Job 42 part 9
Tonight we will finish up the book of Job. We only have one chapter left, but before we examine it, I want revisit some the questions that God asked Job to show how the things He asked about can be backed up by what we have learned by our modern day science. While we have come a long way and have expanded our knowledge about our planet and how things work, we will never fully understand the wisdom or the power of God because His ways are past finding out.
Our first example comes from:
Job 38:4 "
Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you
have understanding. 5 Who
determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon
it? 6 To what were its
foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone,
God is wanting to know if
Job was there when the earth was created and of course he was not, but notice
God talks about laying a foundation for the earth, which is the same language
used to describe laying a foundation for a house. Then God asked in verse 6, “To
what were its foundations fastened?
The word foundations used
here is a different Hebrew word “
It is now believed that the earth is covered by an
outer curst of rock (some seven to thirty miles thick) which in turn rests upon
a mantle (foundation) of heavy rock called peridotite, which extends down into
the heart of the earth some 1,800 miles. Based upon seismic data, scientists
suggest that the great land masses of our planet are anchored in “sockets”
which plunge deep into the earth’s mantel (averaging more than 300 miles in
depth. So, our current data of the building blocks of the earth fits well with
God’s description of the foundation of the earth and how it fastened.
God also mentions how the
earth has a precise measurement, which neither Job nor anyone during his day
could have known, but we know today that the earth’s diameter around its
equator is 7,926 miles, but at the poles it is only 7,899 miles. So, our earth
is not a perfect sphere. According to man by the name of Price there is a
reason for the earth not being a perfect sphere.
“The simple fact is that if the world were a
perfect sphere, its rotation would pile up the waters of the ocean around the
equator to an enormous extent, drawing them away from all the northern and
southern parts… In short, the shape of our world shows design on the One who
created it, and who adapted its size, form density, etc., to its rotation, and
to all the other physical laws that now govern it.”
The next thing we learn
about is what God says about the ocean.
Job 38:8
"Or who shut in the sea with doors, When it burst forth and issued
from the womb; 9 When I made
the clouds its garment, And thick darkness its swaddling band; 10 When I fixed My limit for it,
And set bars and doors; 11
When I said, 'This far you may come, but no farther, And here your proud waves
must stop!'
It has been said that we know more about the
surface of the moon than we do about the surface of the ocean. However, the
more time that has passed the more we have learned. For instance the ocean
covers 71 % of the earth and on average it is 6 times deeper than that the
average height of the land. It has been estimated if the earth surface was made
smooth that the ocean would completely cover it by a depth of 2 miles. God
created the earth in such a way that the oceans have their place because they
have been fixed by God.
God also asked:
Job 38:16
"Have you entered the springs of the sea? Or have you walked in search of
the depths?
When people think of the
sea, they think salt water and the majority of it is, but as God as mentioned,
there are fresh water springs that can be found in the oceans. The earliest
secular reference to such was recorded by the Roman geographer, Strabo (63 B.C.
– 21 A.D.). These types of springs have been found on the coast of
In 1976 the
Once again, we can see
that the Word of God was spot on even though it was written so long ago.
God also asked Job about
the recesses of the deep and in similar passage,
2 Samuel
Also the writer of Psalms
37 says:
Psalm 33:7 He gathers the waters of the sea together as a
heap; He lays up the deep in storehouses.
Finally, Jonah 2:6 it
talks about how when Jonah was cast into the ocean that he went down to the
bottom of the mountains. All these verses describe details about the ocean
floor and it depths and mountainous terrain all before man had the ability to
know such things.
The science of
oceanography didn’t have its start until around the year 1873 when some British
scientists set out to discover more about the ocean. This was known as the
challenger expedition (1873-76) and they made a lot of new discoveries
including a canyon that 5 ½ miles deep in the pacific, which is recess of the
deep as God said or as the Psalmist said it is a storehouse for the ocean.
Since that expedition, we have found many more recesses of the deep in various
places. For instance, one near the
Another interesting point comes from A.E. Parr who served as
the director of the
“Before the invention of echo-sounding equipment it was generally thought that the bottom of the oceans would present the appearance of plains, plateaus and gently rolling terrain. Now we know that it also has valleys and mountain ranges, and even canyons, to equal all the forms we find on land.”
Again, God’s Word got it right.
Next, God gives us some facts about light and darkness.
Job 38:19 "
Where is the way to the dwelling of light? And darkness, where is
its place,
God is saying that light
dwells in a way. The word “way” literally means a traveled path or road and
darkness is in its place. In other words, it doesn’t travel it remains where it
is. However, this was not known in times past because according to Dr. Morton,
“Until the seventeenth century, it was believed
that light was transmitted instantaneously. Then Sir Isaac Newton suggested
that light was composed of small particles which travel in a straight line.
Christian Huygens proposed the wave theory of light. Olaus Roemer measured the
velocity of light as evidenced by its delay as it traveled through space.”
Today we know that light
travels in a straight line at 186,000 miles per second. For example, it takes
about 8 min for the light from the sun to travel its path to the earth. Again,
God’s Word had it right that light does have a way or a path.
God also asked,
Job 38:24 By what
way is light diffused,
The word diffused can
mean departed or divided and to be fair, God could have been asking Job if he
understand how light is distributed on the earth, but also a known fact that
light can be divided by using a prism, which produces colored lights. Sir Isaac
Newton was the first scientist to demonstrate this, but God had already shown
this truth by means of the rainbow.
The last one I want to
examine is what God said the constellations in,
Job 38:31 " Can you bind the cluster of the
Pleiades, Or loose the belt of Orion?
I mentioned last week
that God may have just been asking Job if he could control the seasons as
Pleiades appears in the spring and Orion in late October. As I said, last week,
there is another possible meaning here.
Since we have the ability
to see the stars beyond what our eyes can see on their own, we know that Pleiades
contains over 200 stars that are bound together, but we can only see 7 of it
stars with our naked eyes, which makes up the constellation we see. So, God
could be asking Job do you have the power to bind the stars of Pleiades
together as I have?
Orion is another
interesting constellation because we know now that the stars we can see with
our naked eye are actual not bound to one another and they are separated from
each other by vast distances. So, God could be asking Job if he could loose the
belt of Orion as I have?
If this is what God is
talking about in these verses, then they show scientific foreknowledge of the
stars that could not have been known during Job’s time or before the invention
of the telescope.
There is even more we
could discuss about the spot on science that God has mentioned in his questions
to Job, but I believe these are sufficient to add to the evidence that God’s
Word is God breathed, and even though His Word was not designed to be science
book when it does speak of science it is always correct. If the Bible had been
written by man there is no way it could stand the test of time. When we examine
information like we have looked at tonight, it just adds to our faith and
proves once again that God exist and that we have His inspired Word in our
Bibles.
Now let’s finish up the
book of Job by examining the last chapter.
Job 42:1 Then Job
answered the LORD and said: 2
"I know that You can do everything, And that no purpose of Yours can
be withheld from You. 3 You
asked, 'Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?' Therefore
I have uttered what I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I
did not know. 4 Listen,
please, and let me speak; You said, 'I will question you, and you shall
answer
After God finished His
speech, Job answers God. We can see from what Job says that he has learned his
lesson and realized how rash he has been. He now claims that God can do
everything and nothing can interfere with His will. Then Job answers God’s
question “Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?”
Job now realizes how
foolish his words were and he admits that he has spoken without understanding
and talked about things that he could not comprehend. But now his eyes are open
and he understands where he fell short. As the song of Amazing grace says, I
was blind, but now I see.
When Job says I abhor
myself, he is not saying that he hates himself, but that he hates that he
wrongfully accused God of injustice. Since he could see how he had sinned
against God with his words and so he repented with dust and ashes. Job was
convicted of his sin and he was willing to repent of it, but he was not
repenting of any of the things his 3 friends had accused him of because they
were wrong in their accusation. Again, he is repenting of his words and his
attitude toward God as he suffered physically.
Job had learned a lesson that we must all learn
and that is the spiritual must always take precedence over the physical. Next
God direct his attention to Job’s 3 friends.
Job 42:7 And so
it was, after the LORD had spoken these words to Job, that the LORD said to
Eliphaz the Temanite, "My wrath is aroused against you and your two
friends, for you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has. 8 "Now therefore, take for
yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, go to My servant Job, and offer up for
yourselves a burnt offering; and My servant Job shall pray for you. For I will
accept him, lest I deal with you according to your folly; because you
have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has." 9 So Eliphaz the Temanite and
Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did as the LORD
commanded them; for the LORD had accepted Job.
Job’s 3 friends started
out with good intentions to come and grieve with their friend, but then they
turned on him and made many false accusations about Job that were assumed, but
not proven. Now God is letting them know that they were wrong and that Job was
right. He tells them to get 7 bulls and 7 rams for a burnt offering and to come
before Job so that he can pray for them.
After all their false
accusations and thinking the were correct, they have now been served a big
piece of humble pie because they know now that they were wrong, and they have
to let Job offer up prayer on their behalf because God has accepted Job because
Job learned his lesson and repented. Job’s 3 friends didn’t fight against this
truth or turn and walk away. Instead they obeyed God’s instructions. Sometimes
we can find ourselves in this situation when we make false accusations against
someone and we must be willing to eat our slice of humble pie as well and
repent in accordance with God’s Word.
Before we move on I want
us to take a closer look at verse 7 and 8 because there are those who believe
that verse 7 and 8 teaches that Job did not sin during this whole process
because God says,
"My wrath is aroused against you and your two
friends, for you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has.
And
in verse 8 He says:
because you have not spoken of Me what is right,
as My servant Job has."
They give other reasons
such as Job proclaiming his innocence throughout his speeches and Job was not
asked to make an animal sacrifice like his friends had to. Since James 5:11
says that Job was an example of endurance how could have sinned during this
time.
Based on these 2 verses,
they will interpret everything Job’s says in his speeches in a way that makes
him sin free, but I have to disagree with this position because we have
examined on several occasion where Job was falsely accusing God of injustice
and how he dealt with certain people. Also, if he was not guilty of sin with
his words then why was God asking Him all those question and why did he repent
with ashes and dust if he had not sinned? The answer is easy, he did sin and
that is why he repented.
When you look at our 2
verses we can see that God is talking about a specific instance and it not a
blanket statement to cover everything that was said by Job or his friends. If you
go back and look at the speeches again, you will find that Job’s friends did
say some things that were correct about God and likewise you can find several
things that Job said about God that were incorrect.
To give you one example
of what is meant by God’s statement in these verses. Job’s friends were adamant
that God always punishes those who sin with suffering, but Job disagreed with
this and Job was right because Job was an upright man and that is why God
choose him to be tested by the devil. Since Job was the upright man who never
would curse God or fully turn his back on him, he does serve as a great example
for us to follow and he did exercise great patience through most of what was
happening to him. It wasn’t until he started talking with his friends that he
allowed his mouth to sin, but he did not allow his sin to conquer him, because
after he heard God’s speech, he repented.
Again this is a great
example for us to follow because like Job, we may endure the hardships of life
for awhile, but we may stumble along the way and just like Job, we must be
humble enough to admit that we were wrong and be willing to repent. Job’s friends
had not done this. They were silent about their foolish words, so God told them
what they had to do to take care of their sin.
Job 42:10 And the
LORD restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed the LORD gave
Job twice as much as he had before. 11
Then all his brothers, all his sisters, and all those who had been his
acquaintances before, came to him and ate food with him in his house; and they
consoled him and comforted him for all the adversity that the LORD had brought
upon him. Each one gave him a piece of silver and each a ring of gold. 12 Now the LORD blessed the latter
days of Job more than his beginning; for he had fourteen thousand sheep,
six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and one thousand female
donkeys. 13 He also had seven
sons and three daughters. 14
And he called the name of the first Jemimah, the name of the second Keziah, and
the name of the third Keren-Happuch. 15
In all the land were found no women so beautiful as the daughters of
Job; and their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers. 16 After this Job lived one
hundred and forty years, and saw his children and grandchildren for four
generations. 17 So Job died,
old and full of days.
Since
Job was a righteous man who never fully turned from God and was willing to
repent for his foolish words, God blessed him with twice as much as he had
before. Even his brothers and sisters and all that knew him came back into his
life and ate with him and consoled him for what he had gone through and they
gave him a token of their appreciation. Once again, Job was reaping the
benefits of God’s blessing. He had his livestock back and he had 10 more
children. Out of all of the children he had, we are only given the names of the
last 3 daughters who were very beautiful, and like their brothers, they were
allowed to have part of Job’s inheritance.
We
are not told anything about Job’s wife, so we will just have to wonder about
her. We can see that Job lived another 140 years and was able to be part of 4
generations of children and grandchildren. All in all we can estimate that Job
lived over 200 years, which again fits perfectly with Job living during the
patriarchal period and so ends the book of Job.
As
we come to the conclusion of this great book, I want to briefly mention some of
the great lessons we have learned:
1.
God is all powerful and is full of wisdom beyond our comprehension.
2.
We learned about God’s sovereignty in how He is in control, and we are in no
position to judge God’s actions as He brings about His will.
3.
God is a just God and He has His eye on the righteous, but sometimes even the
righteous will suffer. In Job’s case, God blessed him in the end.
4.
God is worthy of our praise even when things are not going well for us.
5.
Sometime we may not find the answers we are looking for right away.
6.
The devil is our arch enemy and he wants to fail, but if we keep the faith he
will not conquer us.
7.
Even when your friends or family turn their backs on you, God will always be
there.
8.
When we repent and turn to God, He will forgive us and we will be blessed.
9.
Even when we suffer or go through difficult times, we should never give up on
God or turn away from Him.
I
want to give credit where credit is due. Wayne Jackson’s book on Job has been
very helpful in the preparation of these lessons especially the last two.
Nearly all of the science section of this lesson is word for word out his book
from pages 126-129. If you want a great book on the book of Job, I recommend
Wayne Jackson’s book.