Job Lesson 20

Job 40-

Wednesday, December 18, 2013
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Chapter 40

5.a.ii – Job 40:3-5.

Job humbly bows to God who is infinitely greater and wiser than Job. Yet he falls short of confessing it was sin on his part to accuse God of injustice. There was no retraction, so there was no submission.

5.b. Second Round. 40:6-42:6

5.b.i. Jehovah. 40:6-41:34

I. Vv. 6-14. Job, come sit on my throne.

A. Vv. 6-8.

1. God tells Job to “man it up” and “strap it on.” You did so well on your first examination that I will give you a second chance.

2. You are so smart. Come. Take over and instruct me.

Will you condemn me in my own court?

B. Vv. 9-14. God escalates his sarcasm.

1. Do you have the strength to sit on my throne and judge sinners? Can you act like me? Can you do a better job than I?

2. Come on Job. You can do a better job running the universe. Put my crown on your head. 3. God is playing hardball with Job, and Job doesn’t have a glove. Start with a couple of the problems that I deal with on a daily basis. I spend my time humbling the proud (Hint! Hint!)

4. V. 14 – Do that Job and I will worship you!

II. Vv. 15-18. Physical appearance.

A. God brings Job to the end of his quest by convincing him that he may and must hand the matter completely over to God, more trustingly and less fretfully.

B. And do it without insisting that God should first answer all of his questions and grant formal acquittal. This is a rebuke for those who propose better ways of running the universe.

C. Proposals for the behemoth are: 1) mythological monsters; 2) wild animals in general (“behemoth” is plural); 3) animals that still exist (hippo, crocodile, whale); 4) animals now extinct (grass eating dinosaur, flesh eating dinosaur).

III. Vv. 19-24. The behemoth’s activities and habits can’t intimidate God.

A. Regardless of the behemoth’s identification, the message is that the strongest man is careful to not stir him up. That being the case, how could anyone be so foolhardy as to stand up against God as Job had done?

B. The argument to the strength of God is not made to discourage men from trying to have dealings with God, but to enhance God’s capability of managing the affairs of the universe so that men will trust him.

C. How can Job challenge the creator when he can’t even control some of the animals God created?

Chapter 41

Leviathan Dundee

I. What is Leviathan?

A. The term is used 6 times in the English Standard Version, two of which are in Job. The description of Leviathan in Job 41 is of a truly amazing creature.

B. Leviathan

by Eric Lyons, M.Min.

God’s conversation with the patriarch Job, recorded in Job 41, was intended to show him that “God is God and Job is not.” In contemplating taking up his complaints with God, Job had been concerned with being overcome by terror (cf. Job 9:32-35; 13:20-22). In Job 41, Jehovah showed the suffering Job that his apprehensions were not misplaced. If Job would have to retreat in terror before a creature like leviathan, he certainly was unfit to argue with Almighty God! In the middle of His description of leviathan, the Lord asked Job: “No one is so fierce that he would dare stir him [leviathan—EL] up. Who then is able to stand against Me? Who has preceded Me, that I should pay him?” (Job 41:10-11). The Lord’s questions, of course, are meant to be rhetorical. No one can stand against God. He is the Almighty. He is Lord of all—even of the magnificent leviathan.

What is this amazing creature that God described in Job 41? God called it “leviathan.” But what is a leviathan? There are no animals today known by that name, are there?

Some modern scholars suggest that leviathan is a crocodile. In fact, certain versions of the Bible identify this creature in the marginal notes or chapter headings as the crocodile. But is God’s description of leviathan really consistent with a crocodile? By way of summary, Job was told You can’t catch leviathan with a hook. You can’t kill him with a spear. In fact, leviathan laughs at the threat of javelins. When he raises himself up, the mighty are afraid. When he swims, the water boils with commotion. His underside is like sharp pieces of broken pottery that tear up the ground underneath him. Flashes of light and smoke expel from his nostrils like steam coming out of a boiling pot. Sparks of fire shoot out of his mouth, and his eyes glow like the morning sun. Leviathan is too powerful and ferocious to be captured by man.

God’s description of leviathan simply does not fit the crocodile (or any other another animal present in the world today). Steve Irwin, better known as “the crocodile hunter,” and his associates have shown us that crocodiles can be captured by man with little (if any) “high-tech weaponry,” just as they were by the ancient Egyptians. The Greek historian Herodotus discussed how the Egyptians captured crocodiles, and how that, after being seized, some even were tamed (Rowley, 1980, p. 259; Jackson, 1983, p. 87). Such a scene hardly depicts the animal of Job 41. If it did, then one would have to wonder what the purpose was behind God’s speech? If Job or others of his day could capture and tame this animal, could he also “stand against” God? That seems to be the conclusion one would have to draw if this creature were anything other than the untamable, ferocious creature God described. Thus, reason compels us to admit that leviathan must be some other kind of creature. But what kind? God’s description of leviathan is similar in every way with the descriptions we have of dinosaur-like, water-living reptiles that once roamed the Earth.

Some may wonder why this topic deserves to be “tackled” in an article such as this? Why not just accept what the “scholars” tell us about the identity of leviathan? Why? Because many of those who teach that this creature was a crocodile, and who reject the possibility of this creature being a dinosaur-like, water-living reptile, do so on the basis that dinosaurs and humans never lived together on the Earth at the same time. They believe and teach that dinosaurs, and dinosaur-like, water living reptiles, lived many millions of years ago—long before Job ever came along. Yet the Bible says: “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them” (Exodus 20:11). He created water living animals on day five, and land animals on day six—the same day He created man (see Genesis 1:20-31; cf. Mark 10:6). The bottom line is: man and dinosaurs did live together. Job and dinosaurs easily could have been contemporaries (and, in my judgment, were). To say that leviathan could not have been a dinosaur-like, water living reptile because dinosaurs lived millions of years ago is to reject the biblical truth that God created everything in six days.

REFERENCES

Jackson, Wayne (1983), The Book of Job (Abilene, TX: Quality).

Rowley, Harold Henry (1980), Job (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans)

I. Vv. 3-6. If Job caught him, what would he do with him?

II. Vv. 7-8. Attack the Leviathan. Once will be enough!

a. Vv. 9-11. Attempt is doomed from the start, anyway.

b. If you can’t stand against the creature, how can you stand against the Creator?

c. Who has a claim against God – everything in the world is his. Rom 9:20-21; Rom. 11:33-36.

III. Vv. 12-17 – a detailed description of Leviathan.

IV. Vv. 18-21.

a. A vivid account of some of his activities.

b. In the Septuagint, Leviathan is translated from the word from which the English word for “dragon” is derived.

V. Vv. 22-29. Continues to describe awesome physical characteristics that make it invulnerable to attack.

VI. Vv. 30-34. It is an amphibious creature.

5.b.ii. - Job 42:1-6.

Chapter 42 I. Vv. 1-6. Job’s reply to God; no place to look up.

A. Job had obtained knowledge of God and himself.

1. Job had complained that God unjustly punished him; he was unaware of the conversations between God and Satan.

2. Job thought God was his enemy.

a) In pride Job presumed to judge God’s thoughts and ways.

b) He needed to learn that God was infinitely greater. More specifically, Job needed to learn what “infinitely greater” meant.

c) God taught Job that lesson.

B. V. 2. Job begins with an humble confession. He still does not understand God, but now he is convinced that all takes place within the framework of God’s wisdom and power.

1. He can bless and afflict, give and take away.

2. Job has no question; he submits and acknowledges that God knows best.

C. V. 3. Job acknowledges that God’s thoughts and plans are on a completely different wavelength from his; Job’s ignorance had led him to make foolish statements to charge God with unfairness.

D. V. 4. After Job’s speeches, Job realized how little he knew and how little he could do.

E. V. 5. Before God spoke, Job was familiar with God.

1. He prayed, praised, and had fellowship with God, but he did not really see God.

2. He now knew that God loved him and had his welfare at heart.

F. V. 6. Job is not implying that he was wrong in his debate with his friends, or that his afflictions were due to sin. He is yielding to God and repenting for judging him by human standards.

6. The Outcome – 42:7-9.

6a. Jehovah’s verdict. 42:7-9.

II. Vv. 7-9. The Lord rebukes Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zopher, and accepts Job. Job’s friends falsely accused Job and painted false pictures of Job.

A. V. 7. False accusations against Job were sins against God. Job is declared God’s servant, a term used 4 times in vv. 7-8.

B. V. 8. “I’ll never pray for you” would be the response of many.

C. Ezek. 14:12-20. The accusers were at the mercy of the accused.

V. 9. Job would admit wrong if God had said he was wrong.

6b. Job’s Restoration. 42:10-17.

III. These verses tell of God’s restoring Job’s great loss, providing him with double his loss. He lived 140 years after God’s blessings and “died an old man and full of days.”

LESSONS TO BE LEARNED

1. There are more things in heaven and on earth than we have ever dreamed. Deut. 29:29; Isa. 55:8-9. We must let God have his secrets and hold on in our uncertainties.

2. There is a warning against inappropriate preaching, even of the truth.

3. God’s people do suffer. Beware of slick equations. Beware of judging people by their circumstances and conditions.

4. The difference between the God of the philosophers (friends tried to box God into their logic) and the true and living God.

5. James 5:11 – perseverance, not patience.

6. What matters most is walking in fellowship with God, enjoying Him in His world.

7. Suffering will end. We have never been promised freedom from suffering (2 Tim. 3:12; 1 Peter 5:6-11).