about and stuff can be sin. Whereas before that, it didn't matter if you had any of those things. All that matters is what you did. So no sin is committed until there's an action. And that's just not the case. and you did not, it's not true that Jesus came along and then just like, now, it might be true that the people had not been taught that, they weren't hearing that. I mean, Jesus says, you have

heard it said this, but I say this, and certainly that this was not like an explicit thing that was being taught by like the, you know, the scribes or the Pharisees or anything like that. But the fact that it's entirely new and didn't exist uh in the old testament is just not true well no i mean i don't know uh maybe this came up in the discussion that you heard but i mean how do they even get away from thou shalt not covet yeah i mean coveting is not uh an external act i believe they said disposition they i believe that the argument that did come up and the argument was well, a covenant is not a sin until you take something that doesn't belong to you

and you're like, well, that's a different command that was before that. That would be stealing. That's redundant. Yeah. Right. Yeah, I mean, even the covenant is already and rightly that's the end

of the Ten Commandments as it were, kind of grabbing everything and saying, yeah, well, you shouldn't commit these external acts but the problem originates way before then it's in the coveting the covetous desire this is well this is why paul picks that one you know like so like when paul's explaining what the law did to him he doesn't say the law said don't steal and that's when i realized because maybe he could just not steal you know maybe he was able to pull that off or whatever that's not that's not the example

uses is when the law says don't covet it produced all kinds of covetousness in me why does he use that one well that's because that's an internal thing right that's the thing that he was like what okay i read that and was i maybe up until that point i was able to deceive myself and be like check check check check check and then it said don't covet and i was like oh yeah good luck with that one yeah yeah so i mean what jesus is doing the sermon of the mount is uh he's not as it were taking the law a step further he's showing the law always took a step further yeah it always pointed toward the interior will and desire whether that's lust or greed or hate or anything else i mean that's that's where all of this originates that's the seed that bears fruit

in the external actions. You don't emit external actions unless it's a rash action, you know, unless there's been some thought or desire in your heart with regard to this. Well, and even Jesus saying, you have heard it said, but I say, well, who is he?

Well, he's the guy that originally said. So, I mean, you know, it's not like he's saying something new. It's that if I wrote something, because, you know, if God, I've said this before, you know, if God has a finger, it belongs to Jesus. So, I mean, if he's carving something in stone with his finger, that's the finger of Christ.

But if I write something, and then some other people go out there and start teaching the thing that I wrote, and then I come along later and say, hey, you've been hearing from these teachers, they say this, but I say this about the thing that I originally said. All I'm doing is telling you what the actual intent of the thing is, right? Mm-hmm, yeah. yep and also i mean this is a bit of a bit of a side side tangent but he who gave the law can also abrogate it for instance i mean he can say he can declare certain foods clean and unclean as he did then he can also come along with the gospels and declare all foods clean which he also

did it's that's the prerogative of of the lawgiver to to take certain temporary laws that were given only to the people of Israel, and then to say, okay, that was certainly in effect under this covenant, and now it's no longer in effect, because things have changed. Same thing with circumcision. Same thing with other ceremonial laws. You might want to pull your ox

out of a pit, even on Saturday. Even on Saturday, that's right. So anyway, that's a section on lust and adultery. Verse 12 says that would be a fire that consumes as far as Abaddon. We have talked about that word before. it just a i don't say i want to say just uh a synonym for shoal because it has a more sinister

negative connotation to it but here it seems to be used as basically that same kind of meaning abaddon is it literally in hebrew means the place of destruction so uh be a fire that consumes down to this place of destruction verse 13 is going to pick up with uh but joe basically saying if if he has uh acted in such a way that is unjust i guess is one way that you could summarize this do you think it's do you think it's this chat i've always thought that he makes the transition here so you have the you have a distinction between like sins of omission and sins of commission so here like for job starts we're saying like i haven't done these bad things and now he's moving and says not only have i not done these bad things but i also have not failed to do good things

yeah that's perfect yeah that's exactly what's going on here because he says if i have rejected the cause of my manservant and my maidservant when they brought a complaint against me. What then shall I do when God rises up? When he makes inquiry, what shall I answer him? Did not he, I love this line, this is verse 15,

did not he who made me in the womb make him, that is to say my servant? Did not he who made me in the womb also make my servant? And did he not, and did not one fashion us in the womb?

that's a that's a powerful verse that indicates that already in the old testament you had this idea that it doesn't matter what your station in life is whether you are the master or the servant you share a common humanity because god made one as well as as well as the other so he i hear he's saying listen if if i have servants just like of course all almost any one of means had slaves or servants in the ancient world uh not just in the ancient world but i mean this is of course common throughout world history so if but job is saying listen i yes i i have these manservants and i have these maidservants but they were not treated as just kind of property because if they had a you know if they had a an issue they thought that i was uh not taking care

of them or they thought that i was mistreating them or they thought that i was withholding something from them that, that they needed, whatever the, the cause might be, or the complaint might be. Job is saying, when they brought that to me, then I listened and I acted on that. And he's saying, you know, if I, if I didn't, then, uh, where would I go when God rises up in judgment against me? And when he makes inquiry with regard to me, I, there's no way that i could answer him so he acts job acts toward them with a an understanding that they are to be treated as those who share his common humanity so it's kind of a doing to others as you would have them do unto you golden rule kind of approach to dealing with people that job could

have taken advantage of because after all they were his servants but he did not instead he treated them as uh human equals with regard to their their complaints so that's uh 13 through 15 he's going to continue if i have withheld anything that the poor desired or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail or have eaten my morsel alone and the fatherless has not eaten of it and then this is another parentheses in verse 18. For from my youth, the fatherless grew up with me as with a father. And from my mother's womb, I guided the widow. There's a hyperbolic statement. I wasn't even born yet. Listen, listen, people. I was not even born yet, and I was already taking care of the widow. I was helping widows in utero. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So that's verse 18. Go on here.

If I have seen anyone perish for lack of clothing, or the needy without covering, if his body has not blessed me, or if he was not warmed with the fleece of my sheep, if I have raised my hand against the fatherless because I saw his help in the gate, then let my shoulder blade fall from my shoulder, and let my arm be broken from its socket. For I was in terror of calamity from God, and I could not have faced his majesty. that's a long section that's uh 17 through through 2023 but it's all basically saying or 16 through 23 excuse me it this is job's way of saying if anyone who was economically disadvantaged or was in such a situation where they could easily have been taken advantage of

such as widows or orphans if those kinds of people in those kinds of desperate situations needed something from me well then i gave it to them i took care of them i gave to the poor when the eyes of the widow were looking toward me i took care of them he says from my youth the fatherless grew up with me as with the father so he's he's he's emphasizing the fact that those who were in need were met with their need by him over and over whoever they they might have been And in fact, they blessed him because of the way that he took care of them. We have a clear lex talionis, eye for an eye, thing going on here in verse 21 and 22. Because he says, if I have raised my hand against the fatherless, then he goes on.

So if he's used his hand in the wrong sort of way, evil or sinister sort of way. Then, verse 22, let my shoulder blade fall from my shoulder. Let my arm be broken from his socket. So it's not even becoming an eye for an eye, but it's like a shoulder blade for a hand and an arm for a hand. He takes it up a step, as it were. If my hand is done wrong, then let my whole arm perish, in other words. So another section where he's talking more about kind of sins of commission rather than sins of omission. Yeah, yeah, this is a—you've probably been in these situations, right?

Where you're talking to someone, I don't know, maybe they don't believe you or something, and you say, like, if I'm lying, God can strike me dead. Strike me dead, yeah. So my dad, Job's over here. If I've done this, let my shoulder blade fall off. It's a graphic image. Yeah, just slide right off, huh? Yeah, but this is all Job's saying.

I'm righteous in the sense that I haven't done bad things, but I'm also righteous in the sense that I have not failed to do any of the things that I ought to do. so this is i just sort of because it'd be easy if you're i don't know if joe joe was a guy of means and he had a lot of power and stuff and just say like hey man i was cool like i didn't go around doing bad things i was just living in my place and uh minding my own business but no joe wasn't minding his own business joe was out there tending to the business of other people that's That's his whole argument.

He's like, no, no, I didn't just sit around and be innocent, but I actually was out there doing righteous deeds. Yeah, I mean, I like these sections of Job because it demonstrates that he was not only a willing, but almost kind of a joyful, you might even say a zealous patron of people that needed his help. He didn't just simply refrain from evil, but he went out of his way to do good. And in that way, I mean, it really paints the picture of Job that we are given in Job chapter 1, where he's not only blameless, he's not only righteous, but, you know, remember back then he was like praying for his kids.

What if they curse God in their hearts? You know, he's doing everything that he can to make sure that he cares for his family and for other people also. well okay so 20 well there's this now you're going to see like a different transition right so you had like i didn't do bad things i didn't fail to do good things and now like and it's interesting that he this is sort of he's trying to he kind of goes to this next because this would be this is a big one even though you might think like this one is not as big as the rest but job understands that okay uh well maybe my worship was messed up uh so maybe i was an idolater. So maybe I could not do bad things. I could do good things. Maybe I was like, maybe

my worship was wrong. Was I worshiping the wrong things? Did I have a wrong view of God? And that's what Job said. No, it wasn't an idolater either. No, he says, verse 24 through 28, if I have made gold my trust, or called fine gold my confidence, if I have rejoiced because my wealth was abundant or because my hand had found much so there you have more of a focus upon like material stuff so his gold his fine gold his wealth all these things and by trust i mean that's that's just for so for us chad we would say like what does it mean to to have an idol means to like trust in something other than god right yeah to use new testament language here he's saying if i have made mammon my god is basically what he's what he's saying in these first couple of

verses and then he's going to he's going to build on the same idea of of idolatry except it's going to be it's going to shift uh to uh like solar idolatry and worshiping the sun or or or the moon which was hugely hugely popular in the ancient world because he goes on to say if i have looked at the sun when it shone or the moon moving in splendor and my heart has been secretly enticed and my mouth has kissed my hand i'll come back to that in a second so if all of that's happened then this also would be an iniquity to be punished by the judges for i would have been false to god above so he starts out with mammon kind of stuff gold fine gold wealth so if i've made that my trust that my god or if i have engaged in the worship of astral deities which is kind of what

is being described here with the sun and the moon the sun was in many different ancient cultures uh everywhere from mesopotamia to egypt uh all over canaan i mean the sun was was worshiped and you can kind of understand why i mean if you don't have the sun you don't have life and the so the sun was worshipped in a variety of different forms right different names and you have instances of sun worship happening in the old testament itself among the the israelites and so he's saying and if i've you know looked at them as basically gods and worship them and then he uses this language in my mouth has kissed my hand it's it's a bit of a enigma there is a verse in hosea which talks about kissing the cabs these would be the the golden cabs that they had in the northern kingdom

under hosea so this is some sort of some sort of worship that involves i don't know it's throwing kisses or literally kissing a statue or whatever it is this is some sort of ritual pose that's connected with idolatry when he talks about my mouth kissing my hand he says if i've done all that if i've if engage in idolatry then he says this also would be an iniquity to be punished by the judges now that that same line was used a few verses earlier back in verse 11 to describe what he would deserve should he engage in adultery so that shouldn't be any surprise because if there's any two sins which are basically two sides of the same coin uh in from the biblical perspective, it's idolatry and adultery. Of course, you know, idolatry is frequently described

as engaging in adulterous actions, you know, going whoring after other gods. So he uses that exact same line in verse 11 and verse 28, one having to do with adultery, one having to do with idolatry, because of course, in the biblical perspective, these are nothing more than different manifestations of the same thing you know you know chad if you uh if you if you haven't done the bad things and you haven't failed to do the good things and uh and you're worshiping the right god well maybe this is it maybe you have maybe you rejoice uh you don't do anything you don't bring anything about, but maybe you get some satisfaction when people that hate you, maybe some people that have been evil to you, not people that you hate, but people have hated you, maybe

you get a little satisfaction when bad things happen to them. And so maybe this is the sin, the smallest of all sins, where you maybe revel a little bit in the fall of those who are your enemy or hate you. Maybe Job is, maybe that's what he's done. Yeah, I think these transitions are really interesting because you're like, okay. Because like, you know, imagine you have someone that hates you.

And then, you know, things don't go well for them. And Job was like, now normally it would be a natural thing to be like, well, I mean, it doesn't hurt my feelings. That person that hated me was tough, you know, whatever.

Maybe they say terrible things about you or whatever. But Job's going to address that. He's not unrighteous in that way either. No, no, this will be verse 29 and following. The Germans have this wonderful word for this, schadenfreude, rejoicing over the misfortune of others, especially people that are in some way against you. Yeah, so this is biblical schadenfreude going on here.

If I have rejoiced at the ruin of him who hated me, or exalted when evil overtook him again, a parentheses. I have not let my mouth sin by asking for his life of the curse. He goes on. If the men in my tent have not said who is there that has not been filled with his meat, the sojourner has not lodged in the street. I've opened my doors to the traveler. If I have concealed my transgressions as others do now in the Hebrew, this is literally as like Adam did. So if I've concealed my transgressions, like Adam did by hiding my iniquity in my heart because I stood in great fear of the multitude and the contempt of families terrified me so that I kept silence and did not go out of doors.

So it's kind of leaves off. There is no like then to this statement. This kind of breaks the formula here. He doesn't say if I've done all this, then let some disaster befall me. But you get the point uh if i've engaged in the delight over the downfall of others even people who hated me or as he says in some of the other verses if there's been anybody who lives in kind of my house he pictured it pictures it here as a tent but you know my property my area if there's been anyone who has gone hungry or anyone who's been turned away from my door when they needed a place to stay uh if i've not confessed my transgressions when they needed to be confessed and in all of that uh then it kind of assumed the then is coming then let some sort of punishment befall me

so that finishes uh at least most of the if then he's got one more at the end but before he gets there he's uh going to basically kind of formalize this negative confession by as it were at least least verbally signing this agreement it's like he's written this all down he's got listen i am so i am so sincere here that i'm going to put my john henry right on this verbal document that i've just uh given to you he says oh that i had one to hear me here is my signature let the almighty answer me oh that i had the indictment written by my adversary surely i would carry it on my shoulder i would bind it on me as a crown i would give him an account of all my steps like a prince i would approach him yeah so this is uh this is job uh kind of doubling down on everything

saying listen if uh i've signed this here's my signature literally in hebrew that's my uh my my towel so this is in this is the the in paleo hebrew so in like the older way that hebrew was written in the the old style of hebrew this looked like a uh a cross or a t that the tau that's a final letter of the hebrew alphabet if you if you remember back in ezekiel 9 when uh there's going to be an angel that goes through the city of jerusalem and puts a mark on the foreheads of the men who don't engage in idolatry that that's the same word that's used there it's a tau so a t or a cross uh but it's also kind of used in the sense of you make your mark your signature, and that's what's used here. So here is my towel, here's my signature on this document.

He says, if there's an indictment against me, then he kind of wore it as a scarlet letter. I'd carry it on my shoulder, right? I'd bind it as a crown on my head, if such a document were produced, an indictment were produced against me. Yeah, I mean, Job is speaking with a lot of confidence here. I mean, he's basically saying that he would march right up to God, like he is some kind of prince, and know that there isn't—and here's one of the things I like. Job here is not saying that he's not a sinner, but he is saying that, like, I haven't done any of these things, and this is how you would generally describe me. And what is also true is, like, I would walk up to God with confidence, because Job does not believe,

even though it seems to be the case. I would walk up to him knowing that I had not a single unconfessed sin. Like, I've hidden nothing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's important to remember that, because people do sometimes get the impression that Job is saying he's sinless. He's not. In fact, he's confessed his sins more than once in the book, right?

Yeah. He's just saying that, listen, I'm harboring some kind of secret unconfessed sin. uh i've i've told god about all this and then he finishes this out with uh 38 through 40 and this is it i mean this is the the last of his words within these long drawn out speeches that we've been covering these last few weeks or months how long it's been if my land has cried out against me and its furrows have wept together if i have eaten its yield without payment and made its owners breed their last let thorns grow instead of wheat and foul weeds instead of barley seems a strange way to end doesn't it yeah like you would have ended the with the previous section

here but this is the way he finally shifts kind of to the land and to its uh even its furrows and basically saying listen you know if even the land i've talked about people i've talked about neighbors i've talked about servants i've talked about the poor i've talked about all these various people he's like listen if even the land has an issue with me if the furrows of the land have an issue with me then uh then let me receive my my due recompense because of whatever wrong that i have committed so that's why he's going to wrap this up and then finally we have uh these six words this is the very end of job 31 the words of job are ended this is he has rested his case and what a case what a case it's been now the of course the book isn't over uh in the very next

chapter says that not only did joe talk stop talking but his three friends also stopped talking but a fourth guy i mean a fifth guy comes it up that uh we're gonna hear a lot about because he's got several speeches to come fell in by the name of elihu but elihu's gonna have to uh bide his time until next episode since our 40 minutes is up yeah elihu's gonna gonna bust in here and he's upset with everybody he's mad yeah yeah he's uh he's not he's not angry he's not on anyone's side he's he's upset with job he's upset with i think he does think that job's three friends are not wise i guess he's pretty frustrated with their ignorance and uh their inability to to get this job done. And so, uh, yeah, we're going to, we're going to hear from him and, uh, we'll hear

from him while everyone else seemingly ignores him, but, uh, we'll, we'll hear what he has to say. Right. Right. All right, man. I'll see you next week. All right. See you then. Oh, oh, oh, oh.