Abraham’s nephew.

No I am not speaking of Lot. I am actually speaking of Job.

As best as I can research, Job was the son of Abraham’s brother Nahor.

This would make Job and Lot first cousins. What a contrast!

Lot leaves with the man of greatest faith in history and still struggles in Sodom.

God leaves Job in Uz without any support from Uncle Abraham and Job leaves behind a “memorial” to a life of faith to rival that of his Uncle Abraham!

The story is familiar to most of us. There is the introduction with a cosmic contest beyond the human senses.

God and Satan discuss Job without Job’s knowledge.

God says I bet you can’t and Satan says I bet I can.

Satan was wrong. He is always wrong. A classic bimbo and loser. Who would follow such an idiot with a track record of repeated stupidity?

After the first failure Satan slinks back into the throne chamber and says Ya-but.

God smiles and says okay, but I still bet you can’t and Satan says I can.

Mr Stupid tries again and guess who was right again? Yep. God was again right and Mr Stupid Satan is wrong again.

Let me introduce you to Job’s friends.

Eliphaz: a descendant of Esau, an Edomite. Gold digger, money lover and idiot like his ancestor.

Bildad: Abraham’s brother’s son’s son so another cousin. Classic family troublemaker. We all have them. False accusers, arrogant “better than you”, cousins who stink up the place.

Zophar: A flaky friend whose name means to “leave early”. With wit only the Almighty could dream up, he calls the flake who leaves early Zophar! He only goes Zophar (so far), then flakes out.

Finally after three rounds in which Zophar flakes out on the last round because he only goes so far, there enters another character on the stage.

Elihu: This is Job’s younger brother. Trace the names and they both have the same father. This is important because of a couple of things. First the content of his dialog is not against the character of Job, thereby showing Job is being truthful. He has grown up with Job and knows his brother has not sinned. He is only defending God and the contrast of God and evil. Therefore, he is not reprimanded by God and does not have to apologize to Job like the other three have to.

In the story, after the introduction, there are three cycles of discussion. Eliphaz accuses Job and Job defends himself. Then Bildad the critical family member accuses Job and Job defends himself. Then the flake jumps on the band wagon and Job defends himself. The cycle repeats a second time. Then a third time only the flake only goes Zophar and drops out.

Then younger brother steps in and defends his brother by defending the character of God.

Finally God speaks, and everybody shuts up!

Just a note for controversy…..

In chapter two, Job’s wife says do you still retain your integrity? Curse God and die. An interesting note is the word curse used there. It is used about 311 times or so in the Bible, and in over three hundred times it means to kneel, to bless God by an act of adoration.

In only three times is it used in a negative form. More importantly, the word we associate with to curse is used in the next chapter by Job in contrast.

So, could it be……

Job’s wife was saying, “Do you still have your right mind? Then before you die, kneel down and pay adoration one more time before death arrives”. To which Job replies, “you speak as one of the foolish women speaketh”. Maybe Mrs Job has gotten a bad rap all these years. Maybe she was convinced her husband was dying and was only saying before you lose your ability to think straight, why don’t you give God one more act of adoration. To which he assured her, I am not dying, this is just a test from the almighty.

She was venerated by her husband later in the book as a wonderful wife. Would he have done that if she was the bitty we have thought for so long?

Would God have given her ten more children and allowed her to live for another 140 years is she cursed him?

Just something to think about while you drink coffee today and jump start your brain.

Oh yeah, one last thing. The passages we love the most in Job when he says I know my redeemer liveth and shall stand on the earth at the latter day, and I wish my adversary would write a book, were both spoken by good old cousin Bildad.

There just ain’t nothing like those relatives and family members to make us pray is there?

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad