Week 25 Job 31
Job is getting near the end of his debate with EBZ and in this chapter he makes a whole bunch of conditional comments.
If X…then Y.
If Situation X happens…then Outcome Y occurs.
With Job the pattern is: “if I’d done Wrong Action X then the result would be Negative Outcome Y”.
I counted the number of times Job said if I’d done… I found 13. But there’s more than that because Job also switches off and uses words about equal to if I’d done. Phrases like or I’d done & and I’d done & the question have I done? Different ways of saying if I’d done. I added the ‘if I’d dones’ + ‘or I’d dones’ + ‘and I’d dones’ + ‘have I dones’ and got 33 – give-or-take. That’s quite a few conditionals in a 40-verse chapter.
Approximately 33 Hypothetical Concessions from Job: if I did Wrong Action X then I deserve Negative Outcome Y.
Job knew that one of the Inescapable Laws of the Universe was: If I Do Wrong Then I’ll Be Penalized. He had no argument with that Law; didn’t have any concern with it. His (Big) concern was the flip-side: if I’ve done nothing wrong will I get penalized? (And it really looked to Job like the answer was “Yes!”)
Job’s dilemma was that he figured he was in-the-right.
EBZ’s observation was that Job had been smashed to pieces and therefore he had to be in-the-wrong.
So in the end EBZ gave up on Stubborn Job.