20240701

come to terms

Job 22:1-30 (JDV)

Job 22:1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:
Job 22:2 Can a healthy man be of any use to God? Can even a wise man be of use to him?
Job 22:3 Does it delight the Almighty if you are righteous? Does he profit if you perfect your behavior?
Job 22:4 Does he correct you and take you to court because of your piety?
Job 22:5 Isn’t your wickedness abundant and aren’t your iniquities endless?
Job 22:6 For you took collateral from your brothers without cause, stripping off their clothes and leaving them naked.
Job 22:7 You gave no water to the thirsty and withheld food from the famished,
Job 22:8 while the land belonged to a powerful man and an influential man lived on it.
Job 22:9 You sent widows away empty-handed, and the strength of the fatherless was crushed.
Job 22:10 Therefore snares surround you, and sudden dread terrifies you,
Job 22:11 or darkness, so you cannot see, and a flood of water covers you.
Job 22:12 Isn’t God as high as the sky? And look at the highest stars — how lofty they are!
Job 22:13 Yet you say, “What does God know? Can he judge through total darkness?
Job 22:14 Clouds veil him so that he cannot see, as he walks on the circle of the sky.”
Job 22:15 Will you continue the ancient path that wicked men have walked?
Job 22:16 They were snatched away before their time, and their foundations were washed away by a river.
Job 22:17 They were the ones who said to God, “Leave us alone!” and “What can the Almighty do to us?”
Job 22:18 But it was he who filled their houses with good things. The counsel of the wicked is far from me!
Job 22:19 The righteous see this and rejoice; the innocent mock them, saying,
Job 22:20 “Surely our opponents are made to disappear, and fire has consumed what they left behind.”
Job 22:21 Come to terms with God and be at peace; in this way good will come to you.
Job 22:22 Receive instruction from his mouth and place his sayings in your heart.
Job 22:23 If you return to the Almighty, you will be renewed. If you banish injustice from your tent
Job 22:24 and consign your gold to the dust, the gold of Ophir to the stones in the wadis,
Job 22:25 the Almighty will be your gold and your finest silver.
Job 22:26 Then you will delight in the Almighty and lift up your face to God.
Job 22:27 You will pray to him, and he will hear you, and you will fulfil your vows.
Job 22:28 When you decide, it will be carried out, and light will shine on your ways.
Job 22:29 When others are humiliated and you say, “Lift them up,” God will save the humble.
Job 22:30 He will even rescue the guilty one, who will be rescued by the purity of your hands.

come to terms

Eliphaz urges Job to “come to terms with God and be at peace.” Behind the advice is the presumption that Eliphaz is arguing God’s position. He really does no such thing. God is not after repentance from Job. God wants Job’s therapists to shut up and leave him alone. But the very fact that Job is suffering misfortune speaks so loudly to them makes the therapists incapable of seeing the truth.

What do you know? is it the truth, or is it just what you have been taught. This very ancient book teaches us to rethink our presuppositions – even our religious ones. Before we dare to proclaim that we are defending God’s position, we had better study his word. We do not want to go our whole lives defending a wrong worldview.

LORD, give us the discernment to know your will from your word.