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Job 28:1 Surely there is a vein for the silver, and a place for gold where they fine it.

Job 28:2 Iron is taken out of the earth, and brass is molten out of the stone.

Job 28:3 He setteth an end to darkness, and searcheth out all perfection: the stones of darkness, and the shadow of death.

Job 28:4 The flood breaketh out from the inhabitant; even the waters forgotten of the foot: they are dried up, they are gone away from men.

Job 28:5 As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is turned up as it were fire.

Job 28:6 The stones of it are the place of sapphires: and it hath dust of gold.

Job 28:7 There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture’s eye hath not seen:

Job 28:8 The lion’s whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it.

Job 28:9 He putteth forth his hand upon the rock; he overturneth the mountains by the roots.

Job 28:10 He cutteth out rivers among the rocks; and his eye seeth every precious thing.

Job 28:11 He bindeth the floods from overflowing; and the thing that is hid bringeth he forth to light.

Introduction

Job will be holding the floor through chapter 31. He is in the process of declaring his own righteousness and his knowledge of God and God’s ways. But he is also judging the wicked of whom he thinks he is not. Having no concept of self- righteousness and of being judged out of his own mouth, Job continues to do just that, condemning the beast and the man of sin which is in his own members.

Rom 7:17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

Rom 7:19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

Rom 7:20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

Rom 7:21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.

Rom 7:22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

Rom 7:23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

These verses of Rom 7 are rank heresy to us while we are in our Babylonian, self- righteous, Job stage of our walk. Like Job, we know nothing at all of a ‘law of sin… in [ our] members’, to which we are, by nature, enslaved. We are carnal babes in Christ, who think we have had our senses exercised to know good and evil.

1Co 3:1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.

1Co 3:2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.

1Co 3:3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?

1Co 3:4 For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?

Heb 5:13 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.

Heb 5:14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

In Babylon we are always speaking far above our own understanding. We say “God is love”, and we know not what we are saying. We will say “His mercy endures forever”. and we do not know what we are saying. We say “God is sovereign” and do not know what we are saying. So too, Job will be speaking far above his own understanding in this chapter.

Job 28:1 Surely there is a vein for the silver, and a place for gold where they fine it.

Job 28:2 Iron is taken out of the earth, and brass is molten out of the stone.

All the metals mentioned here require being refined in fire. That is the meaning of “there is… a place for gold where they fine [ refine] it”. Refining in fire is essential even for the basest of metals. From lead to tin, to iron, to copper, to silver, and to gold, fire is essential to the basest of metals as well as the most valuable. See all the studies on iswasandwillbe. com, on all the metals mentioned in scripture.

Job knows that fire is required for purifying any and all metals, but he does not understand how personally applicable are the lessons of the words he is speaking. Job does not believe that he needs to be purified of anything. He is already “clean without transgression”. He maintains his own righteousness, and his own integrity.

Job 33:8 Surely thou hast spoken in mine hearing, and I have heard the voice of thy words, saying,

Job 33:9 I am clean without transgression, I am innocent; neither is there iniquity in me.

Nevertheless this is the Truth of this matter for all mankind:

Num 31:22 Only the gold, and the silver, the brass, the iron, the tin, and the lead,

Every thing that may abide the fire, ye shall make it go through the fire, and it shall be clean: nevertheless it shall be purified with the water of separation: and all that abideth not the fire ye shall make go through the water.

1Co 3:13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.

1Co 3:14 If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.

1Co 3:15 If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

The works of all flesh will be burned up, not because we chose to do so, but because God Himself ordained that we all bear a sinful earthy body before we would wear a heavenly body:

1Co 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

1Co 15:46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.

1Co 15:47 The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.

1Co 15:48 As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.

1Co 15:49 And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

1Co 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

Job 28:3 He setteth an end to darkness, and searcheth out all perfection: the stones of darkness, and the shadow of death.

“Setting an end to darkness” is not ‘plan B’ for God. ‘Darkness’ is the Biblical type of ignorance of the thoughts of the mind of God and His Son. All men are first children of darkness and are born into “the shadow of death”, because Biblical ‘darkness’ and “the shadow of death” are one and the same, in scriptural terms:

Mat 4:16 The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.

So the “end to darkness” which God Himself “create[ d]” was “set” by God Himself “before the world began”. It was God Himself who “create[ d] darkness”, and He created it for the very purpose of first placing us, His creatures, in that darkness. It is only by first being “in darkness” that God demonstrates for His creatures what is the light in which we now dwell with Him if indeed He is living in us and we are in living in Him and in His Son.

Isa 45:4 For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.

Isa 45:5 I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:

Isa 45:6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.

Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

When did Christ do all of this? Did God “set an end to darkness” as a means of dealing with the unforeseen result of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, which caused our first parents to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? When do the scriptures teach us God made this decision to place us first into darkness and in need of a Savior from our sins, and to “set and end to darkness”? Here is the Biblical answer to that question:

1Co 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:

2Ti 1:9 Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

Tit 1:2 In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

God is not operating on ‘plan B’! He is the ultimate cause of all things, including all the sinful creatures which He has filled with darkness, and whose darkness He has “set an end… before the world began”.

Job 28:4 The flood breaketh out from the inhabitant; even the waters forgotten of the foot: they are dried up, they are gone away from men.

Just like the light and the darkness, which were both created by and whose dark end is set by God, so too, the floods are brought upon our sinful lives. “Forgotten of the foot” is a phrase which, in Biblical terms, refers to our walk and the way in which we conduct our lives. The word ‘darkness’ in the previous verse, refers to the walk we are first given. It is God who gives us to lose our first love, to walk first in darkness, and to forget that even the floods of life are given to us by our own heavenly Father for our own good.

King David, Isaiah and all the prophets proclaim this same message concerning the sovereign work of God even over the evils of our lives:

Psa 107:25 For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.

Psa 107:26 They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.

Psa 107:27 They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end.

Psa 107:28 Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.

Psa 107:29 He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.

The knowledge of the Truth of those words of Psa 107 are “the waters [ which are] forgotten of the foot… are dried up, [ and] are gone away from men”. So too, is the truth of these verses of scripture:

Isa 63:17 O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.

Pro 16:4 The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

Mankind is “out of the ground” and is made in that marred form just as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, as well as the tree of life, all first come “out of the ground”, and are all conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity before they are then “made… anew… as it seemed good to the Potter to make it.

Job 28:5 As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is turned up as it were fire.

Job 28:6 The stones of it are the place of sapphires: and it hath dust of gold.

We are back to the fact that God has ordained that purification comes only through ‘pur’ the Greek word for ‘fire’, from which we get our English word pure or purify. So we are plainly told:

Heb 12:6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

Heb 12:7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

The “fire… under… the earth” which produces the precious stones and gold, is the chastening and scourging of a loving heavenly Father, who has ordained that it be so “before the world began”.

1Co 3:13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire [ Greek ‘pur’, fire, God’s chastening, scourging fire]; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.

1Co 3:14 If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.

1Co 3:15 If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

Job 28:7 There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture’s eye hath not seen:

Job 28:8 The lion’s whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it.

While there is always both a positive and a negative application for every word of scripture, and while the dove is used as a symbol of the spirit of God and the lion of the tribe of Judah is Christ, when the word ‘fowl’, especially in conjunction with “the vulture’s eye”, is used, it is clear that we are speaking here of those unclean fowl which “snatch away the word” and which torment God’s people before they are delivered from the power of those spirits. When a ‘lion is mentioned in this same context, it is obviously referring to the lion which was sent to devour God’s people.

It is no less than Christ Himself who reveals to us the meaning of “the fowls”.

Mat 13:3 And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;

Mat 13:4 And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:

So what does Christ explain are “the fowls”?

Mat 13:18 Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower.

Mat 13:19 When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.

Here is the scripture which tells us what this “fierce lion” is:

1Pe 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

Here is an example of “a path which no fowl knows and which the vulture’s eye has not seen [ and which] the lion’s whelps have not trodden”. Here is an example of what “the wicked one… has not seen”, and to which “the wicked one” is not yet made privy:

Mat 8:28 And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way.

Mat 8:29 And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?

As this entire book of Job demonstrates, all ‘fowl’, and ‘roaring lion[ s]’ are nothing more or less than mere servants and instruments of our heavenly Father, to the extent that they are said to be “from the Lord” and are called “Thy hand”:

Job 1:11 But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.

Job 1:12 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.

1Sa 16:14 But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.

1Sa 16:15 And Saul’s servants said unto him, Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee.

Job 28:9 He putteth forth his hand upon the rock; he overturneth the mountains by the roots.

If indeed God’s “hand” is the devil, as Job 1 and 2 demonstrate, then when “He puts forth His hand upon the Rock”, and if Christ is that ‘Rock’, then we must conclude that it was God Himself who put forth His hand” upon our Lord, to deliver Him up to the death of the cross. Is that not exactly what the scripture tell us?

Act 4:25 Who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things?

Act 4:26 The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ.

Act 4:27 For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together,

Act 4:28 For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.

Job 28:10 He cutteth out rivers among the rocks; and his eye seeth every precious thing.

Job 28:11 He bindeth the floods from overflowing; andthe thing that is hid bringeth he forth to light.

“The thing that is hid brings He forth to light”, is just another way of saying that there is nothing which is hidden from our Lord.

Mar 4:22 For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad.

An even deeper understanding of the mind of our Lord and His Father teaches us that from God’s perspective ‘the light and the darkness are both alike’ to Him, and the Truth is that we cannot hide even our very thoughts from Him simply because even those thoughts are His work, are “of the Lord”, and are known by Him before they are ever conceived within us.

Psa 139:2 Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.

Psa 139:3 Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.

Psa 139:4 For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.

Psa 139:5 Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.

Psa 139:6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.

Psa 139:7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

Psa 139:8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

Psa 139:9 If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

Psa 139:10 Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

Psa 139:11 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.

Psa 139:12 Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light areboth alike to thee.

So God is not trying to keep up with the affairs of all mankind, but is rather working all of mankind’saffairs after the counsel of His own will.

Pro 16:1 The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.

Pro 16:4 The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

Eph 1:8 Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence;

Eph 1:9 Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:

Eph 1:10 That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:

Eph 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

Eph 1:12 That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.

Next week, if the Lord wills, we will learn what is the source of all wisdom.

Job 28:12 But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding?

Job 28:13 Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living.

Job 28:14 The depth saith, It is not in me: and the sea saith, It is not with me.

Job 28:15 It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.

Job 28:16 It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire.

Job 28:17 The gold and the crystal cannot equal it: and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold.

Job 28:18 No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls: for the price of wisdom is above rubies.

Job 28:19 The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shall it be valued with pure gold.

Job 28:20 Whence then cometh wisdom? and where is the place of understanding?

Job 28:21 Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the fowls of the air.

Job 28:22 Destruction and death say, We have heard the fame thereof with our ears.

Job 28:23 God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place thereof.

Job 28:24 For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven;

Job 28:25 To make the weight for the winds; and he weigheth the waters by measure.

Job 28:26 When he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder:

Job 28:27 Then did he see it, and declare it; he prepared it, yea, and searched it out.

Job 28:28 And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.