Chapters 12—20
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Scripture Reading: Job 19; Job 20
In this message we will cover chapters nineteen and twenty.
In his complaint against his friends (19:1-5), Job asked them how long they would grieve his soul and crush him with their words. He said that they had reproached him ten times and that they were not ashamed to deal wrongly with him. He continued by saying that if he had erred, his error remained with him.
Job complained that God had subverted his cause and had compassed him about with His net in violence and without justice (vv. 6-7). In his extreme sensitivity Job felt that God had treated him in this way, but surely God did not do such things to Job.
Job went on to say that God had walled up his way so that he could not pass and that He had put darkness upon his paths (v. 8). I do not believe that God did either of these things to Job. Actually, it might have been Job himself who had walled up his way.
In verse 9 Job said, "He has stripped my glory from me/And taken away the crown on my head." This was true. Job's glory was his perfection and uprightness, and his crown was his integrity. Job was right in saying that God had stripped his glory, his perfection and uprightness, from him and had taken away his crown, his integrity, from his head.
Job further complained that God had broken him all around. Job was gone (dying), and his hope had been plucked up like a tree (v. 10). Job's hope had been to build up the "tree" of his integrity, but God would not allow such a tree to grow within Job. Rather, God had plucked up this tree, this hope.
Job claimed that God had also kindled His anger against him and that in Himself He considered Job as His adversary. Job then said that God's troops had come together and had cast up their highway against him and had encamped all around his tent (vv. 11-12). Although God was stripping Job, He surely was not angry with him; neither did God consider Job as His adversary but as His intimate friend. Moreover, Job was not correct in saying that God had sent a troop against Job. For God to do such a thing would be against the principle.
Job continued his complaint by saying that God had removed his brothers far from him, and that those who knew him were wholly estranged from him. His relatives had failed him and his acquaintances had forgotten him, and those who sojourned in his house and his maids considered him a stranger. He was a foreigner in their eyes. Job said that he called out to his servant, but his servant did not answer (vv. 13-16).
Job said that his breath was strange to his wife, and his supplications, to the children of his mother's womb. Job complained that even little children despised him; he arose, and they spoke against him. All the men with whom he took counsel abhorred him, and those whom he loved had turned against him (vv. 17-19).
Job went on to say that his bones cleaved to his skin and to his flesh and that he had escaped by the skin of his teeth. He asked his friends to pity him, for, according to his feeling, the hand of God had touched him and God was persecuting him. Then, using a figure of speech, he asked them why they were not satisfied with eating his flesh (vv. 20-22).
"Oh that my words were now written!/Oh that they were inscribed in a book!/That with an iron pen and with lead/They were engraved in rock forever!" (vv. 23-24). Because Job was so hurt by what had happened to him and because he felt that God was treating him too severely, Job wished that his words would be engraved in rock as a permanent record of his suffering.
"But I know that my Redeemer lives,/And at the last He will stand upon the earth;/And after this body of mine is destroyed,/Outside my flesh I will look on God,/Whom I, even I, will look on for myself,/And my eyes will see; I, and no other./My inward parts that long for God are consumed within me" (vv. 25-27). The Hebrew word for "earth" here literally means "dust." This verse says that the Redeemer will stand upon the dust.
If we do not have a complete vision of God's economy, we might think that Job's word, "My Redeemer lives," is very good. However, the New Testament tells us not merely that our Redeemer lives but that He lives in us. To Job's word we need to add the little phrase "in me." This is according to Paul's word in Galatians 2:20: "It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me." If Christ lived only in the heavens, that would not have anything to do with us. Today our Redeemer is not only living — He is living in us.
We were made by God in three parts — spirit, soul, and body (1 Thes. 5:23). Our outer part, our body, is dust. Christ has not yet touched this part. Today Christ is living in our spirit to impart Himself from our spirit into our soul so that His element may be transfused into our soul for its transformation. One day He will come to "stand upon our dust," that is, our body, to touch our body. Then our body of humiliation will be transfigured to be conformed to the body of His glory (Phil. 3:21). At that time He will not only stand upon the dust of the earth, but He will touch our dust.
Today we experience Christ's living in our spirit to transfuse Himself into our soul, and we are waiting for Him to come out of us to touch our body made of dust. This is Paul's view, and it is also our view.
Job's view, being altogether objective, was not complete. It was not like Paul's view, which was altogether subjective. Paul's view is expressed in the following stanzas from Hymns, #949:
The New Testament tells us that today Christ lives in us. Not only so, He is also making His home in our hearts (Eph. 3:17). He is gradually getting Himself settled in our entire inner being. This is the subjective living of Christ in us. Job, according to his objective view, declared, "My Redeemer lives." We, according to the subjective view in the New Testament, should shout, "Our Redeemer lives in us. He is making His home in us, and He is transforming our soul. One day He will touch our body of dust."
In Job 19:28 and 29 Job gave a warning to his friends. He warned them about saying, "How will we persecute him? /For the root of the matter is found in him." He told them to be fearful of the sword, for wrath brings the punishment of the sword, that they might know that there is a judgment. Here Job was warning them regarding a judgment that would be brought in by God's wrath. According to Job, if his friends continued to speak as they were speaking, God would come in to judge them.
Job's complaint against His friends and toward God shows that he was very sensitive. In his sensitivity he thought that others were intending to damage him and he misunderstood God, thinking that God had sent a troop against him. In contrast to Job, who was sensitive and who complained, Paul could rejoice in all that happened to him (Phil. 4:4).
In chapter twenty we have Zophar's anger toward Job and his teaching concerning the wicked.
In his anger toward Job, Zophar said that his own disquieting thoughts answered him, and hence haste was in him. Zophar continued by saying that he heard the reproof that humiliated him and that the spirit of his understanding answered him (vv. 1-3).
Zophar's teaching concerning the wicked (vv. 4-29) was based on the principle of good and evil.
In his teaching of Job, Zophar said that the joyous shouting of the wicked is short and that the rejoicing of the profane is for but a moment (vv. 4-11). Regarding the wicked person, Zophar said, "Like a dream he flies away and is not found;/Indeed he is chased away like a vision of the night" (v. 8).
Zophar claimed that though wickedness is sweet in the mouth of the wicked, his food in his bowels is the venom of asps within him (vv. 12-19).
Finally, Zophar taught Job that because the wicked knows no respite in his craving, of that which he desires he will save nothing. There will be nothing left of what he has devoured. Thus, his prosperity will not endure (vv. 20-29). Zophar concluded his teaching by saying, "This is the wicked man's portion from God/And the inheritance decreed to him by God" (v. 29).
