40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Job 40:6-42:17 (Episode 419)

Episode Date: June 5, 2024

Chad and Daniel take some extra time to finish the book of Job. God continues to speak to Job. Job acknowledges that he does not fully understand the wisdom of God. Job retracts his case. God has words for Job's friends. And Job is restored. Have a listen.  Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network Fundraiser! 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Available Now: Encouragement for Motherhood Edited by Katie Koplin Pre-order: Hitchhiking with Prophets: A Ride Through the Salvation Story of the Old Testament by Chad Bird 30 Minutes in the NT on Youtube Remembering Rod Rosenbladt Available Now: Be Thou My Song by Kerri Tom More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

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and you would like to become a supporter, we would encourage you to do that. All right, no more things to talk about. We are making a commitment, Chad. We are here in Job 40. We have committed now to finish the book of Job today. And so that means that however long that takes, I don't think it's going to take too much longer than 40 minutes. Maybe we can do it in 40 minutes.

We are going to get through it. And so where are we at? Well, Job has heard from the Lord. The Lord has asked Job a bunch of kind of rhetorical questions. It almost seems like maybe the answer to all of them is no. Like, hey, were you around for this? No, I wasn't. Do you know how this happens?

No, I don't. That seems to be what it was. Job's answer to God is very short. He says, look, I'm of small account. I probably shouldn't answer you. In fact, I'm going to put my hand over my mouth here, just to make sure I don't blurt anything out. And I've spoken once, I'm not going to talk again. I'm not going to answer twice, that's not going to be what I do.

But the Lord doesn't just say, okay, good, that's good with me. The Lord has more to say. So it says, the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind. So the whirlwind is going to speak to Job once again. yeah yeah god's uh joe might be done speaking but yeah god's god's got uh quite a bit more to say actually so we'll we'll pick it up here with job 40 verse 7 and in this first part he's going to basically ask job if he is mighty enough if he is uh god-like enough to quell the wicked more or so he says first of all starts out by saying to gird up your loins which esv translates as

dress for action like a man dude i don't i don't like i don't like this at all like i mean i like it but if god like give you this big whole thing about like where were you when this happened do you understand how this thing goes on and like when you know goats are given birth uh a thousand miles away can you tell me exactly when that happened and how it happened you're like no no i can't he's like what are you saying you're like nothing i like i'm gonna shut up now you're right i don't know what i'm doing i'm just gonna say nothing from this this point forward and then god's like act like a man and you're like oh that's not the answer i want this is that's not a good beginning no i know i'd be like i feel like i was trying to acknowledge that you're right

you're right you're right and he's like and then like it's almost like i don't know this is it but It's almost like Job gives this sort of meek response, like, okay, I'm a small account. I'm nothing. And then God says, knock that off. Act like a man. We're having the face-to-face that you wanted. That's the best you can do. Yeah, don't be coming in here with that kind of response.

I've been listening to you for all these chapters talking, and that's the best you got? Come on. I've heard you talk. Man up, Job. You asked for this. powerful rhetoric that you've been spewing out for all these chapters come on gird up your loins jobe yeah it's almost like god i read this like stop stuttering uh yeah i heard you being all eloquent before you wanted uh you wanted your day in court well here it is buddy here we are

so stand up let's hear it he says uh he said goes on to say i will question you and you make it known to me. Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? I kind of like to hear that is, will you call into question my management of the universe? Yeah. Kind of something along those lines. Then he goes on to from in verse nine to say, have you an arm like God? So this is as God often does speaking of himself in the third person. Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like His? Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity. Clothe yourself with glory and splendor.

Pour out the overflowings of your anger, and look on everyone who is proud, and abase him. Look on everyone who is proud, and bring him low, and tread down the wicked where they stand. Hide them all in the dust together. Bind their faces in the world below. and then this is this is my insertion here when you have done all that then god says i will also acknowledge to you that your own right hand can save you so joe all you got to do is clothe yourself like god you know majesty dignity glory splendor and then uh you can pour out the overflowing of your anger you can look on everybody who's full of full of themselves

you can bring them low you can uh take all the wicked and bury them in the dust literally hide them in the dust and bind their faces in the world below which nobody seems to know what exactly that means but i mean you're literally it's verse 13 is hide them there's two there's two uses of the same hebrew verb which you can't see in translation here it's a tamon is the verb so it'd be something like, hide them all in the dust together, bind their faces in the hidden place. So same, whatever it is, the hidden place would be like Sheol. So if you can do all that, God says to Job, well then I will gladly acknowledge that your own right hand can save you. But of course, you know, this is impossibility. When God answers Job, like, sometimes it's a little shocking. If there

is a rebuke to Job, to me it would seem that the rebuke would be, and is, that if Job could just talk to God and God would explain things to him, then Job could understand, and God is saying, that's not the way it is. Just because God may explain something to you doesn't mean that you would be able to understand it, right? So you're not like me, Job. I could spend all day trying to explain to you why this happened, and you still wouldn't be able to wrap your head around it. This section of God's response I hear is God basically saying to Job that he is, he's number one, the judge, the judge of all, and it's certainly the judge of the wicked, but then also that he is the savior of those who, who believe in him. I mean, that's the kind of

the, that verse 14, then I also will acknowledge you that your own right, the right hand can save you. So it's like God is saying to Job, listen, you wanted your, your day in court. You wanted to, you wanted to talk to me. And so I'm talking to you now. And I've just described, of course, my omnipotence and the creation of all these animals and my intricate knowledge of their ways. But alongside that, I'm also the judge of the living and the dead. And I'm the one who's able to bring down the wicked, but I'm also the one who's able to save. And so it's kind of like, for me, it's filling out in greater detail, the God's own portrayal of himself to Job, that yeah, he's the creator, but he's also the judge and he's the savior. He's all of these

things. And of course, Job is not. But kind of implicit in this part of God's message to Job is that he's the one who is at work in the lives of every single human being to judge, to discipline, to save, to do all of those things, and so his activity in the life of Job involves that as well, whether Job can perceive that or not. Yeah, and I suppose maybe an implication of—I mean, because I don't think Job would ever imply that he could save himself, but maybe a little bit by saying, oh, if I could just bring my case to God, that I could convince him that he should save me is a form of saving yourself. Like, I could save myself with my defense. oh sure yeah yeah i could argue myself into god's justification yeah something something

along those lines yeah this is a uh we'll move on but this is a unique part of god's response to job because most of what god says to job is just his description of his creation of either this long list of animals or the two coming up in a minute behemoth and leviathan so this was a this is a different section within God's response to Job, which really focuses upon his work as judge and savior, two things of which Job cannot do. Okay, so verse 15 takes us to the shorter of these two creatures that are about to be described. The first of these is behemoth, and the second of these is Leviathan. Now, we could spend probably three podcasts, Dan, three episodes talking about all of the various commentaries, books, monographs, dissertations,

you name it, that have been written on the identification of these two animals. Of course, we're not going to do that because we're finishing Job today, but just very briefly. so uh behemoth is uh sometimes called a plural of intensification is a it is a hebrew plural behemah is is the singular and as a singular it's common reference to animals in general especially to beast or to cattle it's using the plural here although every reference to behemoth after this is in reference to a particular kind of creature not to a plurality of creatures and So for that reason, it's often, even though it's grammatically a plural, it's sometimes called a plural of intensification.

So what is this? Well, you got the main view is that behemoth is in fact, uh, the Egyptian hippopotamus. Like you survey the literature and by and large, that is the, the animal that comes up over and over. Uh, some people have pointed to an elephant. Uh, some people say, well, it's an extinct creature. and then there's another there's another party out there that claims that not only behemoth but also leviathan are actually uh mythical creatures so i i kind of land in the middle here i believe

that both behemoth and leviathan are actual creatures behemoth is probably hippopotamus and leviathan is probably a crocodile but the way that they're described is often kind of overlaid with very hyperbolic and at times mythological kind of language so they're probably this is just my opinion they're probably both creatures probably hippopotamus and a crocodile but the way they're described is well like a lot of hebrew poetry it's exaggerated it's hyperbolic and there's certainly plenty plenty of things especially with leviathan which almost seem is kind of supernatural or mythological a dragon like at times in fact when leviathan is described in fact the the septuagint described the septuagint translated leviathan as with a greek word for

dragon and you'll understand why when we get we get to that section but anyway we're not going to be able to kind of dwell on all of the various details that are given here and i don't really think that's the point. It's kind of the overall picture that God paints that's important of both of these creatures. So anyway, that's just kind of introduction to, actually, to both of these sections. Anything you want to add to that for our read? Only that it doesn't matter that much. I think what you're supposed to take away from this is that God is going to point out two things that are, you know, two parts of His creation. So one of the reasons I don't think that they're like probably mythological is because like god seems to be leaning pretty hard

into like the world that he has created and it seems like what he's doing here is pointing to i mean it'd be like if if we were saying okay what is an animal that you could look at that would make you feel small uh and and certainly powerless right so you might say i don't know look at an elephant look at uh you know uh look at a shark i don't know whatever it is and you're like, look at these things, okay? You can actually see these things. You can examine them. Yeah, yeah.

And so, like, yeah. So what they are doesn't really matter, but the point is, like, behemoth is sort of a... You know we use that word. We're talking about something very large, so I don't know. Elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, whatever. Like, something large and powerful.

That's what we're talking about, and God is going to point that out to you. And He's going to say, which I made. And so I think that this, which I made, I don't think God is playing a trick here. Okay, let me put it this way.

You don't need, God doesn't need to point to a griffin when the hippopotamus exists. If he's just trying to point to something huge and powerful, right? You don't have to, God made plenty of huge, powerful things that he doesn't have to point to something made up.

Behold the unicorn. Yeah, doesn't need to do that. Like, he made plenty of things that are, like, when you go to a zoo sometime and, like, go look at some animals, you're like, okay. I went to the zoo not that long ago for spring break. And, like, yeah, you look at rhinoceroses and, I mean, I had, like, this giraffe eating out of my hand. And you're like, it was, like, the biggest giraffe I've ever seen. But it was a huge fence. And he could get his neck, like, all the way down over the fence and then into my hand, which I don't think he was supposed to be able to do.

But he was so freaking tall that he could do it. and you're like, what is this? Yeah. God has a sense of humor. Yeah, like who would design an animal with a neck this long? Yeah, the animal world makes you just both in awe of God and also just kind of laugh. Yeah.

Things are just kind of funny. Animals are hilarious, like we talked about in the last episode with the ostrich. Yeah, and so I think that's the point, and I think if you go to something that doesn't exist, you miss i think that that misses the point it contradicts yeah the rhetorical goal can't be accomplished if it's not something you can actually see and observe in nature or at least hear reports of people who have seen interacted with with these animals okay so the the first

is relatively short begins at verse 15 and goes through the end of the chapter which is which is verse 24. So I'll just read this entire description. Behold behemoth, which I made as I made you. He eats grass like an ox. Behold, his strength is in his loins and his power in the muscles of his belly. He makes his tail stiff like a cedar. The sinews of his thighs are knit together. His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like bars of iron. He is the first of the works of God. Let him who made him bring near his sword. For the mountains yield food for him, where all the wild beasts play. Under the lotus plants he lies, in the shelter of the reeds and in the marsh. For his shade the lotus trees cover him, the willows of the brook surround him. Behold, if the river is

turbulent, he isn't frightened. He is confident, though Jordan rushes against his mouth. Can one take him by his eyes or pierce his nose with a snare. And then that's where it ends. So it seemed like there's a lot more that could be said, especially when you read this long description of Leviathan that's coming up. But yeah, I mean, first of all, just the entire rhetorical effect of this description is supposed to elicit from Job or from anybody else who reads it kind of a wow, what a fantastic creature this is. He's called the first of the, literally first of the ways of God. And so this, I find this pretty fascinating. I'm not sure exactly what to do with it, but that same language is used in Proverbs 8.22 to describe wisdom. Wisdom says,

the lord possessed me the literally the ray sheet in hebrew the ray sheet of his of his ways and uh so same words are used here in the hebrew to describe the the behemoth so perhaps perhaps i want to accent that there's also kind of a parallel here where you have uh this animal as a visible display the wisdom of god this is a way of god showing you not just these wise in the sense of smart, but that his wisdom is incarnate, as it were, in this kind of magnificent creature that he has made, that has no fear, that can't be, certainly can't be tamed or be made into some just domestic creature, but that he's impressive, mighty, and maybe not the king of the beast, but pretty close to the top.

Yeah, it's like saying the wisdom of God is, hey, you're going to trap it? You're going to, you know— You're going to make this your pet? Is it—you're going to be able to scare it, right? You're going to be able to teach it anything? No, you're not going to do that. This animal sounds like it has no predators, right? And, you know, it might lay down under some trees.

It might, like, just walk across a roaring river. It's not worried about it. The wisdom of God is like this. It's like unsaleable. There's nothing you're going to do to hurt it, to make it afraid, to change it. None of that stuff. You can't harness it and make it your own. There's a clip been going around the internet for the last few weeks, maybe months now.

Have you seen this where there's like a hippopotamus chasing a boat as it goes to the water? Yeah. like they're you know he's getting away but every time i watch i'm like man no thank you i don't know if these numbers are true but you read that up to 500 people die every year because you know hippos turn over their their boats or they bite them or crush them it's not a non-animal it's the third largest land animal in the world not an animal you want to mess with yeah it's weird i don't know if you ever seen like i mean even when they're just like oh that's cute and it's like a hippopotamus eating and they're taking like the most gigantic watermelon you've

ever seen and they just drop it in his mouth and he just like obliterates it like it's nothing and you're like we'd chew a apple or something yeah it's just nothing to them yeah and then you're like now imagine that's your dome you know but like what do you think's gonna happen if like you get a limb or worse your head in there yeah yeah so uh it's not because of sharp teeth or anything like that it's just it's like uh it's just pressure it's just sheer power right like it just explodes the watermelon he's got these dull teeth and stuff you know like it's not it's just just force yeah just precious it's like one of those you ever seen those uh you've seen those videos where they have like the compactor things like they're stick they stick all kinds of

different devices you know and it's just tremendous force until the thing blows up that's that's like designed after the hippopotamus like after their mouth the mouth of the hippo yeah a couple things here i'll point out uh first of all he he begins this by saying to job behold behemoth which i made as i made you so he's accenting his his his position as creator but also not just the created a behemoth, but also I made you too, Job. So kind of keep that in mind. And then when it says he, in verse 19, he's the first

of the works of old, which I just referred to a couple minutes ago, doesn't necessarily mean first there. Rashid doesn't necessarily mean first in order. It can also mean like chief, I guess we might say, or preeminence. That's a possibility, although

it could also be an echo of Genesis 1, 24 where God says, let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, behemoth. So that's a singular of behemoth, which is usually translated as livestock. So this is the very first thing mentioned in that creation. So maybe it's an allusion to Genesis 124. Maybe it's simply talking about this being the chief of the works of God.

And then the second half of verse 19 is a bit puzzling. it says let him who made him bring near his sword well the one who made him be God why God would be bringing a sword to behemoth is a bit of a conundrum except perhaps God

if God wanted to if there was one person who could actually take a sword and take down a hippo it's not going to be you or me or Job it's going to be God that's totally how I take that yeah If anyone was going to take this thing down, there's only one person that can do that.

With a sword, it's going to be God. The rest of us, they'd be burying whatever was left if we tried the same. Yeah, I don't know that there's anything else that we need to add there. Anything you got? No, let's go crocodile fishing. All right, let's go to chapter 41. so much longer description uh this has goodness 34 verses to it uh so i'll i wouldn't am i going to read you 34 verses in a row but i'll uh i'll start out here with the first uh we'll do the

first 11 verses all right so god goes on having dropped behemoth he's going to shift to leviathan can you draw out leviathan with a fish hook or press down his tongue with a cord Can you put a rope in his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he make many pleas to you? And will he speak to you soft words? This is hilarious stuff. Will he speak softly to you? Oh, please don't hurt me.

Will he make a covenant with you to take him for your servant forever? Will you play with him as with a bird? Or you put him on a leash for your girls? That's just hilarious. uh will traders barking over him will they divide him up among the merchants in other words are you taking leviathan to the fish market is this way this is going to go can you feel his skin with harpoons or his head with fishing spears lay your hands on him remember the battle you will not do it again behold the hope of a man is false he is laid low even at the sight of him no one is so

fierce that he dares to stir him up. Who then is he who can stand before me? Who has first given to me that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine. So pretty good stopping point there, sort of halfway or a third of the way through God's speech. So a lot of things going on here um as i said earlier this is probably uh probably the the crocodile even though i mean there's a there's other speculations the weirdest get this there was like one suggestion it was talking about a dolphin i i would really like to read someone's defense of how this could ever be the dolphin but anyway i feel like you can do most of these things to a dolphin yeah i think you could probably probably pretty safe to this to a dolphin uh as others uh and chief among them

is a scholar, Old Testament scholar by the name of Marvin Pope in his Anchor Bible Dictionary. He's really the one who argued for a mythological creature here. Leviathan is mentioned, I think, yeah, seven times in the Old Testament. I think we've encountered a couple of these or maybe one of these. So already in Job, Job 3.8 mentions Leviathan. And he comes up in the Psalms too, psalm 74 psalm 104 and then isaiah 27 also has him and uh part of the reason people argue this is a at least partly kind of a mythological description is because we do know i mean from ancient near eastern literature such as that at the ugaritic literature that leviathan was a kind of a mythological sea monster often with seven heads and uh part of kind of the the chaos battles among

the various gods at creation and uh so i mean you do hear echoes of that kind of mythological language especially in the psalms and and in um in isaiah as well where the prophets and the psalmist will borrow some of this and their description of god's conquest over all evil that being said in chapter 41 even though there may be overtones of that in some of these descriptions i think like we discussed a minute ago that this is no doubt a an actual creature uh fit a lot of the description fits with with the crocodile but do be aware at least of that that broader ancient near eastern reference to leviathan as a mythological sea creature Well, I mean, so when I look at a crocodile, or honestly, if you look at all kinds of sea creatures, there's certain creatures that you're like, that's a dinosaur, pretty much.

Especially, yeah, especially crocodiles. Yeah, you look at a crocodile and you're like, that's just like, that looks like a prehistoric creature right there. That is a straight up dinosaur. So it's certainly possible that this is a creature, some kind of sea creature, like a crocodile, but maybe not a crocodile that no longer exists. But the idea, I mean, this is, I mean, Job's a very old book. The idea that there could be some kind of sea creature that was even more prehistoric looking than a crocodile is not hard to believe at all. No, no. it's very plausible yeah so that could be this could be the uh the ancient uh ancestor of the modern crocodile yeah something something like that yeah so it starts out by uh you know this

kind of halfway humorous uh description of you know this this animal that you're not going to be able to you know pierce his jaws or anything like that all right are you going to make him like a coward before you so he speaks softly to you and tries to curry favor with you uh you're gonna put him on a leash for your little girls that can walk around this this crocodile you can take him to the fish market so the traders and the merchants can bargain over him uh you're gonna you're gonna fight him lay your hands on him remember the battle you will not do it again yeah you're not gonna do it again this is the this is the hot stove of the sea touch that thing one time

we'll be touching it again and then God wraps up that section with kind of a theological aside we might call it when he says who then is he who can stand before me so

this magnificent fearful creature that everybody agrees is magnificent and fearful well guess what I made him so whatever is under the whole heaven is mine. Who then is he who can stand before me? So that's 1 through 11. God's not done. He says, I will not keep silence concerning his limbs or his mighty strength or his goodly frame. Who can strip off his outer garment? Who would come near

him with a bridle? Who can open the doors of his face? What an image, the doors of his face. around his teeth is terror that definitely sounded like a crocodile his back is made of rows of shields shut up closely as with a seal one is so near to another that no air can come between them they are joined one to another they clasp each other and cannot be separated now verses 18 through 21 is where we kind of have this dragon kind of a language uh creeping in his sneezings that could be translated his snortings his sneezings or his snortings flash forth light in his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn out of his mouth go flaming torches sparks of fire leap forth out of his nostrils comes forth smoke as from a boiling pot and burning rushes his breath kindles coals

and a flame comes forth from his mouth sounds like a dragon like a dragon all right i'll keep i'll keep reading in his neck abide strength and terror dances before him the folds of his flesh stick together firmly cast on him and immovable his heart is hard as a stone hard as the lower millstone when he raises himself up the mighty are afraid at the crashing there beside themselves and now we're going to have this whole list of of weapons that can't do anything against him. In fact, they're just, you know, basically harmless because of his superior strength. Though the sword reaches him, it does not avail. Nor the spear, the dart, or the javelin. He counts iron as straw and bronze as rotten wood. The arrow cannot make him flee. For him,

sling stones are turned to stubble. Clubs are counted as stubble. He laughs. This is another animal laughing. We've seen that in the previous chapters. He laughs at the rattle of javelins. his underparts are like sharp potsherds he spreads himself like a threshing sledge on the mire he makes the deep boil like a pot he makes the sea like a pot of of ointment behind him he leaves a shining wake one would think the deep to be white-haired on earth there is not like on earth there is not his like a creature without fear he sees everything that is high he is king over all the sons of pride yeah there's the end i mean i don't know uh what else there is to say it'd be the uh the uh description kind of speaks speaks for itself you get this mixture of i mean a lot

of this you'd be like oh yeah that's definitely a crocodile and a lot of this you're like oh that's definitely a dragon so it's yeah it's it's a little bit a little bit of both but it's probably just a case of this uh exaggerated poetic language being applied to the uh to the crocodile himself as so as to impress upon us even further this grandiose creature that that god has made and yet he is made he is not some sort of divine creature but a creature that god himself has brought into existence and so if you're impressed with behemoth or if you're impressed with leviathan well then just imagine how much more impressive and high and mighty and beyond our understanding our ability to kind of you know parse and and and break down into manageable units of thought and understanding

from the human level yeah i mean it seems like the again if you're going to take the great takeaway way here, is that I think it's kind of that Job wants a day in court. I think God is telling him that if he was going to try to explain his mind to him, that this would not help Job at all. Yeah. If I explain to you exactly all of my reasoning, there's just too much you don't know. There's no way for me to communicate this to you so at the end of all this uh here's uh here's job's response this is chapter 42 i know that you can do all things then job answered the lord and said i know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted

so that's kind of his first main point joe's first main point that yes god is omnipotent He's omniscient. Then he goes on to kind of, he quotes God here. He quotes him or half quotes him a couple of times. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? So that's what God said earlier to Job. Job is kind of quoted this back to him kind of in reference to himself. Uh, and then he goes on to say, therefore I've uttered what I did not understand things too wonderful for me, which I did not know here. And I will speak, I will question you and you make it known to me again this is joe quoting god back to god i had heard of you by the hearing of the ear but now my eye sees you it's like i've heard rumors of you god and but now i see much more

clearly and then he has this line in verse six which uh has been translated a myriad of different ways i'll read you what the esv has and then i'll give you uh some some other options the esv has therefore I despise myself and I repent in dust and ashes. Actually like the Jewish Publication Society Tanakh translation where they translate that last line instead of therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes as therefore I recant and relent being but dust and ashes. so job's acknowledging a few different things here uh he's first of all yes saying to god yes you you are you who can make all these creatures you are the one who can do all things and therefore i he's not just saying i am a small or a little account like he said earlier but he's

acknowledging that what he said it's like he didn't know what he didn't know yeah is the way I take this. There's so much that I was upset about, and I didn't even realize that there's things I didn't even know that I didn't know, and what I've uttered I didn't understand. It was too wonderful for me, and that Hebrew phrase, too wonderful, occurs also in Psalm 131, as well as Job 30. Psalm 131 says, O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high. I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. Psalm 131 can kind of be Job's confession as well at this point. I'm not going to occupy myself with things too wonderful for me anymore. And then that last line, I heard of you by the hearing of the ear,

but now my eye sees you, and therefore I relent, I recant being but dust and ashes. I think this is Job's final, basically, acknowledgement of who he is. He's immortal, he's dust and ashes, and therefore he's more or less retracting his case against God. We might put it that way. It seems that, yeah, I don't think that you should read this as like, okay, I see God and now I hate myself. I don't think it's that.

I did that kind of like, I despise myself, I hate myself. It's not that. It's more like something happens to Job where before he had an idea of God, he had some things he thought he knew, he had heard some things, and now he sees God. And you might think that seeing God

might make him understand God better, but it doesn't. What it does is that Job says, look, I heard of you, but now I see you, and I know myself better because of it, so I relent. So God revealing himself to Job didn't make Job all of a sudden understand God, but it did make him understand him. Yeah, it wasn't so much his theology improved,

it's his anthropology. Yes. Yeah. So now I know that there's so much about you, God, that I don't understand. But one thing I do understand more clearly about myself is that, Yes, I am, but dust and ashes, and my knowledge, being limited by my own humanity, makes me incapable of grasping your management of the universe. Yeah, I think this is true for, like, every time God shows up on the scene. I think it's true for us. If you were to see God, I don't think you would walk away knowing way more about God than you used to. I think you'd walk away knowing much more about yourself. And I think this happens consistently, certainly in the Old Testament, when God shows up.

People don't learn... like, what they see they can't comprehend, what they've been shown they can't... they can't do anything with it, but they do walk away changed in the sense that they do have learned... in a moment they have learned much more about who they are. Yeah, and you're right, that happens still today. Yeah. this is kind of the the end point of any kind of tremendous tragedy loss suffering in a person's life that uh i don't necessarily think that you come to know god better through that but you certainly know yourself much better and you know the god who is it is nevertheless with you just

like he's with joe yeah he's not stopping any kind of communication with joe be still talking to him he's still with him, and he's still his God. So Job is spoken. Now we have, for me, what would be unexpected. I love how things kind of transition to this point, because God is going to continue to speak, but what he says next is going to concern both Job as well as the three friends. Remember those guys? I haven't heard from them in a while. Yeah. Yeah, in some ways, this is like what we just read like there's uh if this was the book of jonah it would have ended right there yes and you've just been like yeah you've been like oh all right uh but we actually get like an ending to this which is good it is good so after the lord had spoken these words to job then he turned

to eliphaz the temanite and he says my anger burns against you and against your two friends for you have not spoken to me what is right as my servant job has oh then he goes on to say so here's what i want you to do i want you to take seven bulls seven rams and go to my servant job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves and my servant job shall pray for you he's going to be the inner the mediator here for i will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly. For you, he's going to repeat himself here, you have not spoken to me what is right, as my servant Job has. So Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar went and did what the Lord had told them, and the Lord accepted Job's prayer. I love this part of Job, because for all of

Job's confession there at the end, and all that the Lord says to him, God also says, you know what, if anybody has spoken to me what is right, it's not Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, it's Job. And I think what this is implying is that even though Job didn't get his day in court, he did at least speak to God in the right sort of way in that he spoke to God. He did cry out to God. It's in the end, it's not Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar with their retribution theology who right, but it's Job with his lament theology who was right, because he at least addressed God. He came to God with his hurt and his grief and his pain and his, you know, just desire to get an answer. He at least went to God with that, and the friends never addressed God. They just talked to

Job and talked amongst each other, and so Job ends up being the mediator, the priest, the intercessor for his friends, because he is the one who spoke of God what is right. Well, it seems to me that Job was not wrong about God, he was wrong about himself, but Job's friends were very wrong about God, right? So Job walks away being like, I know myself better, I thought I could maybe have an argument with you, and I could win the day with my great defense. not true, because now I realize that I'm just dust and ashes. But Job's friends made sort of statements about God and the way that God works and the stuff that are not true. And Job,

well, he did make statements about God. His statements weren't untrue. Well, the three friends definitely thought they had God all figured out. Yes. It's black and white for them. Well, this is obviously Job. This is the way that God works in any and every situation. Job at least was like, I don't know about that. Things are very complex and confusing to me.

And yeah, so in the end, he speaks of God of what is right and then is able to speak to God on behalf of his friends as well. And it's kind of beautiful that he does that. He doesn't say to God, I'm not going to pray for those jerks. He's a much better friend to them

than they ever were to him. All right, we'll wrap this up. This is 10 and following. The Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends, and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before

and ate bread with him in his house. And they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him. And each of them gave him a piece of money and a ring of gold. And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. And he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. So each of those are twice the number of what is listed at the beginning of Job's story. He didn't get back.

He didn't have twice as many kids. He also had seven sons and three daughters because, as is commonly pointed out, even though Job had lost in this life his seven sons and his three daughters, they nevertheless continued to they didn't pass out of existence they were uh waiting for the reunion that they would have with job when he himself left this life so he gets seven sons and three daughters here in this world as he still had his seven sons and three daughters uh awaiting him in uh in heaven and then we get the names of the three the three daughters first was called uh Jemima. The second was named Keziah. And the third was named Keren Hapuk. We could talk about those

names if we had time. But anyway, the three daughters are named. And interestingly, we're told that in all the land, there was no women so beautiful as Job's daughters. And their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers, which tells us about Job. Of course, it was not common to give your daughter's inheritance. We encountered early on one episode where that happened, but that was because there were no sons who were left living to the father. Job's love and generosity is displayed here in giving his daughter's inheritance along with their brothers. Now after this, this is the close of the book, after this Job lived 140 years and saw his sons and his sons' sons, four generations.

And Job died, an old man and full of days, with quite the story to tell. Yeah. Not a lot to say there other than, if you go back to the beginning, it would seem that the devil has lost this bet. Yeah, he definitely has. Definitely has.

And not only lost the bet, but you've got this close, which displays probably more than anything else the the heart of god because this is a resurrection scene it's in this world yes of course it's not a true resurrection but it is it is a resurrection scene in that in the end god gives to his his own uh that which they have lost and even more it's kind of the way that i that i view this this closing section this is god saying to job i am the god who at the end gives you even more than you could have dreamed having at the beginning yeah so he uh he blesses him here at the end even as he tested him all through all through the book and in that way uh book of job is uh an easter kind of book because it points us to the ultimate

victory of christ in his resurrection and the uh the share that we have in that resurrection as co-heirs along with him. Yeah, that's right. All right, man. It was a little long today, but we did accomplish what we set out to do. We have finished the book of Job. We will be back next week with a brand new book.

So, new week, new book coming up. Hope you guys will join us. Hey, tell your friends, because, of course, every time you start a new book, it's a great time to jump in. Chad, I'll see you then. All right, we'll see you then. Thanks, Dan.

Hello, 1517 Podcast listeners. This is Chad Bird, co-host of 40 minutes in the old Testament with an announcement from the 1517 podcast network throughout the entire month of June, the podcast network at 1517 is launching a special fundraiser and I need your help. Every dollar you contribute will be matched by two generous donors, doubling the impact of your generosity. The podcast network needs to raise $150,000 in an effort to support the ongoing creation and expansion of our shows. The funds raised will play a crucial role in expanding our network onto additional platforms,

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