Job 1:1-2:13

There are four descriptions of Job in the opening chapters: he was blameless, upright, feared God, and turned away from evil.  Job was also incredibly wealthy, being the greatest of the people of the East (which is saying something as the people of the East in general at that time were considered very wise and rather well-to-do).  This juxtaposition led to a very interesting "battle of wits" in Heaven.  Or maybe, even a scientific experiment.

1. Investigator: Satan
2. Overseer/Higher-Up: God
3. Question: What is the motivation for Job's faithfulness/uprightness?
4. Background Research: Job is healthy, wealthy, and wise.  He fears the Lord, and he ain't playin'. (Or is he?)
5. Hypothesis: Job will curse God to His face if you take away God's protection to Job.
6. Test/Experiment: Remove God's protection for Job's wealth and family, only Job's physical being saved.  I.e. All of Job's possession are destroyed or taken, his servants murdered, and his children dead in a freak natural catastrophe.
7. Analysis/Results: Job does not sin or charge God with wrongdoing.  (FAIL)
8. Reevaluate!!: Take away Job's wealth, he'll curse God.  (Fo' sho'!)
9. Test/Experiment: Strike Job's with the following symptoms: inflamed, runny, wormy, scabby sores, itching, degeneration of the face, loss of appetite and strength, constant pain and restlessness, decaying and discolored skin.
10. Analysis/Results: Job does not sin with his lips.
11. Conclusion: Job is upright in that he never curses God to his face.  Experiment proves hypothesis FALSE.

(Never knew the entire scientific method was in the Bible, did you?)

Two things strike me about this passage.

One, the Scriptures do not actually refer to time passage.  After Job is struck with the first calamity, it merely says, "Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord".  We don't know how much time has passed.  How much time, then, might Job have had to mourn and reflect on what has become of him?  Was it just days after that Satan went back before the Lord to accuse him again?  Did it linger into moths, even years, to give him time to grow bitter and curse God?  Did he have time to start healing?  We don't really know.  I rather wonder if it was months between times, long enough for Job to have the tragedy weigh on him a bit, but still enough time when the second calamity strikes, the first one is fresh enough to still sting. 

Second, it says Job "did not sin with his lips."  So, Satan lost, definitely: Job did not curse God to His face as Satan had predicted.  But what about Job's heart?  Was he growing angry and bitter there?  Was he silently stewing, questioning in his mind?  You have to admit, Job had ready answers when his friends came to accuse, er, comfort him.  Or was Job not yet angry?  Did it take the goading of his supposed friends to take him there?  (Some have said that this is the final test of Satan against Job.  We shall see as we read.) We know that eventually there is some bitterness in his heart about what is going on.  God's conversation with Job shows that.  And we'll get to that eventually.  But for now, Wow, Job.  I don't think I would have handled the first calamity as well as you.

Tomorrow's Reading: Job 3:1-26

Genesis 11:1-32

The Tower of Babel.  It's rather ironic, isn't it?  The very purpose for building that city was to keep themselves from being dispersed across the face of the earth.  And what happened?  The Lord dispersed them across the face of the earth.  The Lord had commanded man after the flood to "teem on the earth and multiply in it".  The word teem means to abound or swarm.  He had commanded them to fill it.  They could in fact have teemed and multiplied in one place, but they couldn't have filled the earth from there.  The rebellion at Babel, however, was not just one of disobedience, but pride.  They said, "Let us make a name for ourselves."  "Let us build a city whose towers reach to the heavens."  It seems that in their arrogance they sought to equate themselves with God.

But that's not really what I was thinking about when I was reading this passage.  Notice that God didn't decide to confuse their languages because of disobedience and pride directly.  The reason He states is that because of their unity in language and thought, they were able to mount this massive project.  It was not only that they were prideful and disobedient, but that they could band together to do it.  Because of their unity, they could have pulled off what was likely an engineering feat!  And they committed one massive, communal sin.  So, the Lord confused their languages; suddenly one neighbor could not understand the next, and they left off.  Language group pulled to language group and they dispersed across the earth.

Now, the Lord tells us throughout the New Testament to be "of one mind". (Philippians 2:2, 1 Corinthians 1:10, for example).  As believers, we are called to unity.  In this day, it does seem difficult because many who call themselves Christians cannot or do not agree on matters of doctrine and theology, which puts barriers between us.  But what if we all "spoke the same language"?  What if we all agreed?  What if we really were united, as Christ intended, standing firmly on His Word and on the foundation of faith He intended?  What could we accomplish?  That was the very thing the Lord proposed at Babel: Nothing we could do would be impossible for us, especially as we can "do all things through Christ who strengthens" us (Phil. 4:3).  I wonder what the Lord would say to us on this matter.  And do we really have to wait until Heaven to hear it?

Tomorrow's reading: Job 1:1-2:13

Genesis 9:1-10:32

I bet Genesis 10 is one of those chapters that is hard to read.  Not so much Gen. 9: here you have the end of the story of the flood, the covenant of the rainbow, and something that's not often given much attention: the first time God gave man permission to eat meat.  (That's right, meat-lovers.  Before the Flood, man was vegetarian.  And... that's right, vegetarians!  Meat is God-given to man to eat.  But that's a whole other post we'll likely not get to until the New Testament.  That's a few years in the making...)

Genesis 10, however, is another of the lineage chapters that make parts of several Old Testament books difficult to read: namely Numbers and Joshua, but also Genesis and Exodus.  Here Japheth begot Gomer, Magog and Madai; Ham begot Cush, Egypt, and Canaan; Shem begot Elam, Ashur, Arpachshad...  And those are just a selection.  One thing to remember, though, is that this is chronicling how one small family managed to repopulate an earth devastated by flood waters.  And if you saw the Midwest after the flood of the early 90's, or even Tennessee and its neighbors after the past week, you can see that restoring after a flood is a lot of work!  Now, consider that when there are only eight of you!  From these descendants of Noah's sons came the nations.  It kind of makes me want to break out a map and a few commentaries (because those people are more educated than I am and know where these tribes settled and who they are referring to on the world history stage) and figure it out.  Japheth had the northern tribes, which as time went on likely migrated then into Europe, namely Greeks, Crete, even western Spain.  Ham had the more southerly tribes across North Africa and Arabia from which the empires of Egypt, Cush, and even, eventually, Babylon came from (as some of these descendants apparently moved into that territory).  Shem's descendants ranged across modern Palestine and into areas of Persia and beyond.  From my reading I understand that the Assyrians, some tribes of Arabia, and Lydia (Turkey) come from Shem.  As well as... Israel.  In fact, Semitic is the term referred to the languages of the descendants of Shem, of which Hebrew is part of the Semitic language family, and where we get the term antisemitic. 

This constitutes most of the civilizations we know from the Ancient World on that side of the globe!  They stayed in and around that area until... well, until they were forced to move farther out.  After all, the commandment was to populate the face of the Earth, not the Fertile Crescent.  But that... that is tomorrow.

Reading for tomorrow: Genesis 11:1-32

Genesis 6:1-8:22

150 days.  150 days the waters prevailed upon the earth.  Can you imagine?  Can you imagine being stuck in the ark for what was likely more than 150 days, as they entered and then it began to rain and the waters began to flood.  But, that seems that was just until the tops of the mountains could be seen.  In Chapter 7 it says that the flood waters reached to heights to cover the mountains.  How high the water rose!  Can you imagine water reaching high enough to cover Mt. Everest?  Now, what's interesting is that the Hebrew term for "prevail" (as in "the waters prevailed over the face of the earth") has the same root as when speaking of a mighty man (or warrior or arms bearer) having might or prevailing battle.  This has suggested to many that the flood really did a number in churning up the earth as "the fountains of the deep burst forth" and perhaps even as it receded, and made the face of the earth completely over.  So, was there a Mt. Everest before the flood?  We may never know.  Until we get to heaven.

But back to the original thought: 150 days the waters covered the earth.  Then, it took an additional 150 days for the waters to recede.  After that, an additional 77 days before the earth sufficiently dried out enough to set loose the ark.  377 days inside the ark.  Now, I've been on a wonderful European cruise for a week, and at the end of it I thought I really could stay a bit longer.  The bed was comfortable, the shower was nice, the food was good, it was huge, you walk all over.  The pool, the hot tub, being some place new every day.  What's not to love, right?  But imagine being on that cruise ship for 377 days and not being able to get off.  After awhile, Cruise Director Ron wouldn't be so funny anymore.  The food would get old.  Seeing the same people over and over and over could lead to some interrelational disputes.  Noah and his family didn't have bowling alleys or gyms or climbing walls, probably not even deck-siding seating.  More than a year inside the ark (the Hebrew there is boat or basket, interesting, huh?), taking care of the animals, disposing of waste, working and waiting, and I'd bet a lot of praying.  Enforced family time and alone time with the Lord.  And of course, when you get off the ark, it's still the same people.  You have to wonder what this did for your relationships.  Maybe it's no wonder at all that in the next chapter, Noah is so offended by Ham's actions.

Reading for tomorrow: Genesis 9:1-10:32

Genesis 4:1-5:32

I want to be like Enoch.  This is what the Bible says about Enoch:

Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters.  Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years.  Enoch walked with God, and then he was not, for God took him.

365 years when the generations before him ranged from 895 to 962 and his own son lived to be the longest-living individual in the Bible at 969 years (yes, even longer than Adam as the Bible says that all of Adam's days numbered 930 years, not just the days after the Garden).  That's like dying at 30 in today's terms.  (Scary.  I'm 30 now.)  Enoch walked with God, and then at 365 he was not.  The Septuagint says "he was not found".  That makes Enoch one of the only two people who never died (the other being Elijah) because they were taken into heaven before they died.  They were just taken.  Like an alien abduction.  Ok, definitely not.

When I was in high school an intern we had named Mayah put it this way (sorry, Mayah, if I don't spell it right...):  she always imagined that Enoch walked out each day, met the Lord, and then they would go walking together.  And each day they went farther and farther until one day, the Lord said, "Why don't you just come home with me?"  I've always loved that.  Walking so close with the Lord that heaven is closer than going home.

I want to be like Enoch.  I want to walk with the Lord for 300 (or 30 more) years and then go Home with Him.  I want that the best thing that can be said about me was that I walked with the Him.  We know no more than that about him, but don't we hold Enoch in high regard?  Do we not esteem Him?  I have a long way to go.  I'm so imperfect.  If not for Grace, I would be lost, as I've certainly never deserved God's regard.  But then, that is the nature of our God.  So exacting and holy, and with higher standards of my own, if you can believe it, and yet so graceful, so merciful, so loving and good and kind.  Oh, that I were more like Him!

Reading for tomorrow: Genesis 6:1-8:22

Genesis 2:4-3:24

"...but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."  (Gen. 2:17)

Anyone else think that Adam and Eve took Him literally: that as soon as they eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they'd drop dead right there?  I always thought so: eat and you drop dead right there.  But that's not what God had planned: death would in fact come upon them, because up until that time it was a rather foreign concept.  But after they ate it, they were looking death in the face.  For the first time, death was a certainty.  Because of their actions, God cut them off from the tree of life, their sustaining source, and escorted them out of Eden.

But, in a way, you can in fact look at it that they began to die that day.  A really good movie (but an older one) is Renaissance Man.  Anyone seen it?  I like it.  In it, a washed-up ad man takes a job from Unemployment Services to be a teacher for struggling Army recruits in boot camp.  At first, he doesn't take it seriously and wastes a lot of time, but for a lack of anything better to do, he begins to teach them Shakespeare's Hamlet.  At the end, he gives them a test.  And one of the recruits makes a very interesting observation in regards to the gravedigger who went to work the day Hamlet was born: he said, "If you think about it, the day you were born, you start to die."  Can you see the truth of it?  Though you are just born and fresh in the world, you are one day closer to your death.  Adam and Eve faced just such a moment in eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  At this point, they had sinned in disobeying God, and also becoming aware of what evil was and able to choose it or desire it.  Before, they were free from evil, innocent, and free to take from the tree of life.  But once they had sinned, they were separated from God: physically and spiritually.  No longer could they walk in the Garden with the Lord, and death was the punishment, even spiritual punishment.  The day they sinned, for the first time they were one step closer to their death.

It might seem harsh that God threw them out of the Garden and condemned them to death.  That it wasn't the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that was the direct result of their death, but instead being cut off from the tree of life that eventually killed them.  Remember, though, that sin spiritually separates us from God.  If God had allowed man to continue to eat of the tree of life, to continue to live and live and live in their sin, there would never be payment for our sin.  And we'd be permanently separated from God.  Because death was allowed to come into the world through Adam, Christ was able to die, and eventually bring life back into the world.  Check it out: it's all in Romans.

Tomorrow's reading: Genesis 4:1-5:32

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Have you ever thought about the void that existed before the world was created?  The Scriptures say, "The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep."  Imagine (I looked up the Hebrew for void and it is tohuw): emptiness, without order, formlessness, confusion, nought, nothing.  Unreality.  It is perhaps beyond my mind to comprehend or imagine.  The best I can do is imagine a black, empty space where you might float.  But then, if you are there, it is not empty.  And amidst this, God existed.  He is eternal: forever past, forever present, forever future. I try to imagine what it might be like to be God at that time and I can't.  Then again, I really can't imagine what it would be like to be God.  Perhaps I should just say, I can't imagine what it would be like to exist in such a void.

And then, a voice speaks.  The voice of God (not James Earl Jones).  And He says, "Let there be light."  And suddenly, into this dark void, there is light!  All encompassing, all-penetrating light!  I wonder if, when we get to heaven, we will be able to see the Creation played back for us as on a movie reel.  Would He let us do that?  I'd love to see it: the void, the sudden light.  God separating the waters to create the sky, separating the waters beneath the sky to form dry ground (and indeed, that's a small but definite detail).  Did the vegetation just suddenly burst from the fertile earth?  Did God grow it within the day as if watching a time lapse or sped-up animation?  The Scriptures say that each plant produced seed according to its kind and each tree fruit according to its kind, so you know that by the end of the day, they were mature.  Imagine, within a matter of days transitioning from a dark, formless void to a bright, colorful, inhabited world.  What a wonder!  And it was a world teeming with life.  The Bible says, "Let the waters swarm," and "let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of heaven," beasts and livestock, and everything that creeps along the ground.  A world full of life, when days before there had been nothing, chaos and emptiness. Yes, indeed, I'd love to see it.

And yes indeed, I believe it happened in days.  I know there are some that interpret each day to be an age within which God worked, but the Hebrew there is yom (with an accent ague over the "o"), and when it is used with cardinals (first, second, third) as it is here, it is talking about a 24-hr period.  To me, that says that God worked His creation within the period of a 24-hr day, there was evening and there was morning.  God is GOD, after all.  He is more than perfectly capable to do it.  Again, what a wonder.  It makes me want to go watch Earth and Oceans and things of that nature just to marvel at God's creation.


Reading for tomorrow: Genesis 2:4-3:24