Job Lesson 12
Job 18-
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
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Class Notes
Chapter 18
2 c. iii – Bildad the Shuhite responds. 18:1-21.
I. Bildad’s response to Job is straight forward, but it is no more than a long diatribe on the fate of the wicked (5-21) preceded by a few reproaches addressed to Job (2-4).
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Class Notes
Chapter 18
2 c. iii – Bildad the Shuhite responds. 18:1-21.
I. Bildad’s response to Job is straight forward, but it is no more than a long diatribe on the fate of the wicked (5-21) preceded by a few reproaches addressed to Job (2-4).
A. vv. 1-4.
1. Trying to curb Job’s speech, Bildad is a traditionalist content with the old ideas. He has not appreciated Job’s thoughts because they do not agree with his own (v. 2).
2. Bildad is more concerned with his own reputation than Job’s needs. He continues to do what Job has complained about – kick a man when he is down. Job, he says, has torn himself in his anger. Job admits that he is a godly man torn to pieces, but he attributes it to God (16:9). Bildad is a perfect illustration of the truth that when one runs out of words he generally resorts to satire. Do you really want the whole world reconstructed to please you?
B. vv. 5-21. The moral order Job is overturning is as fixed as the earth and the hills. The fate of the wicked equally follows a strict law. Bildad recites a long poem about the trouble that takes over the wicked.
1. vv. 5-7. Darkness extinguishes the household lights of everyday life.
2. vv. 8-10. If the darkness does not get him, he will fall as the prey that is hunted.
3. vv. 11-13. He will be frightened by external foes and inward fears each step he takes. He will be weakened by famine and
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calamity will be around every corner. If that were not enough, he would be devoured by disease that is the first-born of death.
4. vv.14-15. Raiders and Destruction. The tent of the wicked is raided and then marched before the “king of terrors” (Satan and/or death; see, 15:21, 20:21). Why does this happen? It is not Job’s wickedness, but his faithfulness that is being revealed. Can God hand us over with confidence? Jesus himself was turned over to Satan (Matt. 4; Luke 4). We will all spend time with Satan. What is there that could lead us faithfully through that confrontation? Listen to Peter: 1 Peter 1:3-9)
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
4 To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you,
5 Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
6 ¶ Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations:
7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
8 Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:
9 Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls (KJV).
5. v. 16. Now drought hits the wicked according to Bildad. Bildad has apparently worn out of comparisons of the state of the wicked and is left with equating him to a drought stricken tree. Bildad overlooked both Job’s hope for a tree that had been cut down (14:7) and Eliphaz’s prior use of the comparison, having declared that “the flame will wither his shoots” (15:30).
6. vv. 17-21. The wicked, who is Job in Bildad’s mind, will be childless, having no offspring or posterity. Bildad has succeeded in listing the things most dreaded by an ancient in life and in death as the tokens of rejection by God. Such events distinguish the godless from the
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good and serve as warnings to the rest. His description of the dwellings of the wicked (v. 21) shows how preoccupied he is with externals. The catalog is too sinister to chapters 1 and 2 for the point to be missed. But the sermon is wide of the point. It might take effect in a man with a bad conscience, but for all their efforts to develop one this is what Job does not have.
Chapter 19
2 C. iv – Job’s response to Bildad - 19:1-29
Job’s faith reaches climax in v. 25. It leaps to this height from the despair caused by the reproaches of his friends (2-6), his devastation by God (7-12), and his sense of utter forsakenness (13-22).
I. VV. 2-3. Job’s friends have misinterpreted Job’s experience, and their harassment makes his suffering worse. Satan disappears but attacks through Job’s friends. Satan did not attack Jesus directly after the wilderness but through Peter, one of his closest friends (Matt. 16:23).
II. VV. 4. Job does not admit sin, but argues that even if he had he had not invaded their tent. Any error he had was his alone.
III. VV 5-6. These verses are the headline for Job’s extensive charges against God for his extensive charges against God for grievous bodily harm (7-12) and alienating the affections of everyone he knows (13-19). By causing him to suffer, God has destroyed his reputation for innocence and in a moral or legal sense branded him as a sinner.
IV. VV. 7-12. Job’s devastation by God.
A. v. 7. Job charges Violence against him and shouts for help, but he gets neither answer nor justice.
B. vv. 8-12. These verses describe God’s unsparing on Job. Note the similarity between these verses and 17:7-14. In poetry of this kind it is the cumulative effect that counts. V. 11 is a premonition of the cross – He has considered me as His enemy (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34; 2Cor. 5:21).
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V. VV. 13-22. Job expresses his sense of utter forsakenness.
A. vv. 13-19.Job’s concern for God does not make him insensitive to human relationships. To the contrary, the two are inseparable in the life of any person who attains wholeness as a human being. Job’s list reveals his capacity for and enjoyment of life, as well as his hurt when he is denied the solace of company, the respect of employees, the intimacy of his family.
B. vv. 20-22. Job’s dignity and self-composure are lost. He likes broken under the blows of God and the words of men. To men he appeals for pity; to God he appeals for justice. But both alike pursue him.
i. v. 21. Most important person in the church is the one who is suffering.
ii. v. 22. We ask why there is so much suffering? Why doesn’t God do something? Why not ask why there is so little love in human hearts? Why don’t we do something?
C. vv. 23-29. The certainty of final vindication.
i. v. 23-24. It is a great mystery that Job is forced to fight alone. It is a drawn out fight with those who are supposed to be his friends. Job stakes his honor on his future justification by providing a permanent written record of his protestation of innocence.
ii. vv. 25-27. The meaning of these verses depends on the authenticity and meaning of its central affirmation. V. 25 is unfortunately followed by difficult lines for which there are a number of bewildering translations and explanations. Two extremes must be avoided. First, be certain that the central truth is not drowned in difficulty. It is better to start with certainties as a foundation and build from there. Second, there should not be too much resurrection theology read back into Job’s statement.
a. There is a great emphasis on seeing God (v. 26). The point is made three times in vv. 26-27. Here we must be careful not to assume that Job is do seeking the impossible since scripture states that no man can see God (John 1:18; 1 Tim. 6:16). Abraham, Moses, and Isaiah “saw” God and Job must have had something of that nature in mind. References to “skin, flesh, eyes,” indicate that Job expects to have this
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experience as a man, not just a disembodied state, or in the mind’s eye.
b. There should be no doubt that the Redeemer is God
c. When will it occur?
1. Some suggest that it occurs in this life. Of course, this avoids any reference to a resurrection in this book. However, we have seen several instances in this book where Job both sensed and sought almost immediate death.
2. Others, while not finding a full sense of resurrection, find hope of a favorable meeting with God after death as a genuine human being. There are some good reasons to accept this view.
I. If that is to be the case, i.e., if Job expects to be vindicated before he dies, there is no need for Job to deposit a written record of it in in this life.
II. The word translated “earth,” as used in Job, was constantly connected to “Sheol,” and the statement that the Redeemer lives is a direct anser to the fact that a man dies (14:10).
III. Some assert that Job did not expect to be reconstituted as a man because this idea did not arise in Judaism until the very end of the Biblical period. However, this argument can be dismissed because later research shows interest in life after death to have been an ancient concern in Jewish faith.
IV. V. 25 speaks of “at the last,” which seems to speak of a final interval or end time.
iii. VV. 28-29. These verses are warnings to Job’s friends they will face judgment.