Ch. 7 Outline

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Ch. 7 - Job 28: Where is Wisdom Found?

Basics

Job 28’s significance

Mystery + uncertainty = humility + wonder

Job's gap between faith and personal protest

Big Questions

What does Job understand about God?

What does Job understand about where wisdom is found?

How does this contrast with his friends’ perspectives?

Structure

3 stages:

Vs. 1-11

Vs. 12-19

VS. 20-28

(See chart on pg. 171)

Poetic Highlights

Primary metaphor = wisdom as silver/gold

Job’s suffering linked to darkness

Fears God, lacks understanding as to why he suffers

Will NOT let it go

Revelations about Job’s Friends

Surface investigation + over-confidence

Presumptuously speaking for God

Job must humble himself, NOT them

Everyone has limits, only Job admits this!

GAP between God’s wisdom vs. wisdom “of” God

Parallels to Proverbs, Wisdom

Wisdom’s accessibility vs. inaccessibility

Prov 1-9, 10-31

“Wisdom, who can find her?”

Likens wisdom to a hidden place (in God)

God has the map, nothing natural we possess

Dealing with opposites, contradictions leads to illumination

Tied to creation, seeing God

Power of rereading

Theological Implications

Job provides language of prayer and protest in suffering

Foundations of wisdom hard to find

Job admits he doesn’t know the way

Embrace our human limits, finitude

Wisdom grows with humility, wonder

Leads to godly reverence

Pride in self-regard, refusal to acknowledge limits

Common temptation: “to claim or desire to know too much”

Was it for Job or his friends to know why he suffered?

God did not tell them.