Job Introduction Bible Teaching

Welcome to our first Yeshuan gathering to study the Lyrics of God’s perfect song.

We are transmitting from the Salt Lake City Branch, and it is October 8th 2023 AND today we are beginning the book of Job.

We will begin with a prayer.
Hear the Word of God set to music.
Sit in silence to reflect upon our relationship with the living God and when we come back get into the Book of Job.

Job Introduction
October 8th 2023

Have you ever wondered about suffering – especially in the face of there being a loving God to whom we are called to look to with faith and hope?

Have you ever criticized or called God out, with fist clinched or heart broken, crying and begging to understand – and come away empty handed and/or empty hearted?

Do you wonder why the wicked prosper in this world? Why rockstars and actors and business icons who live lives of luxury and godlessness have sumptuous living and 95% of the rest of the world lives hand to mouth, or paycheck to paycheck, or can only take one vacation per year (if that) own one car (if that), travel coach and shop at only Target or Walmart or even at the lower end, the Mavericks or Seven Elevens?

Perhaps you have visited true third world countries and have been stunned by the abject poverty, the disease, the suffering, malnourished children?

In the end, are you willing and able to still worship a God who might, in your particular circumstance, treat you or allow you to suffer loss, be treated unfairly?

In the Christian realm we usually cover God and what He allows with phrases like, “He will make all things right.”

Isn’t that what we say? And then trust and believe in this? The question I have after reading through Job is what if He doesn’t? Can we accept and worship and give our all to a God who will use us, and allow us to suffer?

Does all suffering have purpose? Some suffering? Any suffering?

There are so many questions that the story of Job brings to the forefront of our thinking about God and I am humbled by the thoughts, and now the strengths that I have derived from studying it.

And my preparation has actually allowed me to face the question, “Can and will I follow a God who might let me suffer without a care?

We use rhetoric to cove our basis, don’t we?

“God has a plan.”
“God is good.”
“His ways will become known.”

But there is an idea that comes from the story of Job what asks every reader, “would you follow a God who let’s you lose everything of value over a bet?

And is there, in the story of Job, something else God accomplishes in the man that is never stated – and is that the faith we gather when we are done reading? That God does not have to say what He accomplishes in the story of Job – its non of his, yours or my damn business?

Right off the bat there are some things that we need to address before we get into the body of it.

Firstly, the book is probably not as old as I thought. We will get into how this is proven as we go, but I put the tale as happening in Abraham’s day when in reality it was probably written about 1200 or 1300 years later – in the 500 BC’s.

There are a number of internal factors that suggest this view.

Secondly, there is an old saying that says,

“In the book of Psalms there are no connections between the chapters, in the book of Proverbs there are no connections between the verses but in the Book of Job there is no connection between the words.”

That is a challenge. That is a brutal challenge – if we are looking to interpret it correctly. And like Psalms and Proverbs and others, Job is a poem – that opens and closes with prose.

Now I don’t know about you but I am not a great discerner of poetry. Green Eggs and Ham – okay. Emily Dickenson? A bit. Chaucer, The Bard, Homer . . . not so much. My mind is not made to understand advanced poetry like this.

Well, this poem predates the Illiad and such and is considered to be one of the greatest of all time. And not only is it a poem, to some interpretations it is considered a lawsuit.

A lawsuit? Yes, believe it or not some see this like a courtroom trial. Of who? Job? OF his friends? Not really. No what some scholars suggest is we are reading a lawsuit Job brings against God.

If we go to the board, we can break the book down in the following way:

REFERENCES
PROLOGUE
DISCOURSES
EPILOGUE

JOB’S RESPONSES
w/References

(Job 1-2:13)
PROLOGUE
Prose
N/A

(3:1-26 &
4:12-21
JOB’S OPENING DISCOURSE
Verse
N/A

(4:1-11 &
5:1-27)
ELIPHAZ’
FIRST DISCOURSE
Verse
JOBS RESPONSE
To ELIPHAZ
(6:1-7:21)

(8:1-22)
BILDAD’S
FIRST DISCOURSE
Verse
JOB’S RESPONSE to BILDAD
(9:1-10:22)

(11:1-20)
ZOPHAR’S
FIRST DISCOURSE
Verse
JOB’S RESPONSE to
ZOPHAR
(12:1-14:22)

(15:1-35)
ELIPHAZ’
SECOND DISCOURSE
Verse
JOB’S RESPONSE to ELIPHAZ
(16:1-17:16)

(18:1-21)
BILDAD’S
SECOND DISCOURSE
Verse
JOB’S RESPONSE to BILDAD
(19:1-29)

(20:1-29)
ZOPHAR’S
SECOND
DISCOURSE
Verse
JOB’S RESPONSE TO ZOPHAR
(21:1-34)

(22:1-30)
ELIPHAZ
THIRD
DISCOURSE
Verse
JOB’S RESPONSE TO ELIPHAZ
(23:1-24:17; 24:25)
(24:18-24)
A SECOND RESPONSE TO JOB
Verse
No Response

(25:1-26:14)
BILDAD’S
THIRD
DISCOURSE
JOB’S RESPONSE TO BILDAD
(27:1-23)

(29:1-31:40)
JOBS CLOSING REMARKS

(32:1-33:33)
ELIHU 1st Discourse

(34:1-37)
ELIHU 2nd Discourse

(35:1-16)
ELIHU 3rd Discourse

(36:1-37:24 &
28:1-28)
ELIHU 4th Discourse

(38:1- 39:30)
YAHAVAH 1st Discourse
JOB’S RESPONSE TO YAHAVAH
(40:1-5)
(40:6-41:26)
YAHAVAH’S 2nd
Discourse
JOB’S RESPONSE TO YAHAVAH
(42:1-6)
(42:7-17)
EPILOGUE

BREAKDOWN JOB

Narrator Verses = 45 Zophar = 48 Bildad = 61 Eliphaz = 107 Elihu = 192
Job = 504 (453 to friends/9 of which are in response to YAHAVAH)
912 Total Verses from Man / YAHAVAH = 115 (12.5% of all words )

As Yeshuan’s, our goal is to teach the scripture (the lyrics) as best as we can, attempting to yield whatever possible from the ancient language, context and setting, and for the book of Job, I suspect that there will need to be more reliance on the Spirit than ever before.

I would suggest that in my assessment of it we can say that it, like every other book of scripture, the central bottom of the barrel message will wind up to be all about FAITH.

Faith while in prosperity.
Faith in the face of loss.
Faith in the face of abject total loss.
Faith in the face of accusation.
Faith in the face of poor health.
Faith when we have faithless spouses.
Faith, because we really know nothing at all in the grand power of the Almighty.
Faith in a God who does allow those who love Him to suffer.

But does that even matter?
Do we matter?
Then what is God’s response in the face of our issues, pain, and suffering?

The book will introduce advice and insight Job is given by friends.

It will talk about Satan and a group of beings called, the Sons of God.

Job will mention the Redeemer, he will cite the Law of Moses, and will either quote David and Solomon – or they will quote him.

A few years ago, Mary and I were friends with a couple who we came to know through the ministry. They lived in another state and are about 15 years younger than us. He was a medical doctor and I baptized him out of Mormonism up in Park City.

He was exceptionally smart. During the pandemic and working in an ER, he caught Covid and wanting to serve ignored the symptoms, believing they would pass.

I was talking with his wife as he grew increasingly ill and one day the man just died – in guaranteed at the hospital.

His wife, devout Christian and deeply in love with her man was devastated – ruined – as I talked to her daily for several months, then weekly and we sadly don’t talk anymore.

But within a few weeks of him passing, I called her one and she was hysterical and was literally screaming in the phone, “Why?”

Over and over and over?

“Why?”

I said her name and she screamed, “don’t give me any of that Job bullshit! I don’t wanna hear it. It doesn’t speak to my situation, my pain, my loss or where God is in all of this.”

I replied, “but it does.”

Unfortunately for some, the answers and insights Job provides – especially when presented in the way I see the book today, are not satisfactory in the face of suffering nor are the insights the narrative produce or even YAHAVAH’s replies.

And in the end, we will come back to the biggest F word in the English language . . . FAITH. And in the book of Job I don’t think many biblical characters are challenge more in their faith than He – excepting Yeshua.

Faith does not mean we don’t wonder, or ask questions, or turn away from our human emotions.

Faith doesn’t mean we don’t feel pain but Faith, from a biblical perspective, and in the end, simply means, hard as this is to hear amidst our tears, will we “trust God and the promises He has given or not?”

The story of Job brings this to the forefront of our minds.

I cannot tell you how terrified I am in my heart for the trust Our God may require. I do not pretend to be impervious to sorrow overwhelming me to the point of spiritual and then moral destitution.

I cannot promise anyone that in the face of certain pains I would not turn to the bottle or some other way of life to manage and turn from God.

I cannot guarantee that I wont turn in rage against the God I claim to love, honor and adore.

And so that is why we read and consider Job. To hear from others, see what and how they reacted, and try and understand, if it is at all possible, Him . . . and His ways, in the midst of such . . . heavenly indifference.

If you have faced sorrows and this book offends you, I want you to know that I get it and I apologize in advance for some of the notions that will come out from our study.

I also admit that I have NOT lost a spouse, a child or a grandchild. I have not been diagnosed with cancer or faced any major diseases. I have not had a child kidnapped, abused, or murdered. I have never not been without luxury (relatively speaking in this world) over my entire life.

I’ve never been to war or even served in the military. For some reason Our Creator has spared me from such thus far in life. I am deeply grateful, but in trying to teach through this book I am required to literally make some sense of what it is proposing to us and to ask why.

That said, I have had intimate friendships and associations with others who have suffered immensely in life.

I think of Eric, and what he has faced in literally day to day life in large part from his birth mothers use of LDS while pregnant. I think of Danny who has lost not one but two sons tragically yet here he sits. I think of people lost in accidents, suicides, cancer and disease over the years taken in the prime of life or before.

We had a brother that came here named Mike who passed not too long ago and one day he opened up to me and told me the story of having a son, three or four years old, who went down to a pond on his property and drown.

I had always had a hard time relating to Mike before this revelation, but after that day I better understood the man.

And then there is the pain of unfaithfulness in marrige, divorce, loss of community, mind, possessions, and child abuse.

No, the physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual issues people face in this life astound me – so I do not pretend to understand anyone’s exact plight.

If I did I would be like one of Job’s friends, who after sitting with him in the dirt decide that they have the ability to explain to Job the reason for his plight.

So, we will seek to understand at least the principles that we are presented in the Book of Job and I will do my best to convey them in the spirit of compassion and love.

In preparation I have resorted to the research and insights of some profoundly astute Hebrew scholars whose soul purpose is to make the book clear.

Their purpose is not to make it more religious (if its not religious). Its to explain the actual text through a whole bunch of applications people we call Philologists (lovers of words) use which if said them I would need a dictionary to explain half of them myself.

But the half dozen men and women I consulted are all experts in Ancient Semetic Language, have brought forth information of tremendous value which will enable us to better understand the book itself – may the Spirit to give us the meaning to our hearts.

Based on the Hebrew prose included herein, there are more advanced words and syntax present in the book which were not used as far back as I initially thought and the use of these Hebrew terms reveals that the writer learned Hebrews rather than it being natural to him.

Because of the Aramaic insertions, the book is timestamped somewhere between 540 BC to 330 BC and the geographical setting of the book is in the land of Israel but more specifically the Persian province of Yehud.

Additionally, the author displays familiarity with several Semetic languages including Aramaic, Phonecian, Arabic and Babylonian as well as knowledge of Mesopotamian writings which include descriptions of gods and incantations that were used in the midst of childbirth.

The author is also believed to have been a polymath who had knowledge of anatomy, astronomy, literature, plants and animals. But above all things, the writer possessed unparalleled insight into Hebrew literature.

Like I mentioned the language is highly poetic making the task of interpretation far more difficult than I originally thought.

It is believed that the book had a very very limited distribution and was kept close to where it was written. Some scholars think that it was not a sacred text initially and when the earlier translations of the book are reviewed the reality of numerous mistakes is made clear.

Another really troubling reality of the book is there are places where the verses are mixed up – even from different chapters – which makes understanding even harder because some of the verses are out of place.

The commentators I’ve consulted have tried to ferret these things out.

What the most studied research on this fascinating book discovers – and this is the most important angle to consider today, is the ultimate purpose or point brought out beginning to end is . . .

How to be absolutely and utterly honest in your communications – especially when it comes to talking with or about God.

It seems that each of the characters or friends of Job fail to deliver authentic from the heart insights to the Man who had lost everything. This displeases God more than anything else as Job will always honestly and authentically speak his mind.

In some ways the friends regurgitate the rhetoric to the man, religious quotes and statements applied as bromides to give meaning to the situation.

What makes Job genuinely pass the test is he, without fail, speaks honestly to the friends and to God. And what he says, what he speaks, are highlighted in the book as being paramount in the life of this man suffering and the take away is not, does He get angry with God, nor does He become destitute or opinionated or defensive – these things are expected in a man who losses everything.

The take away is does he remain . . . authentic with his words?

The bulk of the book revolves around discourse, discussion, dialogue – of people, then YAHAVAH, speaking.

Throughout the text we will read things like

Job 1:22 In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.

“In all this did not Job sin with his lips.” Job 2:10

Job 3:1 “After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.”

Job 6:3 “for my words are garbled up to you,” he says.

Which caused Bildad to say two chapter later

“How long will the words of your mouth be like a massive wind?” (Job 8:2)

Job was very concerned personally, as revealed by the narrator in the first chapter, that his children did not curse God in their hearts. (Job 1:5)

And while the ultimate question was whether Job would curse God or not, Job will speak truthfully his mind to God with no corruption in his tongue (Job 6:30)

In chapter 27:4 we will read

“I swear that my lips will speak nothing corrupt and my tongue will utter no deceit.”

An when Eliphaz will not believe that Job has received a revelation from the Spirit, Job seems to take pride in the fact that even if YAHAVAH were to kill him, he says, “I did not conceal the words of the Holy One.”

What was Job? He was honest with his mouth. Better yet, he was authentic with his mouth. He said what he honestly believed.

His friends appear to appeal to ancient wisdom of others when they speak with him, even reciting what could only be seen as pithy religious sayings.

You know,

“God is in charge.”
“Everything happens for a reason.”
“This is to teach you something.”

What do they represent? Souls who repeat what they have heard but rarely repeat what they have learned.

Job is able to cite tradition, as we will see in chapter 12, the man speaks from the Spirit, speaks prophetically, speaks from personal wisdom gained via suffering and only speaks what he means and feels – this is what distinguishes him above the rest.

YAHAVAH knew who he allowed Satan to brutalize. YAHAVAH allowed Satan to test and lower him to the dust, not because Job wouldn’t complain or wish for death but because He would be honest about what he thought, felt and experienced.

The story of Job is in some ways, a story that illustrates an authentic, honest soul talking about his life before the living God.

His friends show up, as friends are wont to do when we are suffering, and either meaning well, or in ignorance, or arrogance, piety or indifference – throw the book at him in platitudes, accusations, religiosity or some other approaches that are disingenuous.

God can handle our authentic hearts and mouths folks. This Job gives and he serves to represent an model of faith, honesty and integrity before God – which God will address in the end- without apology.

In religion we seek to put on shows. In religion we fear honestly expressing our heart of hearts. We want to appear strong in our trials, devout in our suffering, and resolute in our faith.

Job chose to literally say, “I do not freaking understand this, God. Explain yourself to me? I’m taking you to court.”

So, in the prologue, we are presented with some leads that point to Job being a tale of some sort, beginning with the opening, Once there was a man, which is akin, of course to, “Once upon a time,” but we also are presented with typical tale numbers from that time (three, seven and ten) which help put the story in more of a representational fiction than something that actually happened.

Do I believe there was a man named Job? I believe that every single member of the human race has been “a Job” to some degree or another. As to an actual man, why not? But if not, it doesn’t really matter.

Some scholars think that the book of Job this was the winner of some sort of poetry contest fabricated to tell the tale of suffering in the face God.

But whatever its origins – fiction or not – The book of Job is really truly about the way people communicate – with each other and with God.

I did a word tally and terms like:

Speech/spoken
Talk /talking
Words/word
Mouth/lips/tongue/voice
Speak/speaking
Say/saying
Voice/argue

Are used 198 times in the text. That’s a lot. Interestingly, words like hear/hearing/listen are only used 20.

Silence? – 3

Perhaps more to the point, Job does most of the talking and most of it is too his friends and their views about his plight or to God or in reference to God and His participation or indifference to it.

But the biggest issue in the Book of Job is the translation of words because from what I can see – one approach holds Job up as “resolute in his responses never allowing himself to castigate God or bring criticism of Him and His ways, and the other depicts Job as sarcastic, depressed man flatly confronting God and putting him on Trial.

Let’s take a few examples:

Hero Job
Accusatory Job
Job 9:20 If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse.
Even were I in the right, His mouth would condemn me; were I innocent, He would wrong me!

Job 9:20 (BBE) Though I was in the right, he would say that I was in the wrong; I have done no evil; but he says that I am a sinner.

Same Interpretation Job
Same Interpretation Job
Job 9:23 If the scourge slay suddenly, he will laugh at the trial of the innocent.
While his scourge brings death to fools, he laughs at the trials of the spotless.

I the face of this I am going to teach through this book not choosing a side with the hero or the embittered but I am going to appeal to both points of view for the simple reason that I believe we all have a choice in life when it comes to the things God allows – to be honest of heart and through our mouths speak well or to be honest of heart and through our mouths speak our pain, even anger, directly.

And we will all walk away having to choose with path we will take.

The point, at least in our maiden voyage here through Job, is YAHAVAH wants honest communications from his creations – one way or another, this is what He gets from Job.

The reason this is so important to Him is once a person authentically expresses their hearts before Him, He is in a position to work with them to a better end and to reveal His true self in the end.

Chapter One – next week.

Questions/Prayer