The Bible in a Year – 17 August

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

17 August. Job chapters 40-42

In these final chapters, God continues his proof of being greater than man’s understanding, by describing in detail two awesome creatures called Behemoth and Leviathan (sometimes identified as the rhinoceros and the crocodile) that only he can deal with. How can man think of himself as master of creation when he cannot even tame these animals?  That is enough to bring Job to a level of humility where he can acknowledge that he has understood the nature of God.  He is pardoned, as are his companions, and in the ultimate “happy aver after ending” Job lives another 140 years, through four generations of a new family. We hear no more of Satan, who obviously lost his bet that he could cause Job to curse God.

 

Fairy-tale endings apart, what has the book of Job got to teach us?  It has covered many themes such as God’s discipline shown through suffering, but not as a punishment for our sins; the impossibility of being morally perfect; the finality of death and reality of judgement; the emptiness of atheism; the dangers of criticising other people, for judgement must be left to God; the impossibility of knowing God, yet the importance of accepting the righteousness that he offers.  It is a work of moral philosophy, of theology, and of practical wisdom, an attempt to explain the elusive “meaning of life”.  Having some grasp of the meaning of life may be the only way that a person can be prepared for the sort of disaster that befell Job.