Welcome to the Salt Lake city Yeshuan Branch verse by verse study through Job.
Prayer
Song
Silence
Why don’t we read the prosaic portion of the book, which again is found at the opening and closing and slowly we will work into the poetry.
JOB 1.1-6
October 15th 2023
Job 1:1 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God, and turned away from evil.
2 There were born to him seven sons and three daughters.
3 He had seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she-asses, and very many servants; so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east.
4 His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each on his day; and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them.
5 And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, “It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually.
6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.
So, jump back to verse one as we discover the first description of Job.
Now, I happen to believe that there was a man named Job even if modern critics have to wonder. I believe this because other writers do mention him and this lends support to his existence but does not prove that he was an actual living person.
We note the way Job is described in this first verse:
Job 1:1 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God, and turned away from evil.
Later in chapter two God himself will say to Satan in describing Job:
Job 2:3 “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you moved me against him, to destroy him without cause.”
Standard fare in the world of Christianity is to describe all human beings as wretched, sinful-headed-for-hell reprobates.
Admittedly there are verses that say things like:
Paul, in Romans 3:23
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
And
Romans 11:32 For God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all.
And Romans 3:10 where Paul writes
“As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
What are we to do, then with passages where God himself describes someone, like Job, as
“a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity.”
Frankly we have to dig deeper to discover what the context is of the passages that conflict and the fact of the matter is,
The Romans passage, where Paul says, as it is written, “There is no righteous no not one,” he is citing a passage from (Psalm 14:1-3 and /or Psalm 53:1) and both are speaking about “those who say that there is no God.”
And in that sense, where a person says that there is “none righteous no not one,” this is true because it is only by faith that anyone can be seen as righteous. Get it?
We can also admit that in the sense of being “without sin” the only one to be and stay in that place is Yeshua.
But I think we need to admit that there have been some who have pleased God “by their faithful hearts” and in the Tanakh these are specifically named. Can you guess the names?
Noah, Job and Daniel.
Turning to Ezekiel 14:12 we read the following:
12 And the word of the LORD came to me: (saying)
13 “Son of man, when a land sins against me by acting faithlessly, and I stretch out my hand against it, and break its staff of bread and send famine upon it, and cut off from it man and beast,
14 even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness, says the Lord GOD.
15 If I cause wild beasts to pass through the land, and they ravage it, and it be made desolate, so that no man may pass through because of the beasts;
16 even if these three men were in it, as I live, says the Lord GOD, they would deliver neither sons nor daughters; they alone would be delivered, but the land would be desolate.
Assuming that the word of the Lord did come to Ezekiel it is so interesting that He would mention the righteousness of these three Old Testament Characters – and omit others like Abraham, Joseph and Moses!
But He does. What made these men righteous? Of course it was their faith. That is what makes any person righteous – from the beginning to the present.
And I personally believe that we have made an enormous error in picking on people of faith – true faith – because they get some things wrong.
God knows the hearts and He knows real faith, real reliance and trust on Him and His promises. We have been utterly foolish to mock and criticize people who have faith that errs in doctrine.
Sure, the better the doctrine the more liberated a soul will be but frankly, a faithful heart toward God is what He sees, acknowledges and loves.
James mentions the patience or steadfastness of Job, again, a fairly clear assumption that he was a real person – fairly. And if real, then, according to the descriptions of him:
Perfect
Blameless
Upright
Possessing integrity
Eschews evil
Is it possible for a man or woman to be these things? Yes. But perfect means complete, blameless, which Paul also says of himself, relative to the law and as a Pharisee.
Upright? Of course. There are many upright people in the world. Possessing integrity? Yes. Eschews evil? Yes again.
Without sin? No. Because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God hence the need for a perfect payment.
And while the righteousness of Men and Women is evident in upright souls – and we can witness it in action around us – all we can say is Noah, Job and Daniel needed a Savior too. And they got one.
But among the human race, which is the setting we step into here with Job – meaning what God is overseeing, Job was someone who God himself appears to have pointed out to Satan.
From this we know that God can detect genuine from disingenuine in the lives of mortals and we can assume here that Job chose to be righteous on his own because Satan will argue that the only reason he is devoted to God is due to the things with which God blesses him.
Another way to read the description of Iyyob is he “was whole of heart and straight of path.”
The reference to Job being of whole heart and integrity suggest that he acted in accordance with the dictates of a sound heart meaning there was no inconsistency between the two giving him perfect integrity.
When there is breech between the heart and hands, we call that hypocrisy something the living God does not seem to appreciate too much.
This is why we can read passages like Revelation 3:15-16 where God says,
I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
and understand that God has more respect for “a cold hard atheist” who honestly lives “a cold hard life” relative to HIm and speaks cold hard words or a person like Job who hotly lives uprightly from the heart, than someone whose heart contains one thing and whose hands/mouth do and speak the opposite.
Get this right and you will take a major step in your relationship with God.
In the Apostolic record there is the Greek term, dolos, which is translated to guile, subtlety, cunning, crafty, deceitful in other parts of scripture.
These very words are often assigned to Satan the father of lies as He, the prince of Dark seeks to obscure, hide and in that space, manipulate through deception.
If such a being were on earth or in operation today we would or could NEVER really know His heart – not in terms of being able to trust in or understand it.
These are super deceptive, with hearts that are black as night and words and even actions that are bright as day.
This was how Job was upright. He was and did and said what was consistent in his heart – as will become evident.
With God, whom James says is without shadow of turning, no darkness, no obscurity, there is utter and total truth, light, clarity or contradiction.
Pursuing His Holiness is a super high task because His holiness is some supernatural form of light and love that we cannot approach – at least not perfectly. I’m not sure we can even approach understanding it.
This God appears to really dislike – guile.
The Hebrew name of the place this is set in Uz means “wisdom” or, “a land of the wise” (1st Kings 5:10). There are other places associated with wisdom and Edom in the scripture. Some scholars suggest that Uz is actually a place directly tied to Edom this is based on Lamentations 4:21.
Wherever it was, a very good man was living there – as attested not only by the writer but by the God of Holiness himself.
What is a fascinating question we could ask ourselves is, “Would we want God to see us as He saw Job? The very God to have this opinion of us? We might be slow to answer this because look what he did in the face of this view?
Hmmmmmmm. Verse 2
2 There were born to him seven sons and three daughters.
We cannot tell from the text whether Job’s prosperity was a direct result of his integrity or if His integrity was the result of his prosperity.
The numbers three and seven are seen by many as representational and not literal – again, who knows. Same with the numbers of animals he owned (verse 3)
3 He had seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she-asses, and very many servants; so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east.
Interestingly, the Hebrew word for the east is Qedem – and it is better believed that Job was known and lived in Qedem and not simply Uz.
For our biblical literalist friends, we have to ask, do they believe that Job had exactly seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels and five hundred yoke of oxen AND as many she-asses or are these numbers representational.
REPRESENTATIONAL.
I stand with the latter. But I would concur that in this tale or in Jobs life, he was esteemed or seen as the greatest in the east and his property evidenced it.
Now, having a pretty good idea of what is headed down the pike for old Job there are a few things we can readily say aren’t there?
Things like:
Having blessings does not keep you from losing them.
Being upright and righteous does not earn yourself protection from God.
That a main way where a human being might have their faith tested in this world is to have their material existences upset, taken or destroyed.
For Adam it was the loss of the garden.
For Adam and Eve it was the death of Abel.
For Noah it was the world and people around him.
For Abraham it was the proposed death of his Son from Sarah.
From Joseph it was his family and home.
And we could go on and on – for each of the apostles, for John the Baptist, for Yeshua our Lord.
For Shawn McCraney, it has been his ego, his arrogance, his pride of life. What has it been for you?
Job will, from most other stories, represent everything he hold dear, true and good. Everything.
And as a type I can personally see him as a picture of Yeshua who too submitted himself below all things, even death, becoming the perfect representation of loss and suffering in scripture – even over Job.
See that is the interesting thing – Job will foist anger and misunderstanding, and he will take God to court. But Christ, incarnate will once and only once, but truly from His heart, ask His Father why?
“Why have you forsaken me?” But speaks no other words of anger, doubt or accusation. Just Why. For Job it was a loss of family and wealth and health. For Yeshua it was when He and His Father stopped, just for a time, being One plural.
Ostensibly having lost His heavenly home.
Anyway Verse 4
4 His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each on his day; and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them.
The phrase, “each on his day,” speaks to each of the sons holding such a feast on his birthday.
This is the fourth mention of birthdays in scripture as I only thought that there were three – Pharaoh, Yeshua and Herod – but this is a fourth. There are actually five as Job will rue the day of his birth in chapter 3 coming up.
Its kind of intriguing that on Pharaoh’s birthday celebration introduced death to his baker, Jobs son’s birthday celebration introduced death to all the family but the parents, Herod’s birthday introduced death to John the Baptist and it was only Yeshua’s birthday that brough life to the entire world!
In any case, his sons had a tradition of holding a party and inviting their sisters in the celebration of their respective births. There was merry making (remember Noah too got drunk so vineyards were nothing new).
Verse 5
5 And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, “It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually.
And when the days of the feast (it is believed of every year – or after all the annual celebrations were over, once a year) Job would send or offer sacrifice early in the morning up on behalf of all of his children as he feared or worried that in the course of life, living, celebrating – drinking, whatever – one, some or all of his family might have purposely or inadvertently sinned “by cursing God in their hearts.”
Is it a sin to curse God in our heart? I would suggest it is a really horrible terrible condition to be in.
To curse God with the mouth as an expression is one thing, but the heart is the place of our true feelings our true person, and to curse Him from that place is a dark spot in humanity.
While the specific actual reason is not stated here, some scholars believe that because of Job and his families proximity to the pagan world around them that Job sought to make sure that his children did not sing a pagan worship song or make a pagan pledge which would have been offensive to the living God.
Job’s stated thinking was this:
“It may be that my sons cursed God in their hearts.”
This lead him, righteous, upright and a man of integrity, to take measures to protect his family.
Now, the book of Job was written by a Judean, it is believed, meaning a Jew, who refers to the deity in the narrative framework of the book by the Israelite name YHWH (which, after the Second temple period was reworded as Adonai), which means My Lord.
The specific name YHWH which we say is pronounced, YAHAVAH, ceased to be used around the time Job was written.
So, while the characters of the Book (Job, family, friends) are believed to be non-Israelites and are more likely transjordanians, which is better described as “sons of the east.”
Even though non-Israelites, Job and friends will speak of God by appealing to biblically attested names like El, Eloa, Elohiym, and Shaddai. But they will also, because the writer was Jewish, use YHWH 23 times.
El is the generic name for deity and when used as a proper name it is the very same term as the head of the Canaanite pantheon of God’s.
In this usage, the names mean “power and not goodness” in the way we mean goodness in English. So, to use the term God in our discussion, even if the word is El, is fails to describe the God intended by the writer and would be misleading.
When the various speaking friends use El and its derivatives (Eloah, Elohiym and even Shaddai) they are only referring to His power and not any other attribute, trait or characteristic that we and the scripture assigns to him overall.
This makes our understanding of the book even more narrow as the God represented here by the speakers – weather friends, narrator or Job himself – is ONLY a God of power and not also a God of mercy, patience and love.
We make a big mistake in assigning the Christian view of YAHAVAH to the God the writer or writers of this poem appeal to and for this reason alone we must be careful to remember this fact as we read on.
I am also going to try (though I am sure I will mess up) to refer to God in our study in the very same way it was written and will therefore refrain from calling Him YAHAVAH or YHWH but will use the titles that were originally used which tend to describe the God of Power recognized by all the people groups of that area and therefore pronounced as either El, ELOHIYM, ELOAH or SHADDAI.
The point of mentioning the sacrifices of Job on behalf of his children is super interesting because the next thing we are going to read relative to them is them being wiped out “en masse.”
To me, this is a direct shot across the bow of anyone who believes that rites, rituals, offerings or sacrifice will stay the hand of El when it comes to His will and ways.
No offerings to Pele the volcano God, no tithes, animal sacrifices, prayers, worship, humility, or upright being will stop the El of power from allowing or disallowing what He chooses to do.
This fact is unsettling for most as the reality remains – we are not in control – He is, in what He allows.
Where some might have believed prior to Job’s trials that his uprightness is what established his large family and holdings, the story will prove otherwise.
Yes, El does allow, He will bless, He will permit abundance. But all aspects of Job’s righteousness have been firmly rooted here – and his miseries have yet to even begin.
If we accept the principle that the only way to please YAHAVAH is by faith, and that faith is an object that grows in strength when tested, and unless it is tested in will never be known as absolute, then it seems to me that what Proverbs says, hard as it is to hear, is correct where it says:
Proverbs 3:11 My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction:
Turning to the Book of Hebrews, right after the Hall of Fame of Faith chapter we read this wisdom which touches on the point, saying
Hebrews 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 For consider him (Yeshua) that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.
4 Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.
5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
Do you know where this passage comes from that the writer of Hebrews quotes? Job chapter 5!
The writer of Hebrews continues, saying,
6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh who corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness!!
11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
But He . . . “FOR OUR PROFIT . . .”
I know that this book of Job does not have the God of power give one reason for calling out “the Satan” to test and try the man, but taking all of scripture in hand (which is the right way to understand the messages and principles of scripture) I think we are safe to say that the backstory to Job, scripturally presented, allowed what happened to him to be for Job’s profit. And we can say this unequivocally as people who trust in the living God of power and love.
In addition to the words of his friends to him, and his responses to his friends, Elihu and even EL Shaddai, in addition to Job responding as a hero or an angry plaintiff, I believe, that if this story is real, and if this story speaks of a man that we just had described to us, then what God allowed would ultimately be for his profit.
And in faith, and as a man that seeks YAHAVAH, I have to believe this to be the case in every believer’s life. I think I can also say that this is the case for every human life.
So, there is the set up. The setting.
We could easily take any person on earth today – anyone – and create a similar illustration by appealing to their lives.
Once there was a single man living in an apartment in Salt Lake City. He was good and upright. He had never married and had no children.
One morning a wind blew a tree over that fell upon his only car. He was between insurances, so the damage was not covered. Taking the bus to work he was late for the first time in 30 years and management, seeking to get rid of him because of age, fired him.
As he walked to the bus stop to go home, a gorilla escaped from Hogel Zoo and sneaked up on him and removed his arms violently.
The site of blood caused the dogs of the neighborhood to continue the attack . . . you know, on and on.
The point is we could go on forever pulling from the man “any and all security or joy he had in his life. THAT is the story of Job.
The writer is now going to take us to another setting which is apparently unfolding while Job and family flourish.
Here. We. Go. Verse 6
6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.
Another, perhaps better, translation reads:
“On a certain day the sons of elohiym came to station themselves around YAHAVAH and the Satan also came among them.”
I am going to get into the sons of elohiym next week by incorporating a teaching by our brother Grady, but to wrap today up I want to begin with a short look into “the Satan.”
Even though English Bibles usually capitalize the word “Satan” (in passages like here in Job 1 and 2), those passage do not . . . DO NOT have a specific individual in mind — that is, “satan” in these passages should *not* be understood as a proper personal pronoun name.
The reason for this is pretty straightforward. In biblical Hebrew, the definite article (meaning the word “the) is a single letter (heh).
Hebrew prefixes like this “attaches the definite article to a noun” (or participle to make it a substantive) so that, like all languages that have definite articles, the noun is made specific.
But Biblical Hebrew, according to Dr. Michael Heiser, does not put the definite article (the word “the”) on proper personal nouns! (personal names).
It’s just like English – we don’t refer to Danny as “The Danny,” or Daweed as The Daweeed (though I am sure he would prefer such a distinction).
Hebrew, says Heiser, would never do this and from this we know that the thing called, “The Satan” here is not a personal being.
Hebrews language scholar Jouon-Muraoka puts it this way:
“No proper noun of person takes the article, not even when it has the form of an adjective or a participle.”
And Heiser writes,
Without exception, the word “satan” in Job occurs *with* the article. This indicates quite clearly that “satan” is *not* a personal name.
So . . . it is generic and means “the adversary”.
This term is also used of human beings (1 Sam 29:4; 2 Sam 19:23; 1 Kings 5:4; 1 Kings 11:14).
All of these examples have “satan” without the article, but the referent is a human being, not a divine being, so we don’t have “Satan” here either!
LISTEN TO THIS
In terms of statistics, the noun “satan” occurs 27 times in the Hebrew Bible, ten times *without* the article.
So, 17 times “the Satan” speaks of adversary meaning someone or someones or beings that purposely bring adversity.
Of the ten remaining, seven of them refer to human beings and two refer to the “Angel of Yahweh” without question.
The lone outlier is 1st Chronicles 21:1. This is the famous passage where “Satan” provokes David to take a census, but (LISTEN) in the parallel passage (2nd Samual 24:1-25), it’s Yahweh provoking David to take the census.
Guess what? Due to this parallel, and due to the fact that “satan” has no article, this is viewed by some as the single instance of an evil, cosmic figure called “satan” in the OT.
So where does this leave us?
Basically, “the satan” in Job is an officer of the divine council (sort of like a prosecutor). His job is to “run to and fro throughout the earth” to see who is and who is not obeying Yahweh.
When he finds someone who isn’t and is therefore under Yahweh’s wrath, he “accuses” that person.
This is what we see in Job — and it actually has a distinct New Testament flavor. (We also see it in Zechariah 3).
But the point here is that this satan is not evil; he’s doing his job.
Over time (specifically the idea of “being an adversary in the heavenly council” was applied intellectually to the enemy of God — the nachash (typically rendered “serpent”) in Eden, the one who asserted his own will against Yahweh’s designs.
That entity eventually becomes labeled “Satan” and so the adversarial role gets personified and stuck to God’s great enemy (also called the Devil).
This is a good example of how an idea in Israelite religion plays out and is applied in different ways during the progress of revelation.
We will continue with verse six and what it may or may not be talking about next week.
Questions/Comments
Prayer
