Day 315: Job 11-14 | Read The Bible In A Year | Bible Study with Commentary by Dr. Manny Arango

Welcome to the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. We are walking through the entire Bible in a year. You can go to the description or thebabledapartment.com to download a reading plan and join the journey. (bright music) And we welcome today 315. We are diving into the book of Job or continuing our deep dive into the book of Job. We are in chapters 11, 12, 13 and 14 today. Some solid, solid, solid content today. My job today is to actually see a couple things that I should have said yesterday. Gonna give you some nerdy nuggets from the chapters that were assigned for yesterday. So sorry in advance. We're gonna go back a little so that we can go forward. The reading today, honestly, dense but good. Some verses that I think we're all familiar with come out of today's reading. I don't know if you're familiar with Job chapter 13. I heard this said in church all the time. Verse 15, "Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him. Yet though he slay me, yet will I trust him is how I grew up hearing it." That's probably King James or New King James. But anyway, with no further ado, let's dive into today's content. If you have not done the reading for the day, this is my challenge to you to stop the video, pause the audio, go get the reading done.

Job chapter 11, 12, 13 and 14, solid, solid reading shouldn't take long. It is dense, so heads up if you haven't done the reading. And I actually have a copy of my latest book, Crushing Chaos with me today. Number one, I've got a copy of it because the artwork straight out of the book of Job. Okay, the artwork is the God figure here, crushing Leviathan, okay? Or destroying Leviathan. And this artwork comes straight out of the end of the book of Job, I think somewhere in the high 30s, maybe like chapter 37, 38, something somewhere in that direction where God actually gives a description of Behemoth and Leviathan. Now, that's not what we're gonna talk about today, but we are gonna talk about some other content from the book of Job that I actually wrote about in Crushing Chaos because if you've already noticed, maybe you've already noticed this, Job is gonna have a ton of Chaos language and I wanna help us to interpret that Chaos language. But before we dive into that, let me give you some context clues for the day. Now, I teased this up, I teed this up yesterday, I kinda teased this idea that Job is the oldest book of the Bible. Now, I've heard that said a ton.

Maybe you have, maybe you haven't. If you're watching this on YouTube, let me know in the comments whether or not you've heard that said before, okay? Job, the oldest book I've ever written, okay? Now, that's kinda like an urban legend. Like, I remember hearing that as like a young adult, I won't say who said it. Very, very, very prominent pastor said it. Like if I said their name, everyone would know what I'm talking about. Very, very prominent church leader that kinda said that. And I just kinda took it at face value, assumed that that was the truth because why would someone say something in church? That's not true. And then I remember going off, like getting my master's degree, studying for my doctoral work and like researching this and coming to the conclusion that there may be smidge of truth to that, but the reality is that Job is not the oldest book of the Bible. Like that, that is categorically untrue. Now, let's dive into when this book could have possibly been written and why do people think that it is the oldest book of the Bible, all right? Okay, first things first. What is the validity of this statement, okay?

Before we say that something's ridiculous, let's actually assume that there's some validity here. Okay, now the validity is that Job and his lifestyle and his friends reflect a more patriarchal moment in history, okay? So Job, in terms of his wealth being in his flocks, in terms of offering of sacrifices in the prologue, where he's offering sacrifice on behalf of his children, there's no mention of the temple. Like he's living a very Abrahamic lifestyle, okay? So a lot of people will admit the cultural lifestyle that him and his friends seem to be living, it looks like Abraham. It's kind of like if you go like visit, you know, an Amish community, you would say, oh yeah, like you may think you're in the 1700s, right? But you're not, it's just the people are living in an old way, okay? So, Job is living in a way that is way more ancient than let's say David's generation or Solomon or anything like that. So, in terms of the setting for the actual story, that is ancient. Also, all throughout the book of Job, the word Yahweh is not really used a lot, okay? Yahweh is gonna get used in the prologue and the epilogue, but in the dialogue between Job and his friends and the monologue, it's El Shaddai, which El Shaddai is an older word for God. Remember, the word Yahweh is not revealed

until we get to Moses. So, in terms of, okay, when are the events of the story taking place? The events of the story are old. Like the events of the story could be Abraham or even pre Abrahamic. In that regard, old, however, the Hebrew that we have is very close to Aramaic, okay? Which actually is a signal that this was written way later, like post-exile. Now, let's think about it. What group of people would have an incentive to write about suffering? I'd say people who are exiled, maybe, like in Babylon. And so, by the time Jesus comes on the scene, Jesus is speaking in full-blown Aramaic, okay? A Hebrew, like all language, right? Language changes. So, if I handed you some Shakespeare, you'd be able to, A, you probably wouldn't even be able to read it, but B, you'd realize, yeah, this is old English, right? So, when people say old English, that's indicative of the time period in which that English was written. If I hand something to you and it says the word Google, you'd locate it in modern history, right? Because no one would have the word Google, like in a document referencing an internet search browser in the 1800s.

Like, you would know, like, I don't know about this. Like, if you saw a letter from George Washington and he referenced searching the internet on Google, or if he referenced Reddit, or Twitter, or X, or Facebook, you'd be like, I don't think George Washington wrote this, right? So, we understand in our own modern society that we can date things based on the words or how old is the English, okay? So, the Hebrew that we have here is not old. So, what we have is this mismatch. The time period is very old. Joe's life, his lifestyle, his friends, the word El Shaddai, like calling God El Shaddai, all signal A, this is old old, like Abraham old, but then the style of Hebrew that we have, and the Aramaic influence that we can see when we actually study the text. And obviously, that's not possible to do when you're reading it in English, okay? You actually have to like read the original manuscripts. You go, this looks like it comes out of the axillic or post-exilic period, okay? So, I'll kind of read a little bit about that just from my own notes. A lot of scholars are gonna place the writing of Joe, and remember, it's easy to write something in 2025 about George Washington, right? Like, you can write something today about something happening in an ancient time, okay? So, that's probably what's going on in Joe.

Fifth to third century BC in Judah during the second temple period, this later time period would explain the greater Aramaic influence. And in particular, some phrases which appear to be very Persian. For example, the list of officials in chapter three, verse 14 to 15, and the phrase covering the mouth in 29, verse nine, and 40, verse five. Perhaps most of all, this fits with the use of the title, Satan, or Satan, or the Satan. Only two other books in the Old Testament use that title, Chronicles and Zechariah, both of which were written during the Persian period, okay? So, there is a, of this being from the 5th to the 3rd century, it can be from the 6th century, okay? And that's 6th century BCE, right out to the fall of Jerusalem. This could have been written in exile in Babylon, Babylon as an attempt to wrestle with the suffering due to the fall of Jerusalem and the exile as a whole. There are some similarities to lamentations, okay, the book of lamentations, which is also written at this time and the Babylonian influence may explain the Aramaic influence, okay? So what we probably have is something that was written later, okay, but with an older setting for the characters, which is normal, right? That's normal. All right, next kind of just like, okay, we don't know who the author is, but there's a couple of things we can say. The author is a brilliant poet. Job contains around 1,020 lines of Hebrew poetry with some of the best and most complex examples in all scripture. There are, for example, over 60 triple parallelisms in the book. There are also 28 different speeches in the book, two cycles of 6, 6 speeches in dialogue, one cycle of five speeches in dialogue, and then three sets of larger monologues. It also includes chiasm's interchanges in all manner of literary devices, like the person who wrote this is

a beast of a writer. Last, the author has a wide vocabulary and knowledge of the world and its mythology. There are five distinct words for lion used in chapter four versus 10 through 11. Animals described in great detail in chapter 38 and 39. 13 different words for precious gems in chapter 28 alone. Job also contains information of different weather patterns, star constellations, mining practices, hunting and trapping, caravan training routes, and a healthy general knowledge of past history and culture. Like, whoever wrote this is a genius of a person. Family, the weight is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos, is out now and available everywhere books are sold. Literally, today, I walked into a Barnes and Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble or you can go to a books a million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is going to be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right. Back to the episode. Let's dive into just some nerdy nuggets. I don't have a lot of time left on this episode and I want to dive into some nerdy nuggets. Let's actually go to my latest book, Crushing Chaos, because I think that this is helpful. Now, in order to do this, we got to have to get out of chapters 11 to 14 for just a moment and we're going to go to chapter nine. Okay, this little moment in chapter nine that is kind of actual context for something that's going to happen to the New Testament. And I want you to be aware of it. Okay. Chapter nine says this. Chapter nine verse nine. Sorry. Chapter nine verse eight. It says he alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea. So Yahweh treads on the waves of the sea. That means a couple things. Number one, it means that he cockers the chaos. Okay, because he's he can walk on the water. But it also means that when the New Testament describes Jesus as walking on the water, it is saying something about Jesus's deity. But if you don't know that one of the things that Job teaches us is that Yahweh alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea. He alone can do that. So when the gospel writers are

showing us a Jesus that's walking on the sea, it's actually a callback to Job chapter nine verse nine. To show us instead of telling us that Jesus is a divine figure. Verse nine and 11 says this. When he passes me, I cannot see him. When he goes by, I cannot perceive him. So this is Job talking about Yahweh. When he passes me, I cannot see him. When he goes This is essentially Job talking about the transcendent otherness, the holiness of God, that he's far off, he passes by me, and it seems like we're about to relate, but he alludes me, okay? Because he's other than, he's holy. So this is helpful, okay? Because in Mark chapter six, verse 48, Jesus not only is walking on the water, but Mark gives us this tiny little Easter egg. Mark says this, Jesus intended to pass by them, that only makes sense if you know Job, who passed by Job on the water? Yahweh did, but did Jesus actually pass them by? No, he didn't, he stops and he actually gets in the boat. Because what Mark is saying is that Jesus is both divine and human. I'm gonna read a little bit of this from crushing chaos. This is on page two 19 of crushing chaos. It says this, Mark tells us that Jesus is about to walk right past his own disciples, such an odd and seemingly insignificant detail. Mark chapter six verse 48 records, he saw the disciples straining at the oars because the wind was against them. Shortly before dawn, he went out to them walking on the lake.

He was about to pass by them, what? About to pass by, why? Does it he walk out on the water to help them? This is beyond confusing. Well, it's baffling until you read Job chapter nine, where Job is talking about the awesome wonder of Yahweh. In this passage, Job says all kinds of things that demonstrate the nature of God's divinity. Yahweh moves mountains and shakes the earth. Yahweh controls the sun and the stars. He is the maker of the bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of the south. Most of this chapter in Job is about the wonder and power of the creator of the universe. It's humbling and awe-inspiring content to read. The entire list proves the divinity of Yahweh, for he's the only being in the universe who can perform such wonders. And in the list of all the nature-defying things, Yahweh has the power to do, we find this. He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea. When he passes me, I cannot see him. When he goes by, I cannot perceive him. Obviously you just read that. This is classic chaos language. Yahweh alone walks on the waves of the to-home. To-home is the Hebrew word for the deep. So since Jesus is walking on the waves in the pages of the gospels, both Matthew and Mark

are telling us Jesus is God, without telling us Jesus is God. Like good storytellers, they are portraying Jesus as divine. But we have an odd and interesting twist in Job 9. Yahweh treads on the to-home, yet he walks right past Job. And Job is unable to perceive him. In Job, Yahweh is not only all powerful and awesome, but also holy, slightly unapproachable and definitely unrelatable. The entire Old Testament points to the truth that Yahweh is nothing like his creation. He is holy because he is indeed holy other. He is H-O-L-Y, he is holy, H-O-L-Y, because he is indeed holy, W-H-O-L-L-Y other. Mark alludes to this passage in Job with the subtlety of an artist. However, Jesus doesn't walk past the disciples. Instead, the disciples cry out to him. And Mark says he immediately responds, a closet to the boat and the winds die down. Yahweh walks on chaos and so does Jesus. This is Jesus' divinity on full display. Yahweh walks past Job, but Jesus doesn't. This is His humanity on full display. Fully God, fully man, both displayed in the same story for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. That is from page 219 and 220 of "Cression Chaos." And I hope that that gives some helpful context for what's happening in Job chapter nine. All right, let me give you some quick, another quick little thing from Job nine

and then we'll get into our last little nerdy nuggets for chapters 11 to 14 and then I'll give you Thomas' truth, okay? It says this in Job chapter nine, verse 33. This is such a plug for Jesus. It says, "If only there were someone to mediate between us, someone to bring us together." Oh, can you describe Jesus in a sentence? Yeah, Jesus is the one to mediate between us and God to bring us together. And I'm gonna highlight that one, man. That's a good verse right there. All right, last little bit, okay? Job 13, okay? Job 13, verse three are pretty much the heart of what Job wants, but I desire to speak to the Almighty. That's El Shaddai, by the way, to the Almighty. Like, just let me argue my case with God. Now, what we're gonna see is this is law court, like language, case, okay? Job is defending his innocence. The Satan figure is seen as a prosecutor. Like, so whenever we use law court language with Atonement Theology, that's not weird. That's not odd. Like, that's actually very, very, very biblical. All right, the heart of Job's desire is not just in verse three, but also in verse 15. It says, "Though he slay me yet, while I hope in him, I will surely defend my ways to his face."

Okay, so this is what Job wants. Job wants to talk to God. Job's like, I gotta plead my case. I need to go to the Supreme Court. We gotta argue this till we get to the Supreme Court, man. Like, I'm not guilty. Like, I am innocent. And this is Thomas Truth for the day, okay? Comes out of Job 13 verse five. If only you would be altogether silent, for you, that would be wisdom. Hey, no one would know you're stupid if you just shut up. It's kinda like the Southern way of saying that same thing. But that's a good verse, isn't it? Job 13 verse five. If only you would be altogether silent. For you, that would be wisdom. And honestly, for a lot of us, that would be wise. To talk less. Seriously, like a lot of us foolishness is multiplied because we talk so much. And I even have to learn this as a pastor. Sometimes people come to me with difficult situations and wisdom is not giving them an answer. Wisdom is actually found in talking less and letting them wrestle and letting them figure it out. There are definitely times I'm learning this as a church planter, as a pastor. But people have questions and I know the answer. I know what they should do.

And wisdom isn't saying the right answer. Wisdom sometimes is found and letting people discover the right answer on their own. It's kinda like if you break the shell of an egg for a little bird, the muscles that they need to develop, don't get developed and they can't fly. Because you rob them of an opportunity to struggle. And so often, as pastors, we do the same thing. We provide answers for people. But it's through the mental struggle of getting to clarity that they actually find God and realize that they know how to wrestle through stuff. I've watched a lot of young adults deconstruct and there's this part of you that just wants to just A, argue, but B, just like give them the answers. But the reality is that if they're in their early 20s and they're deconstructing, you gotta let them figure it out because once they do figure it out, then their faith becomes theirs. And that's not just true for Joe. That's true for you. That's true for me. That's true for all of us. It's a timeless truth. Tomorrow we got day three, 16. We're gonna be in Job chapters 15, 16, and 17. It's gonna be awesome. I hope to see you here same time, same place. If you're on a streak, I'm proud of you. Even if you're not on a streak, I love you.

I'll see you tomorrow, peace. - Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. If this episode was helpful, how about you leave a comment, share with a friend, and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. To learn more about the show, head to thebobbledepartment.com. We'll see you right back here tomorrow.