Continuing a Bible study of Job, Job speaks again:
(Job 23:1) Then Job answered and said, (2) "Even today my complaint is bitter; my stroke is heavier than my groaning."
Paraphrased, "Even as we speak the hand (of God) upon me is greater than my complaints."
(3) "Oh, that I knew where I might find Him! That I might come to His seat! (4) I would present my cause before Him, and fill my mouth with arguments. (5) I would know the words He would answer me, and understand what He would say to me. (6) Will He plead against me with great power? No, but He would regard me. (7) There the righteous might dispute with Him; so should I be delivered forever from my judge."
Job knows that his Lord is a just God, and if only he could present his case straight to Him, Job knows that He would know the truth about Job. If Job were able to speak straight to the author of truth and justice and life itself, he himself would then understand why these things have happened to him. He certainly can't get answers from his friends; at the throne of God is the only place Job can hope to get real answers, and he hopes to get deliverance, as well. He trusts His Lord will treat him tenderly and show him the truth.
(8) "Behold, I go forward, but He is not there, and backward, but I cannot perceive Him; (9) On the left hand where He works, but I cannot behold Him; He hides Himself on the right hand that I cannot see Him."
In these two verses, Job actually mentions "the four corners of the world, east, west, north, and south". The word translated as "forward" is "qedem" or "qedmah" and it can mean "front, forward" or "east, eastward", as well as "before, aforetime, old, past". Likewise, "backward" or "achor" can mean "behind, backward" or "west". The word translated as "left hand" is "semol" and means "left, dark, or north". "Yamiyn" means "right or south". These directions are for a man facing eastward. When Job speaks of "the left hand where He (God) works", he may be speaking of a dark or hidden region, as that word also means dark, as God often may seem to work in secret from us. Perhaps Job means "the four corners of heaven" by these directional words. The theologian, Albert Barnes, speculates that it may have seemed like the most awesome manifestations of God's glory and majesty might have appeared in the north in the form of the Aurora Borealis, the northern lights. Another early Biblical scholar, Adam Clarke, points out that from where Job and his friends would have stood in their place on the earth, they would not have been able to see the southern sky, the constellations of the antarctic pole. Therefore, it may have seemed to Job that God must be "hiding" Himself there now. Obviously, the sense of these scriptures is that Job has looked everywhere for God, in order to present his case to Him, but he cannot find Him.
(10) "But He knows the way that I take; when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold."
Although Job cannot find God, he has confidence that God knows where he is and truly knows him and his ways. Although he doesn't understand why he has had to go through all these trials, he knows it will be better in the end. Whether Job states this fact pridefully because he believes in the end God will "discover" that Job is pure, or whether he understands that all trials have the potential to improve and purify us when God is at the helm working all things for good, remains to be seen just yet. So far I have not found any real fault in Job through this process, but some of the early commentaries point to this scripture as one in which God finds fault when He later appears to Job. Perhaps Job is beginning to show a little boastful pride here.
(11) "My foot has held fast to His steps; I have kept His way and not turned aside. (12) Neither have I gone back from the commandment of His lips; I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary food."
Job insists he has faithfully and continually followed God and His commandments.
(13) "But He is in one mind, and who can turn Him? And what His soul desires, that He does."
Even though he sees himself as completely innocent, Job realizes that God Himself alone is the author of our fate. Although God wants the very best for us, He sees the bigger picture, and His plans are His own designed in His perfect wisdom, and no one can turn Him against His will.
(14) "For He performs the thing that is appointed for me, and many such things are with Him."
Interestingly, the word translated as "the thing that is appointed" is "choq"; the same word is combined with "min" and translated as "necessary food" in verse 12. I believe the sense is that the steps necessary for carrying out His will are as fundamentally needed as "necessary food". God performs innumerable such tasks, and God performing His will in our daily lives is as fundamental, ingrained, and natural, as our daily routines including eating and sleeping.
(15) "Therefore I am troubled at His presence; when I consider this, I am afraid of Him."
When Job realizes that there is no turning God from His will, he is afraid of Him. The word translated as "fear" can be translated as "awe", as well. When anyone fully understands there is no stopping the One who holds his life in His hands, a reverential fear or awe is only natural.
(16) "For God makes my heart soft, and the Almighty troubles me; (17) Because I was not cut off before the darkness, neither has He covered the darkness from my face."
That thought about God and the magnitude of His enormous power makes Job's heart faint with the realization of it. Job is feeling very vulnerable and helpless at the realization of God's great power, probably as it relates to his troubles that may have no end. God did not take his life before they came on him and he does not cover him in the grave now.
(Job 24:1) "Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they who know Him not see His days?"
Most commentaries read this as asking why those who know the Lord don't see His (or understand) His ways. Who am I to disagree with the great old theologians, but in context with the verses that follow, I believe that Job is wondering here why, seeing that God sees all, does He allow those who don't know Him to see His days. Rather than reading the phrase as "they who know Him", I believe it has to be "they who know Him not" because the next verses continue with a description of wicked men. Why, seeing that God knows their wickedness, do they seem to get to enjoy His blessings?
(2) "Some remove landmarks; they violently take away flocks and feed on them; (3) They drive away the donkey of the fatherless; they take the widow's ox for a pledge. (4) They turn the needy out of the way; the poor of the earth hide themselves together. (5) Behold, like wild donkeys in the desert, they go forth to their work, rising early for a prey; the wilderness yields food for them and for their children."
Job describes the actions of wicked men. They are like wild donkeys, fierce, lawless, and greedy for prey, and even the wilderness yields for them, because they rob and plunder. Speaking about them and their children, seems a bit more tender to me, and has me wondering if Job might mean here that when the poor were forced to hide themselves together that they were the ones who became as wild donkeys foraging for food in the wilderness.
(6) "They reap their corn in the field; and they gather the vintage of the wicked."
All these "they"'s are difficult for me to discern. If Job was talking about the poor, when does he return to the subject of the wicked? Perhaps he has only been talking about the wicked this entire time. Certainly the gist of his comments so far is that the wicked do horrible things, and the poor do suffer at their hands. Every old study I read indicates that Job is talking about they, the wicked, here. The word translated as "corn" means more of a mixed feed or fodder. The reaping and gathering of the vintage is metamorphic for their various robberies, living off the plunder of others. One study I read pointed out that the word translated as "gather" actually means to gather late or gather the after crop, so the idea is that they reap the early harvest of corn and gather the vintage late in autumn. Thus they are always robbing and supporting themselves by robbery.
(7) "They cause the naked to lodge without clothing, they who have no covering in the cold. (8) They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for want of a shelter."
This passage is pretty clear. They, the wicked, plunder and strip people and leave them destitute. They, the plundered, are left out in the cold with nothing to defend themselves. Now, back to they, the wicked...
(9) "They pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge from the poor."
Perhaps they steal defenseless children, possibly making them slaves or worse, or perhaps selling them. Looking at it slightly differently, taking a pledge from the poor may be related to the first part of the verse in that "they so pillage and plunder the poor widow that she cannot sustain herself that she may be able to nurse her baby" (1599 Geneva Bible Translation Notes). Either way, they were ruthless.
(10) "They cause him to go naked, without clothing; and they take away the sheaf from the hungry, (11) Who make oil within their walls, and tread their winepresses, and suffer thirst."
Some translations say "them", meaning the poor, rather than "him", as the KJV does. As I look a little deeper, "fatherless" from the verse before can also mean a lonely bereaved person. Maybe rather than literally stealing children, the wicked are taking all comforts and security from the poor and defenseless. They leave them with nothing to clothe themselves and take away their last bit of food. Probably what is meant by verse 11 is that the hungry make oil and tread wine presses within the wicked men's walls. They, the hungry, are thirsty because they are not permitted to drink the wine they must make for the tyrants, either because they are forced as slaves to work for them, or because the fruit of their labor is taken from them by the wicked.
(12) "Men groan from out of the city, and the soul of the wounded cries out; yet God does not regard them with folly."
Although the oppressed groan and cry out to God, He seems to allow their suffering at the hands of wicked men to pass without punishing the wicked deeds. I believe Job is trying to prove to his friends that God does not always immediately punish the wicked, and that the reverse was also true, that God did not always immediately reward every good work. Wickedness often went long unpunished and virtue unrewarded, so they could not judge a man either by his prosperity or adversity.
(13) "They are of those who rebel against the light; they do not know its ways nor abide in its paths."
Back to they, the wicked, the ones who caused such misery to the oppressed, they rebel against the light of God's word.
(14) "The murderer rising with the light kills the poor and needy, and in the night is like a thief. (15) The eye also of the adulterer waits for the twilight, saying, 'No eye will see me', and disguises his face. (16) In the dark they dig through houses which they had marked for themselves in the daytime; they do not know the light. (17) For the morning is the same to them as the shadow of death; if someone knows them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death. (18) They are swift as the waters; their portion is cursed in the earth; they behold not the way of the vineyards."
The wicked are murderers, thieves, and adulterers. I want to note that in verse 18, KJV uses the pronoun "he" instead of "they", but Strong's points out that the original word used here can also mean "they", and that seems to flow better with the context here. I think the meaning of verse 18 is that the wicked are always fleeing because they know they are not accepted in normal walks of life, no doubt because of their choices.
(19) "Drought and heat consume the snow waters, so does the grave he who has sinned."
KJV added the words "so doth" (so does) and "those which" (...have sinned) for clarity. As those aren't original text words, I chose "he who" for my personal transcription notes, since it matches the pronouns used in the verses following this one.
(20) "The womb will forget him; the worm will feed sweetly on him; he will be no more remembered; and wickedness will be broken as a tree."
Even his mother who bore him will forget him and he will lie in the grave, which is the meaning of the worms in the ground which will feed on him as he lies there. The word translated as "broken" here is "shabar" and its meaning is a little more violent that merely "broken". The wicked will be totally broken to pieces, crushed, destroyed, like a tree that is broken down and never grows again.
(21) "He preys on the barren who do not bear, and does no good for the widow."
Job returns to the subject of the terrible deeds of the wicked.
(22) He also draws the mighty with his power; he rises up, but no man is sure of life."
Wow! All the newer translations of the Bible, NKJV, NIV, NLT, ESV, RSV, and many more, all translate "he" as "God". However, none of the older commentaries that I read considered the possibility that Job was speaking of God here. It's interesting that the translators of the newer versions of the Bible really thought they were smarter than the KJV translators who used the original Greek texts, but I agree with the old theologians and see no reason that the subject should change here. The wicked draws even the mighty in with his wickedness; no man is safe from him.
For an interesting in-depth study on how the original Greek text of the Holy Bible has been changed in more recent versions of the Bible, please see my study of January 10, 2011, entitled Which Version of the Truth Will You Use?
(23) "Though it be given him to be in safety, in which he rests; yet his eyes are on their ways."
Once again, most of the newer texts believe this is about God. I admit that some of the old theologians agree, so I'll look at it both ways. In my opinion, this is still about the wicked who overcome even the mighty. In verse 22, the wicked allowed the mighty to rise up, further described in verse 23 as feeling secure, but the wicked is always watching them, and they can never be safe (as stated in verse 22). However, if you read verse 23 as about God, it really doesn't change the context a lot. Job has said before that God has allowed the wicked man to prosper, feeling safe and secure in his ways, but He is always watching and always knows the deeds of the wicked.
(24) "They are exalted for a little while, but (then) are gone and brought low; they are taken out of the way like all others, and cut off as the tops of the ears of corn. (25) Now if it is not so, who will make me a liar, and make my speech worth nothing?"
Verse 24 naturally follows with either translation of verse 23. God allows the wicked to prosper for awhile, but then they are taken down and out of the way as all others who eventually die and go to the grave. They can never escape death, and will likewise, never escape God's judgment.
Job ends this speech by pretty much daring his friends to prove him wrong in what he has said.
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