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)?

Today’s passage: Job 21

Helpful thoughts:

• Job responds.  In a way, his response could cover many of his friends’ accusations.
• Job argues that there are many wicked who have prospered and lived long lives on this earth (Or again, as we might say from the book of Ecclesiastes, “Under the sun.”)
  • In verses 14-16, he even refers to those who knowingly reject God.  This is not an earthly prosperity that is obtained in ignorance of God, but in the midst of opposition.
• There are wicked and righteous who prosper and there are wicked and righteous who are impoverished.  All of them go to the grave just the same.
  • For this reason, Job calls his friends’ charges against him, “empty nothings.”

Questions to consider:

1. In what way was Job’s response a good summary to all of his friends’ arguments?
2. What do you think Job meant in verse 22 and following?  Did Job think God needed reminding on how He is supposed to exercise justice?  Or, was Job saying that if his friends were right, then God is unjust?
3. What does the reality of verse 26 teach us about riches in this life versus eternity?  How could this chapter encourage us to remember the truths of Matthew 6:19-20?  How does one live a life with our eyes and values placed on eternity whether we are rich or poor in this life?

Today’s passage: Job 20

Helpful thoughts:

• Zophar takes another swing at Job.
• He shares his frustration with being insulted by Job in verses 2-3.
• Then for the rest of the chapter, Zophar describes the wicked and his fate.
  • Realize, Zophar is saying that all this is characteristic of Job.  Zophar is describing Job in this manner to his face.

Questions to consider:

1. Which descriptions in this chapter are the most striking and hurtful?
2. If Zophar was a friend of Job, what must he have been thinking about all the good he had seen Job do over the course of his life if this is what he now truly thinks of him?
3. In what way is Zophar’s statement in verse 27 in keeping (Or in contrast) with what Job has been asking for in previous statements?  In what way are these men right in acknowledging that God is the final judge?  In what ways have they gone beyond their place in stating their views?

Today’s passage: Job 19

Helpful thoughts:

• Job responds to Bildad.
  • He got his wish in verses 23-24.  In more abundance and with a different message then he expected.
• After all he had been through, Job’s faith remained steadfast in the fact that God would be his vindicator.  He believed there would be a day when his Redeemer stood on the face of the earth, when he (Job) would be alive after death (The resurrection), and that all would be made right.
• Because Job’s friends were convinced that the cause of all this calamity was Job’s fault (“The root of the matter was found in him” – Verse 28), Job warns them of the judgment that could come back on them.  False accusation is a serious matter.

Questions to consider:

1. What did Job believe his friends were doing based on his response in verses 2-5?  In what way does he evidence he understands their argument against him well?
2. What do you think Job is asking his friends in verse 22?  How can you discern when not to help a person out of the hardship they are in (Because it could be God’s doing/consequence of sin)?  How do you discern how to help a person endure hardship without adding to the hardship?
3. How can Job’s hope in verses 25-27 be a model for believers in any time in history before Christ’s return?  What was he hoping in?  What has God promised to all who turn to Christ as Lord and Savior?  What will happen to all suffering?

Today’s passage: Job 18

Helpful thoughts:

• In today’s passage, Bildad takes his second stab at Job.
• Bildad believes that Job has brought all of this suffering on himself, laying a trap for himself.  He recounts aspects of what has befallen Job (For example, verse 19 and the loss of all his children).
• The general argument is this: These terrible things happen to wicked people.  Therefore, Job must be wicked.

Questions to consider:

1. How did Bildad express his anger toward Job in the first few verses?  How does he feel about the things Job has said about him and his words?  Does he appear to be instructing Job to help him or is he venting anger?  Did venting his anger resolve any problems?
2. Given the argument that Bildad makes, why does he think he is more qualified to speak to Job’s suffering than Job is?  What is the problem with his thinking?
3. If someone you are speaking with does not know God, to what (and to whom) do you want to point them?  (Matthew 11:28)