Week 26 Job 38
The first thing the Lord says in his wrap-up is: who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?
Eliphaz Bildad Zophar & Elihu – each one had given his opinion. And the first thing the Lord did was ask this worrisome question.
The Lord talks about Counsel as if it was colourable. He doesn’t specify the original colour of Counsel but it’s got be in the white-vanilla-beige range because he says his original Counsel has been discoloured and darkened down.
How is it possible to darken White Counsel? It’s possible by adding words-without-knowledge (there might be other ways to tone down White Counsel but if there are they’re not mentioned here).
I admit that I’ve been impressed by some of the things EBZ and Elihu have said in their conversation with Job. Quite a few have sounded pretty good & pretty knowledgeable. But now it looks like the Lord hasn’t been nearly as impressed as I have. He says that these men had started with White Counsel – fresh & bright & clean – and worked at darkening it down. Blue. Purple. Mauve. Brown. Black. Doesn’t much matter which colour they used. They’re all darkeners. White Counsel’s preferred tone is white. But see how easy it is to tone it down. To tint it into Dark Counsel.
So there’s at least two kinds of advice/counsel:
The kind that brightens knowledge.
And the kind that muddies it up.
And Job 38-41 is a reminder of counsel’s Colour Management.
Note: quote from Job 38:2 (NIV)