Job 28

The writer takes the scenic route to the main topic of the chapter: the nature of wisdom. Respectfully, mining seem to have nothing to do with wisdom. But the connection is the hunt. People mine for jewels, gold, and silver. People search for wisdom, too. Spoiler alert: the writers says humans don’t know where to find it because only God knows. Fortunately, the writer says God tells us what it is and what it looks like. Some scholars say wisdom isn’t something we can take for ourselves and carry it away, like mined gold or jewels. It’s more like the other way around. Through our faith and behavior, wisdom is what we become and what carries us away. We become the jewels. Someone should probably preach that.

Most Old Testament Bible scholars seem to agree that the person who wrote Job did not write this chapter, which reads more like it belongs in Proverbs. So, scholars don’t generally treat it as a speech by Job or any of his visitors. Some scholars treat it as a separate poem about wisdom that someone in the past 2,000 years or more inserted into Job’s story.

The writer doesn’t talk about pits or vertical shafts, but the swaying could describe miners lowered by rope into a pit. There they mine for jewels in the shaft walls.

Lapis, which is short for “lapis lazuli,” is a metamorphic rock, morphed from forces such as intense heat and pressure. They contain colorful minerals, especially lazurite. The rocks are often blue and have shown up as artifacts from almost 10,000 year ago. Today they are described as semi-precious, somewhat like the child of one’s boss—cherished, but not as much as our own jewels.

It’s unclear in many cases which precious stones the writer was describing. That’s why there’s so much disagreement among Bible translations.

“Destruction” is literally Abaddon, which can mean dead or destroyed. It’s another name for the grave, or Sheol.

Some scholars say God did more than see wisdom. They read Proverbs 8: 22-31 and argue that this says God created wisdom. Yet others argue that those verses reveal that wisdom existed before Creation: “I [wisdom] was with the LORD in the beginning, before he created anything” (Proverbs 8:22).

This “Lord” means master or owner, unlike “LORD.” Most Bibles that capitalize LORD are referring to a term used more than 7,000 times the Bible. It refers to the name of God, abbreviated in ancient Hebrew writings as YHWH. Bible experts are left to guess what vowels to add. The ancients didn’t use vowels in the Bible. Dropping them saved space on the scrolls. The current guess about the full word: Yahweh (YAH way).