05/02/2021
Job
Job 28:28: And unto man He said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.
The name Job in Hebrew אִיּוֹב, 'Iyyov, means "persecuted, hated". But the meaning of his name could also be derived from Arabic أيوب, Ayyūb, which means “ to repent, to come back”.
(1) Who is Job?
Job was an Arabian patriarch. His parallel stories can be found in both Hebrew bible and Qur’an, he was known to be “he who patiently endured” (James 5:11). Job was considered as a prophet in Islam, and in Hebrew scriptures, he was a great foreshadow of Christ in partaking in His sufferings (Please see post “Daniel 2:22” from last year)
Descendant of Noah:
Job was the “priest of his house” (Job 1:5) and he owned a large number of herds (Job 1:2), that placed him in the period of the patriarchs (Abraham, Issac, Jacob and Joseph)
Job was “a man in the land of Uz” (Job 1:1). In the Book of Genesis, Uz was the grandson of Shem, one of the sons of Noah who came out of the ark with him after the flood (Gen 9:18,10:22-24)
He was also “the greatest of all the people of the East” (Job 1:2) and supposed to have 10 children before he was afflicted (Job 1:4). When the LORD gave him “double back” after his trial (Job 42:10), he lived 140 years more and saw his children and grand children for 4 generations (Job 42:16), it is likely that Job lived 210 years, similar to Abraham’s father Terah who lived 205 years (Gen 11:32), whereas Abraham only lived to 175 years old (Gen 25:7). Therefore, before Abraham, Job was!!!
The authorship of the Book of Job was commonly attributed to Moses, along with the Torah. Although the presence of Aramaic and its biblical understandings could place the writing to roughly 6BC, contemporary to Zechariah, the story of Job itself had “been around” for a long time.
The Kaaba or Ka’bah, كعبة, literally means “the Cube”, is the sacred building in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is considered as the “House of God” by Muslims and in Qur’an. The tradition goes that it was first built by Abraham and his son Ismael in the valley of Mecca. In Hebrew scriptures, Moses was given the instruction to build the Tabernacle (the Mishkan מִשְׁכַּן or “Dwelling”) which included the “Holy of Holies” or “the Cube” (Exod 26, Lev 16). Could it be Moses who was “inspired to inspire” to write on the patriarch Job and to build “the Cube”?
God is the “Ultimate Cubist”, the “Avant-Avant-Garde” Artist!! Let there be…CUBE!! 🧊 (Exod 26, 2 Chr 3:8, 1 Kgs 6:20, Rev 21:16)
(2) Heavenly Assembly
God conducts regular “Heavenly Meetings” (1 Kgs 22:19-23, Job 1,2, Ps. 82).
Psalm 82:1-2: A Psalm of Asaph. God presides in the divine assembly; He renders judgment among the gods: “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah
There was a day when the “sons of God”, bənê haĕlōhîm, the same words were used in the time when there were giants in the land (Gen 6:1-4), came to present themselves before God (Job 1:6).
Job 1:6: Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them.
When God asked him where he came from, Satan, or the “accuser, adversary”, said he was “going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it” because he “owned” it (Job 1:7, Matt 4:8-9).
Satan was the “seal of perfection” full of beauty and wisdom, he was simply the “gem of the gems” (Ezek 28:12-13)
Ezek 28:12-13: ‘You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God. Every kind of precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald. Your mountings and settings were crafted in gold, prepared on the day of your creation.
Once an anointed guardian cherub, he was created “blameless”, or “without blemish” as the Passover lambs 🐑 (Exod 12:5) , until wickedness was found in him (Ezek 28:14-15).
Ezek 28:14-15: You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for I had ordained you. You were on the holy mountain of God; you walked among the fiery stones. From the day you were created you were blameless in your ways— until wickedness was found in you.
This “guardian” became filled with violence and his wisdom went corrupt, he was banished from the mountain of God and was cast down, now we need to guard against this “ex-guardian” (Rev 12:7–10, Ezek 28:16-17). Thus, Satan went from “gem to germ”.
Ezek 28:16-17: By the vastness of your trade, you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mountain of God, and I banished you, O guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. Your heart grew proud of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor; so I cast you to the earth; I made you a spectacle before kings.
Session #1: “Strike all that he has”!!
The LORD initiated “a subject” in the first session of the meeting (Job 1:8)
Job 1:8: Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one on earth like him, a man who is blameless and upright, who fears God and shuns evil.”
Being “blameless and upright” was something that Satan could not maintain even though he was made perfect (Ezek 28:14-15), he adopted instead the role of a full-time, 24-7 “accuser” (Rev 12:10). Zechariah saw the high priest Joshua being accused by Satan until the LORD rebuked him and the angel of the LORD had his filthy garments changed to clean robes (Zech 3:1-5)
Zech 3:1-2: Then the angel showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, with Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the LORD said to Satan: “The LORD rebukes you, Satan! Indeed, the LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebukes you! Is not this man a firebrand snatched from the fire?”
Satan noted that God had put a hedge of protection around Job and blessed and increased his possession (Job 1:9-11). Similar to the day when the LORD asked “all the host of Heaven” who would entice Ahab to fall at Ramoth-Gilead and a spirit came forth to “make suggestion” (1 Kgs 22:19-23), Satan made a proposal about Job (Job 1:11)
Job 1:11: But stretch out Your hand and strike all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face.”
God permitted him to “prove” Job (Job 1:12)
Job 1:12: “Very well,” said the LORD to Satan. “Everything he has is in your hands, but you must not lay a hand on the man himself.” Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.
Satan took away his herds (oxen, donkeys, sheep, camels), his servants and even his sons and daughters (v.13-18). Job “tore his robe, shaved his head, fell to the ground and worshiped", even though he was “naked”, Job did not sin (v.20-22)
Job 1:21-22: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.” In all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing.
Session #2: “Strike his flesh and bones”!!
On another day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, Satan came along also (Job 2:1). The LORD picked up from His last session (Job 1:12, 2:3)
Job 2:3: Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one on earth like him, a man who is blameless and upright, who fears God and shuns evil. He still retains his integrity, even though you incited Me against him to ruin him without cause.”
Job held onto his integrity but Satan wanted to “prove” him again, and the LORD permitted him this time also, but only spare Job’s life (Job 2:4-6)
Job 2:4-5: “Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give up all he owns in exchange for his life. But stretch out Your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse You to Your face.”
Job went from “decent to descended”, he was struck with painful boils all over, now sat in ashes and scraped himself with broken potsherds (Job 2:7-8).
Job 2:7-8: So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and infected Job with terrible boils from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. And Job took a piece of broken pottery to scrape himself as he sat among the ashes.
Job was now a “gem with germ” and his wife told him to “curse God and die”, some believe that it was Satan speaking through her (Matt 16:23), but Job did not do either (Job 2:9-10)
Job 2:9-10: Then Job’s wife said to him, “Do you still retain your integrity? Curse God and die!” “You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept from God only good and not adversity?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.
(3) Earthly Assembly
Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about “all this adversity” that came upon him and came to comfort him (Job 2:11), they could barely recognize him from afar (v.12)
Job 2:13: Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights, but no one spoke a word to him because they saw how intense his suffering was.
Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth because of all the miseries that his eyes had seen, and what he feared and dreaded the most came upon him (Job 3:1, 20, 25-26)
Job 3:25-26: For the thing I feared has overtaken me, and what I dreaded has befallen me. I am not at ease or quiet; I have no rest, for trouble has come.”
Eliphaz began to “attempt a word with him” (Job 4:1). He thought that Job had “plowed iniquity, sowed trouble and reaped the same” (Job 4:8), and that he “preached” to many but when all these happened to him, he could not bear it (Job 4:3-6)
Job 4:3, 5-6: Surely you have instructed many, and have strengthened their feeble hands …. But now trouble has come upon you, and you are weary. It strikes you, and you are dismayed. Is your reverence not your confidence, and the uprightness of your ways your hope?
Eliphaz thought that God had “caught” and “chastened” him (Job 5:12-13, 17)
Job 5:12-13: He thwarts the schemes of the crafty, so that their hands find no success. He catches the wise in their craftiness, and sweeps away the plans of the cunning.
Job 5:17: Blessed indeed is the man whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.
Job answered that even a man who forsook God would expect kindness from his friends (v.14), how could Eliphaz “rebuke my words and undermine your friend”? (v.25-27)
Job 6:14: A despairing man should have the kindness of his friend, even if he forsakes the fear of the Almighty.
Job 6:25-27: How painful are honest words! But what does your argument prove? Do you intend to correct my words, and treat as wind my cry of despair? You would even cast lots for an orphan and barter away your friend.
Job considered that his grief and calamity weighted heavy (Job 6:1) and there was no injustice on his tongue (6:10), therefore he would not restrain his mouth (7:11)
Job 7:11: Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
Job’s suffering was not comforted, and he likened himself as a “hired man doing a hard service” (Job 7:1), his days were troubled by diseases and his nights were terrified by dreams and visions so that he loathed his life (Job 4:4-5, 13-14,16)
Job 4:4-5: When I lie down I think: ‘When will I get up? ’But the night drags on, and I toss and turn until dawn. My flesh is clothed with worms and encrusted with dirt; my skin is cracked and festering.
Job 4:13-14: When I think my bed will comfort me and my couch will ease my complaint, then You frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions,
Job realized that it was a “Divine Testing” but it was simply too harsh (v. 17-18), he asked why would God not simply look away and pardon his transgression (v. 19-21)
Job 7:17-18: What is man that You should exalt him, that You should set Your heart upon him, that You attend to him every morning, and test him every moment?
Job 7:19-21: Will You never look away from me, or leave me alone to swallow my spittle? If I have sinned, what have I done to You, O watcher of mankind? Why have You made me Your target, so that I am a burden to You? Why do You not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For soon I will lie down in the dust; You will seek me, but I will be no more.”
Bildad thought that Job should repent because the Almighty would not pervert justice (v.2-3) and He would not uphold those that were not pure and upright, or the hypocrites (v.6,13, 20)
Job understood that God Almighty was righteous and sovereign, He was so holy that none was righteous before Him, no one could answer Him or resist Him (Job 9:2-4)
Job 9:2-4: “Yes, I know that it is so, but how can a mortal be righteous before God? If one wished to contend with God, he could not answer Him one time out of a thousand. God is wise in heart and mighty in strength. Who has resisted Him and prospered?
No one could see or hinder Him (v.11-12)
Job 9:11-12: Were He to pass by me, I would not see Him; were He to move, I would not recognize Him. If He takes away, who can stop Him? Who dares to ask Him, ‘What are You doing?’
Job was hoping that God would answer his call, that though he could not reason with Him properly, at least he could “beg his Judge for mercy” (v.14-16)
Job 9:14-16: How then can I answer Him or choose my arguments against Him? For even if I were right, I could not answer. I could only beg my Judge for mercy. If I summoned Him and He answered me, I do not believe He would listen to my voice.
Job could not overcome God with strength or justice, even though he was blameless, his own mouth would condemn him (v.19-20)
Job 9:19-20: If it is a matter of strength, He is indeed mighty! If it is a matter of justice, who can summon Him? Even if I were righteous, my mouth would condemn me; if I were blameless, it would declare me guilty.
Job believed that “He destroys the blameless with the wicked” and would not hold him innocent (v.22, 28). So Job asked for a “Mediator”, because he was on his own and would want to plead with the Judge (Job 10:32-33, 1 Tim 2:5)
Job 10:32-35: For He is not a man like me, that I can answer Him, that we can take each other to court. Nor is there a mediator between us, to lay his hand upon us both. Let Him remove His rod from me, so that His terror will no longer frighten me. Then I would speak without fear of Him. But as it is, I am on my own.
Zophar attempted to “silence” him and rebuke him because he was just a man “full of talk” and “empty-headed” (Job 11:2-3, 12)
Job 11:2-3: Should not the multitude of words be answered? And should a man full of talk be vindicated? Should your empty talk make men hold their peace? And when you mock, should no one rebuke you?
Zophar believed that God “exacts from you less than you deserve”!! (v.6)
Job 11:6: That He would show you the secrets of wisdom! For they would double your prudence. Know therefore that God exacts from you Less than your iniquity deserves.
Job answered that he was “a laughingstock” to his friends, along with the righteous (Job 12:4)
Job 12:4: I am a laughingstock to my friends, though I called on God, and He answered. The righteous and upright man is a laughingstock.
His friends thought that they had wisdom and better understanding than Job (Job 12:2-3)
Job 12:2-3: “No doubt you are the people, And wisdom will die with you! But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Indeed, who does not know such things as these?
“Wisdom and strength belong God” (v.13), and He would reveal the “deep things of darkness” (v.22)
Job 12:22: He reveals the deep things of darkness and brings deep shadows into light.
Job decided that his friends were “worthless physicians”, so he would prepare his case to reason with the Almighty!! (Job 13: 2-3)
Job 13:2-5: What you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you. Yet I desire to speak to the Almighty and argue my case before God. You, however, smear with lies; you are all worthless physicians. If only you would remain silent; for that would be your wisdom!
Job told his friends to stop “showing partiality” for God, He would rebuke them for doing so!! (v. 6-10)
Job 13:6-10: Hear now my argument, and listen to the plea of my lips. Will you speak wickedly on God’s behalf or speak deceitfully for Him? Would you show Him partiality or argue in His defense? Would it be well when He examined you? Could you deceive Him like a man? Surely He would rebuke you if you secretly showed partiality.
Job believed that though God “slay” him, He would still "save" him (v.15-16)
Job 13:15-16: Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. Even so, I will defend my own ways before Him. He also shall be my salvation, For a hypocrite could not come before Him.
He asked God not to “write bitter things against him” (v.26), to withdraw His hand from him (v.21), to not hide His face from him or to regard him as an enemy (v. 24). In all these, he still believed that his case would be vindicated! (v.18-19).
Job 13:18-19: Behold, now that I have prepared my case, I know that I will be vindicated. Can anyone indict me? If so, I will be silent and die.
Eliphaz charged him for “empty knowledge” (Job 13:2), “unprofitable talk” (v.3), “mouth with iniquity” and “tongue of the crafty” (v.5)
Job 13:6: Your own mouth, not mine, condemns you; your own lips testify against you.
Job reproached these “miserable comforters” (Job 16:2) who “heaped up words against him” and they should have considered if they were in his place (v.4-5)
Job 16: 4-5: I also could speak as you do, If your soul were in my soul’s place. I could heap up words against you, And shake my head at you; But I would strengthen you with my mouth, And the comfort of my lips would relieve your grief.
He lamented that he could not remain silent because of his immense grief and miseries (Job 7:11), but when he spoke, his grief was not relieved (16:6)
Job 16:6: Though I speak, my grief is not relieved; And if I remain silent, how am I eased?
He said that God delivered him to the ungodly (v.11), broke him with “wound upon wound” (v.14), that he had sewn “sackcloth over his skin” (v.15), “although no violence is in my hands, and my prayer is pure.” (v.17)
He insisted his innocence and wished to find the One who would “plead for his neighbor” (Job 16:19-21)
Job 16:19-21: Surely even now my witness is in heaven, and my evidence is on high. My friends scorn me; my eyes pour out tears to God. Oh, that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleads for his neighbor!
Job prayed for relief from “the mockers with me” (Job 17:2), he now became “a byword of the people” and “one in whose face men spit” (v.6). Yet he perceived that God had “hidden their heart from understanding” (v.4) and he asked his friends to "come back again" another time (v.10)
Job 17:10: But please, come back again, all of you, For I shall not find one wise man among you.
Because his friends “tormented his soul and broke him in pieces with words” (Job 19:2) and God counted him as an enemy (v.11), Job cried out for justice (v.7)!!
Job 19:7: If I cry out concerning wrong, I am not heard. If I cry aloud, there is no justice.
His brothers, acquaintances, relatives, servants, wife, close friends, even young children forsook, abhorred or despised him (19:13-20), he became “a brother of jackals and a companion of ostriches” (Job 30:29)
But Job remained hopeful that his Redeemer lives and will “stand at last on the earth” (Job 19:25-27)
Job 19:25-27: For I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth; And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God, Whom I shall see for myself, And my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!
Job could present his case with arguments and reason with Him (Job 23:4), and He would deliver Job from his Judge (v.5-7)
Job 23:4-7: I would present my case before Him, And fill my mouth with arguments. I would know the words which He would answer me, And understand what He would say to me. Would He contend with me in His great power? No! But He would take note of me. There the upright could reason with Him, And I would be delivered forever from my Judge.
God put him though the “furnace, crucible and smelter”!! (Is 48:10, Prov 17:3) But he would come forth as gold (Job 23:10-12)
Job 23:10-12: Yet He knows the way I have taken; when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold. My feet have followed in His tracks; I have kept His way without turning aside. I have not departed from the command of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my daily bread.
Elihu, who was younger than all his friends, was aroused against Job because “he was righteous in his own eyes” and “justified himself rather than God", yet another person who attempted to “take a shot” at Job!! (Job 32:1-3)
Job became “the Hated and Persecuted” and was inflicted “wounds upon wounds” (Job 3-37). But he held fast to his integrity and righteousness, he said “my heart shall not reproach me as long as I live” (Job 27:6)
(4) Heaven-on-Earth Assembly
The LORD appeared in a whirlwind and asked Job to “gird up his loins like a man” to answer Him (Job 38:1-3)
Job 38:1-3: Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said: “Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me.
God preached “The LORD’s Sermon” composed of some 70+ “trivia challenges” (Job 38-41).
Job 38:4: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.
Job 38:31: “Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, Or loose the belt of Orion?
Job 40:1,8: “Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? He who rebukes God, let him answer it.” “Would you indeed annul My judgment? Would you condemn Me that you may be justified?
Job was right in this one thing, that who can “answer Him one time out of a thousand?” (Job 9:2-4, 40:4-5)
Job 40:4-5: “Behold, I am vile; What shall I answer You? I lay my hand over my mouth. Once I have spoken, but I will not answer; Yes, twice, but I will proceed no further.”
He admitted that he uttered what he did not understand or know (42:3). Job “the Repented” now repented in “dust and ashes” (v. 5-6)
Job 42:5-6: I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes.
The LORD was not angry with Job but his friends because they had not spoken right about Him, and He would accept their burnt offerings if Job prayed for them (Job 42:8)
Job 42:8: 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.
God had passed Job through the “furnace of afflictions” (Is 48:10), the germs were all killed in the heat, leaving behind a huge gem like “the Cullinan”💎!!
The LORD restored Job and gave him “twice as much” as he had before (v.10), and also “blessed his latter day more than his former” (v.12-13), he had more sons and daughters and his daughters were the most beautiful in the land (v.13-15)
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.
Job 42:12-13: 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. He also had seven sons and three daughters.
Job “the Comeback” was like in Tony Robbins’ “Comeback Challenge”: “You don’t come back to where you were but BEYOND”!!
(5) Kamikaze 神風
John 3:8: The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.
The word Ruach (רוח) in Hebrew, and its equivalent Pneuma (πνεῦμα) in Greek, both have the “trio” meaning of “wind, breath and spirit”. The Spirit of God moves as wind (Jn 3:8) and sounds like “a violent rushing wind” (Acts 2:2). His angels are also made as “winds” (Heb 1:7)
Kamikaze literally means “Divine Wind”, the name was used by a special unit of Japanese military pilots in WWII, but originally it was used to describe the typhoon storms that stopped Mongol’s invasions by sea to Japan in the 13th century. It was the divine wind “as much by their timing as by their force”, similar to the “East Wind of God” that parted the Red Sea and changed the outcome of the battle (Exod 14:21)
A Kamikaze is coming to “Breathe” into the dead situation as into the nostrils of Adam to give him life (Gen 2:7) and as to the “dry bones” in the valley to make them come alive again (Ezek 37:1-14). It is the “Typhoon Windstorm” that blocks the invasion of the enemy (Exod 14:26-28), and the “Angelic VTOL and Tailwind” that lifts up God’s “Fighter Pilots” onto a “Divine Jetstream” to send them to their destinations faster with less effort (Ps 91:11-12).
Mas Oyama, the “Fighter in the Wind”, dubbed “Rocky meets Bruce Lee”, was trained as a military pilot. After the war, he struggled, but eventually he developed and founded Kyokushin (The Ultimate Truth, 極真) 🥊💥
Be a “Job”!!
💨 💨 💨 💨 💨 💨 💨
There is “Win” in the Wind!! A “Win Wind!!” 💨
Psalm 78:26: He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens and by His power He directed the south wind.
Ezek 37:9-10: Also He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” ” So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army.
The Lord bless you and keep you.
Ka Yee
