In response to God’s voice describing the vastness of creation, Job seems to acknowledge that Bildad was right with his God-is-so-big-and-we’re-just-little-maggots theory, and therefore Job can have no response to God other than silence: “I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but will proceed no further” (Job 40:4-5).

Many people (mistakenly) think this is where Job ends up; once he has actually seen God (42:5), he can only fall before God in abject humiliation: “I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes” (42:6). Wait, does that mean that after all these chapters we find out that his friends were right and Job really was a secret sinner in need of repentance? No. At the end God tells Eliphaz and the others that they were wrong and Job was right (42:7-8); and so far from considering Job a worm that can only squirm before the Almighty, God has insisted twice that Job must stand up straight to speak face to face with God: “Gird up your loins like a man; I will question you, and you declare to me” (38:3, 40:7).

God sets before Job a difficult problem: if Job had God’s power, could he do better than God at dealing with the human race? Would he pour out his overflowing anger, abase the proud and bring them low, tread down the wicked into the dust (40:11-13)? Or would he discover that omnipotence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, because there are some problems that cannot be solved just by using more and more force? Sure, if you apply enough force, you can destroy all the sinners; but how much destroying should you do if what you really want is to redeem them?

I believe, in the end, that Job gets that. Consider again his last line: “I [despise] [myself] and repent [in] dust and ashes” (42:6). There are three problems in the common translations of this key verse. First, the word translated ‘despise’ also commonly means ‘retract’ or ‘take back;’ second, the original Hebrew text does not contain the pronoun ‘myself;‘ and third, the preposition might well be translated ‘of‘ instead of ‘in.‘ If we allow the text to speak that way, we end up with “I take it back: I repent of ‘dust and ashes.’ ” If we recall from four days ago the dust-and-ashes doctrine that we saw Job advocating, we can see that this gives us an example of classic Hebrew parallelism, where the second line closely echoes the first: “I take back what I said before; I repent of the dust-and-ashes theory.” Thus, where earlier Job had bemoaned that he was only dust and ashes before God (30:19); he now has seen God face to face and recognizes that part of the essence of being human is to do question-and-answer with the Almighty.

* * * * *

Although we are small before you, O Lord, you have shown us that we are neither despised maggots nor inconsequential dust and ashes: we are human, part of your magnificent creation, beloved by you, and invited to interact with you in real question-and-answer dialog.

If you find these studies helpful, please Like, Subscribe, Comment, and Share. Thanks!