This is the golden chapter. People wonder if this is Job talking or the editor talking. This chapter follows the same language of the narrator in Job 1 which leads to questions. Chapter 27 verse 1, Job continues his discourse, in Job 29 Job also continues his discourse. That would imply that Job 28 is part of the discourse. On top of that, there is no indication of transition in verse 1. If we did a vocabulary check this is language that Job has said and things he has used. This is not foreign from Job. It is Job who said this, who represents the narrator's point of view. In other words, the narrator endorses what Job says.
The structure of this book follows Elihu’s viewpoint. That is why this chapter is in this place. This is evidence for Elihu writing the book.
Job 28 is the lynchpin of this book, that is what the argument is about. The chapter is so important that it must come from the mouth of the narrator but at the same, it must be from the mouth of Job. The editor is inspired by the guidance of the Holy Spirit he realizes that this is all true. He will show that in his writing.
Job 28:1-2
This is an analogy. It is about metals that are both precious and valuable. In addition, they are strong. You are looking for things that are both valuable because they are rare and beautiful, and things that have strength and power. When you look at precious metals the rarity of these items makes them more valuable. What we need to have is the skill set to obtain the unobtainable. On top of that, you don’t just need skill, you need strength. Both skill and strength show value.
Job 28:3
Man must go to great lengths to access these things because they are hidden in nature.
Job 28:4
This is the language of mining. The notion of digging through is the strength part, you need power. You need power to access what you cannot access, but also notice the terminology of swinging to and fro. The pattern of swinging to and fro is up and down. This is an elevator of a mine shaft that helps people go up and down from the surface to the bottom. The same motion that legs do. This requires both strength and skill.
Job 28:5
Bread/common things are surface level, but to get the good stuff/something profound you must go below the earth. That is overturned by fire, which is an explosion.
Job 28:6
Even when you are in the shaft underground you do not immediately find jewels and gold. It is still hidden in the rocks and dust, so you must have another skill set because this stuff is so valuable it is doubly inaccessible.
Job 28:7-8
Birds cannot see gold, but they have incredible eyesight for their prey. A lion would beat many people. The point is that the strongest and the sharpest animals cannot even access this, but we can. That sets us apart.
Job 28:9
Flint causes a spark which causes an explosion. Man has the ingenuity to go beyond what animals can do.
Job 28:10-11
This takes us back to strength and skill. Both can stop huge amounts of water and bring small things to light. All to access things of great value. This highlights man's ability.
Job 28:12
This is the key question. Can man, with all of those skills and strength, access something of infinite value? Job knows man can do a lot but wants to know if man can really get to wisdom.
Job 28:13
The word worth is not properly translated here. The idea of worth is its arrangement or its path. The idea is man doesn’t know the path to wisdom, unlike his ways to access all the gold and iron. In fact, it is not even in the land of the living. Job is saying this is probably somewhere in the premodern world and we don’t have access to it.
Job 28:14
This says it’s not even in the modern world because it’s not in this creation. It goes beyond creation.
Job 28:15-16
It goes beyond man’s ability to purchase. You cannot buy it even with the finest gold because it has incomparable value. This is an important lesson about wisdom. You can have all the money in the world, but you cannot buy wisdom. What is more inaccessible is more valuable.
Job 28:17-20
Uses the same word as in verse 13 as far as arrangement and comparison. It is rarer than even some of the rarest things. Because all those things are found on this earth and wisdom is not.
Job 28:21-22
It is not in this life, or even in the afterlife. Wisdom is only in one place. That makes it the most rare and pristine thing of all.
Job 28:23
Wisdom is in God. God has the monopoly on wisdom, that is what Job realizes. The question is why does God have wisdom?
Job 28:24-26
This shows why it is in God. He knows everything. He is the only one who knows everything. Human wisdom is human and therefore we are limited. God is the only unlimited source. Not only does God know everything, but He also ordains everything. He makes the wind and the water the way they are. He even ordains individual events, in both generalities and specifics. Because of this knowledge and control, He is the only one that can tell you how the world works. We have no right to question Him.
Job 28:27
Considering the reality that God has ordained everything since creation, notice the four verbs here. He saw: this is comprehensive knowledge and reality. He accounted it: this demonstrates that it is accurate. He establishes it: so it is real. He searched it out and there are no contradictions: so it is true.
Job 28:28
All of these apply to the statement in this verse. The fear of the Lord is wisdom, and He is the only one who has the right because man cannot access that truth. All of Job’s friends have proven that point because they cannot get into the courtroom of God, only God can because He ordains everything. That is why we need The Word to give us God’s wisdom.
In Job 28 you have the final, or summative, conclusion of the entire discussion that has been taking place in the larger context of God’s rightness. The issue is: can man reason it all out, and if not, why and so what? Those are the questions that we are really dealing with.
We take for granted that Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar are smart guys. It has to be that they’re geniuses because if they are stupid, then what is the reason that man can’t reason it out? If they are dumb, then it is not a good test. If they are brilliant and they can do all the things that would make them a PhD, then it is not their ability, it is because they run into inherent limitations. We start to see those limitations, why man cannot reason it all out.
Therefore, God’s ways are inscrutable to man. Therefore, man's condemnation of God, based on the Divine Retribution Principal, is futile because it doesn’t comprehend exactly all that God does. The only one who can reveal that is God himself. Job is starting to realize that there are some things that man can do that are spectacular. However, where is wisdom found? The answer is: only one person has the location of wisdom, and that is God. Man, therefore, cannot access wisdom in himself. The reason that God is the definitive source of wisdom is found in verses 23, 24, and following.
Job 28:23-24
God has ordained and knows wisdom. He is the definitive source because He is the one who sets up creation the way it really is. Wisdom is the skill of making sure you can correlate truth with the reality that it refers to. God has the monopoly on wisdom because He has ordained the reality Himself. If you are going to trust somebody you have to trust somebody who knows everything. Otherwise, it is just like Job asking, “Where did you get your wisdom from,” and the answer being “me”. That is where the problem lies.
Remember, Proverbs 1:7 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” We should answer two questions here. The first question is, “What does this entire phrase mean?”, “What does that look like? What does it mean to fear God?”. The second question is “Why is fearing God wisdom? What is the connection between the two?”. How does this prove that Job knows better than his friends? Which dovetails with: why do we know that human wisdom is limited and how does that relate to the rightness of God? As you accelerate through all of these questions that are posed in the context that this verse answers, layer by layer, then you generate a lot of applications for yourself.
What does “Fear of the Lord” mean? We often translate fear as reverence and there is some truth in that, fear does entail reverence. Just as if there was a lion in front of you—then you have some reverence for the lion. There is some truth in that, even if I might not word it like that. Fear is more than just reverence, although it includes reverence. All fear includes reverence, but reverence is not equal to fear. Fear really does mean terror. Here the word Lord is not Yahweh, but it is the term that refers to Master.
Fear is the inherent recognition of one's power over another. Or not just inherent recognition, it is the extreme recognition. Or, even better, it is not just the extreme recognition, it is the extreme and arresting recognition of one’s power over another.
What’s the difference? Power over an individual does not automatically generate fear. Fear is generated when the power exerted over one another is in the extreme case. If there is a huge margin of power between you and the other object, then that brings fear. Are you afraid of water? No. Are you afraid of waterboarding? Some people might be because that is a more extreme use of water. That is a use of water that has more power over you.
When we talk about fear over man, people are scared of other people’s opinions because they view that the opinion has power over them. If they don’t care what other people think then it doesn’t have power over them. Fear relates to a recognition of greater over lesser. It amplifies that you are lesser and the other entity that you are afraid of is inherently greater. It is also arresting, which means that that fear does something to you.
In first John, it says we don’t need to fear God because fear has a punishment. There it is talking about a specific kind of fear, one that we don’t need to have anymore because it is one that involves punishment. We are no longer under punishment. Yet there is a totally different kind of fear which recognizes that even though God isn’t going to punish me, he is so much greater than me and I am so much less than Him. That still generates a healthy kind of terror of God even though punishment is off the table. Fear is the inherent recognition and response to God being inherently so much greater. He is the master, and you dare not offend, contradict, counteract, reject, or suppress the master.
Fearing the Lord has nothing to do with getting good, it has everything to do with finding wisdom. It is dealing with the question of epistemology. Turning away from evil refers to a life that consistently rejects any form of wickedness, it is a life of obedience. You are looking at these two issues of how you regard God. How you respond to him in obedience becomes the foundation for wisdom and understand. The term wisdom here refers to the skill of understanding life. The term understand refers to discernment, figuring out what is one way and what is not, what is real and what isn’t, what is right and what is not.
Job 28:28 says that to do any grasping of reality you have to have the fear of the Lord and turn away from evil. The question, now that we have a what, is a why. Why is that true and how does the context filter into this and how does it filter into the context. Why this is so necessary is what Job has already shown us which is that human wisdom is limited. It is not just limited, it is biased, it is skewed. Human wisdom does not have all the facts or a grasp on why things are the way they are. It is inherently inaccurate, and it lacks precision.
Accuracy is whether it is right or wrong. Precision is how many details did it get right. Human wisdom has limitations so you need it to come from a divine source, but you will always question the divine source unless you fear Him. Fear requires you to view yourself accurately as nothing and God as the one who has authority to say; He is the master. The problem we have is we want to elevate human reasoning because we think we are something. That moment you lose your respect for God and fear of the Lord.
When you look at anything in life you always start with divine revelation. God’s word doesn’t speak to every subject, but it does speak to wisdom and knowledge. Turning away from evil is understanding. This is where the rubber meets the road. When you live a sanctified life, that is the only way you will ever begin to understand anything. Because when you live a life of sin, you will always try to justify your sin. If something is true it has to be right/real.
Truth is reality—if you believe in the truth, you are relying on the reliable. When you engage in sin you engage in something that is not real. Know this: sin is a real action, although what it claims to you is fiction. That’s why sin’s benefits don’t happen; sin promises you things that never happen because it’s not true. If sin is so deceiving and you are always going to justify it, you will inherently think of everything as fiction. Sin will distort your thinking because of the way the human heart works. To be a teacher of God’s word you have to live a Godly life, otherwise you will always come back and wrestle with scripture to try to make it what you want it to say. According to the Bible, your starting point has to be divine revelation; if you don’t start there you can’t know anything truly outside of that. You have to trust that God is the master, and you are not. Job is the prologue to the Bible because it shows you why you need the Bible and why this should be the foundation for everything you think about in life. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, because that is the only way you will get any real wisdom.