If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.
12 August. Job chapters 24-28
Nearly all of today’s long reading is attributed to the mouth of Job. Bildad only gets a quick word in! Bildad (in chapter 25) and Job (in 26/27) agree on one thing: God’s majesty is unknowable, he is high above mankind (metaphorically speaking) and we have now way of ever understanding all his purposes. But they draw different conclusions: Bildad thinks that humans therefore can never be right with God, and must suffer the consequences. Job, on the other hand, sees God’s majesty as all the more reason to seek to find righteousness in him, and know him as best we can.
Before this exchange, Job paints a clear picture in chapter 24 of the harsh injustices of the world, the suffering of the oppressed and the apparent impunity of the wicked. Afterwards, in chapter 28, he contrasts wisdom with the metals and precious minerals that miners seek: with great difficulty they find riches in the earth, but no-one can find wisdom on earth, for it comes only from God. It is with these worldviews – God as the only source of wisdom, and the injustice of life on earth – that Job can insist that people can find their righteousness in God, even though we can never know him fully. It is better to be on his side, even though we suffer in this life, than to give up the struggle to be good, and end up being wiped out of God’s memory like the wicked.