From the prologue, we learned that God was one of Job’s greatest fans, echoing the accolades
“blameless, upright, God-fearing, and one who avoids evil” from the narrator’s introduction (1:1). That might be considered advocacy at its best except that, of course, God intentionally spoke those words to the satan, setting Job on a collision course with that adversary. God’s sovereign permission giving Job into the satan’s hand – twice - placed God squarely on the adversarial side of the ring as well. In other words, God’s roles were more than just a bit complicated right from the beginning.
It is not particularly comfortable for us to think of God as divine Advocate and Adversary – for Job or, even more unsettling, for us. What do those titles …show more content…
He circled back to God’s meddling into his own attempts to be righteous and blameless.
If I washed myself with the waters of snow; if I purified my hands with lye (bor), then you would sink me in the pit and my clothes would loathe me (9:30-31).
In other words, God was turning justice on its head by making Job filthy. Job recognized the utter futility of fighting against it because he was a man and God was not. How could they ever meet on an even playing field (9:32)? If only there were someone to intervene – but who? And how? Job’s perspective was not hopeful.
There is not between us an arbitrator; he would place his hand on the two of us.
He would remove from me His rod, and His dread would not terrify me.
I would speak and not be afraid of Him, for I am not thus with me (9:33-35).
The first line might be rendered “would that there were an arbitrator” to fit better with the second clause. Neither, however, sounds as if Job expected a real mediator to remove the painful rod, the dreadful terror. When we get to the last clause, we scratch our heads. What was Job trying to say? Most translations paraphrase it sufficiently that we think we understand it, but this is one of the …show more content…
To make this work in the context, we might press the Hebrew syntax a bit further. Perhaps Job was saying “my friends should be my intercessors...” Or this may have been a plea, something along the lines of “oh friends, be my intercessors!” Having just referenced a witness and advocate in heaven, now Job called on his friends to be the mediators they should have been all along.
Having said that, the word interpreted here as “intercessor” has the same root letters in Hebrew as the word for “mock.” That would certainly fit Job’s perception of his friends’ actual involvement - “my friends mock me as my eyes pour out tears…” Mockers as a nasty set show up in Job’s very next lines –
“surely there are mockers around me….” (Job 17:2 – the Hebrew word is a synonym of melitz). In his brokenness, seeing the grave ahead of him, Job perceived them as scavengers (17:1-2).
Both of those interpretations sound pretty “earth-bound.” Is there any way that Job might have been referring to a singular heavenly intercessor, especially in light of his affirmation of the heavenly witness and advocate in the preceding verse? That has been the traditional interpretation, both Jewish
“blameless, upright, God-fearing, and one who avoids evil” from the narrator’s introduction (1:1). That might be considered advocacy at its best except that, of course, God intentionally spoke those words to the satan, setting Job on a collision course with that adversary. God’s sovereign permission giving Job into the satan’s hand – twice - placed God squarely on the adversarial side of the ring as well. In other words, God’s roles were more than just a bit complicated right from the beginning.
It is not particularly comfortable for us to think of God as divine Advocate and Adversary – for Job or, even more unsettling, for us. What do those titles …show more content…
He circled back to God’s meddling into his own attempts to be righteous and blameless.
If I washed myself with the waters of snow; if I purified my hands with lye (bor), then you would sink me in the pit and my clothes would loathe me (9:30-31).
In other words, God was turning justice on its head by making Job filthy. Job recognized the utter futility of fighting against it because he was a man and God was not. How could they ever meet on an even playing field (9:32)? If only there were someone to intervene – but who? And how? Job’s perspective was not hopeful.
There is not between us an arbitrator; he would place his hand on the two of us.
He would remove from me His rod, and His dread would not terrify me.
I would speak and not be afraid of Him, for I am not thus with me (9:33-35).
The first line might be rendered “would that there were an arbitrator” to fit better with the second clause. Neither, however, sounds as if Job expected a real mediator to remove the painful rod, the dreadful terror. When we get to the last clause, we scratch our heads. What was Job trying to say? Most translations paraphrase it sufficiently that we think we understand it, but this is one of the …show more content…
To make this work in the context, we might press the Hebrew syntax a bit further. Perhaps Job was saying “my friends should be my intercessors...” Or this may have been a plea, something along the lines of “oh friends, be my intercessors!” Having just referenced a witness and advocate in heaven, now Job called on his friends to be the mediators they should have been all along.
Having said that, the word interpreted here as “intercessor” has the same root letters in Hebrew as the word for “mock.” That would certainly fit Job’s perception of his friends’ actual involvement - “my friends mock me as my eyes pour out tears…” Mockers as a nasty set show up in Job’s very next lines –
“surely there are mockers around me….” (Job 17:2 – the Hebrew word is a synonym of melitz). In his brokenness, seeing the grave ahead of him, Job perceived them as scavengers (17:1-2).
Both of those interpretations sound pretty “earth-bound.” Is there any way that Job might have been referring to a singular heavenly intercessor, especially in light of his affirmation of the heavenly witness and advocate in the preceding verse? That has been the traditional interpretation, both Jewish