Good Morning, Siblings!
Today’s readings are Job 35-37
Click here to read today’s passages on BibleGateway.
We’re entering the home stretch. Only two more days until we start Psalms so let us try to finish Job strong.
Rabbit Trails
Super Brief notes today. Consider it a reward for having read through the lengthier of my notes in the past and future!
Elihu is a little hard to gauge. He introduces the mindset that the Father disciplines His good servants in order to draw them closer to Him and correct their behavior in order to bring about a change of heart and understanding, which is a pattern we’ve seen from YHWH many times.
However, reading his words at the onset may not give that impression as he appears arrogant and even dismissive of transgressions at many points.
Still, many scholars feel that his monologue is honoring of the Father and shows a greater understanding than Job’s other friends – that righteous servants are chastised and disciplined by a loving Father. Some scholars see more of what we saw at the first, a man of arrogance who is dismissive of sin as being inconsequential to the Father.
Either way, we don’t see him mentioned again after chapter 37 and when the Father rebukes the others who have been speaking, Elihu is not mentioned.
It’s definitely a coin that can have two sides, depending on how you look at it.
FB Meyer had a wonderful quote that expounds on this section in Job:
God is mighty, but He does not despise thee, though thou be the least of saints. His eyes are upon thee for good, and He will set thee before His throne forever. He will stoop to thy low dungeon, whispering instruction to thine ear and commanding thee to return. There are broad places before thee in which there shall be no straitness; tables await thee full of fatness. Thy path leads from thy present prison-house into liberty and light.
Remember the unsearchable numbers of His years. Behold the wonderful machinery by which He collects from ocean, lake, and stream the clouds which, like floating cisterns, carry the waters to be bleached in the snow of the hills, and oxidized in the torrent beds! There is more love than terror in creation. Nature’s myriad voices proclaim with Scripture, “God is love.” He cannot, therefore, be indifferent to the righteous man or neglect him. He may discipline him to make him hate sin; but, when this end is attained, He will assuredly withdraw His rod.
Test everything, hold tight to what is good.~ 1 Thess 5:21
We are saved by Grace alone: Obedience is not the root of our salvation, it is the fruit!
May YHWH bless the reading of His Word!