Job Chapters 40 - 42

40:2 - God comes out guns-a-blazin' and immediately puts Job in his place. He says, "Shall a whiner who can only focus on what is wrong stand before God and accuse Him?" Seems like God doesn't have much time for people who only look for the faults in everything and seek a way to pass on the blame. (v.7) He wants Job to put on his big boy pants and take what's coming like a man. I think we can learn a lot from this interaction. In times of struggle and turmoil, we need to face what comes with strength and not just look to blame somebody. We need to be able to see our own faults and look tot he wisdom of God for answers...not just look for excuses and scapegoats.

40:15-18 and Chapter 41 - I always love these passages, because they seem to be clear descriptions of dinosaurs to me. If you take the biblical creation account literally instead of symbolically (Which I do)...then dinosaurs and man would have coexisted. God is talking to Job as if these creatures are running around the earth.

42:3 and 6 - Job understands pretty quickly that he has overstepped his bounds. He says, "Okay God, I'm sorry...I started speaking about things that I had no understanding of." So Job in the midst of the suffering and turmoil of his life repents before God. Another good lesson for current day Christians. When it comes to making bold statements about theological "absolutes," we need to be careful, because in the end, I think there are going to be a lot of things that we just didn't really understand fully.

42:8-9 - Eliphaz and Bildad are confronted and rebuked by God. In fact, God asks Job to pray to Him on their behalf so that they will be shown mercy for speaking without understanding. Amazing that the two most vehement, judgemental people who thought they knew exactly what God wanted were the two that were the most absolutely wrong! This should be a word of caution to Christians who like to point out the flaws in other peoples' lives. Also notice that Elihu was left out of the accusation...I guess this means he was right in his assessment of the situation (The young guy figured it out!).

42:11 - Finally some people in Job's life show up and actually bring comfort to him. And this verse very boldly states that it was God who brought the disaster upon Job's life (As we already know from reading the beginning...at least he allows Satan to bring the disaster). And God never really explains the situation to Job. He doesn't tell him why these things happens...he never really tells Job anything. Job sends the entire book questioning why this is happening to him and God answers him with a series of questions...were you there when I made everything; can you control leviathan; do you open the floodgates of heaven to bring rain; etc. All Job needed to understand was that God was in control...and that's all we need to understand too.

42:14 - I find it really interesting that the only children who are mentioned by name in this book are Job's three youngest daughters. This is not common in Jewish scripture, so that tells us that these women were very important to Job. Most scholars guess this means that they brought him much joy in his life. Jemimah means "new day." Job gave her this name because of the radiant beauty of the new day. Keziah means cassia, which was an ingredient used in very fragrant perfumes. Her name also denotes beauty...as in the beautiful fragrance of perfume. Keren-happuch means horn of stibium, which was a plant used to make eyeshadow...and as you can guess it was also a name that represented great beauty. Needless to say, Job thought very highly of his daughters and let them know about it. I believe it is a father's sacred duty to give his daughters confidence by speaking love into their lives...Job does a great job of this!