Job 26 Commentary

Job 26 Commentary

Job’s situation has made him powerless and feeble. He needed a word of wisdom and insight from the world around him. Pain and suffering produce a lot of winding questions. It is a factory of great and constant confusion for the saint.

Job’s friends have spoken at length, but it has all been useless. Bildad’s short speech (Chapter 25) is actually the last argument from the friends and is representative of the general thought from the world around Job.

Job begins his speech by mocking the insights that have brought nothing but more confusion. He then questions the source of this useless inspiration. Very important! Some of the lines from the friends are actually true, but contextually wrong. The saint must know the difference.

The revealed character of God must be appreciated in full. It is great to know that God is mighty. But without the knowledge that the same God is just, holy, upright, perfect, loving, and good, you are not good enough for the title of a believer. There should be a balance.

A church that spends its entire life talking about the goodness and blessings of God isn’t at all wrong, but critically lacks the required balance. In the end, such a church is called out for not speaking correctly about God, like Job’s three friends.

Job then moves on to talk about the greatness of the LORD.

When human wisdom fails, as we have clearly seen from these pages, the saint is encouraged to move into praise gear. Talk about the greatness of the LORD.

Let’s look back again. If at any one point we agreed with Eliphaz, Zophar, or Bildad, then you easily understand just how difficult suffering moments are. We can easily be misled by half-truths, errors, or simple misrepresentations. And many of them looked so logical and so scriptural that one can easily develop a sermon from them. But they are all contextually wrong. At the end of the day, when the LORD speaks, not too long from now, the three friends will be reprimanded.

“Whose spirit came from you?”

We remember Eliphaz and his encounter with a spirit. Job 4:15. We questioned this appearance. It didn’t look like the Spirit of the LORD! Then we have ancient wisdom and general logic.

We find the same ancient wisdom in the gospel of John from the healed blind man. “Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him.” John 9:31.

The three friends have argued on our behalf. These are ideas and thoughts we all have about God. Too distant. Ever ready to punish the sinner. The prosperity gospel hinges on the thought that righteousness always equals prosperity. Humanity always responds to suffering and pain in a predictable way: “Why me?” or “What have I done?”

The causation principle is part of fallen humanity. It is the function of salvation to dispel these principles as the believer soaks himself in the scriptures!

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