For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Job 26:1-14

1 Then Job replied:

2 ‘How you have helped the powerless!
    How you have saved the arm that is feeble!
3 What advice you have offered to one without wisdom!
    And what great insight you have displayed!
4 Who has helped you utter these words?
    And whose spirit spoke from your mouth?

5 ‘The dead are in deep anguish,
    those beneath the waters and all that live in them.
6 The realm of the dead is naked before God;
    Destruction lies uncovered.
7 He spreads out the northern skies over empty space;
    he suspends the earth over nothing.
8 He wraps up the waters in his clouds,
    yet the clouds do not burst under their weight.
9 He covers the face of the full moon,
    spreading his clouds over it.
10 He marks out the horizon on the face of the waters
    for a boundary between light and darkness.
11 The pillars of the heavens quake,
    aghast at his rebuke.
12 By his power he churned up the sea;
    by his wisdom he cut Rahab to pieces.
13 By his breath the skies became fair;
    his hand pierced the gliding serpent.
14 And these are but the outer fringe of his works;
    how faint the whisper we hear of him!
    Who then can understand the thunder of his power?’

A. Find Out

1. What had Bildad done, according to Job’s cynicism? v.2,3
2. What point does Job make about death? v.5,6
3. List the things Job says God has done in  v.7-13
4. How does he describe that list? v.14a
5. Yet what does he say about the Lord? v.14b,c

B. Think:

1. How would you describe what Job says in v.2-4?
2. What is the point being made in v.5,6?
3. And what point does he make in the rest of the chapter?

C. Comment:

Job’s cynicism is blatant!  He implies he is powerless & feeble (v.2) and without wisdom (v.3) so when he asks what help Bildad has brought he is being utterly cynical. You haven’t helped at all is what he is saying! ‘Wherever did you dredge up that lot’ (v.4), a modern person might say. Previously he had spoken about the Lord taking away the wicked (24:22-24) and then Bildad had made such a cursory response as to almost be not worth speaking. Look, says Job, there is a great mystery in anything pertaining to God and the afterlife.

We believe, he says, there is an afterlife that is very uncertain (v.5) and this causes anguish and worry about what follows, but it doesn’t do that to God because everything about death is an open book to Him (v.6). There is no mystery to God for He has made the world (v.7), and the way it works (v.8,9). He determines the boundaries of the world and the skies (v.10) and when He speaks His power stirs up everything (v.11,12a)  and there is no creature that can stand before Him (v.12b,13).

But from our perspective these are just the tip of the iceberg of His activities (v.14a) and when He speaks we hear but a faint whisper (v.14b) so who can possibly understand this power, this way of speaking? (v.14c)

What is Job’s message? Well, we can go on and on about God but really the truth is that we know so little of Him and we understand so little of His activities. Let’s keep a right perspective!

D. Application:

1. We know sufficient of God to build our faith.
2. We know so little as to create awe and worship in us.