The Book of Job

Word Study

"times," Hebrew ittim (עִתִּים), appointed times, seasons. Job opens with a searching question: "Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know him not see his days?" The word is not bare duration but set seasons, the fitting moments for things to happen. God knows them all and is perfectly aware of every injustice.

"hidden," nitzpenu (נִצְפְּנוּ), stored up, concealed. Nothing is stored away out of God's sight. Job knows God is not ignorant, which only sharpens the puzzle: an all-seeing God who does not immediately act. This is the ancient and honest question of every believer who watches evil go unpunished: God, You see it all; why do You wait? It is not the question of unbelief but of faith wrestling with God's timing.

"his days," yamav (יָמָיו), the days of His judgment, His days of reckoning. So why, Job asks, does God not appoint visible days of judgment, days when even those who know Him could see justice done? Why does the Judge, who sees everything, seem to delay His reckoning? Job does not resolve the question here; he lays it bare. And in laying it bare, he touches a mystery the whole Bible carries: the God who sees all often waits long before He acts, and His delay has a purpose we cannot always trace, but which the Gospel begins to unfold.

Explanation

Job opens with a searching question: God knows all times and sees every injustice, so "why... do they that know him not see his days?" Why does the all-seeing Judge not appoint visible days of reckoning? This is the honest question of every believer who watches evil go unpunished: God, You see it all; why do You wait? It is not unbelief but faith wrestling with God's timing. Job knows God is not ignorant, which only sharpens the puzzle. He lays the question bare, touching the mystery the whole Bible carries: the God who sees all often waits long, and His delay has a purpose.

Gospel Focus

"Why... do they that know him not see his days?", Job's question about the delay of judgment is answered by the Gospel's revelation of God's purpose in waiting. There is a "day" appointed: "he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained" (Acts 17:31). God's justice is not absent, only deferred to a certain day, the day of Christ. And why the delay? The New Testament answers plainly: it is mercy. "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). What looks like divine indifference is divine patience, God giving time for sinners, even the oppressors Job describes, to repent and be saved. The delay of judgment is the space of grace, purchased by the cross, where God can be "just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus" (Romans 3:26). So the believer who cries "why do You wait?" is answered: God waits because He is merciful, and His day is certainly coming, when "we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:10). No injustice will go unanswered; the times are not hidden from Him, and His day is fixed. Until then, His patience is our salvation, and the delay we find so hard is the mercy by which sinners are still being gathered to Christ.

Word Study

"groan," Hebrew yin'aqu (יִנְאָקוּ), groan, moan in pain. Job paints the anguish of the oppressed: after describing how the wicked strip the poor, take the widow's ox, and leave the naked shivering in the cold, he says, "Men groan from out of the city." This is the inarticulate sound of pain, not a formal complaint, rising out of the city where justice was supposed to be administered.

"the wounded," chalalim (חֲלָלִים), the mortally wounded, the pierced, the dying. These are not the merely injured but the fatally hurt, and it is their very soul that "crieth out." This is the raw edge of the mystery: real suffering, real injustice, real cries to heaven.

"layeth not folly," lo-yasim tiflah (לֹא־יָשִׂים תִּפְלָה), does not charge them with wrong, does not (yet) call the oppressors to account. And yet, it seems, God does not immediately charge the oppressors with their crime, and there is no visible answer. Job is not denying God's justice; he is naming the agony of its apparent delay. And here his words touch the deepest chord of Scripture, for God does hear the groaning of the oppressed. He heard Israel: "I have surely seen the affliction of my people... and have heard their cry" (Exodus 3:7). The blood of Abel "crieth unto me from the ground" (Genesis 4:10). The cries Job describes are not lost; they rise to a God who hears every one, even when His answer tarries. The groaning of the wounded is heard in heaven, and it will be answered.

Explanation

Job voices the anguish of the oppressed: "Men groan from out of the city, and the soul of the wounded crieth out: yet God layeth not folly to them." The dying cry out, the wounded groan, and yet God seems not to charge the oppressors immediately. This is the raw edge of the mystery: real suffering, real cries, no visible answer. Job does not deny God's justice but names the agony of its delay. Yet his words touch the deepest chord of Scripture, for God does hear the groaning of the oppressed (Exodus 3:7; Genesis 4:10). No cry is lost; every one rises to a God who hears.

Gospel Focus

"Men groan from out of the city, and the soul of the wounded crieth out", the God who seems to delay is in fact the God who entered our groaning to answer it forever. In Jesus Christ, God did not merely hear the cry of the wounded from afar; He became the wounded One: "he was wounded for our transgressions... and with his stripes we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5). The Lord of glory groaned on the cross, and by His wounds He answered the deepest cry of a broken world, not only the cry against injustice, but the cry against sin and death themselves. And the risen Christ hears the groaning of His people still: "the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered" (Romans 8:26); the whole creation "groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now" (Romans 8:22), awaiting redemption. God's answer to the groan is not indifference but the cross and the coming glory. The martyrs under the altar cry, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood?" (Revelation 6:10), and they are told to rest yet a little season, for the day of reckoning is sure. Every groan of the wounded is stored up before God, and He who bore our wounds will wipe away all tears (Revelation 21:4) and set every wrong right. The groaning is heard; the answer is Christ, crucified for our healing and coming to judge the earth in righteousness.

Word Study

"exalted," Hebrew romu (רוֹמּוּ), lifted high. After all his wrestling, Job affirms the truth that resolves the tension: "They are exalted for a little while, but are gone and brought low." He grants the fact his friends denied, that the wicked really are lifted high in this life.

"for a little while," me'at (מְעַט), a short time. This small word carries the whole answer. The exaltation of the wicked is real but temporary. Job holds together both truths that his friends could not: the wicked really do prosper now (against the friends' false formula), and yet the wicked really will be judged in the end (against any despairing cynicism). The delay of justice is not its denial.

"brought low," humkakhu (הֻמָּכוּ), diminished, brought down. The reversal of their exaltation. In the end they are brought down and "taken out of the way as all other," dying like everyone else with none of their height preserved.

"cut off," yimmalu (יִמָּלוּ), cut off, cropped, as heads of grain at harvest. Job's closing image, "cut off as the tops of the ears of corn," is a harvest image, and harvest is one of Scripture's great pictures of final judgment: "the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels" (Matthew 13:39). The wicked flourish like tall grain for a season, but the reaper is coming. Job's faith rests here: however long the wicked are exalted, their "little while" will end, and God's harvest of justice is certain.

Explanation

Job affirms the truth that resolves the tension: the wicked are "exalted for a little while, but are gone and brought low... cut off as the tops of the ears of corn." Their triumph is temporary; in the end they are reaped like grain at harvest. Job holds together both truths his friends could not: the wicked really do prosper now, and yet they really will be judged in the end. The delay of justice is not its denial. The harvest image points to final judgment (Matthew 13:39): the wicked flourish like tall grain for a season, but the reaper is coming.

Gospel Focus

"They are exalted for a little while, but are gone and brought low", the certain end of the wicked, and the harvest that awaits, is fully revealed in the teaching of Jesus Christ. He told of the tares that grow with the wheat until "the harvest is the end of the world", when "the Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend" (Matthew 13:39-41). The exaltation of the wicked is measured in "a little while"; God's harvest is measured in eternity. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Galatians 6:7). This truth steadies the believer who watches evil rise: its rise is brief, its fall certain. But the Gospel also holds out mercy before the harvest comes. The same Christ who will reap the tares now pleads with sinners to be gathered as wheat, to repent and be saved before the day of harvest. And for the righteous, the harvest is not terror but glory: "then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father" (Matthew 13:43). Job's confidence, that the exalted wicked will be brought low, is the flip side of the believer's hope, that the humbled righteous will be raised high. So do not envy the wicked their little while of exaltation; it ends at the harvest. Sow to the Spirit, trust the risen Christ, and await the day when every wrong is reaped and the righteous shine forth in glory.