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Replying to Blastcat]
Job 40:4- 5
Job faces God and admits to a LOT of ignorance.
Yes, he does. Job questioned God, so God turns the tables and questions him ("I will question you, and you will answer me...")
But there is a reason for God doing this. Be patient with me here, as it's a little complex and requires the context of the rest of the book. Notably, we need to recognize that the book of Job is a consolation. Job is demonstrably and rightfully upset. He thinks himself nothing due to his treatment. He has lost faith in his status as a human being (he sits in the ashes / garbage heap and many times calls himself this, i.e. "dust and ashes" to use the biblical language for human insignificance).
The friends explicitly come to console him (and clearly fail as Job repeatedly attests). I think we can assume God comes to do the same, or at least see what happens if we read God in that light,
i.e. as coming to console Job about "dust and ashes."
So the question is, does God respond to Job's feeling of insignificance and need for consolation by blowing Job away, in what can only be described as a dick move and putting salt on the wound? Or, to my point, does God
uplift Job, and truly demonstrate what we would all expect God to do and be?...
My view: God uses a risky strategy. And it takes 2 speeches to pull it off (another famous question is why does God speak twice when, to your point, Job admits his smallness in 40:5? Is this a triple-dick move or, to my point, is something more going on?...)
As God makes clear,
in his first words, Job darkens God's plans for him. Job's view of his status as a human being, i.e. that he is nothing and destined for the ash heap, is wrong.
God tries to argue this to Job by demonstrating Job's ignorance on many other things divine.
In other words, God employs the risky strategy of consoling Job of his low opinion of himself by demonstrating his ignorance. Basically,
"If you don't know these things Job, how could you possibly know that you are nothing in My eyes, and that your destiny is ashes?"...
God even (if you read the speech closely) moves gradually from the impossible to the possible; from things that Job could
never know to things that Job would
surely know.
So the first speech demonstrates Job's ignorance, but it also should serve to uplift Job if he can catch the drift of it. i.e. God moves from talking about how the earth was created and stuff like that to the workings of animals -- even animals that Job has domesticated and knows the ways of.
But clearly the first speech fails. It only, to your point, reconfirms Job's view of himself: that he is nothing. Dust and ashes.
The risky strategy fails.
Thus God needs to speak again, and this time the speech shifts gears. No longer is God demonstrating Job's ignorance but rather he is
comparing Job to magnificent creatures of dust and ashes: Behemoth and Leviathan. God does so, again,
risking that Job will catch the drift and be uplifted by the comparison (versus feeling even smaller yet!). Key words make it clear that God's point is to uplift:
"Look at Behemoth,
which I made along with you..."
These words put Job
side by side with Behemoth (and Leviathan). Both creatures of God. Both made from dust. Both magnificent creatures that nobody can withstand.
(
Note: With this Job gets it. See 42:6. You won't find this in standard English translations, but a totally viable rendering of this highly ambiguous final speech from Job is essentially "I recant, and am
consoled about dust and ashes..." Thus God succeeds, Job is consoled, and once again is standing tall and upright as a human being as he was in the beginning.)
The others are scolded for being impertinent enough to ask questions.
The friends don't question God though. Rather, they question Job's integrity. Important difference... God doesn't scold the friends for speaking falsely of Job, but for speaking falsely
of God.
Oh, I love a dare!
"After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has."
Compelling interpretation?
In that passage, God tells Job's friends that he is angry with them, because they told lies about God. And he says that Job tells the truth about God.
So, DOES Job know everything?
I don't think so.
I think the point of God's tirade ( as poetic as it is ) is that Job DOESN'T know the answers.
SHOULD we dare ask questions about God?.. No, to do that only gets the god angry.
Asking questions is like LYING to this god.
I think that every rhetorical questions that God asks of Job is to SHOW how much Job is ignorant.
So, Job and his friends should SHUT UP and obey like good boys. OR ELSE.
If God wants us to know something, he will TELL us, OK?
Now, stop bugging God !
Sorry but that's not going to cut it. Everything you say here is against Job, who God explicitly says spoke true. You can't put Job in the same bucket as the friends, as you do here.
God is clearly separating them. We need to discern what that separating factor is...
Key point: relying on the English here is again a danger. Another way to read God's words you cite, interestingly enough, is:
"I am angry with you...because you have not spoken the truth
AGAINST me, as my servant Job has."
(Not speaking truth "about" but "against"...)
See Strong's Hebrew root of the word used:
- el: to, into, towards
Original Word: �ֶל
Part of Speech: Preposition
Transliteration: el
Phonetic Spelling: (ale)
Short Definition: against
Thus, to my point if we render it this way, Job is praised for speaking truth
against God. The friends are scolded for not.
All fits together perfectly. The moral of the story is that we
should question God. That is what it means to be Israel ("wrestles with" God...).
