Richard’s Remarks
Last week, I started including two daily-Bible-reading schedules in the bulletin. The first is a cover-to-cover schedule which simply follows the order of the books as they are arranged in our Bibles - Genesis to Revelation. However, it is important for us to remember that the books of the Bible are not arranged in a chronological order. For example, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah appear fairly early in the arrangement of our Bibles yet they are rather late in terms of Old Testament chronology. For that reason, I have included a second daily-Bible-reading schedule - one which attempts to put the Bible in the order of its chronology. Perhaps some of you that looked at this particular schedule last week may have been surprised to have seen Job included so early. So, let’s consider a few facts about this book that reveal its place in the Patriarchal Age.
Job was an amazing man! When the Almighty God of heaven was speaking to Satan regarding Job, He said, “Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?” (Job 1:8). Obviously, Job was a man who was determined to serve God. So, notice what he did in Job 1:5 - he offered sacrifices for his family. If Job lived during the times of the Law of Moses, his sacrifices would have been offered through the priesthood. These actions of Job would have been consistent with the times of the patriarchs.
We know that Job suffered a great deal. Even though he struggled and had some doubts and made some accusations against God, he remained faithful in the end. As a result, “...the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning...” (Job 42:12). As a part of this, Job had seven sons and three daughters. Job 42:16 tells us that Job lived 140 years after the birth of these children. These 140 years would have been in addition to the years it would have taken him to have his original family and accumulate his material wealth (Job 1:2-3). So, we see that Job lived a long time - another piece of information that is consistent with the Patriarchal Age but not with the times of the Law.
We do know that Job lived after the flood due to the fact that Job 22:16 makes reference to it. Therefore, this would have made Job a descendant of Noah and his sons. So, the proper place for the events of the book of Job is during the Patriarchal Age sometime between Genesis 11 and the giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai. As you can see, the chronological schedule that I’m utilizing places Job after Genesis 11.
Richard’s Remarks
In last week’s bulletin, while dealing with the timeframe of the book of Job, I made reference to two events: 1. the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and 2. the hardships of God’s people in the land of Egypt and their eventual exodus. I stated that these events might actually give us some additional insight into the proper timeframe of the events of Job. Let’s consider this a little further.
First of all, let’s consider the overall context of the book. God allowed Satan to inflict a great amount of suffering and hardship on Job. While Job was in deep despair, his friends came with intentions of comforting him. In reality, they rebuked him and urged him to confess his sins and repent of them. You see, the overall belief at that time was that suffering was a direct result of personal sin - a direct avenue of Divine retribution. Seeing Job in such a terrible condition, the friends assumed he had been guilty of terrible atrocities. To their surprise, Job maintained a plea of innocence. He even expressed the idea that he had been treated unjustly by God. As a result, Job longed for an opportunity to present his case before his Creator (see Job 13:3). He wanted to “contend” (Job 9:4 - a legal term) with God and felt confident that, if given the chance, he would be fully acquitted of any “charges” being held against him. Such claims caused Job’s friends to rebuke him even more. Yet, Job wondered why such suffering would be brought upon him, a righteous man, while those who were wicked prospered. So, the topics of Divine retribution toward the wicked and Divine deliverance for the righteous dominated their conversations.
With these things in mind, it is interesting that neither Job nor his friends made any reference to the two events previously mentioned. Keep in mind that these events are excellent examples of Divine retribution and Divine deliverance. Would these men have been unaware of such significant events? That’s very unlikely. Even though they didn’t have our modern-day mass media, news still traveled. In particular, many nations were very aware of the events involving the plagues brought upon Egypt. When the people of Gibeon deceived Joshua, they said, “...From a very far country thy servants are come because of the name of the LORD thy God: for we have heard the fame of him, and all that he did in Egypt” (Josh 9:9). Even though their claims were untrue, Joshua didn’t consider it unlikely for people from far away places to know of the events involving Egypt. Therefore, it would be completely reasonable to expect Job and his friends to have known the same - if the events had already taken place. Since they were silent involving such events, it seems they had not yet happened. This would lend additional support to the idea that the events in the book of Job took place in the Patriarchal Age. Perhaps this has provided some food for thought - ideas that you can continue to contemplate in your own personal study.