01/15/08: Job 5-7
Job 5:
Is Eliphaz's message here basically to have faith in God and that He performs miracles?
Ted: Basically, yes. But, even more than that, it is well-rounded description (although the "tip of the iceberg") of how complex God is and how He does, and has done, so many things that we simply cannot comprehend all of them.
In giving these descriptions of God and an array of His actions, including great wonders and miracles, I believe that Eliphaz is pointing out to Job that God's ways are so far above our understanding that we simply are unable to comprehend them, in all of their completeness. Thus, as terrible as Job's trials and tribulations were, Job needed to understand that God, in His infinite wisdom, had a purpose for all of them. In Job 5:17, he essentially was telling Job that Job actually was being blessed by God's correcting and disciplining him.
Eliphaz even prophesied (whether he realized he was doing so or not) that Job's future would be secure. All of the things stated by Eliphaz in Job 5:24-26 actually came true in the end.
Job 6:
In lines 21-30, I don't understand what Job is saying to his friends.
Ted: I think that Job's friends cannot fathom that God could be allowing all of Job's misfortune to happen unless Job, somehow, was remiss in obeying God in some way. Therefore, they continue to imply that Job directly is at fault in what is happening to him. And they are urging him to figure out what it is that he has done wrong and "fess up" to it.
Job, on the other hand, believes that he has been faultless in obeying God and in observing all of His commands--which, in a literal sense, he may have done. He essentially is asking for compassion from his friends. He is reminding them that he never has asked anything significant of them them (Job 6:22,23); yet, how do they repay him?--with accusations and presumptions, rather than with compassion and understanding.
Job 7:
Is Job speaking to God now?
Ted: Yes, I would say that he is speaking out loud in front of his "friends," but he is speaking directly to God and wants them to hear what he is saying.
Is Eliphaz's message here basically to have faith in God and that He performs miracles?
Ted: Basically, yes. But, even more than that, it is well-rounded description (although the "tip of the iceberg") of how complex God is and how He does, and has done, so many things that we simply cannot comprehend all of them.
In giving these descriptions of God and an array of His actions, including great wonders and miracles, I believe that Eliphaz is pointing out to Job that God's ways are so far above our understanding that we simply are unable to comprehend them, in all of their completeness. Thus, as terrible as Job's trials and tribulations were, Job needed to understand that God, in His infinite wisdom, had a purpose for all of them. In Job 5:17, he essentially was telling Job that Job actually was being blessed by God's correcting and disciplining him.
Eliphaz even prophesied (whether he realized he was doing so or not) that Job's future would be secure. All of the things stated by Eliphaz in Job 5:24-26 actually came true in the end.
Job 6:
In lines 21-30, I don't understand what Job is saying to his friends.
Ted: I think that Job's friends cannot fathom that God could be allowing all of Job's misfortune to happen unless Job, somehow, was remiss in obeying God in some way. Therefore, they continue to imply that Job directly is at fault in what is happening to him. And they are urging him to figure out what it is that he has done wrong and "fess up" to it.
Job, on the other hand, believes that he has been faultless in obeying God and in observing all of His commands--which, in a literal sense, he may have done. He essentially is asking for compassion from his friends. He is reminding them that he never has asked anything significant of them them (Job 6:22,23); yet, how do they repay him?--with accusations and presumptions, rather than with compassion and understanding.
Job 7:
Is Job speaking to God now?
Ted: Yes, I would say that he is speaking out loud in front of his "friends," but he is speaking directly to God and wants them to hear what he is saying.
