Job 28 Commentary: It must have been a few years ago that I lost my wallet for over a week. I thought it was in the car, but I searched there several times with no luck.

I was about to start calling my financial institutions and having them cancel my cards and things like that – when I checked one last time thoroughly and systematically that car. And I found it – there it was – under the passenger side seat.

I had looked there before. But apparently not hard enough.

Certain things in this life are easy to find. While, others are quite difficult.

But in Job, chapter 28 we’re going to have Job tell us that there’s one thing that’s utterly impossible for mere mortals to find. And that thing is wisdom.

So, let’s turn our attention to Job, chapter 28.

Now, we saw in the last chapter that Job was in agreement with his friends that – indeed – God does show his power against wicked men by punishing them.

But that causes Job to consider that he himself is receiving the fate of these wicked men – but he himself is righteous.

Job – a righteous man – even by God’s testimony – is suffering like the wicked are supposed to. And that makes no sense. He can’t understand God’s ways.

And as the message of this book goes, When We Can’t Understand God’s Ways, We Must Trust His Wisdom in Our Circumstances.

But in this chapter that we’re going to be studying now, Job admits that God’s wisdom is really difficult to find.

And what’s really interesting is that humankind has shown an amazing ability to find things that would seem to be nearly impossible to discover.

And so, this is what Job marvels at for the first 11 verses of this chapter – that there’s very little that’s hidden from human endeavor to discover it.

Job begins by speaking of mining precious metals.

KJV Job 28:1 Surely there is a [vein/mine] for [the silver/silver],

Yes, there is a place for silver and gold. And what we need to recognize is that that place is not usually out in the open. You usually need to search for it and dig it up.

And Job goes on to highlight human endeavor to excavate these metals.

2 Iron is taken [out of/from] the [earth/dust/ground],

And so, verses 1 and 2 are Job pointing to the existence of hard-to-find metals.

And now, he’s going to focus on mankind’s ability to find these metals in the earth.

3 [He/Man] [setteth/puts] an end to darkness,

the [stones/rock/ore] [of darkness/in gloom],

This is describing the darkness that’s found in caves and other places in which mining activities are carried out. It’s dark down there – but mankind puts an end to that darkness and finds what its looking for.

And Job goes on to speak more of spelunking in caves as people search for previous metals.

4 [The flood breaketh/He sinks a shaft] [out/far] from [the inhabitant/habitation/where people live];

they [are dried up/hang and swing to and fro/dangle and sway],

Now, the word behind “flood” is translated elsewhere as “valley” 23 times. It