07.04.2014 Old Testament: Job 29.21–25

To read the Bible in a year, read Job 29–30 on July 4, In the year of our Lord 2014

By Don Ruhl

Job recalled his former days when the people of his community, perhaps even his nation, held him in high regard, whereas during his severe losses, the same people mocked him and degraded him. What Job said about himself in the following passage might have been true, but it became unpleasant to hear when he boasted of it,

“Men listened to me and waited,
And kept silence for my counsel.
After my words they did not speak again,
And my speech settled on them as dew.
They waited for me as for the rain,
And they opened their mouth wide as for the spring rain.
If I mocked at them, they did not believe it,
And the light of my countenance they did not cast down.
I chose the way for them, and sat as chief;
So I dwelt as a king in the army,
As one who comforts mourners.”
(Job 29.21–25) 

What we should do, instead of speaking of how great we are or used to be, is to let others say those things of us, as Solomon declared,

Let another man praise you, and not your own mouth;
A stranger, and not your own lips.
(Proverbs 27.2)