A (0:00)

Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango, and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the Journey family. Welcome to day 313. We are diving into job chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7. So I'm super, super excited. I've done the reading. I hope that you have as well. If you haven't done the reading, this is a great time to stop the video, pause the audio, go get the reading done. We are officially out of the prologue, and now we are moving into the dialogue content. We're going to get Job's major complaint, and then we're going to get three friends who are going to get introduced into the narrative, and they've got a lot to say. We're going to break it all down. I'm going to give you context clues, nerdy nuggets, and a timeless truth at the end of the episode, just like every day. So if you've done the reading, how about we dive in again? If you haven't done the reading, go get the reading done. Okay? We want this podcast to be a supplement to your Bible reading, not a substitute for your Bible reading. If you have done the reading, let's go ahead and get some context clues knocked out so that we can head into our nerdy nuggets. All right, so context clues. Let's talk literary context. Okay? This is Hebrew poetry. Now, we have spent a good chunk of time in Hebrew poetry. Okay? Job is what I would say is like the pinnacle of Hebrew poetry. In this one book of the Bible, we are going to get psalms, we're gonna get proverbs, we're gonna get riddles, we're gonna get curses. We're going to get all kinds of types of literature that are all gonna be under the umbrella of poetry, right? So a proverb is a form of poetry. A psalm is a form of poetry. We've been looking at individual books of the Bible, like the book of Psalms that have psalms in it or the book of proverbs that have proverbs in it. Well, Job is going to have some proverbs. It's going to have some psalms. It's going to have all kinds of content. Actually, Job contains psalms, proverbs, riddles, laments, wisdom poems, curses, chiasms, and ancient lawsuits and more. All right, so let's actually just Think for a moment. The poetry that we find in the book of Job is so intricate and so detailed. This is actually like just the greatest example of Hebrew poetry we have in all the scriptures. Okay? This is kind of like when you're in the book of Luke and people will say, like, this is the best Greek. Like whoever wrote the opening lines of the Gospel according to Luke and the book of Acts, that is a very, very, very intelligent, intellectually astute person. Like, this is the quality of the Greek here is just through the roof. Okay? Well, the intricacy of the Hebrew poetry that we have here in the book of Job is just off the charts Good. Like, just really, really, really good. Now, that may not translate when we read it in English, but the Hebrew poetry is. Is insanely intricate. In intricate. And we have multiple dialogues with multiple people all woven together, okay? So we have three people who are all responding to Job, okay? One at a time for three rounds, woven in three dialogues. So it's like threes within threes within threes. It's like super, super, super well designed, okay? So you just gotta know that number two, here's the other piece of context that is just absolutely fascinating. This is a garden story in many ways. The book of Job is a garden story. We have a character who is innocent, blameless, who lives in a kind of a paradise, okay? Who lives a perfect life. Yet because of Satan, AKA the serpent Hasatan or the Satan, that innocent, blameless character faces both a fall and a great temptation. A temptation involving the character of God and his involvement with the good in the evil in. In his life. The context of these two stories are the same. Yahweh, innocence, paradise, Satan, temptation, good and evil, and a fall in the garden, though the man, AKA Adam, fell because he sinned, but in Job, he falls because he did not sin. But in both stories, the fall is intended to kill not just the person. See, the fall is not just intended to kill Adam or Job in this case, but to kill those characters. Faith in God, their belief in the goodness and the goodness of God's character. It worked in the garden, but will it work with Job? Once we find out this is a garden story, we're leaned in. Okay? I can remember the day I realized that the story of Noah was a garden story, okay? Where Adam and Eve are standing before the tree of the knowledge of Good and evil and they eat its fruit. Noah is tempted with the fruit of the vine, grape juice that's fermented, that becomes wine, the wine that Noah has in the cup is the same as the fruit that's on the tree. It's just in a different form. Noah is going to be found naked. Okay. After he's drunk. The same with it. Adam and Eve are naked before they have an awareness of their own nakedness. In the same way that Adam and Eve become aware, they move from aloof to aware. Guess what? Noah wakes up and he's suddenly aware of what has happened to him, that one of his sons has violated him in some way. And if that's not enough, Anoah is called a man of the soil, which Adam is going to be called multiple times in the garden story that we have in Genesis, chapter three. Last but not least, when Adam and Eve sin against Yahweh, Yahweh places a curse on the serpent. Whereas in the story of Noah, who's doing the cursing? That's right, Noah is. He's cursing his grandson. And, man, this is off. People aren't supposed to curse each other. Only God is supposed to curse. So there's all these similarities that help you to understand that Noah, whatever is happening with Noah, this is a garden story. Okay? So Job is also a garden story, which just. I want to help all of us realize there are these garden stories hidden all throughout the text, like the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh. They're these garden stories. They're these echoes of Genesis. They're everywhere. That story of Adam and Eve in the garden is like this pulsating drum line. It is beating all throughout the text. Okay. And so you can feel the pulse of that Genesis 3 heartbeat everywhere you look when you open up the Hebrew Bible. All right, let's dive into one more piece of context that I think is really, really helpful. Family, the wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos, is out now and available everywhere. Books are sold, literally. Today I walked into a Barnes and Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at physical Barnes and Noble, or you can go to a Books A million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an angel ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is going to be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All Right back to the episode. There are a bunch of books that are like Job. Another type of ancient literature Job is associated with is called pessimistic literature. This pessimistic literature. These are books that are the ancient versions of the deeply profound question, why does life suck? Okay, that's what these books are trying to answer. Ecclesiastes is another example of this in Scripture. Both types of books ask deep questions about why life is like it is. Why do the innocent suffer? Why is there witness at all? And how do the gods, or gods, specifically Yahweh, relate to it all? Other examples include the ancient Sumerian document of a man complaining to his God about his affliction. Or the great Babylonian poem, Ludlow. Ludlow. Bel nim Nimeki. I don't know how to pronounce this ancient hieroglyphics, but it means in English, I will praise the Lord of Wisdom, which is about a righteous sufferer and his relationship to Marduk. Sorry, not Babylonian, not Egyptian hieroglyphics. That's Babylonian. Okay. His relationship to Marduk and his struggle on how to end his suffering. This one is so similar to Job that it is often called the Babylonian Job. Isn't that fascinating? There's also a very ancient Egyptian work of the third millennium B.C. with the wonderfully catchy title, A Dispute about Suicide of a man who is in so much despair that he engages in debate about whether to kill himself or not. Or another Babylonian poem called A Dialogue about Human Misery, in which a sufferer debates with with his friend about the cause of his suffering. And they come to the conclusion that this is just the way the gods have made humans. There's nothing they can do about it. So these are all similar in terms of content, style, genre to the Book of Job. Okay. As you can see, there are many similarities to Job, but in reality, Job surpasses them all in terms of poetry, but also in terms of theological or philosophical discussion. And of course, the main difference is that this is a theodicy written by an author with the knowledge of the Torah and of the revelation of Yahweh within it and his relationship with Israel. This was written then, by one of those who have access, like no other ancient culture, to the one who has the answers. That's right, Yahweh, who. Who is the answer to the questions and challenges that theodicies raise. And yet, even though the inspired by the Holy Spirit, writers have access to Almighty God who's speaking through them words of life that we know as scripture, even though they have Access, they still don't give in answer. That's right. God is going to show up, and he does not provide an answer to why is there suffering? Or why do bad things happen to good people? He does not lower his thoughts to answer that question, but instead elevates the human experience so that that's no longer the question. That's too simple of a question. You may think that you're asking God a deep question by asking that, but you. You begin to realize that's not a deep question for God. There are far deeper questions. All right? That's all of our context clues. Just kind of want to help get us oriented around this book that we know as Job. Now, let me give you some nerdy nuggets, okay? One of the things that you're gonna have to realize if the book is gonna make sense or come to life is that there are four trials happening throughout the book of Job. Okay? Satan has been allowed, okay, to try Job. Okay? So they're going to be trials. Now, we mean trial by ordeal. Trial by ordeal. Now, if you've watched Game of Thrones, no judgment, or if you're familiar with the story of David and Goliath, okay, that instead of the entire army having to fight, there was an ancient way for there to just be a people's champion. And the people's champion was Goliath. And David decides to be the people's champion for Israel. Therefore, as long as these two have some type of trial by combat, the victor in this microcosm actually would dictate the victor in the bigger context. Okay, That's a trial by combat. This is called a trial by ordeal. Same idea, but it's a set of trials and challenges to see whether or not the God that the hero represents is in fact, right. And so, in a very, very real way, Job is Yahweh's champion the same way that David is Saul's champion, the same way that Goliath is the Philistines champion. Job is actually in such an honored position, he's Yahweh's champion. And if he loses, it would reflect the fact that Yahweh is. Is just like the Satan or Hasatan that people serve the Satan for the same reasons that they serve Yahweh, because they're scared of the consequences and they are incentivized by the privileges, okay? That this is just transactional. It's not indeed covenantal. That all this hoorah about worship is really nothing because people just love themselves. Okay? So Job now, without knowing that he's Yahweh's champion has to be Yahweh's champion and win the temptation in his mind and his heart. Okay, what's the first trial? The first trial is that Satan takes away wealth, possessions and children, and Job passes. That's What Job, chapter one, verse 21, tells us that he refuses to curse God. Second, Satan takes away. This is the second trial. Satan takes away health and social standing. And then Job is tempted. Who's he tempted by? He's tempted by the Eve in this garden story, which is his wife, tempted to curse God and die. That's Job, chapter two, verse nine. But Job passes the test. In Job, chapter two, verse ten, he refuses to curse God. And then three, the next trial or the next ordeal are the friends. Okay, There are four friends that come to test Job. The first is Eliphaz, and Job is always going to speak afterwards. And then Bildad, and then Job's going to speak, and then Zofar, and then Job is going to speak. And then the fourth trial is actually the most important of all. And we'll get into that towards the end of the book. All right, one more nerdy nugget. Okay, we got a lot of trials here. Not just trials by combat, but these are trials by ordeal. What we're going to get is that Eliphaz is going to. There's going to be a structure now to these dialogues, okay? Eliphaz, Job, Bildad, Job, Zophar, Job. Okay? Eliphaz, Job, Bildad, Job, Zophar, Job. On a wisdom level, like, on a theological level, these friends are cooked, bro. Like, these friends are wrong. Like Eliphaz, build Bildad and Zophar. Don't say anything to Job. That is the truth. Like a hundred percent true. Totally true. All truth, nothing but the truth. Okay? However, they do say things that are. That contain some truth. And so Paul is going to actually quote Eliphaz in First Corinthians, chapter three, verse 19. Okay. Which is a quote from show. You find it on the lips of Eliphaz. And Paul is going to quote it in 1 Corinthians, chapter 3, verse 19. So let me kind of run this down really fast. Okay? Chapters four and five, you're going to get Eliphaz the Temanite. He's going to talk. And what is his general perspective? It comes straight out of the book of Proverbs. He has a very black and white perspective. He, hey, you must have done something if God is punishing you. And what is Job's response. Well, you can find Job's response in chapters six and seven. And Job's response is really centered around the fact that he's done absolutely nothing to deserve this kind of pain and punishment by Yahweh. So our timeless truth for the day. Okay, that's a lot of nerdy nuggets. Has a lot of context clues. Let's move into our timeless truth for the day. Pretty simple, actually. Job's friends show up and they immediately start talking. They've got explanations, they've got moral explanations, they've got ideas, they've got challenges. They have a lot of words. They are yapping away, okay? However, what Job needed was not answers. Explanations, guesses, theologizing. No, no, no. Guess what Job needed. He needed their presence. And guess what God is going to bring at the end of the book. This could be frustrating for a lot of people. God brings no explanations. God doesn't answer Job. He talks a lot, but gives no answers to any of the things that Job has actually asked about. But guess what God does do. God comes with his presence. And what Job is actually supposed to teach us is that presence is better than explanations. Can I ask you a question? Are you going through something hard? Are you going through, like, suffering and pain? I know you want answers. There are times where I've gone through really, really tough scenarios. Me and my wife had a miscarriage after getting miraculously pregnant after years of infertility. And I had so many questions, why God? What are you doing? And God never gave me an explanation. And he rarely gives explanations. And I doubt he's going to give you an explanation. And I'd be leery of anybody, really, who wants to come to bring explanations. But you wanna know what God did do? God was my peace. He was my healer. He was my comforter. The truth is this. When Yahweh finally shows up, he doesn't provide explanations, but rather he provides himself. And that's not just true for Job's life. That's true for your life. That's true for me. We could demand explanations from God, but he rarely provides explanations. But he always provides himself. And I hope that that's not disappointing. I hope that that's a sobering thought that causes you to reprioritize just how important God's presence is over any myriad of explanations that he could attempt to bring. Aye, family. Hope that's helpful. Tomorrow we got day three. 14. We're going to be in job, chapters eight, nine, and ten. We're going to continue to dive into Job's conversation with his three friends who definitely think they know it all. They've asked no questions, they're not really listening, but they've got a lot of opinions. So low on the empathy, high on the opinionatedness. And you know what? I actually think the opposite should be true. We should be high on empathy, low on opinionatedness. And so I hope that that is helpful for you wherever you are. Tomorrow we got day three 14. We're going to be trekking through job chapters eight, nine and 10. It's gonna be fantastic. How about you meet me here, same time, same place on the podcast? If you're on a streak, I'm proud of you. If you're not on a streak, I love you. I'll see you tomorrow. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show@thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram at the Bible department. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.