Eliphaz isn’t much of a friend, he immediately assumes that Job sinned against You.

Just like now, if you’re arrested the courts automatically believe you must be guilty. 

The devil is obviously very good at throwing lies into the minds of people. 

If people would just look to You for guidance they would see that there is no ¹ truth in the devil.

“But Job answered and said,

Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!

For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea: therefore my words are swallowed up.

For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.

Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass? or loweth the ox over his fodder?

Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg?

The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat”(Job 6:1-7).

Job hasn’t a clue of why he is being punished, he is totally confused.  He knows that he hasn’t sinned, but then again he’s uncertain because he believes that he had angered God.

“Oh that I might have my request; and that God would grant me the thing that I long for!

Even that it would please God to destroy me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off!

Then should I yet have comfort; yea, I would harden myself in sorrow: let him not spare; for I have not concealed the words of the Holy One.

What is my strength, that I should hope? and what is mine end, that I should prolong my life?

Is my strength the strength of stones? or is my flesh of brass?

Is not my help in me? and is wisdom driven quite from me?” (Job 6:8-13).

Still, Job doesn’t attack God, as his wife had told him to do.  Job knows that God is righteous and that He also has the right to do as He pleases, so Job accepts is calamities and asks that God kill him.

“To him that is afflicted pity should be shewed from his friend; but he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty.

My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away;

Which are blackish by reason of the ice, and wherein the snow is hid:

What time they wax warm, they vanish: when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.

The paths of their way are turned aside; they go to nothing, and perish.

The troops of Tema looked, the companies of Sheba waited for them.

They were confounded because they had hoped; they came thither, and were ashamed.

For now ye are nothing; ye see my casting down, and are afraid.

Did I say, Bring unto me? or, Give a reward for me of your substance?

Or, Deliver me from the enemy’s hand? or, Redeem me from the hand of the mighty? 

Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: and cause me to understand wherein I have erred.  How forcible are right words!

But what doth your arguing reprove?  Do ye imagine to reprove words, and the speeches of one that is desperate, which are as wind?  Yea, ye overwhelm the fatherless, and ye dig a pit for your friend.

Now therefore be content, look upon me; for it is evident unto you if I lie.  Return, I pray you, let it not be iniquity; yea, return again, my righteousness is in it.  Is there iniquity in my tongue? cannot my taste discern perverse things?” (Job 6:14-30)

Job requests that his friends stop accusing him without proof of him sinning against God, and asks that they help him with this calamity. 

But he also knows that they cannot or will not offer him spiritual help.  He compares their assistance as temporary or seasonal as the brooks that overflow in the winter and dry up in the summer.

“Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? are not his days also like the days of an hireling?

As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work:

So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me.

When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day.

My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome.

My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope” (Job 7:1-6). 

The precise nature of Job’s sickness is uncertain to him, but the symptoms were painful festering sores over the whole body (7:5). Nightmares (7:14), scabs that peeled and became black (30:28 & 30), disfigurement and a revolting appearance (2:12; 19:19), bad breath (19:17), excessive thinness (17:7; 19:20), fever (30:30), and pain day and night (30:17).  After Job responded to Eliphaz’s accusations he addressed his complaint to God.

“O remember that my life is wind: mine eye shall no more see good.

The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more: thine eyes are upon me, and I am not.

As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more.

He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more.

Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou settest a watch over me?” (Job 7:7-12)

And Job truly lets go with his anguish towards God, and believes, because to common observation, that once he died that would be it.  Mesopotamian descriptions of the netherworld refer to it similarly as the land of no return.

“When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint; 

Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions: 

So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life. 

I loathe it; I would not live always: let me alone; for my days are vanity” (Job 7:13-16). 

Job believes that his nightmares come from God and he cannot understand why God is doing this to him.

“What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him?

And that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment?

How long wilt thou not depart from me, nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle?

I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men? why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself?

And why dost thou not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity? for now shall I sleep in the dust; and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be” (Job 7:17-21).

Job now believes that he had sinned, but he doesn’t know what he did and he doesn’t understand why God won’t forgive him. 

He is thinking that God made man for the purpose of scrutinizing him and making life unbearable.  He thinks that God has pleasure in doing this, when in all actuality He doesn’t, but the devil does.

More than likely Job’s pain is so great that he is unable to think clearly because since he is a righteous man he should remember what Gen 1:27-28 says, but if the scholars are correct, Moses has not been born yet and therefore Genesis has not yet been written.

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.  And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply; and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Gen 1:27-28).

¹ When we do not keep our thoughts on God, which is the armor of God, then the door to our mind is wide open and the devil can step in and feed us lies.

“Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand.

Stand therefore having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;

And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;

Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph 6:11-17).

God tells us to listen to Him and not to ourselves because when we listen to ourselves we may be getting false information, which comes from the devil, and that is how we get into trouble and/or cause others harm.

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding” (Prov 3:5).

Satan CANNOT comprehend righteousness, his entire being lives in the realm of evilness.  Even if he were to offer you an honest answer there is a wicked angle involved that will twist the truth into a lie that will destroy you. 

“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it” (Jn 8:44).

“But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. 

For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.

And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light” (2 Cor 11:3-4 & 13-14).

“He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning.  For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil” (which Jesus did by his resurrection) (1 Jn 3:8).

Casting Lots

A clay cube inscribed in Akkadian provides archaeological evidence for the use of lots in the ancient Near East.  This “lot,” a cube approximately 1 inch in diameter, commemorates the selection by lot of lahali to serve as the minister of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III (c. 828 B.C,). 

Though other forms of divination were prohibited in Israel (Deut 18:9-14), the casting of lots was permitted.  Proverbs 16:33 makes this clear:

The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD.

Lots were cast for various purposes:

* They settled the apportionment of land, guaranteeing that it was divinely inherited (Num 26.55).

* They narrowed a field of candidates in determining a selection (Saul in 1 Sam 10:20; Matthias in Acts 1:26), order of service (temple personnel in 1 Chr 24:5; Zechariah in Lk 1:8) or guilt (Achan in Jos 7:14; Jonahan in I Sam 14:41).

* They were used for dividing or distributing people (orphans in Job 6:27; prisoners of war in Joel 3:3, and nah 3:10).

* The sacred lots called the “Urim and Thummin” were used to determine the will of the Lord in a particular matter (Num 27:21).