Finally, The Truth About Job!

In Defense of The Almighty

Introduction

As the title of this article suggests, I believe there has been a terrible misunderstanding of the book and story of Job. Job’s story naturally begs questions like: “Why do bad things happen to good people?”, and “How can a loving God treat so badly a good man who loved Him?” These questions have been offered answers that are very unsatisfying intellectually and morally. What is worse, not only have the answers been unsatisfying, they have all left the character of God in question and in a painfully bad light. This sad truth is evidenced in the title of a popular book on the subject, “When God Doesn’t Make Sense”. This title effectively calls God’s character into question as if He is the problem when He certainly is not! So I have subtitled this work, “In Defense of The Almighty” because it is first and foremost an address to what is by far the worst casualty in the debate over Job. That casualty is the credibility of God’s character.     

Some might wonder why God needs defending. The answer is because there is no being in existence who has been misrepresented and lied about more than God. It has been Satan’s primary objective since the creation of man to lie about God’s character to deceive man, and thereby make it impossible for man to love Him. The desire to be loved is the very reason for which God created man in the first place. God has a longing desire to be loved by those who know and understand Him and choose to set their hearts on Him by an act of their own free will. We know this is the case because the greatest commandment is, “Love YHVH your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Matthew 22:37,38). It is Satan’s spiteful goal to rob God of this His greatest desire, and he knows something about the human psyche that we seem to have missed. He knows that it simply is not possible for a person to truly love another being they don’t understand or can’t identify with. He knows that descent people are incapable of truly loving someone who deep down they believe is unjust or unfair. It is only to the extent that a person understands the yearnings and desires that motivate another person to do what they do, and, to the extent that they identify with those character traits can a person be fond of another and truly be able to love them. If Satan can convince people to believe God’s character allows Him to act in ways that they would never consider acting themselves, his work is done! Such a person will never have any fondness for God or have any real desire to be anywhere near Him or be anything like Him. This truth is as natural as gravity. The love of those who claim to love a God whose character they can’t identify with is merely a mental assent to what they are supposed to do and no true love at all. It is a confession that comes from the head and not from the heart. 

So let me ask the reader: Would you ever destroy and nearly kill someone who loves you? Would you kill his children? Would you ever consider tormenting someone you knew was a good person, who didn’t deserve that kind of abuse just to make a point to a really evil person? Any decent person would say: “Of course not!”  Now let me ask: Is that what you believe God did to Job? If you say yes, then there’s no way around it. You can’t relate, and therefore can’t have any real desire to be near God. It’s impossible for you to know what it truly means to love Him. This lack of true love will also always be evidenced in the small-to-nonexistent amount of time a person spends in prayer seeking God!

The time is long overdue to expose Satan’s lies and man’s misunderstandings for what they are and mount a defense of the Almighty and His righteous judgments. When the truth of the matter of Job is finally exposed, those who have instinctively known God’s character, that He would never torment a man for no good reason, their hearts will be filled with joy, and they will likely say to themselves; “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!” …and fall even further in love with the Almighty.  

Then there will also be those on the other side, where there are special interests and motives to continue believing and promulgating the terrible lies that have dominated the theological landscape for so long. We will deal with that issue as well a little later.    

History and facts about the book of Job

First, let’s look at some facts concerning the book of Job. 

I believe, like many, that the book of Job is a true story that occurred to a real man. Some Bible teachers believe Job’s story is a form of ancient fiction written as some sort of play to dramatize issues like why the righteous suffer. The evidence for this they say is in the cohesive and dramatic storyline, much of which is written in poetic form, and the fact that some scenes were set in heaven where supposedly no man could have been to record the proceedings. As compelling as these observations might appear, they are far from a lock on the issue. We don’t know the identity of the author of Job. We can only speculate. It almost certainly wasn’t Job himself. I personally have believed for some time that the most likely candidate is Elihu because he was there for the entire discourse that occurred between Job and the others. As you will see, Elihu was also the hero who spoke the truth on God’s behalf! He was also the youngest and most likely to have lived long enough to record Job’s additional age at death. It’s not out of the question that Elihu could also have been given special insight into the proceedings in heaven that occurred between God and Satan.

The book of Job itself is one of the oldest books in the Bible. Job lived at a time not long after the flood when man’s life expectancy at birth was somewhere between 200 and 300 years. At the end of the book of Job (42:16), it is recorded that Job lived another 140 years after his troubles befell him, and he obviously wasn’t a young man when that happened. He had a number of children who were full-grown adults at that time. This suggests a lifespan at the least, approaching 200 years. Depending upon how old he was when his troubles befell him, he could have lived well over 200 years!  

In the genealogical records of Genesis, Noah had a great, great, great, great-grandson named Jobab (Genesis 10:25-29). The name Jobab, as spelled in Hebrew, has at its core the same three Hebrew letters (yod, vav, and bet), that make up the name Job in the book of Job.  The name Job could very easily and likely be a contracted version of the name Jobab. Just as it is today, it was a common practice to shorten names in ancient Shemitic languages. It would make perfect sense that the author of Job would have used the shorter version of Job’s name since writing space was at a premium, and he had to write it many times. It would also make sense that Job’s full official name would be used in the genealogical record where his name is only written once. If our Job is this Jobab as I believe he is, there are some other very interesting facts that accompany him which fall perfectly into place like pieces of a puzzle. Along with the fact that the length of Job’s life matched perfectly the life expectancy of others born at the same time, Job might well have lived at a time when all of his fathers before him back to Shem and his brothers Ham and Japheth were still lived!  There are passages in the book of Job that are very compelling in their appearance to have alluded to Shem and his brothers Ham and Japheth as living contemporaries!

Here is one where Eliphaz said to Job: 

“Both the gray haired and the aged are among us, much older than your father.” 

Job 15:10 NKJV

Bildad also exhorted Job to consult certain individuals the apparent identity of whom has been completely missed by scholars. Bildad said to Job:

“For inquire, please, of the former age, and consider the things discovered by their fathers; for we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days on earth are a shadow. Will they not teach you and tell you, and utter words from their hearts?” 

Job 8:8-10 NKJV

It certainly appears that Bildad is referring to individuals who lived in “the former age” before the flood. When Elihu speaks in chapter 23 he says to Bildad and his two friends, “you are very old”, yet Bildad likened the length of his life to “a shadow”, as though he had been born only “yesterday” compared to the age of those he wanted Job to consult! The implication is clear. These men from the former age were very very old, alive and able to be consulted at that time! Shem was likely somewhere between 500 and 600 years old. Shem died at 600 years of age. Shem, of course, knew his father Noah, but he would also have known and had memories of his grandfather Lamech and his great grandfather Methuselah from before the flood! Read the passage above again and see for yourself if it doesn’t sound like Bildad was exhorting Job to tap into this ancient source of wisdom available in Shem and his brothers.

Another interesting thing about this passage is the rhetorical question that Bildad asks: “Will they not teach you and tell you, and utter words from their hearts?”  The obvious answer to the question is; Of course they will!  If Bildad was referring to Shem, Shem must have been well known for doing that very thing… teaching and speaking to others from his heart!  

Another fact about the book of Job is that except for the first two chapters and part of the very last chapter, the style of writing is a form of ancient Shemitic poetry. It is considered a book of poetry by the Jews, which is why it is located as the first of the books of poetry right before Psalms in the Tanakh. David and other contributors to the Psalms would have undoubtedly known about and read the book of Job. Elihu’s words “…God my Maker, Who gives songs in the night,” in Job 35:10 might well have been the inspiration for David and Asaph making mention of night-songs in Psalms 42:8, 77:6, and 149:5. 

Inherent problems in the translation of Job.

When it comes to translating an ancient Hebrew text like the book of Job, it is not a simple matter of exchanging one English word for one Hebrew word because there were far fewer words in the vocabulary of the ancient writer than there are available for us in English today. Many of the ancient words covered a much broader spectrum of possible meanings and it was assumed by the writer that the reader would have the intelligence to determine the correct meaning of the word from two factors. First and foremost, it was assumed the reader would understand the meaning of a word based on the context in which it was used …not only in the immediate context of the sentence, but also from the larger contexts of paragraphs, and even the entire book!  Secondly, it was also assumed by the author that the reader would have the intelligence to eliminate possible meanings of a word that implicated something everyone knew wasn’t true! This point is rather self-evident and should go without saying. But alas, we have a couple of passages from Job that have been very poorly translated. One, in particular, has been translated in such a fashion as to render it downright blasphemous in its implications against God’s character. The author of Job assumed his readers would know the simple fact that God is righteous, and a righteous being would never torment an innocent person! However, much of today’s discourse on Job hinges on that one terribly mistranslated passage that renders God as having admitted He did just that to Job. We will get to that passage shortly as well, but first, there is another fact concerning the book of Job that I would like to address.

We are missing a portion of the book of Job!

Please hang with me for a bit through this section. I think you will find it very interesting if not helpful in understanding the book of Job. We’ll get to the storyline of Job shortly.

An argument from absence can be tenuous. The operative word here is “can”. But many arguments from absence are actually excellent arguments! For instance, the complete absence of intermediary species of animals in the fossil record makes for a great argument that evolution between different “kinds” of animals never occurred. Here is the rule concerning an argument from absence: To the extent, an expectation can be established that something should appear will be the degree to which an argument based on its absence will be credible when that expectation fails to materialize. Even though my case is solidly based on information that we do have in the book of Job, you will see it is evident that what is missing would undoubtedly shed more light on the situation and help clear the air and end the confusion. 

There is an obvious gap, and a portion of material missing between the end of chapter 37 and the beginning of chapter 38. The proof is that in every other instance, the author of the book of Job very courteously and properly introduces the reader to every new scene and every new speaker. However, at the beginning of chapter 38, the reader is abruptly thrust into a new scene to which he was not introduced! To further establish the fact that something is missing, the new speaker, God, addresses Job as the one who was speaking last, when it wasn’t Job who was speaking at the end of chapter 37! I probably wouldn’t have noticed this gap had I not decided one day to sit down and read the entire book of Job in one sitting. I wanted to get the feel and flow of the book. The particular Bible I had chosen to read it in just happened to end chapter 37 at the bottom of the right page and start chapter 38 at the top of the next page. Have you ever been reading a book and turned the page to continue reading and found yourself thrown into a scene that didn’t flow from the page before? I would assume that anyone who reads books has done this many times. When it happens, you immediately realize that you’ve turned more than one page! Then, just as surely as you rub your thumb and index finger together on the corner of the turned page, it separates and there you find the missing material. Well, that’s exactly what I tried to do but the page wouldn’t separate! I had been reading Elihu’s discourse against Job, where he was making his case and appeared to be building to a climax when I turned the page and read:

Then the Lord replied to Job out of the whirlwind and said: “Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” 

Job 38:1 NKJV 

My first thought was, “What whirlwind?!” I wasn’t introduced to any whirlwind scene!” To illustrate this, imagine if the storyline of Moses and the burning bush went something like this? 

Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And God called to him from the midst of the burning bush and said, “Moses, Moses!”

Exodus 3:1,4

You would immediately ask: “What burning bush? I wasn’t introduced to any burning bush!”  But the full narrative of Moses’ encounter with God here does exactly what any reader would expect it to do. It introduces us to the burning bush.

And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. 

Exodus 3:2 NKJV

That’s the introduction to the new scene! The thing is, the author of Job had properly done the very same in every other instance of a new scene or new speaker in his story. So this rude thrust into a new scene and a new speaker is way out of character for the author.

If the lack of a proper introduction to a whirlwind scene wasn’t evidence enough that something was missing, the very first words of chapter 38 are, “Then God answered Job…”, which clearly indicates it was Job who had been speaking last. But it wasn’t Job who had been speaking before we were thrust into this scene. It was Elihu speaking that I had left off with at the bottom of the previous page! I seriously tried to separate one page into two for several seconds! When I saw there was no separating the page I immediately assumed something had gone wrong with the printing of that particular Bible. It wasn’t until I consulted other Bibles and even my interlinear Hebrew Bible that I had to finally accept the fact that we have all there is of the book Job!  When and where these parts were lost is anyone’s guess. Apparently they were lost very early, possibly from the original record itself. There is good reason to believe the original writing of the book of Job was imprinted by the author on clay cuneiform tablets, and it was likely Moses who had obtained access to what was left of the Joban tablets from which he copied the story for Israel. If this is true, it would appear there was a tablet missing at that time. Scholars who study ancient cuneiform tablets tell us that tablets in a series were never numbered. The ancient authors used a method of key-words and thoughts called colophon phrases to connect the end of one tablet with the beginning of the next. An introduction to a whirlwind scene at the end of one tablet would have been a perfect and classic example of a connecting colophon phrase to a next tablet that began with, “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind…”     

Whatever the case may be, we are quite apparently missing at least two things, and probably a third thing from the book of Job as well. 

1. We are probably missing the completion and summary of Elihu’s discourse. It didn’t sound like he was done when he was cut off.
2. We are certainly missing Job’s typical rebuttal. Job rebutted everyone who had spoken to him before that point. There’s no reason to believe Job would have made an exception for Elihu. This fits perfectly with the fact that Job had to have been speaking immediately before God came on the scene because God addressed Job as the one who had just been speaking! 
3. And we are certainly missing an introduction to a whirlwind scene! This introduction could have been long and quite dramatic in its description of what happened, but it wouldn’t have had to be any longer than something like:  “And while Job was yet speaking, there arose a great whirlwind.”

One more quick note before getting to the doctrinal substance of the book of Job. 

Some teachers have tried to use the argument that when God said “Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge” He was offhandedly referring to Elihu as the one who didn’t know what he was talking about. This argument is generally proffered by those who don’t like what Elihu had to say and want to paint him as the bad guy in the story. But it should be evident to even the casual reader that God is referring to Job in this because God says in the very next verse:

“Now prepare yourself like a man: I will question you, and you shall answer ME!

Job 38:3-4a NKJV

It is obvious that God was angry with Job, and He was addressing him as the one who was out of line. The proof of this shows up later. At the end of God’s rebuke of Job, Job himself stated those words had been addressed exclusively to him when he said to God:

“You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge:’ Therefore have I uttered what I did not understand, things too far from me which I did not know. Listen, please, and let me speak: You said, ‘I will question you, and you shall answer Me.’” 

Job 42:3-6 NKJV

An important observation that follows from this fact that God spoke to Job when He said, “Who is this who darkens counsel with words without knowledge.” is the realization that God just referred to someone else’s words as “counsel”! It was Job who had been rebutting and darkening something someone else said that God called “counsel”. It should go without saying that what God calls “counsel” is indeed good counsel. So who had given Job “counsel?” In light of the facts that God later reprimanded Job’s other three friends for not saying what they should have, and it had been Elihu who had been speaking most recently in the record before God came on the scene, and God’s anger was not kindled against Elihu, the only conclusion we can come to is that it was Elihu’s words that God had called “counsel”. Since this is the case, should we not give special consideration to what Elihu had to say to Job?   

We will take a look at those words shortly, but let’s now take a look at some of the doctrinal aspects of the book of Job. 

So why do bad things happen to good people?

Almost without exception, Bible teachers say the book of Job was given to us to answer the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” The subject of Job’s suffering and why it was brought upon him is indeed the main storyline and subject matter of the book. But the ironic thing is, it appears that nobody is ever able to adequately answer the million-dollar question! Not one of the many books and discourses on the book of Job that I have consulted has offered what I would consider a real answer. They basically all come to the conclusion that we simply don’t know why bad things happen to good people! It is eventually stated in one way or another that the answer is beyond our ability to understand and in the hands of God. So how much sense does it make that God should give us a book to answer a question that can’t be answered? In my younger more ignorant days at Bible college, one of my classes took an entire semester to study the book of Job in an attempt to find answers to the subject of suffering. In the end, the professor stated that the simple answer to the question is, “We just don’t know!” To which my first thought was: “What a waste of time that was then!” That was over 40 years ago and my understanding has changed and grown dramatically since. 

Not everything that happens is God’s will

Much of the problem with trying to answer the question of why bad things happen to good people stems from the faulty presuppositions both inherent in the question as well as those presuppositions we tend to laminate on top of it. For instance, we might see the question for what it is if we just asked the inverted version of it; “Why do good things happen to bad people?” The question presupposes that justice should be done in real-time on this earth, does it not? This presupposition also stems from the belief that God is in absolute control of every particle of every atom at all times. Therefore, if God is fair, just, and righteous, these things should not be happening. Can you see the error in this line of logic? Those of a Calvinistic persuasion will be perfectly blind to this, and, sad to say, that includes most of Christianity to one degree or another. The error is in the belief that everything that happens in a person’s life is part of a sovereign preordained plan of God. It is not! Much has been written and on this subject that space won’t allow for here, but for the remainder of this work, I will refer to this kind of worldview and mindset where God is seen as being in absolute control of every event as Calvinistic. 

God has been backing off from man!

The other presupposition that gets laminated on the question of why bad things happen to good people when considering it in light of Job’s story is the assumption that God works in every person’s life the same way He did in Job’s life. This is not true either. God is obviously not as directly involved with man at this time as He has been in the past. This truth should be self-evident in the fact that He doesn’t show up in a whirlwind or burning bush to speak directly to people anymore! That might well change in the near future, but throughout the Biblical record, it is obvious that God has been steadily distancing Himself from man due to man’s ever-increasing evil. At one time God appeared regularly to Adam and his wife and walked with both of them in the Garden of Eden before they sinned. Even after they sinned He still appeared occasionally, but it became less and less. When God had all but stopped showing Himself to man around the time Enosh was born to Seth, it says “men began to call on the name of the Lord.” (Genesis 4:26). I believe they were saying, “YHVH, where are You?” which would be the inverse of God’s earlier call to Adam, “Adam, where are you?” (Genesis 3:9). As man continued his descent, God began to show Himself to very few people. Enoch and Noah were said to have been privileged to have gone for walks with God. It says they “walked with God”. I don’t believe this was meant in a purely figurative manner. I think these people literally went for a walk with God! But it finally came to the point where man became so evil that God actually said He regretted making man on the earth (Genesis 6:5-7). This cannot be interpreted to mean anything other than God admitting, had He known beforehand that man would become as evil as he did, He would not have created him! 

The last men to see God’s face

After the flood, God would occasionally appear to certain men again, but those appearances were becoming less and less frequent. The last three men to have seen God’s face were Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It’s interesting, and maybe even heartbreaking to know, that in the burning bush story, God told Moses He wanted to be known by a name that included the names of the last three men to have seen His face! God told Moses to tell Israel He was, “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”! Then He said, “This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations.” (Exodus 3:15) By the time of Moses, who lived several hundred years after Jacob, even he wasn’t permitted to see God’s face anymore! Moses and other prophets continued to hear God’s voice, but God continued to be heard less and less as mankind continued to turn on Him and kill His prophets. When men finally murdered Yeshua, His anointed son, it was like the last straw. God, not only removed His presence from the Temple, but the Temple itself was completely destroyed 40 years later. There were a few followers of Yeshua who continued to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God and worked miracles for a time, but that also appears to have faded and ended around the time of the Temple’s destruction. An honest look at history certainly suggests that God all but completely removed His Spirit from the earth at that time and left man to be his own god as he so desperately wanted to be. In the book of Hosea, God said these words: “I will return again to My place till they acknowledge their offense.” (Hosea 5:15). This is proof that God does back off from man and his evil. But there is also significant evidence that God has commissioned His angels to do what they can here on behalf of those who do love Him and seek Him. I firmly believe this is the situation in which we live today. An honest observation of the current situation makes it painfully obvious God does not move in the world the way He did in times past.

The point I want to make here is that God is not directly involving Himself in man’s affairs today the way He was at the time of Job. Therefore, when it comes to understanding the reasons for the suffering that people endure today, I believe people are fooling themselves if they think God is directly involving Himself with them as He did with Job. The vast majority of suffering which occurs in the world today is due to nothing more than the fact that we live in a God-forsaken evil world where suffering is a natural byproduct of evil and God’s absence. There is no need to find a divine purpose for everything that happens, nor is there reason to condemn those who suffer. 

Yeshua had something to say about the issue of condemning those who suffer:

There were present at that season some who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Yeshua answered and said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”    

Luke 13:1-5 NKJV 

From these words, it would appear Yeshua is indicating there is protection from bad things available to those who repent, but he also made it very clear that no one is in a position to condemn those who do suffer. There is no doubt that Yeshua was simply saying “stuff happens” without rhyme or reason to those who aren’t protected. At this point in time, all we are able to do is humbly pray and petition God to commission angels to intervene on our behalf to deliver us from “evil.”           

In summary, the story of Job was not written to show us how God operates in every individual’s life, nor was it written to answer the question of why bad things happen to good people. As you will see, it was written to teach certain principles and show us what God thinks of issues like pride and humility!   

Job’s story 

The story of Job begins like any good story and properly introduces us to the main character. “There (once) was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job.” We are then told about Job, and the first thing we learn about him is that he was a “blameless and upright” man (Job 1:1). The Hebrew word that was translated “blameless” would be better understood in the sense of being outwardly “pious”. The Old King James version actually translates the word as “perfect”. This rendering has led to much of the misunderstanding of Job in that people think Job was flawless in every way, when, as you will see, that was not the case. Nevertheless, Job had done what was right. He loved and served God, and he had conducted his affairs with others justly for a long time and God had blessed him greatly for it. Job was a very wealthy man in his day. He was married and had seven sons and three daughters …all of whom were grown adults. We were given the example of how pious and upright Job was in that he would regularly offer sacrifices to God on behalf of each of his children just in case they might have sinned against God (Job 1:4-5). He was just that err-on-the-side-of-caution, pious kind of man. Now comes the scene in heaven.

The scene in heaven:

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. And the Lord said to Satan, “From where do you come?” So Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.” Then the Lord said to Satan “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless (pious) and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?” So Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands and his possessions have increased in the land. But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has and he will surely curse You to Your face!” And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person.” Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.  

Job 1:6-12 NKJV

There are many things that could be gleaned from this passage, but here are the pertinent points.  First, notice who brings up the subject of Job. It wasn’t Satan. It was God. Take special notice that right from the start, God is the one controlling where the discussion goes. He intentionally taunts Satan with Job’s uprightness, and He knew full well the kind of response it would elicit from him. Many people read this and picture in their minds an equal give-and-take between God and Satan where Satan unexpectedly presents a challenge to God that He just can’t resist, and now the bet is on… too bad for Job! Nothing could be further from the truth! God is never manipulated by anyone, least of all Satan! God is the one doing all the manipulating here, and He has a purpose in mind. God wanted to draw Satan’s attention to Job to take notice of something that had already occurred but he hadn’t noticed yet! Satan had no doubt tried to get at Job in the past but couldn’t because of the “hedge” of protection around him. This hedge was comprised of angels that God had stationed around Job, his family, and his possessions to protect him from all evil. That’s why Satan mentioned it and whined about it! Satan had obviously left Job alone for some time and been “going to and fro on the earth and from walking back and forth on it” looking for more exposed and vulnerable victims. It had been a waste of time trying to get at Job. What Satan didn’t know is that while he was busy elsewhere, the hedge of protection around Job had come down! There was a reason for why it had vanished, and there was a reason why God wanted Satan to notice it. But it was this new exposure to Job that Satan had not noticed that God wanted him to notice! God said, “Behold” which means, “notice something!” “All that he has is in your hand…”  God never said anything remotely close to: “O.K. You’re on. As of today, I grant you special permission to give Job hell and we’ll see what he does.” Yet that is what people have continually tried to read into this story! Moreover, did you notice that nowhere in this exchange did God disagree with Satan or indicate in any way that He thought Job would not curse Him to His face? God probably thought to Himself, “Yes, Job might do just that!”, because, as you will see, Job did in fact, come as close as he possibly could to pronouncing a curse on God! How then could this exchange between God and Satan possibly be construed to be a bet if God didn’t even take a position on the matter? God does not need to prove anything to Satan. God had a purpose in mind for Job, and Satan was merely His unwitting dupe to accomplish it.

At this point, God draws the line and forbids Satan from touching Job himself. This alone should tell us who’s controlling the situation.  

Satan leaves the presence of God and destroys everything Job has and kills his children. Job holds fast to his faith in God and makes the famous statement:   

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.”            

Job 1:21 NKJV  

Then it says;

In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong.  

Job 1:22 NKJV

At this point, Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. The operative word in this passage is “this”. But things are about to escalate and change. The purpose for which God had drawn Satan’s attention to Job had not yet been met.

The second attack: “Without cause?!”

Now comes scene two in heaven. In this section is found the horrendously translated sentence mentioned earlier. It’s one that everyone should have instinctively known something was terribly wrong with it. It’s highlighted in bold print. 

Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. And the Lord said to Satan, From where do you come?” So Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.” Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless (pious) and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? And still he hold fast to his integrity although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause.” 

Job 2:1-3 NKJV

Every commentary and teaching I’ve heard on this statement effectively portrays God as bragging to Satan and saying: “I’m winning this bet even though you got Me to destroy Job when he didn’t do anything to deserve it”. One would have thought that the prospect of God doing something like this to an innocent man would cause people’s stomachs to turn. Yet that’s the way it’s read and interpreted by nearly everyone! Is God really admitting here that Job didn’t deserve it? What stretch of the concept of righteousness is capable of delivering destruction that isn’t deserved? Administering punishment that isn’t deserved has to be the very definition of UN-righteousness. Is God really admitting to being unrighteous toward Job here …and worse yet, just to settle a stupid bet with the devil? 

Words fail me to adequately express the repulsion I have for this lie! It comes from the lowest bowels of hell. It has caused incalculable damage to man’s ability to love God. Who would want to get anywhere near a capricious psychopath like that, knowing that no matter how well you behaved yourself, you might be next? That is exactly how evil tyrants on earth have always acted. They keep everyone around them guessing and in a constant state of terror. Hell would love to have mankind believe God is that way!  

Some teachers actually try to tell us that it’s O.K. because God made it right and adequately compensated Job after settling His bet with the devil and gave him twice as much as he had before. But all the blessings in heaven cannot make an unrighteous act a righteous one. Adequate compensation might be able to make the trouble worthwhile from the person’s point of view, but it can never make an unrighteous act by God a righteous one. It’s like the abusive man who beats his wife and then apologizes and tries to make it up to her afterward. She knows full well it could, and probably will happen again! God has never, and will never, perform even one act of unrighteousness! 

In no way shape or form did God admit to being unrighteous toward Job, nor did He admit to having been manipulated or moved by Satan! This passage must be the worst translated passage in the entire Bible for all the damage it has done to God’s reputation. Everyone should have instinctively known there is something drastically wrong with it, especially in light of the fact that there are other translations and interpretations available to counter it! So what is with this apparent willingness of so many to believe God could or would ever act in such a manner, and where does it come from? More on this later.

There happens to be one translation that does a far better job of painting the right picture. This translation is not necessarily known for getting things right, but in this case, it nailed it. It comes from the relatively obscure Moffat’s translation. It reads:

“It was idle of you to entice Me to undo him.” 

Job 2:3 Moffat’s

The Hebrew word that was translated “without cause” in the other translations primarily means “gratis”, “gratuitously”, “for nothing”, “in vain”, in other words, “effectless”, or “idle”. (See Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, Strong’s 2600)  “Without cause”, which has been interpreted to mean “he did nothing to deserve it” is listed as only a third possibility! So which interpretation do you suppose the author of Job assumed his readers would automatically know was the right interpretation? The one that makes God out to be an unrighteous, capricious, psychopath being manipulated by the Devil? Or the interpretation that simply portrays God as taunting the devil with: “You’re getting nowhere with him or Me!”?

God was taunting the devil again because he wasn’t done using him to get to the problem He wanted to address in Job! The first round didn’t do the trick! Remember, God is the one who keeps bringing up the subject of Job.

Then Satan said to God:

“Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!” And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.”

Job 2:4-6 NKJV

Notice again that God said “behold”, which means “notice something”. “Behold” does not mean: “I give you special permission“! What God wanted Satan to notice was that Job himself was now exposed and vulnerable. In His mercy and desire to see Job come to his senses with as little pain as possible, God had previously drawn the line for the Devil at Job’s person. It didn’t work. Now God is forced to redraw the line at Job’s life. But, as you will see, it was Job who was ultimately responsible for exposing himself. He would have been a dead man right from the start had God not mercifully drawn these lines to limit the Devil. It was God’s mercy and desire to see Job come to repentance of a very serious problem that kept him alive.

At this point, Satan goes out and strikes Job with painful boils. Job’s wife then counsels him to “curse God and die” …no doubt getting the idea to suggest it from the Devil whispering in her ear. Job refuses to curse God, and then the narrative says, “In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” (Job 2:10) The operative words, here again, are, “In all this.” Up to this point, Job refuses to curse God or charge Him with wrong. But then things start to change. 
 

Job’s three friends

Job’s three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar then come to him and mourn with him for seven days. After this Job opens his mouth and begins to curse. He started by cursing the day he was born. Eliphaz replied to Job’s complaint, challenging his observations and gets nowhere trying to convince him he’s wrong. Job speaks again, then Bildad replies and gets nowhere. This exchange of discourses continues between Job and his three friends for some time. Many interesting things are said by each of them, some of which have been mentioned earlier. This back-and-forth exchange goes on until Job’s friends run out of things to say. In summary, what these three friends said essentially amounted to accusing Job of having committed some terrible hidden sin. Job vehemently denies having done anything of the sort each time. Job’s friends rightly portray God as righteous and one who would never do something like this to Job if he were perfectly innocent, but they are unable to name the sin …when it was right in front of them! They were looking for external sins like theft, adultery, etc., and again, after each accusation, Job would emphatically declare his innocence of any crime. 

Now Job accuses God of wrongdoing and challenges Him

It is precisely because Job’s three friends did not find the problem that Job now is confident he has a case. He then began doing something the narrative said he didn’t do before. He began to “charge God with wrong”!  Job began to accuse God of unrighteousness. This is where God had to get Job that Job hadn’t come to after the first attack. Listen to some of his complaining and accusations toward God. Note: Words bracketed in blue are my interpretations of what Job was saying. 

“…He crushes me with a tempest and multiplies my wounds without cause [I didn’t do anything to deserve this.] He will not allow me to catch my breath but fills me with bitterness. If it is a matter of strength, indeed He is strong: And if of justice, who will appoint my day in court? Though I were righteous, my own mouth would condemn me. Though I were blameless, it would prove me perverse. [No matter what I could say or how blameless I am, God would shut me down.] I am blameless, yet I do not know myself; I despise my life. It is all one thing. Therefore I say, ‘He destroys the blameless and the wicked.’ If the scourge slays suddenly, He laughs at the plight of the innocent…”

Job 9:17-23 NKJV

“He tears me in His wrath, and hates me; He gnashes at me with His teeth; My enemy sharpens His gaze on me.” … “God has delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over to the hands of the wicked. I was at ease, but He has shattered me; He also has taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces; He has set me up for His target, His archers surround me. He pierces my heart and does not pity; He pours out my gall on the ground. He breaks me with wound upon wound; He runs at me like a warrior. I have sewn sackcloth over my skin, and laid my head in the dust. My face is flushed from weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death; although no violence is in my hands, and my prayer is pure.”

Job 16: 9,11-14,17 NKJV 

“Know then that God has wronged me, and has surrounded me with His net.”

Job 19:6 NKJV

If God had indeed admitted to Satan that He destroyed Job when he didn’t do anything to deserve it, Job would have been perfectly justified in leveling these accusations against God …would he not? Job was accusing God of unrighteousness, and in the process, he was making himself out to be more righteous than God! He even goes so far as to challenge God in a court of righteousness where he claims he could beat God at His own game! 

“Oh, that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come to His seat! I would present my case before Him, and fill my mouth with arguments. I would know the words which He would answer me, and understand what He would say to me. Would He contend with me in His great power? No! But He would take note of me. There the upright could reason with Him, and I would be delivered forever from my judge.”

Job 23:3-7 NKJV 

Whoa! Are you beginning to see the problem here? Surprisingly, Job’s three friends weren’t seeing it yet!

One of the most famous quotes from the book of Job is always interpreted the wrong way and is paraded as Job’s wonderful steadfast confession of faithfulness when in fact his words should be seen as the arrogant, defiant, nonsense that they are:

“Though He slay me, yet will I serve Him.” 

Job 13:15 NKJV 

This is nothing short of a boast in an ability to beat God at His own game of righteousness, …effectively making his own righteousness greater than God’s! He could just as well have said, “Take your best shot God, I’ll still beat you hands down!”

Then Job accuses God of being capricious, which is a behavior where a person does what they want when they want with no consistency or rational justification for their actions. It is a particularly nasty kind of unrighteousness. And since Job really believes this about God, notice the effect it has on his love for God and any desire to be near Him. 

“But He is unique, and who can make Him change? And whatever His soul desires, that He does. For He performs what is appointed for me, and many such things are with Him. Therefore I am terrified at His presence; when I consider this I am afraid of Him.” 

Job 23:13-15 NKJV

Job still wasn’t done. Now listen to these words and see just how close Job comes to cursing God! 

“As God lives, who has taken away my justice, and the Almighty who has made my soul bitter, as long as my breath is in me, and the breath of God in my nostrils, my lips will not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit. Far be it from me that I should say you are right; till I die I will not put away my integrity from me. My righteousness I hold fast and will not let it go; my heart shall not reproach me as long as I live. May my enemy be like the wicked, and He who rises up against me like the unrighteous.”

Job 27:2-7 NKJV

This is so close, it’s within a hair’s breadth of cursing God directly. In 16:9 quoted above, Job referred to God as “my enemy”. The context of this passage makes no allowances for some other enemy. Who else could Job be speaking of here? He actually said it without saying, “God”.

Job’s incredible pride

Then Job launches into a long defense of his pious, upright life. Here, he finally lets us see into his frame of mind and how he saw himself before his troubles befell him. He spends all of chapter 29 reminiscing about the good old days. Listen to how he thought of himself, and take special notice of his pronoun usage, particularly those highlighted in bold print. 

“Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God watched over me. When His lamp shone upon my head, and when by His light I walked through darkness; Just as I was in the days of my prime, when the friendly counsel of God was over my tent; when the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were around me; when my steps were bathed with cream, and the rock poured out rivers of oil for me! When I went out to the gate by the city, when I took my seat in the open square, the young men saw me and hid, and the aged arose and stood. The princes refrained from talking, and put their hand on their mouth. The voice of nobles was hushed, and their tongue stuck to the roof of their mouth. When the ear heard, then it blessed me, and when the eye saw then it approved me. Because I delivered the poor who cried out, and the fatherless and he who had no helper. The blessing of a perishing man came upon me, and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me. My justice was like a robe and a turban. I was eyes to the blind, and I was feet to the lame. I was a father to the poor, and I searched out the case that I did not know. I broke the fangs of the wicked, and plucked the victim from his teeth. Then I said, ‘I shall die in my nest, and multiply my days as the sand. My root is spread out to the waters, and the dew lies all night on my branch. My glory is fresh within me, and my bow is renewed in my hand.’ Men listened to me and waited, and kept silence for my counsel. After my words they did not speak again, and my speech settled on them as dew. They waited for me as for the rain, and they opened their mouth wide as for the spring rain. I mocked them when they did not believe, and the light of my countenance they did not cast down. I chose the way for them, and sat as ruler; so I dwelt as a king in the army, as one who comforts mourners. But now they mock me, men younger than I whose fathers I disdained to put with the dogs of my flock.”   

Job 29:2-25, 30:1 NKJV

Sounds like Job was pretty full of himself before his troubles befell him doesn’t it? Notice how humiliated he is at having to now suffer being mocked by who? “…men younger than I whose fathers I disdained to put with the dogs of my flock”. Job despised certain people and actually placed their value beneath that of his dogs!  What incredible arrogance and pride! 

Soloman, like his father David, would have read the book of Job. You don’t suppose this passage from Job could have been part of the inspiration in the wisdom of his words:

“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” 

Proverbs 16:18 NKJV

This was the problem with Job that God wanted to bring to an end. It was the very reason He drew the Devil’s attention to Job in the first place. Job had lifted himself up in his own eyes because of his outward righteousness that he became inwardly unrighteous. He began seeing himself through the eyes of others as equal to …and now we know he was capable of seeing himself as even more righteous than God. There was no humility left in him. Pride and arrogance had completely overtaken him. There wasn’t any humility toward other men left in Job, and there wasn’t any humility left in him toward God. Job arrogantly stood against God Himself, challenging Him to a duel of righteousness where he claimed he could beat God at His own game! It was this pride that had to end. God had blessed Job for his earlier righteousness and protected him and his possessions, but Job let it go to his head and started arrogantly treating others with condescending contempt. God could not continue rewarding that kind of behavior and let it appear He was sanctioning it in any way. It had to stop …one way or another. Job was ultimately responsible for the hedge of protection coming down because of his pride. God only drew Satan’s attention to the fact for the purpose of bringing Job to his knees. 

So what is it that God requires of man? 

“He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you …but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk HUMBLY with your God.”             

 Micah 6:8 NKJV

There are three things that God requires. Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. Job had completely failed to “walk humbly” with God. He wasn’t doing very well in the mercy domain either.

Yeshua’s parable concerning the Pharisee and the Tax collector

Yeshua spoke a parable describing a man just like Job. This parable could very well have been his commentary on Job. You see, in reality, the story of Job is the first record of the Pharisee-like pride that Yeshua is well known for condemning.

Also he spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You [destiny?] that I am not like other men–extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week: I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be abased, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” 

Luke 18:9-14 NKJV  

Does not this parable fit Job perfectly?

Now compare the two following passages. The first comes from Yeshua speaking of the Pharisees again, and the second from Job’s own mouth, and see if Yeshua wasn’t perfectly describing Job. 

 “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward”.    

Matthew 6:5 NKJV

“When I went out to the gate by the city, when I took my seat in the open square, the young men saw me and hid, and the aged arose and stood. The princes refrained from talking, and put their hand on their mouth. The voice of nobles was hushed, and their tongue stuck to the roof of their mouth. When the ear heard, then it blessed me, and when the eye saw, then it approved me.” 

Job 29:7-11 NKJV

Job was so full of himself  …he really thought he was something! The reason that men like Job lose all humility and no longer see themselves through God’s eyes but instead see themselves through other’s eyes as something awesome is because they “loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.” (John 12:43). It’s an issue of self-centeredness, a love for one’s self more than a love for one’s Maker. 

Enter: Elihu

As the story continues in chapter 32, Job’s three friends finally give up trying to figure out what sin Job had committed. They couldn’t see the inward problem of pride right in front of their eyes. At this point, a younger man by the name of Elihu has heard enough out of Job and decides to speak. He notices the arrogance with which Job defends himself and condemns God. Here are some of the highlights of what Elihu had to say. Speaking first to Job’s three friends he says:

“I am young in years, and you are very old; therefore I was afraid and dared not declare my opinion to you. I said, ‘Age should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom.’ But there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding. Great men are not always wise, nor do the aged always understand justice.” 

Job 32:6-9 NKJV

 Then Elihu turns his attention to Job:

“Surely you have spoken in my hearing, and I have heard the sound of your words, saying, ‘I am pure, without transgression; I am innocent, and there is no iniquity in me. Yet He finds occasions against me, He counts me as His enemy; He puts my feet in the stocks, He watches all my paths.’ Look, in this you are not righteous!” 

Job 33:8-12 NKJV

“What man is like Job, who drinks up scorn like water, who goes in company with the workers of iniquity, and walks with wicked men? For he has said, ‘It profits a man nothing that he should delight in God.’ Therefore listen to me, you men of understanding: Far be it from God to do wickedness, and from the Almighty to commit iniquity. For He repays man according to his work, and makes man to find a reward according to his way. Surely God will never do wickedly, nor will the Almighty pervert justice.” 

Job 34:7-12 NKJV

“Has anyone said to God, ‘I have borne chastening; I will offend no more; Teach me what I do not see; If I have done iniquity, I will do no more’? [The obvious answer to this question is, NO] 

Job 34:31-32 NKJV

“Oh , that Job were tried to the utmost, because his answers are like those of wicked men! For he adds rebellion to his sin. He claps his hands among us, and multiplies his words against God.” 

Job 34:36-37 NKJV

“Do you think this is right …that you say, ‘My righteousness is more than God’s’? For you say, ‘What advantage will it be to one, or what profit shall I have, more than if I had sinned?”

  Job 35:2-3 NKJV 

“Bear with me a little, and I will show you that there are yet words to speak on God’s behalf. I will fetch my knowledge from afar; I will ascribe righteousness to my Maker. For truly my words are not false; One who is perfect in knowledge is with you. [In other words, “I see perfectly well what is going on here”!]

Job 36:2-4 NKJV  

Then God comes on the scene

Elihu continues to describe God’s unquestionable righteousness. He is building his case against Job when suddenly we are thrown into an unannounced whirlwind scene where God Himself shows up and speaks to Job. We have already dealt with the fact that we are missing part of the story here. Job had to have been in the process of replying to Elihu and probably calling him an ignorant young brat of some sort when a whirlwind came up and cut him short. Elihu had defended God, and now God comes on the scene to defend Elihu and declare his words “counsel”! At this point, everyone had had enough of Job. What God says to Job at this point can be summed up in one short sentence:

“Who on God’s green earth do you think you are?”

The first question God asked Job is:

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?”

Job 38:4 NKJV

Just hearing Almighty God thunder that question to another man is unnerving! Imagine what it did to Job.

God continued to describe a number of things He knows and does, and asked Job how he compares. Many Bible teachers argue that God’s words here were meant to imply… “I alone am God, and as God, I can do what I want when I want and there’s nothing you can say about it.” But if that were true, why would God care what Job thinks about it? No capricious tyrant ever feels compelled to give an explanation for his actions to anyone! The very fact that God has come on the scene to address Job indicates He obviously placed a high value on what Job and the others thought of Him.

The reason this picture of a God who, “does what He wants, when He wants, and there’s nothing you can say about it,” continues to flourish is because it fits well with Calvinist doctrines. But it could not be further from the truth. God’s discourse to Job has absolutely nothing to do with Him justifying Himself. It has everything to do with forcing Job to see how small and unlike God he really is. Coming face to face with this fact is very humiliating for Job. He finally admits he’s wrong and humbles himself, the very place God intended to bring him from the start. Job says:

“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” 

Job 42:5-6 NKJV 

Remember, just before coming within a hair’s breadth of cursing God, Job had previously said, “my heart shall not reproach me as long as I live.” (Job 27:6) Apparently now, something had changed in Job! 

God’s anger at Job’s three friends

God’s anger is then aroused at Job’s three friends for setting themselves up as counselors and not getting to the truth. It wasn’t that what they did say was so wrong in general or principle. It was wrong because they didn’t speak specifically “what is right”. They inspected the outside of the cup and endeavored to find flaws in it but couldn’t. They failed to point to the filth of pride inside Job. Because they couldn’t answer Job, Job believed he had a case and went on to nearly curse God.

…the Lord said to Eliphaz, “My wrath is aroused against you and your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has.”   

Job 42:7 NKJV

This is another place where there is an obvious error in translation, or at best, a misunderstanding. It should be pointing out that the Hebrew text of this passage does not end with the word “has”, it ends with the word “Job”. The word “has” was added by translators to complete the supposed thought in English.

It simply isn’t possible that God could have indicated here that Job was speaking the truth all along as many teachers suggest. How could God possibly have said Job was right all along when He had just blasted Job for saying so much wrong? If Job had been right all along, why did he need to repent? God immediately took Job back as soon as he repented, but he had clearly been very wrong up to that point. Again, this picture of innocent Job who really didn’t deserve what he got is the preferred interpretation of those who want to keep the lie going.

The word that has been translated “as” is simply one Hebrew letter (caph) prefixed to another Hebrew word meaning “My servant”. It can’t be denied that this letter means “as” or “like” in a comparative sense. So if there were any words of Job that God could have been referring to as “what is right” they had to have been the words Job had just uttered when he repented.  

“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” 

Job 42:5-6 NKJV

This was the point that Job needed to be brought to and his three friends had failed to bring him there. The other possibility is that something has been lost in the most ancient meaning of a word, or a mistake was made in the identity of a single Hebrew letter in the earliest copy, and what was thought to be a caph was really the Hebrew letter bet, and the text was originally intended to read; “you have not spoken of Me what is right to My servant Job.” This rendering would make the most sense, but it certainly can not be that God said Job had been speaking the truth all along. 

Job, an innocent victim of God’s bet with the devil? 

So what is with this apparent need for so many in both Christianity and Judaism to see Job as an innocent victim? One would think that if another interpretation were available, where God isn’t made to be a pathologically unrighteous sucker for a devil’s challenge, everyone would instantly embrace it! The answer to that question is found in the story of Job itself. It’s man’s pride. Job would have much rather found fault with God and condemned Him to save himself!  

“Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? He who rebukes God, let him answer it.”  “Would you indeed nullify My judgment? Would you condemn Me that you may be justified?” 

Job 40:1,8 NKJV

Nothing has changed in human nature since then. Man today would still rather see God as the ultimate source of all their problems to justify themselves and relieve themselves of any real responsibility for wrong in this world. Considering what it took to get Job to snap out of it, what are the chances people today will snap out of their pride after being told the simple truth?  

The truth is, this Job-like pride is rationalized in a Calvinistic worldview, where, under the guise of ascribing greatness to God, people actually make God responsible for all the evil in the world. Hardcore Calvinists will say it outright …that evil itself is a part of God’s plan from the very beginning. This blasphemous lie brings a supposed “peace” to the people who subscribe to it. It stems from believing God is in complete control, when in fact that “peace” should really be termed “relief”. It is the relief from any real responsibility for one’s actions and conditions. This is the true source of appeal behind the embracing of this blasphemous doctrine. The end result is that people have a view of God they cannot relate to. Therefore, it is impossible for them to truly love Him or want to be anywhere near Him. Who would want to be close to a person who might decide at any time to destroy you no matter how good you are? Satan’s goal of making it impossible for man to love God by appealing to his pride is accomplished in all who believe this lie.    

A similarly corrupted passage from the Psalms  

At this point it might be enlightening to take a look at a verse from the Psalms where it is clearly illustrated how Calvinist special interests have altered another passage in an effort to promote their doctrines.  

Even though the NIV translation has only been around since 1978, many people have heard and are familiar with its version of this particular passage. It is where David supposedly says to God:

 “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” 

 Psalm 139:16 NIV 

Everyone who hears these words comes to the immediate conclusion that the number of days a person will live is predetermined and known by God before they are even born. What’s more, God has preordained what happens on each and every one of those days in exhaustive detail and has written it all in a book somewhere! This is the exact conclusion that Calvinists and the Devil want you to come to. This passage is continually being used to proof-text their doctrines of predestination and a God who is in absolute control. But is that what David really said? Not at all! Not even close! One thing that is telling is that you will never hear this version quoted in its context! The reason it is never quoted in context is because there is no connection that can be made from it to anything that was said before or after it! The old King James Bible renders this passage most accurately. As you read the KJV translation of this verse in its context, bear in mind that we have two respected translations saying two completely different things and that they can’t both be right.     

I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.” 

Psalm 139:14-16 KJV

The NIV has David saying all the days of his life were written in a book beforehand, and the KJV has David saying all his body parts were written in a book at the time he was conceived when he was just a blob of cells growing in his mother’s womb. It was before any of his body parts could be identified! It should be obvious from the context, which translation is the correct one. The context demands that the subject matter is about what was happening to him in his mother’s womb when he was “made”. The context has absolutely nothing to do with what happens to him after he gets out of the womb and begins the days of his life!   

What’s more, there is a terrible collateral-loss of truth in this blatantly corrupted translation. It is the identity of this “book” in which David said his body parts were written. David was obviously speaking of his DNA genetic code! At that time, no one had any idea there was such a thing! Apparently, David had been told by God there was such a thing! Imagine that! It would have been more forgivable for the translators of the KJV in the early 15th century to get it wrong since they also knew absolutely nothing about the breathtaking detail with which every part of the body is written out as a “run” program at the moment of conception. It is not forgivable for the Calvinists to pervert the truth out of it at a time when we knew about the genetic code! The KJV translators got it right!        

It is telling that the list of editors involved in the translation of the NIV Bible reads as a list of who’s who in the academic halls of Calvinist tradition. If you consider yourself a conservative and have hated the way the mainstream media continually slants the news to the left in an attempt to sway public opinion that direction, realize, the same deceitfulness has occurred in the translation of the NIV Bible. At every opportunity to do so, the NIV inserts a slanted translation designed to lead the reader to a Calvinist position.  You can see this plainly in the very verse from Job 2:3 that we dealt with where most translations render “without cause.” The NIV says “without any reason” to further drive home the picture that God admitted Job hadn’t done anything to deserve it. Another proof of this is evidenced in the fact that there is no Hebrew word for “sovereign”. The word cannot be found in other translations like the new or the old King James versions. But the NIV has chosen to use it many times in place of God’s name in an attempt to get the reader to think of God as ultra-sovereign and micromanaging. They want you to believe God does what He wants when He wants and you have nothing to say about it.          

At the same time, NIV editors have effectively destroyed their own doctrine of God being in absolute control of what made it into the Bible!  By rendering passages with completely different meanings from previously well-established translations, they have created two Bibles, both of which can’t be right! One of them has to be in error and containing material that obviously should not have made it in there! 

God is righteous

God is righteous. He never commits even one act of unrighteousness. Every act of His is right, and morally justifiable.

“The Lord is righteous in all His ways.”       

Psalm 145:17   

“…the Lord our God is righteous in all the works which He does.”    

Daniel 9:14 

“To declare that the Lord is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”

Psalm 92:15

God obviously wants us to know this about His character. Since God wants us to know He is righteous, is it not therefore assumable that we should be able to comprehend the meaning of righteousness? How futile would it be for God to tell man He was righteous if man were not capable of comprehending righteousness? Calvinism teaches that whatever God does is righteous because He’s God and He gets to define righteousness. Even if God does something that appears totally unrighteous to us, Calvinists say it’s still righteous, because God did it and that makes it right. But this is another damnable lie. Righteousness is a standard apart from God that God holds Himself to …flawlessly! More on this shortly.

But the kind of God who is above the law is the kind of God the Calvinists serve. One of the Godly founding fathers of this country, Thomas Jefferson, could not have said it better:

“I can never join Calvin in addressing his God. He was indeed an atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was daemonism. If ever a man worshiped a false God, he did. The being described in his five points, is not the God whom you and I acknowledge and adore, the creator and benevolent governor of the world, but a daemon of malignant spirit. It would be more pardonable to believe in no God at all, than to blaspheme Him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin.” 

Thomas Jefferson—To J. Adams, 1823 http://www.barefootsworld.net/tjletters.html#pshort1820

Notice that Thomas Jefferson “adored” God! Only in knowing what righteousness is and that God is righteous can one possibly say this. No Calvinist can truly love the false God he has created.  

Where did the Calvinistic worldview come from?

The Calvinistic worldview has its origins in Greek philosophy. The Greeks attempted to determine through philosophical means what the attributes of deity must include. They also came to some foolish conclusions concerning good and evil. Here in a nutshell is how the Greeks reasoned:

Good can only be comprehended when it is contrasted with evil. God wants us to know He is good. Therefore He created evil that we might comprehend how good He is! 

If you noticed, this philosophy concerns mere appearances and perceptions and has nothing to do with hard facts and reality. Smoke and mirrors are used here to stand truth on its head! To say this philosophy is utter nonsense would be an understatement. It is in fact totally depraved. The first tenant of Calvin’s 5 demonically pathological points, which Thomas Jefferson referred to, asserts that man is born totally depraved. He is not! This philosophy is where the real total-depravity is!  It is truly “morally corrupted and perverted”. But this philosophy made its way into the thinking of first-century Pharisees and is the reason that much of Rabbinic Judaism–which fondly traces its roots back to the first century Pharisees–teaches the same detestable things concerning the issue of Job! The best-selling book “When bad things happen to good people” was written by a Rabbi! This same Greek philosophy came into Christianity by way of the Pharisee Paul! Read the following quote from the book of Romans and see if you can hear the underlying premise that God must create evil show us how good He is:

“Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory,…?” 

Romans 9:21-24 NKJV

This passage is a favorite of the Calvinists. The entire context of this passage (Romans 9:6-24) is the heart and soul of Calvinist doctrine. Leading up to the above passage, Paul misquotes, takes out of context, or misrepresents at least 4 passages from the Tanakh to cobble together his new doctrine. This is getting too far off subject and too big a matter for this article. (For those who are interested, links to my other works on this subject are located at the end of this article.)  Concerning the passage above where Paul clearly indicates that God creates evil just to show how good He is, it should, in fact, turn everyone’s stomach to think that God could ever act in such an unrighteous manner. Far be it from the Righteous Almighty to intentionally create a man destined for destruction. Listen to what God Himself says concerning the notion that He intentionally creates some people to be destroyed;

”AS I LIVE,” says the Lord God, “I have NO pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.”

Ezekiel 33:11 NJNV

Unlike Paul, who never even saw Yeshua’s face, the apostle Peter walked with Yeshua and listened to his teaching during his entire ministry. Peter said;

“God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

2 Peter 3:9 NKJV

Here, not only is it obvious that God doesn’t want anyone to perish, it’s obvious that His will is not being done!

Thomas Jefferson was absolutely right about Calvin. Interestingly, he had a few things to say about Paul too! 

“Paul was the great Coryphaeus, and first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus.”

From a letter to W. Short published in The Great Thoughts by George Sildes (Ballantine Books, New York, 1985, p.208)

Jefferson understood where the damnable doctrines of the Calvinists came from, and he rejected Paul’s supposed authority. But now we’re boldly going where few Christians have dared to go before by questioning the validity of something found in the Bible! But, realize this: The idea that the Bible, as we have it, is perfect and infallible from beginning to end has its origin in Calvinistic doctrine! It is the teaching that everything that occurs on earth is part of God’s sovereign plan. The logic flows from this that an all-powerful God would never allow His word to be corrupted! This is air-tight circular reasoning at its worst. It’s like a virus that masks itself as it enters. The one truth that pulls the foundation out from under this self-supporting logic is that God is not in absolute control of every event on earth, therefore His will is not being done! Scripture clearly demonstrates this to be true. If something can happen that God doesn’t want to happen, then things could have made it into the Bible that shouldn’t have! The evidence clearly suggests that Pauli’s words should never have made it into the Bible.

There are two separate incompatible worldviews here. Either you believe like the Greeks, that God is in absolute control and ultimately responsible for everything …including the evil in the world, or you believe what God has revealed about Himself–that He has taken His hands off His creation and given it free will to see what it would do. It is clear that His creation is perfectly capable of doing things He didn’t expect or want. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t keep one foot in each world. Either God knows, or He doesn’t. One must choose between going with the god of the Greeks or the God of Genesis!    

Just as surely as God took great risk in creating man with free will for the purpose of making true love possible, Calvinism reverses that principle and sucks the life and love out of its adherents by believing in a God who takes no risks. I’ve actually run into some hardcore Calvinists on the internet who outright state that we non-Calvinists are predestined to spend all eternity in the torments of hell for the purpose of making their supposed eternal glory look and feel that much better by contrast! Their Job-like condescending arrogance is breathtaking. This calloused view of those predestined for destruction is in fact what the Pharisee Paul taught in Romans 9. There is no disputing it. True Calvinists really don’t care. They are like their fathers the Pharisees of whom Yeshua said:

“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resource, for he is a liar and the father of it!” 

John 8:44 NKJV

Again, nothing has changed in almost two thousand years …certainly not among religious leaders. What Yeshua said to the Pharisees he would say to today’s followers of Pharisaical doctrine. 

So what is righteousness? 

Righteousness is a standard apart from God that God holds Himself to. If I were to ask the question: What is 2 plus 2, the righteous answer is 4. It doesn’t take God to make 4 the right answer! If you were to ask God what the right answer to this question is, He will always say 4. If God were to say the answer to the question is something other than 4, like say 5, that would not make 5 a righteous answer, it would make God unrighteous. There is great security in knowing that God will say 4 every time He is asked the question. What’s more, He wants us to know this about Him. 

Abraham knew God was righteous, and he was stunned when he thought he heard God say He was about to do something to Sodom and Gomorrah that he knew was unrighteous.  Two observations in the following excerpts from Genesis need to be pointed out. First, is the fact that God was going on a fact-finding mission to Sodom and Gomorrah! One has to ask why He would do this if He already knows everything? Secondly, is the fact that Abraham knew it would be unrighteous for God to destroy the good people of Sodom and Gomorrah with the bad. 

And the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to me, and if not, I will know.” 

Genesis 18:20-21 NKJV

And  Abraham came near and said, “Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked?”   “…Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked: far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”                      

Genesis 18:23,25 NKJV

Abraham knew it would be an unrighteous act for God to destroy the righteous people with the evil people, and he held God to that standard! A little later in the story, Abraham understood that God had no intention of doing such a thing, but He would get the few righteous people, like his nephew Lot, out before He destroyed the cities.  Now listen to Elihu’s words again and compare them to Abraham’s words above: 

“Therefore listen to me, you men of understanding; Far be it from God to do wickedness, and from the Almighty to commit iniquity. For He repays man according to his work, and makes man to find a reward according to his way. Surely God will never do wickedly, nor will the Almighty pervert justice.” 

Job 34:10-12 NKJV

 
Summary and conclusion

The book of Job was not written to answer the question of why bad things happen to good people, nor was it written to show how God works in the lives of every individual today. Ironically, in the final analysis, the book of Job was written in an effort to prevent the very thing it has been used to promote and justify! Pride, at God’s expense.   

Each person must decide which direction they are going to take. One must choose between one of two possibilities. Does God know everything in advance or doesn’t He? He can’t both know and not know. There can be no fence-sitting on this. Many Christians have tried to keep one foot in each world and thereby keep for themselves a handy double standard in their back pocket from which they can choose the easiest on themselves depending upon the situation. But this, just as Job’s pride, must come to an end. The arrogance and hypocrisy are making a mockery of God to the rest of the world.   

So what will it be? Are you going to go with the God of Genesis, or the god of the Greeks? With the god of Greek philosophy, there is no risk. Everything is prewritten in hard cold stone, where the coldness numbs the pain of guilt …and with it is numbed the ability to truly love God. With the God of Genesis comes the risk necessary for one to truly be able to love God and others. With this picture is adventure and endless possibilities …where even sin can be forgiven if one would just humble himself.

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