20240621

dishonored

Job 12:1-25 (JDV)

Job 12:1 Then Job answered and said:
Job 12:2 Truly you are the people, and wisdom will die with you!
Job 12:3 But I also have a heart like you; I am not inferior to you. Who doesn’t know the things you refer to?
Job 12:4 I am a laughingstock to my friends, by calling on God, who answers me. The righteous and upright man is a laughingstock.
Job 12:5 The one who is at ease holds calamity in contempt and thinks it is prepared for those whose feet are slipping.
Job 12:6 The tents of robbers are safe, and those who trouble God are secure; God holds them in his hands.
Job 12:7 But ask the animals, and they will instruct you; ask the birds of the sky, and they will tell you.
Job 12:8 Or speak to the land, and it will instruct you; let the fish of the sea inform you.
Job 12:9 Which of all these does not know that the hand of Yahveh has done this?
Job 12:10 The throat of every living thing is in his hand, as well as the breath of all mankind.
Job 12:11 Doesn’t the ear test words as the palate tastes food?
Job 12:12 Wisdom is found with the elderly, and understanding comes with long life.
Job 12:13 Wisdom and strength belong to God; counsel and understanding are his.
Job 12:14 Whatever he tears down cannot be rebuilt; whoever he imprisons cannot be released.
Job 12:15 When he withholds water, everything dries up, and when he releases it, it overturns the ground.
Job 12:16 True wisdom and power belong to him. The deceived and the deceiver are his.
Job 12:17 He leads counselors away barefoot and makes judges go mad.
Job 12:18 He releases the bonds put on by kings and fastens a belt around their waists.
Job 12:19 He leads priests away barefoot, and overthrows established leaders.
Job 12:20 He deprives trusted advisers of speech and takes away the elders’ good judgment.
Job 12:21 He pours out contempt on nobles and disarms the strong.
Job 12:22 He reveals mysteries from the darkness and brings the deepest darkness into the light.
Job 12:23 He makes nations great, then destroys them; he enlarges nations, then leads them away.
Job 12:24 He deprives the land’s leaders of reason and makes them wander in a trackless wasteland.
Job 12:25 They grope around in darkness without light; he makes them stagger like a drunk.

dishonored

Job reminds his friends that he had been known as a wise man too, before his calamity came. His response to their insistence that he repent for the sin that obviously brought this disaster upon himself is to remind them that ultimately God does what he wishes, and no king, man, or animal can stop him. God is sovereign. Nothing that he does is unfair, for the universe is his. For now, Job has been removed from the honor that was once his as a wise man. That does not mean he has lost his wisdom. Job is down and out. Our temptation is to ignore and deplore those who have met misfortune. We should not yield to that temptation.

LORD, give us the discernment to listen to your voice, no matter whose mouth it is coming from.