Job 27 and 28 make up the second of three parts in Job’s final speech. In the first part he responded directly to Bildad; he used the singular form of the pronoun you in verses 2–4. In these two chapters he responds to all the friends; he uses the plural form of the pronoun you in 27:5 and 11–12.
This address to all the friends has two parts. In chapter 27 Job again defends his own righteousness, and in chapter 28 he asks and answers the question, “Where can wisdom be found (28:12)?”
Job begins chapter 27 by making his main point. “Till I die I will not put away my integrity from me. My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go (vv. 5b–6a).” He still maintains over against his friends, that sin is not the explanation for his suffering. And he makes this assertion very strongly. “Far be it from me that I should say you are right (v. 5a).” I will not speak against my conscience and bring on myself its reproach (v. 6b). “As long as my breath is in me… My lips will not speak wickedness… (vv. 3–4). He even swears an oath to bind himself to this promise. He stands before the God who has taken away his justice and calls on him to punish him for the sin of lying if ever he should say that his friends accused him justly.
In verses 7–10 he pronounces a curse on his enemies, and his curse is that they may be like the wicked. The hypocrite has no hope, even if he gains much during his life on earth. God will not hear his cry. He will not delight in the Almighty. There will be an end to his calling on God when he recognizes its futility or when he perishes under God’s wrath.
Job does not here speak directly against his friends, but he is warning them indirectly that they will expose themselves to the judgment of God if they continue their attacks on a righteous man.
He strengthens this warning in the rest of the chapter as he outlines the destiny of the wicked. He says (vv. 11–12), I will teach you about God. You have this knowledge already, but your speech is not consistent with it. “This is the portion of a wicked man with God (v.13).” That portion is the death of his children (v. 14), absence of lament from his widows when he dies (v. 15), the loss of all his wealth to the righteous (vv. 16–17), the destruction of his house (which is no more substantial than the cocoon of a moth or the temporary booth that a watchman may build for himself to guard fields before the harvest (v. 18), death and the terrors that accompany it (vv. 19–22), and the derision of men (v. 23). Lamentations 2:15–16 show us that clapping hands and hissing are expressions of derision.
This does not sound much like Job, who has argued more than once that the wicked prosper while he suffers. Therefore, some commentators have said that copiers of the text of Job inadvertently corrupted the text, and this paragraph belongs either to Bildad’s very short final speech (chapter 25) or is part of a third conjectured speech of Zophar. At best, all of that is sheer speculation and cannot be proved. There is no reason why Job cannot have said this. When he said that God lets the wicked get way with wrong, he did not mean that God would never punish them; he was rejecting the conclusion of his friends that suffering in this life proves the presence of sin in the life of the sufferer. Now he is simply saying that, whatever may happen to the wicked here and now, in the end God will judge and destroy them.
This strengthens the warning he has given the friends. They are doing wickedly in accusing him. They should beware lest these judgments come on them.
Chapter 28 also disrupts our expectations. It’s very different from anything Job has said so far, and it does not seem to have much connection with either chapter 28 or chapter 29. In fact, if you skip over chapter 28 in reading from 27 to 29, you will not feel any significant disconnection. Some therefore see this chapter as an editorial insertion, rather than as words of Job. But again, that is speculative and also unnecessary. There is an explanation for Job saying this and for his making it nearly the last thing he says to his friends. In a sense, the argument between Job and his friends has revolved around the question, “Who has wisdom? Is wisdom with Job’s friends? Or is it with Job?” The friends (especially Eliphaz) have claimed it for themselves. Eliphaz has said, “Behold, this we have searched out; it is true. Hear it, and know for yourself (5:27).” In other parts of his speeches he makes the same point:
For inquire, please, of the former age,
And consider the things discovered by their fathers;
For we were born 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 heart (8:8–10)?
Are you the first man who was born?
Or were you made before the hills?
Have you heard the counsel of God?
Do you limit wisdom to yourself?
What do you know that we do not know?
What do you understand that is not in us?
Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us,
Much older than your father (15:7–10).
I will tell you, hear me;
What I have seen I will declare,
What wise men have told,
Not hiding anything received from their fathers (15:17–18).
The friends therefore not only claimed wisdom, but claimed also to have learned it from those who were before them. Their wisdom is this, that when men suffer it is because of sin. Obviously, Job is unwilling to receive this wisdom. Now in chapter 28 he really says to his friends, “Such wisdom as you are trying to teach is not accessible to man. Man cannot understand God’s ways.”
He begins with a metaphor derived from the mining industry (vv. 1–11), and he makes two points. First, mining is difficult and dangerous work as well as work that requires much ingenuity on the part of man. Men go where the king of beasts, the lion, cannot go—deep into the earth. They see where the keenest sight, that of the eagle, cannot see. They swing to and fro on slender ropes while descending into the mines or while seeking to dig out the objects of their desire. They must overturn the roots of the mountains. But the result of this strenuous labor is wealth. Men bring out from their mines silver, gold, iron, copper, sapphires and gold.
The search for wisdom is like that. Wisdom is very precious, more precious even than ores and gems. It is well worth the effort expended on it (vv. 15–19). But it cannot be found.
Man does not know its value, Nor is it found in the land of the living. The deep says, ‘It is not in me’; And the sea says, ‘It is not with me (vv. 13–14) It is hidden from the eyes of all living, And concealed from the birds of the air. Destruction and Death say, We have heard a report about it with our ears (vv. 21–22).
It cannot be bought with gold, silver, onyx, sapphire, coral, quartz, rubies, topaz or any other precious thing (vv. 15–19).
This wisdom is beyond the reach of men. Only God knows it, and we who see just the edges of his ways get little glimpses of it in his creative and providential work (vv. 23–27). No man will ever understand the wisdom of God. No man can claim to be able to explain the ways of God. The friends’ claim to wisdom is presumptuous, futile, and foolish. That is the fundamental reason for Job’s rejection of their teaching.
What then is wisdom for us? God himself has told us; it is to fear the Lord and depart from evil (v.28). Wisdom for us is not understanding God’s ways. It is humbling ourselves in the presence of his consuming majesty and keeping his commandments.
Job has a profound insight into this essential question, and he argues effectively against the foolishness of his friends. But what Job teaches them, he himself has not learned. He tries to cast a speck out of his brother’s eye before removing the beam from his own. In the end God himself has to say the same thing to Job that Job said to his friends, and only then does Job submit himself and lay his hand on his mouth. In his commentary on Job, Christoper Ash says, “How we respond to this verse (v. 28) is a litmus test for our hearts. In a saying that is crucial to the whole book, God directs our attention away from our agonized questions and toward himself. He does not take us by the hand and lead us to the answers; rather he beckons us to bow before the Lord himself, who knows the answers but chooses not to tell us. Our eyes are directed away from the search for the architecture [of the universe] and toward the person of the Architect. We ask, ‘Why doesn’t God answer my question?’ To which he replies, ‘Turn your gaze and your inquiry away from the answer you want and toward the God you must seek.’ (pp. 284–285)”