Tag: Job

Times of prosperity and of suffering are likely to be spiritually dangerous – Prov.30:8-9. Job feels pursued by both God and man – 19:21-22. There is a hint of resurrection (14:14-15). Job is struggling but utters one of the most remarkable expressions of faith found in Scripture – 19:25-27.…

There are three cycles of speeches by Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, with replies by Job. Eliphaz speaks in 4-5, 15, and 22; Job replies in 6-7, 16-17, and 23-24; Bildad speaks in 8, 18, and 25; Job replies in 9-10, 19, and 26-27; Zophar speaks in 11 and 20; …

John Hartley calls Job 3 ‘a curse-lament’. Note the oft-repeated ‘Why?’ (3:11, 12, 16, 20, 23). (a) Job never loses his faith. (b) Job’s words were nevertheless rash – 38:2; 40:1-4.

1. Job curses the day of his birth.
   • Job did not curse God, but he did curse the day

Nancy Guthrie’s What Grieving People Wish You Knew, written after two of her children died, is very helpful.

– at the end we find that it is rather mixed, but Job is more right than wrong, and his three friends more wrong than right.

1. Make contact.
   • they travel

Job is an extreme book, but suffering can come in waves. Recall again that Job knows nothing of the role of Satan in all this.

1. The closer the suffering, the greater the hurt.
   • 2:1-8. The issue in 1:10-11 extended in 2:4. ‘What hurts more – the war in Ukraine

Satan only appears four times in the Old Testament – Genesis 3; 1 Chronicles 21:1; Zechariah 3:1; and Job 3. The exchange in Job 1:6-12 is never revealed to Job.

1. Satan aims at one possible weak spot.
   • read 1:6-11. On the mission field, ‘rice Christians’ are those who gather

Luther called it ‘magnificent and sublime as no other book of Scripture’. Calvin preached 159 sermons on it during 1554-1555. Joseph Caryl gave 424 lectures on it over 24 years.

• it is mostly poetry but still historical – see Ezekiel 14:14, 20; and his age in Job 42:16; and