This post is part of my ongoing series of writing down my thoughts on the Bible passages I read each day. Some days I hope to have great insight that the Lord gives me, and many days, I will likely struggle through the text and not know what to write down based on what I read. My hope and prayer is that as I make this a habit, just as I did daily writing for so long, that I will improve on my ability to read and understand the passages I’m reading. Please keep in mind that many of these posts may be published late at night or with little time studying and simply be my first thoughts after reading. This is in no way a commentary that one should use to discern the Bible, but my own personal thoughts.

There were several passages that stood out to me as I was reading through the chapters today, and I think the easiest thing will be to simply type them here and my thoughts.

Job 28:5 – “As for the earth, out of it comes bread, but underneath it is turned up as by fire.”

^It’s always interesting to me when the Bible has little sciency things like this. Pretty subtle and maybe it’s not as crazy as I think. But it seems like he’s basically talking about how the ground produces both wheat, etc. for making bread, but also out of it come coal for making fire. The same thing produces different things.

Job 31:33 – “if I have sealed my transgression as others do by hiding my iniquity in my heart”

^I’m still trying to get an understanding of Job’s actions and words within this book, and I’m trying to do that without reading any commentaries. At first, what he said seemed to make sense and seemed to be justified and he wasn’t cursing God, which was cool. But now, some of what he says seems to be whining and propping himself up when he shouldn’t. Especially by Elihu’s rebuke later. In any case, the thing I was thinking of when I initially read this passage though was it was cool that Job was okay with confessing and saying where he might be wrong. Most of the time it seems that he’s justifying himself by talking about how he’s righteous before God (which he seems to be), but here it seems we see a moment of transparency…again though, I don’t know a lot of the language here and how one thing might be taken or said, so I could be way off on my interpretation of what he says.

Job 32:9 – “It is not the old who are wise, nor the aged who understand what is right”

^This Elihu here speaking after prefacing that he didn’t want to talk before because he thought because he was young he should let the older “wiser” people speak. But, like the verse below this indicates, he couldn’t keep to himself anymore because of the outrage he was feeling at what the others were saying. I don’t know if what Elihu says here is inspired by God (obviously the actual text in Job is inspired by God, but that doesn’t mean what everyone says is condoned by God as teaching), but I do find it interesting that this seems to fly in the face of a lot of the Bible that seems to have high respect for your elders. Certainly, there are many passages that talk about not dispising a man in his youth, but this direct tell to not think that those who are old are wise is I think helpful as we look at those around us for counsel.

Job 32:20-21 – “I must speak that I may find relief; I must open my lips and answer. I will not show partiality to any man”

^Some of what I mentioned above, but It does seem like this Elihu character seems to have his head on straight. Basically saying that neither Job, nor his friends are right, and instead, points to God for everything instead of always relating it back to Job, for Job’s praise or detriment.

Job 34:2 – “Hear my words you wise men, and give ear to me, you who know;”

^And at the end, it’s fascinating to me that Elihu (still speaking here) seems to have gone into full preaching mode. He didn’t continue to put himself down after the initial confession of not wanting to talk because he was young. After he did this, he didn’t put his own wisdom down, instead, he said what he came there to say and didn’t pull any punches. My assessment is that Elihu is cool, but I could prove to be wrong.