Today’s passage: Job 29

Helpful thoughts:

• Chapters 29-31 will go together as a unit.
  • In chapter 29, Job will remember with fondness the past.
  • In chapter 30, he will grieve the present.
  • In chapter 31, he will make his request for the future.
• Job believed the blessing on his life was a gift from the Lord, that God had chosen to look on him favorably.
• The kindness Job chose to extend in sharing God’s favor on him resulted in accumulating a great deal of respect from others who knew who him.

Questions to consider:

1. How does this description of Job’s life compare/contrast with what his friends have been assuming he was doing?  If all these things were true, what severity of sin would have been necessary of Job to deserve all the suffering under his friends’ view of wickedness and judgment?
2. What would be necessary for Job to remember concerning the blessing of the earlier years of his life?  Why were they truly blessed?  How could the wealth and the respect have become great temptations?  If verses 2-5 weren’t in this chapter, what might it sound like?
3. How does Job’s testimony give some example of what we learn from 1 Timothy 6:17-19?

Today’s passage: Job 28

Helpful thoughts:

• Job addresses the source of wisdom.
• Mankind has gone to great lengths to discover and mine precious stones and metals for thousands of years.  The question Job asks is, “Where can man go to find precious wisdom?”
• The answer is given in verse 28, wisdom comes from God.  Fearing Him is wisdom and results in gaining wisdom.

Questions to consider:

1. Where does mankind go to try to find wisdom in this world?  Who/What are we told to trust implicitly in our day and culture?
2. What is the result of man thinking wisdom is found within our own hearts?  How hard do we have to dig and search for this “wisdom?”  What happens when two people’s hearts disagree?  Why is man prone to prefer digging into their own heart than to look to God and His Word for true wisdom?
3. What does the end of verse 28 confirm that wisdom and a right fear of God result in?  How does the wisdom of God’s Word change our thinking and how does that change our actions?

Today’s passage: Job 27

Helpful thoughts:

• Job would rather continue to suffer under the ridicule and false rebuke of his friends than give up his integrity.
  • The “you” in verse 5 is plural.  Job is speaking now to all three friends.
• Job agrees with his friends that judgment comes on the wicked, but with some differences.  I think we can make these observations from Job’s comments:
  • The rich may accumulate wealth in this life but he will die just like everyone else. After this he will not take any delight in the Almighty, just as he didn’t during his lifetime.
  • Job, however terrible his current condition, still longs for the day when the hardships of life are over and he is in the presence of the Lord.
• It’s possible here that Job is wishing this bitter end of the wicked on his friends (Or at least firing a verbal warning shot), if he in fact is now calling them, “My enemy” in verse 7.

Questions to consider:

1. What is the major difference between Job’s view of what comes to the wicked versus what his friends have been arguing so far?
2. How would Romans 12:14-21 give Job guidance as he speaks to his friends (And us if we find ourselves under fire)?
3. What is it that brings us righteousness and the hope of one day delighting in the presence of the Almighty? (Ephesians 2:4-7)

Today’s passage: Job 26

Helpful thoughts:

• Job answers Bildad’s final argument.
  • This monologue will continue through the end of chapter 31.
• There is sarcasm in his first words in verses 2 and 3.  In verse 4, Job calls into question on whose behalf his friends are actually speaking.  They would have assumed they were on God’s side…Job begs to differ.
• Verses 5-14 serve to remind Job’s friends just how much knowledge, power and sovereignty God has, and how little man knows of all that God knows and does.  For them to think they have full knowledge of the source of Job’s suffering is prideful and foolish.
  • Rahab (Verse 12) is another lesser used name for Egypt.

Questions to consider:

1. If Job’s friends were feeling confident about all they had said, how would they have responded to him or what would they have been thinking in this moment?  How might we catch ourselves in these times of self-assurance so that we are able to truly hear the hearts of people in their suffering?
2. What aspects of the greatness of God stuck out to you as you read?  What is Job’s view of God as expressed in these verses?  Is He seeking to make little of God to seek comfort or is he trembling before His greatness?
3. In what way is Job “stuck between a rock and a hard place?”  Who does he know has allowed his suffering?  What is he trying to convince his friends is not the cause of his suffering?  How does simply looking to God and looking to Jesus help us in the midst of hardship when we do not know the answers to WHY the hardships have come?

Today’s passage: Job 25

Helpful thoughts:

• Bildad gives the final argument of the three friends.
• He believes Job’s claim to innocence is an impossibility before a holy God.
  • Any claim to utter and complete righteousness is surely wrong.  However, Bildad’s argument puts all four of the men we see in this book so far in a place where they should also be seeing judgment.
  • If no one is righteous, and if Job deserved what he got from God…then all three of Job’s friends had better buckle up, because they would be next.
• The friends have agreed to this argument.  They have taken a hard line against Job.  They have not taken into consideration the mercy, grace and patience of God.  Nor, of course, the reality of Satan.

Questions to consider:

1. If the argument of these three friends was accurate, what would be happening to every person who ever lived (Except for Jesus Himself)?  What might their view have been toward their own sin?  What room would the gospel have to fit into this theology?
2. In what way are verses 2-4 correct?  If Bildad understood the plan of God’s redemption of sinful man, what would be the conclusion of his statement following verse 4?

Today’s passage: Job 24

Helpful thoughts:

• Job continues he reply to Eliphaz and his friends.
• The first verse asks these questions:
  • Why aren’t the wicked seeing judgement?
  • Why aren’t the righteous seeing that day of judgment against the wicked and the blessing/reward for the righteous?
    • “His days” refers to the day of judgment.
• The fact that wickedness continues to abound in the world without immediate judgment is reiterated.
  • Job’s friends have spoken of hypothetical sin in Job’s life that must have brought on God’s judgment.
  • Job speaks of actual sin in the life of the powerful in the world which has not been regularly judged (Or put to a stop) by God.

Questions to consider:

1. What does Job acknowledge comes to pass for all people, whether they are rich or poor?  What will come about in the end for the wicked even if they don’t seem to suffer any hardships in this life? (Verse 24)
2. What is Job’s challenge in the final verse?  Would you argue any points to him in response?
3. Why is there oppression in the world?  When will all oppression cease?  What are we to do in the meantime?

Today’s passage: Job 23

Helpful thoughts:

• Job maintains his position of innocence.  This is more a response to all of his friends.  He is not interacting directly with what Eliphaz last spoke to him.
• Job doesn’t understand why God has done what He has done.  But, he believes God has a purpose for it and it will last as long as God intends it to last.
• The thought of God’s presence terrifies Job, yet he still wants to make his lament and appeal.

Questions to consider:

1. What is truly required for a person to stand before God in perfect innocence and righteousness?  (Romans 4:3)
2. Assuming Job knew this (Or that he trusted in God’s grace for his ultimate salvation), what do you think he is describing when he speaks of himself as an upright man?
3. In what way(s) could verses 13-17 bring great comfort to believers in the midst of hardship?  What does God do with hardship in our lives (Romans 8:28-30)?  What does he call on His children to do with the cares and concerns of our hearts (1 Peter 5:7, James 4:8)?

Today’s passage: Job 22

Helpful thoughts:

• Eliphaz begins the third and final round of rebukes from Job’s friends.
  • The second half of verse 5 declares Eliphaz’s opinion, “There is no end to your iniquities.”
• Verses 6-11 are all assumptions.  These are the things Eliphaz has now decided Job must have been doing to earn the suffering he was enduring.
• In Verses 12-20, Eliphaz disagrees with Job’s belief that the wicked also prosper in the earth.
  • The overall argument is this, if Job believes the wicked can prosper, he must think God is not paying attention or is unable to see and bring justice.
• With his argument complete, Eliphaz calls on Job to repent one last time.

Questions to consider:

1. Knowing what Eliphaz concluded at the end of verse 5, what do you think the answers are to his rhetorical questions were supposed to be in verses 2-5?
2. What does Eliphaz believe is the cause of Job’s suffering?  What does he believe will happen if Job will repent of all the sins he must have committed?
3. Verse 30 is talking about intercession.  Eliphaz is saying Job, if he repents, would even be able to intercede on behalf of others in their sin.  What is the irony of this statement (Look forward to Job 42:7-9)?