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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 315. We are diving into the Book of Job or continuing our deep dive into the Book of Job. We are in chapters 11, 12, 13, and 14 today. Some solid, solid, solid content today. My job today is to actually say a couple things that I should have said yesterday. Gonna give you some nerdy nuggets from the chapters that were assigned for yesterday. So sorry in advance, we're gonna go back back a little so that we can go forward. The reading today, honestly, dense but good. Some verses that I think we're all familiar with come out of today's reading. I don't know if you're familiar with Job, chapter 13. I heard this said in church all the time. Verse 15. Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him. Though he slay me, yet will I trust him, is how I grew up hearing it. That's probably King James or New King James. But anyway, with no further ado, let's dive into today's content. If you have not done the reading for the day, this is my challenge to you. To stop the video, pause the audio, go get the reading done. Job, chapter 11, 12, 13, and 14. Solid, solid reading. Shouldn't take long. It is dense. So heads up if you haven't done the reading. And I actually have a copy of my latest book, Crushing Chaos with me today. Number one, I've got a copy of it because the artwork is straight out of the Book of Job. Okay. The artwork is the God figure here, crushing Leviathan. Okay. Or destroying Leviathan. And this artwork comes straight out of the end of the Book of Job. I think somewhere in the high 30s, maybe like chapter 37, 38, something somewhere in that direction where God actually gives a description of Behemoth and Leviathan. Now, that's not what we're going to talk about today, but we are going to talk about some other content from the Book of Job that I actually wrote about in Crushing Chaos. Because if you've already noticed, maybe you've already noticed this job is going to have a ton of chaos language. And I want to help us to interpret that chaos language. But before we dive into that, let me give you some context clues for the day Now, I teased this up. I teed this up yesterday, kind of teased this idea that Job is the oldest book of the Bible. Now, I've heard that said a ton. Maybe you have, maybe you haven't. If you're watching this on YouTube, let me know in the comments whether or not you've heard that said before. Okay? Job, the oldest book ever written. Okay. Now, that's kind of like an urban legend. Like, I remember hearing that as, like, a young adult. I won't say who said it. Very, very, very prominent pastor said it. Like, if I said their name, everyone would know who I'm talking about. Very, very prominent church leader that kind of said that. And I just kind of took it at face value, assumed that that was the truth, because why would someone say something in church that's not true? And then I remember going off, like, getting my master's degree, studying for my doctoral work, and, like, researching this and coming to the conclusion that there may be smidge of truth to that. But the reality is that Job is not the oldest book of the Bible. Like that. That is categorically untrue. Now let's dive into when this book could have possibly been written, and why do people think that it is the oldest book of the Bible? All right. Okay. First things first. What is the validity of this statement? Okay, before we say that something's ridiculous, let's actually assume that. That there's some validity here, okay? Now, the validity is that Job and his lifestyle and his friends reflect a more patriarchal moment in history. Okay? So Job, in terms of his wealth being in his flocks, in terms of offering of sacrifices, in the prologue of where he's offering sacrifices on behalf of his children, there's no mention of the temple. Like, he's living a very Abrahamic lifestyle. Okay? So a lot of people will admit the cultural lifestyle that him and his friends seem to be living, it looks like Abraham. Like, in just terms of how they're living their life, it would. It's kind of like if you go, like, visit, you know, an Amish community, you would say, oh, yeah. Like, you may think you're in the 1700s, right? But you're not. It's just the people are living in an old way. Okay? So Job is living in a way that is way more ancient than, let's say, David's generation or Solomon or anything like that. So in terms of the setting for the actual story that is ancient also, all throughout the book of Job, the word Yahweh is not really used a lot. Okay? Yahweh is going to get used in the prologue and the epilogue, but in the dialogue between Job and his friends and in the monologue, it's El Shaddai, which. El Shaddai is an older word for God. Remember, the word Yahweh is not revealed until we get to Moses. So in terms of, okay, when are the events of the story taking place? The events of the story are old. Like the events of the story could be Abraham or even pre Abrahamic in that regard, old. However, the Hebrew that we have is very close to Aramaic, okay, Which actually is a signal that this was written way later, like post exile. Now, let's think about it. What group of people would have an incentive to write about suffering? I'd say people who are exiled, maybe like in Babylon. And so by the time Jesus comes on the scene, Jesus is speaking in full blown Aramaic. Okay, Hebrew. Like all language, right? Language changes. So if I handed you some, some Shakespeare, you'd be able to. You, A, you probably wouldn't even be able to read it, but B, you'd realize, yeah, this is Old English, right? So when people say Old English, that's indicative of the time period in which that English was written. If I hand something to you and it says the word Google, you'd. You'd locate it in modern history, right? Because no one would have the word Google like in a, in a document referencing an Internet search browser in the 1800s. Like, that's, you would know, like, I don't know about this. Like, if you saw a letter from George Washington and, and he referenced searching the Internet on Google, or if he referenced Reddit or Twitter or X or Facebook, you'd be like, I don't think George Washington wrote this. Right? So we understand in our own modern society that we can date things based on the words or how old is the English, okay? So the Hebrew that we have here is not old. So what we have is this mismatch. The time period is very old. Job's life, his lifestyle, his friends. The word El Shaddai, like calling God El Shaddai, all signal, A, this is old old, like, like Abraham old. But then the style of Hebrew that we have and the Aramaic influence that we can see when we actually study the text. And obviously that's not possible to do when you're reading it in English. Okay. You actually have to like, read the original manuscripts. You go, this looks like it comes out of the exilic or post exilic period. Okay, so I'll kind of read a little bit about that, just from my own notes, a lot of scholars are going to place the writing of Job. And remember, it's easy to Write something in 2025 about George Washington. Right? Like you can write something today about something happening in an ancient time. Okay? So that's probably what's going on in Job. 5th to 3rd century BC in Judah during the Second Temple period. This later time period would explain the greater Aramaic influence and in particular, some phrases which appear to be very Persian. For example, the list of officials in chapter 3, verse 14 to 15, and the phrase covering the mouth in 29, 9, and 45. Perhaps most of all, this fits with the use of the title Satan or Satan or the Satan. Only two other books in the Old Testament use that title, Chronicles and Zechariah, both of which were written during the Persian period. Okay, so there is a bunch of clues, okay, that this is written later. Now, there's one other argument that instead of this being from the 5th to the 3rd century, it could be from the 6th century. Okay? And that's 6th century BCE right after the fall of Jerusalem. This could have been written in exile in Babylon. Babylon. As an attempt to wrestle with the suffering due to the fall of Jerusalem and the exile as a whole. There are some similarities to Lamentations. Okay? The book of Lamentations, which is also written at this time. And the Babylonian influence may explain the Aramaic influence. Okay, so what we probably have is something that was written later. Okay, but with an older setting for the characters, which is normal, right? That's normal. All right, next. Kind of just like, okay, we don't know who the author is, but there's a couple things we can say. The author is a brilliant poet. Job contains around 1020 lines of Hebrew poetry with some of the best and most complex examples in all scripture. There are, for example, over 60 triple parallelisms in the book. There are also 28 different speeches in the book. Two cycles of six speeches in dialogue, one cycle of five speeches in dialogue, and then three sets of larger monologues. It also includes chiasms, interchanges, and all manner of literary devices. Like the person who wrote this is a beast of a writer. Last, the author has a wide vocabulary and knowledge of the world in its mythology. There are five distinct words for lion used in chapter 4, verses 10 through 11. Animals described in great detail in chapters 38 and 39, 13 different words for precious gems in chapter 28 alone. Job also contains information of different weather patterns, star constellations, mining practices, hunting and trapping, caravan training routes, and a healthy general Knowledge of past history and and culture. Like whoever wrote this is a genius of a person 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 a 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 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. Let's dive into just some nerdy nuggets. I don't have a lot of time left on this episode, and I want to dive into some nerdy nuggets. Let's actually go to my latest book, Crushing Chaos, because I think that this is helpful. Now, in order to do this, we got to have to get out of chapters 11 to 14 for just a moment, and we're going gonna go to chapter nine. Okay. There's this little moment in chapter nine that is kind of actual context for something that's gonna happen in the New Testament. And I want you to be aware of it. Okay? Chapter nine says this. Chapter nine, verse nine. Sorry. Chapter nine, verse eight. It says he alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the ways of the sea. So Yahweh treads on the waves of the sea. That means a couple things. Number one, it means that he conquers the chaos, okay? Cause he can walk on the water. But it also means that when the New Testament describes Jesus as walking on the water, it is saying something about Jesus's deity. But if you don't know that, one of the things that Job teaches us is that Yahweh alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea. He alone can do that. So when the Gospel writers are showing us a Jesus that's walking on the sea, it's actually a callback to Job, chapter nine, verse nine, to show us, instead of telling us that Jesus is a divine figure, verse 9 and 11 says this. When he passes me, I cannot see him. When he goes by, I cannot perceive him. So this is Job talking about Yahweh. When he passes me, I cannot see him. When he goes by, I can't perceive him. This is essentially Job talking about the transcendent otherness, the holiness of God, that he's far off. He passes by me and it seems like we're about to relate. But ah, he eludes me, okay, because he's other than he's holy. So this is helpful, okay, because In Mark chapter 6, verse 48, Jesus not only is walking on the water, but Mark gives us this tiny little Easter egg. Mark says this Jesus intended to pass by them. That only makes sense if you know Job, who passed by Job on the water. Yahweh did. But did Jesus actually pass them by? No, he didn't. He stops and he actually gets in the boat. Because what Mark is saying is that Jesus is both divine and human. I'm going to read a little bit out of this from Crushing Chaos. This is on page 219 of crushing chaos. It says this Mark tells us that Jesus is about to walk right past his own disciples. Such an odd and seemingly insignificant detail. Mark 6:48 records he saw the disciples straining at the oars because the wind was against them. Shortly before dawn he went out to them with walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them. What about to pass by? Why doesn't he walk out on the water to help them? This is beyond confusing. Well, it's baffling until you read Job, chapter nine where Job is talking about the awesome wonder of Yahweh. In this passage, Job says all kinds of things that demonstrate the nature of God's divinity. Yahweh moves mountains and shakes the earth. Yahweh controls the sun and the stars. He is the maker of the bear and and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of the south. Most of this chapter in Job is about the wonder and power of the creator of the universe. It's humbling and awe inspiring. Content to read the entire list proves the divinity of Yahweh. For he's the only being in the universe who can perform such wonders. And in the list of all the nature defying things Yahweh has the power to do, we find this. He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea. And when he passes me, I cannot see him. When he goes by, I cannot perceive him. Obviously we just read that. This is classic chaos language. Yahweh alone walks on the waves of the T. Home. T. Home is the Hebrew word for the Deep. Okay, so since Jesus is walking on the waves and the pages of the Gospels, both Matthew and Mark are telling us Jesus is God without telling us Jesus is God. Like good storytellers, they are portraying Jesus as divine. But we have an odd and interesting twist. In Job nine, Yahweh treads on the T home, yet he walks right past Job and Job is unable to perceive him. In Job, Yahweh is not only all powerful and awesome, but also holy. Slightly unapproachable, and definitely unrelatable. The entire Old Testament points to the truth that Yahweh is nothing like his creation. He is holy because he is indeed holy. Other he is H O l y. He is holy. H O l y because he is indeed holy. W H O L L y Other. Mark alludes to this passage in Job with the subtlety of an artist. However, Jesus doesn't walk past the disciples. Instead, the disciples cry out to him and Mark says he immediately responds and climbs into the boat and the winds die down. Yahweh walks on chaos and so does Jesus. This is Jesus divinity on full display. Yahweh walks past Job, but Jesus doesn't. This is his humanity on full display. Fully God, fully man. Both displayed in the same story. For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, that is from page 219 and 220 of Crushing Chaos. And I hope that that gives some helpful context for what's happening in Job, chapter nine. All right, let me give you some quick, another quick little thing from Job nine and then we'll get into our. Our last little nerdy nuggets for chapters 11 to 14. And then I'll give you a timeless truth. Okay? It says this in Job, chapter 9, verse 33. This is such a plug for Jesus. It says, if only there were someone to mediate between us, someone to bring us together. Oh, can you describe Jesus in a sentence? Yeah. Jesus is the one to mediate between us and God to bring us together. And I'm going to highlight that one. Man, that's a good verse right there. All right, last little bit. Okay. Job 13. Okay. Job 13, verse three are pretty much the heart of, of what Job wants. But I desire to speak to the Almighty. That's El Shaddai, by the way, to the Almighty. And to argue my case with God. Like, just let me argue my case with God. Now what we're going to see is this is law court like language case. Okay? Job is defending his innocence. The Satan figure is seen as a prosecutor. Like, so whenever we use Law, court language with atonement theology. That's not weird. That's not odd. Like, that's actually very, very, very biblical. All right. The heart of Job's desire is not just in verse 3, but also in verse 15. Says, though he slay me, yet will I hope in him. I will surely defend my ways to his face. Okay, so this is what Job wants. Job wants to talk to God. Job's like, I gotta. I gotta. I gotta plead my case. I need to go to the Supreme Court. We gotta argue this till we get to the Supreme Court, man. Like, I'm not guilty. Like, I am innocent. And this is our timeless truth for the day. Okay. Comes out of Job, chapter 13, verse 5. If only you would be altogether silent, for you, that would be wisdom. Hey, no one would know you stupid if you just shut up. Is kind of like the Southern way of saying that same thing. But that's a good verse, isn't it? Job, chapter 13, verse 5. If only you would be altogether silent, for you, that would be wisdom. And honestly, for a lot of us, that would be wise to talk less seriously. Like a lot of us, foolishness is multiplied because we talk so much. And I even have to learn this as a pastor. Sometimes people come to me with difficult situations and wisdom is not giving them an answer. Wisdom is actually found in talking less and letting them wrestle and letting them figure it out. There are definitely times I'm learning this as a church planter, as a pastor, where people have questions and I know the answer, I know what they should do. And wisdom isn't saying the right answer. Wisdom sometimes is found in letting people discover the right answer on their own. It's kind of like if you break the shell of an egg for a little bird. The muscles that they need to develop don't get developed and they can't fly because you rob them of an opportunity to struggle. And so often as pastors, we do the same thing. We provide answers for people, but it's through the mental struggle of getting to clarity that they actually find God and realize that they know how to wrestle through stuff. I've watched a lot of young adults deconstruct, and there's this part of you that just wants to just, A, argue, but B, just like, give them the answers. But the reality is that if they're in their early 20s and they're deconstructing, you gotta let em figure it out. Because once they do figure it out, then their faith becomes theirs. And that's not just true for Job. That's true for you. That's true for me. That's true for all of us. It's a timeless truth. Tomorrow we got day three, 16. We're gonna be in job chapters 15, 16, and 17. It's gonna be awesome. I hope to see you here same time, same place. If you're on a streak, I'm proud of you. Even if you're not on the 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 at thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram hebible department. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses atthebible department.com. we'll see you back here tomorrow.