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Job 68: Study 54: Job 4:21 – Wisdom, From God

Job 4:21

Does not their life thread break within them,

   They die, devoid of wisdom.

 

I worked on 14:16 this morning. I loved the way people or people groups let themselves get in the way of God’s message in this verse, and the ones around it. (Is that sarcasm and is it a sin?) Without a doubt, the words in Hebrew must have a variety of possibilities with shades of meanings as is true in English. But one guy made something up he liked and admitted he did so because others did also. How typical of people making light of their missing the mark because of the actions of others. Talk about devoid of wisdom.

“Life thread” was my favorite aspect of this verse. It comes from one of these Hebrew words with shades of meaning that “tent cord” was probably the most obvious for. In addition to tent cord, options were “own excellence”, “their excellency”, “cord”, and “wealth”. While the main meaning of the term was tent cord, the secondary meaning was life thread and tent cord just does not quite carry this spiritual life-threatening aspect.

“Break within them” essentially means that when this life thread breaks the person dies. Alternatives included “plucked within them” (following the cord aspect of the word), “pulled up” (from the tent aspect), “go away” (from excellence), and “wanders away” (wealth). Interesting that each verb comes with a separate noun.

“They die” was 100%. Still not sure how excellence going away or wealth wandering away leads to death, but since I did not use them, maybe it does not matter.

“Devoid” was picked over ”without”, “not with”, and “having gained no”. They seem similar, but I liked devoid as the more “spiritual” of the terms.

This is the end of the chapter and the mid-point of Eliphaz’s first speech. I always assumed that Eliphaz stops quoting the spirit and throws in his own thoughts before the end of chapter 5, but I (and others) am not sure where to put the break. I currently assume after 5:2 as 5:3 starts with “I myself…”.

Either way, this last piece of chapter 4 is the unknown spirit throwing out the worthlessness of man or Eliphaz using that excuse to do so. It basically says men live and die having never had the opportunity to gain wisdom. This is defeatist, and flies in the face of later arguments that wisdom can be found in old people and the lessons from those who have gone before. Make no mistake, man is worthless if not for God. God created them, loves them, and wants to live in them. God is the differentiation between a life worth living. As we “listen” to what Eliphaz says, we have to open our hearts to the lessons God has for us in them. From this verse: If we want wisdom, God can provide or we will not get it.

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