Medicine Hat Joe

Week 26  Job 32

Yesterday I read what frustrated Eliphaz Bildad & Zophar (EBZ) about Job: he was righteous in his own eyes. That’s the gist of the Job vs. EBZ debate – they thought Job was wrong because he was righteous in his own eyes.
The EBZ Rule was: a bad person experiences negative consequences. Since things were going badly for Job that proved that Job had to have done something bad. Bad things don’t happen to good people. They happen to bad people.
I got to thinking about the upshots of my life inputs. If I whittle it down to pretty simple terms I can practice either a) good life inputs or b) bad life inputs. And the results will be either a) good upshots or b) bad upshots.
Working with those four factors I end up with four basic combinations:
1. Good upshots can happen to people with good inputs
2. Bad upshots can happen to people with bad inputs
3. Good upshots can happen to people with bad inputs
4. Bad upshots can happen to people with good inputs.
EBZ were operating on a two-option model:
1. Good upshots happen to people with good inputs
2. Bad upshots happen to people with bad inputs
Even though EBZ never got a chance to read Galatians they knew very well that a man reaps what he sows.
What they didn’t read and didn’t realize was that sometimes a man also reaps what he doesn’t sow.

Note: quotes from Job 32:1 & Galatians 6:7 (NIV)

Week 26  Job 32

I don’t know who wrote the book of Job but whoever it was didn’t get much opportunity for creative input. He was mostly a stenographer copying and recording the speeches of Job & Eliphaz Bildad Zophar (EBZ) & Elihu.
I wondered how much the editor actually said for himself so I went back and counted the verses. I found 47 descriptive verses plus another 23-verses of intros (Job said this. Eliphaz said that). There’s about 1069-verses in Job so that means that the editor only got to write his own comments in 6.5% of the book.
Anyway the point is that here in chapter 32 the writer is writing his own 6-verse introductory comment about Elihu and he summarized chapters 3-31 like this: EBZ stopped answering Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes. This was an interesting phrase to me: Job was righteous in his own eyes (another version says that Job kept insisting on his innocence).
So if someone asked me for a one-sentence synopsis of what Job thought about his situation it would be: “I am innocent”. And that was the whole reason for the conflict between Job & EBZ (and eventually Elihu).
Job: “I’m innocent”
EBZ&E: “No you’re not innocent”
There’s not much room for negotiation there. With no common ground there’s mostly just room for altercation.

Note: quote from Job 32:1 (NIV & NLT). The verse-number counts are approximate so don’t take them to the bank.

Week 25  Job 1 & 2

I was thinking about Satan again. Wondering about him.
I got out my word book and looked up “Satan”. I was surprised to see that the name only shows up eighteen times in the OT. Once in Chronicles. Three times in Zechariah. And fourteen times right here in Job 1 & 2.
In those first two chapters of Job Satan’s view starts to take shape. He said that Job (who the Lord said was blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil) was only loyal to the Lord because he is wealthy and successful.
Satan asked: if Job’s wealth & his health were gone what would he do?
Satan answered: he’d curse the Lord!
Satan’s Theory of Religious Devotion was that loyalty to the Lord was connected to Life Circumstances. There were two linked principles:
1) When life is good a person’s devotion & loyalty are strong
2) But if things go bad God gets shelved.
It’s a pretty straightforward view and I’m pretty sure Satan isn’t the only one who has it.
Satan thought that by dialing-back the good circumstances of Job’s life he would produce a negative religious reaction.
I think Satan was likely onto something. It’s a reminder that I can’t hitch my faith-in-the-Lord wagon to the good life.
Good things in life might tell me something affirmative about the Lord.
But bad times have nothing negative to tell me about him.

Note: quote from Job 1:8 (NIV)

Week 25  Job 1

The second scene in the book is an odd one. Satan appears before the Lord. They are on speaking-terms. The Lord asks Satan where have you come from? and Satan replies from roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.
The book of Job doesn’t say how much roaming around on earth Satan was doing.
I check a word book and see that ‘roaming’ is only used twice in the bible – both in Job. The back of the word book says roaming can also mean things like:
go back and forth
move to and fro
roam to and fro
rush back and forth.
They aren’t too helpful. I wonder which apply to Satan.
The word ‘roam’ can give the impression of wandering (maybe even aimless wandering). That might be but in this case I don’t think there’s anything very aimless about Satanic roaming. My sense is that he’s very deliberate. Intentional. Diabolically-focused.
I check a NT cross-reference where Peter implies that Satan – like a lion – is roaming more-or-less constantly. He’s always on-the-prowl. The reason why? He’s looking for someone to devour.
In Job Satan’s roaming starts out seeming like it could be a pretty neutral activity. But only at first. I just have to read to the end of the chapter to see that Satan doesn’t operate indifferently. Satan on-the-roam is someone to be concerned about.

Note: quotes from Job 1:7 & 1 Peter 5:8 (NIV). Word meanings are from the NASB Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible.

Week 25  Song of Solomon

Today I’m wondering: what does Solomon have to do with the Song of Solomon?
I tend to think that Song of Solomon means “A Song: Written by Solomon”. But it could also mean “A Song About Solomon”.
If it’s a song about Solomon then I’d think Solomon would be featured.
I decide to go back and check to see what I can find about Solomon.
“Solomon” is named three times.
I find “King Solomon” twice.
There’s the word “king” twice (I figure that the king is Solomon).
Out of the seven references four of them don’t help much.
The other three aren’t quite so fuzzy. The girl says:
Let the king bring me into his chambers
While the king was at his table, my perfume spread its fragrance
Solomon had a vineyard in Baal Hamon…But my own vineyard is mine to give.
If Solomon is ‘the king’ in the first two quotes then it sounds like there’s some kind of connection or contact between him and the girl. But in the end the girl turns her back on him (my own vineyard is mine and I’m not giving it to you).
If Solomon is part of the cast he plays a pretty small part (and he doesn’t seem like a good guy). So I have my doubts about this being “A Song About Solomon”. But if it is it isn’t flattering.

Note: quotes from Song of Solomon 1:4 12 8:11-12 (NIV). The four other mentions are 1:5 3:7 9 11.

Week 25  Song of Solomon

I’ve never really thought much about the title of the book. But when a book calls itself a “Song” then it’s pretty safe to guess that that’s what it is.
It’s called Song of Songs. Or Solomon’s Song of Songs.
Sometimes it’s called Canticles (“canticle” in English means song).
I think the reason I got to thinking about this was because in the bible version that I’m reading there are a bunch of subheadings in italics that identify who is saying or singing that part. And there are Three Characters: the Beloved. The Friends. And the Lover.
The Lover is a guy
The Beloved is a girl
The Friends are – maybe – observers. Responders.
So this year the Song of Solomon started to look more like the words of a piece of musical theatre.
I wondered what it would be like to see a young woman appear on a stage. There’s a back-up quartet of instruments. She sings let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.
A choir or chorus is spotlighted: we rejoice and delight in you; we will praise your love more than wine.
Then a guy is on stage replying to the girl: your cheeks are beautiful with earrings, your neck with strings of pearls.
Back and forth. The girl. The guy. The chorus.
Seeing & hearing a theatrical performance vs. reading the words of the script is a totally different experience.

Note: quotes from Song of Solomon 1:2 4 16 (NIV)

Week 24  2 Chronicles 36

In the last week of May 2023 I ranked the fifteen kings of Judah. I purposely didn’t bother with the last four kings since it’s a little difficult to think of a person being a king if a foreign ruler is telling him what to do. But technically there were 19 kings. Not 15.
I decided to look at the Last Four this year: Jehoahaz Jehoiakim Jehoiachin & Zedekiah. The one big thing they had in common was that they all did evil in the sight of the Lord. Even though Jehoahaz and Jehoiachin only had short reigns – about three months – they took that narrow window of opportunity to do-evil (and it’s possible they acted evilly before the were crowned and after they were deposed.)
Anyway the point is that I didn’t find anything good about any of them. And what that means is that if I had included them in my 2023 ranking they all would have been at or near the very bottom of the list for the same reason that landed Ahaziah Jehoram Ahaz & Amon at numbers 12 13 14 & 15 last year: not a single good quality was recorded about them.

Note: an interesting take-away for me was the reminder about Jehoiachin. In his long exile in Babylon he had a grandson named Zerubbabel who was one of the people who returned to Jerusalem after the exile. His story is told in Ezra 1-6. And one other thing…Jehoiachin and Zerubbabel also show up in Matthew 1 – the family name list of Jesus.

Week 23  2 Chronicles 36

Here are the key facts about the very last king of Judah:
Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king
He reigned for eleven years
The chronicler adds a couple of other details. First is that Zedekiah had taken an oath of loyalty in God’s name to not rebel against Babylon (but he rebelled anyway). The second thing is that Zedekiah was a hard and stubborn man, refusing to turn to the Lord.
Finally – like the other three kings – Zedekiah did what was evil in the sight of the Lord his God.
2 Kings adds a couple of details about the siege of Jerusalem. But it’s really Jeremiah who spends more time in his book talking about what was going on in Jerusalem during Zedekiah’s reign (in fact Jeremiah 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 37 38 39 all talk about those years) (35 & 36 are about Jehoiakim).
Even though a lot of the content of those 10 chapters in Jeremiah are about Jeremiah and his prophecies one interesting thing I found out about Zedekiah is that even though he publicly rejected Jeremiah’s advice (in fact Jeremiah was locked in prison for spreading anti-state propaganda) the king secretly visited him a couple of times sniffing-around for some advice & input (the Babylonian army was at the city gates and maybe Zedekiah hoped the Lord would bail him out). But in the end Zedekiah didn’t listen to Jeremiah. The last king of Judah was a hard and stubborn man. And stayed that way all the way into exile.

Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 36:13 12 (NLT)

Week 23  2 Chronicles 36

Key facts about Judah’s second last king:
Jehoiachin was 18 years old when he became king
He reigned for three months and ten days (the 2 Kings version rounds it down to three months)
At that point Nebuchadnezzar brought Jehoiachin to Babylon. The Bible I’m reading says that Jehoiachin was ‘summoned’ to Babylon. But when I turn back to the Kings version of the story it looks like it was something stronger than a ‘summons’. 2 Kings says that: 1) the Babylonian army had Jerusalem under siege. 2) Jehoiachin surrendered to the Babylonians. And 3) Jehoiachin was taken prisoner.
Then one final thing: Jehoiachin did what was evil in the Lord’s sight.
I had hoped that Jeremiah would give me some extra information (like with Jehoiakim) – but he dropped-the-ball. At least at first. I checked a word book and found that Jehoiachin’s name showed up in the last chapter of Jeremiah. So how did things turn out for Jehoiachin?
He was a prisoner in Babylon for 37-years
He was then released from prison
He was given a living allowance that covered his expenses for the rest of his life.
So in the end things turned around a little bit for Jehoiachin.
As a teen-aged king Jehoiachin did what was evil in the Lord’s sight. I wondered if he’d had a change of heart there in Babylonian exile.
Maybe. But I didn’t find anything to say he did.

Note: quote from 2 Chronicles 36:9 2 Kings 24:12 (NLT). And see Jeremiah 52:31-34

Week 23  2 Chronicles 36

One snippet-account of Jehoiakim is in 2 Chronicles 36:5-8 (4 verses).
The other short version is in 2 Kings 23:36-24:5 (7 verses).
The passages don’t give me much to go on but the key facts about the third last king are:
Jehoiakim was 25 years old when he became king
He reigned for eleven years
During his reign Judah was taken over by Babylon and Jehoiakim was exiled to Babylon
He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight.
It’s pretty meager information to go on. That’s why Jeremiah’s prophecies add some useful data. For instance Jeremiah told Jehoiakim you are full of selfish greed and dishonesty. You murder the innocent, oppress the poor, and reign ruthlessly.
Jeremiah also told the story of a prophet named Uriah who forecast doom against Judah. Jehoiakim didn’t like what he heard and tracked down Uriah and killed him.
And on another occasion Jeremiah wrote down all his prophecies and sent the scroll to Jehoiakim. The king’s reaction was to cut the scroll into little pieces and incinerate them.
I don’t know if there’s any way to fairly compare Jehoahaz & Jehoiakim. They both did evil in the sight of the Lord. The big difference is that Jehoiakim had about forty-times more time to do his evil than Three-Month Jehoahaz. Does that make Jehoiakim qualitatively worse? Not necessarily. About all I can say now is that Jehoiakim got more chances to practice his evil. And he took them.

Note: quote from 2 Kings 23:37 & Jeremiah 22:17 (NLT). And see Jeremiah’s stories in 26:20-23 & 36:1-26.