The Catchall

There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil.  Job 1:1  NASB Turning away – Finally, a participle.  To this point Job’s character has been described with adjectives (as we would expect).  Now we come to a participle, an action description of the…

Conversion

There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil.  Job 1:1  NASB Fearing God – We are familiar with the Hebrew verb yārēʾ.  Used hundreds of times, this word has a wide umbrella of related meanings: biblical usages of yārēʾ are divided into…

The Protagonist

There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil.  Job 1:1  NASB Upright – Now that we have discovered several oddities about the narrator’s introduction of Job, we should be much more sensitive when we read the words describing Job’s character.  We found…

Who’s Responsible?

There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil.  Job 1:1  NASB Blameless – The story of Job is a problem.  Yes, we can push the problem down into the human laundry basket while we rinse Job with theological softener.  But under the…

Enemy Mine

There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil.  Job 1:1  NASB Job – Do you know anyone named Job?  Ah, I didn’t think so (if you do, you might ask him how he feels about his name).  This is a name we…

The Introduction

There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil.  Job 1:1  NASB There was – Job’s tale is a sad and disturbing one.  It’s sad because none of us want to experience the trauma that Job endures.  It’s disturbing because it appears that…