Job 28: 1 – 28
Why All The Hubbub, Bub?
1 “Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place where gold is refined. 2 Iron is taken from the earth, and copper is smelted from ore. 3 Man puts an end to darkness, and searches every recess for ore in the darkness and the shadow of death. 4 He breaks open a shaft away from people; in places forgotten by feet they hang far away from men; they swing to and fro. 5 As for the earth, from it comes bread, but underneath it is turned up as by fire; 6 its stones are the source of sapphires, and it contains gold dust. 7 That path no bird knows, nor has the falcon’s eye seen it. 8 The proud lions have not trodden it, nor has the fierce lion passed over it. 9 He puts his hand on the flint; He overturns the mountains at the roots. 10 He cuts out channels in the rocks, and His eye sees every precious thing. 11 He dams up the streams from trickling; what is hidden he brings forth to light. 12 “But where can wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? 13 Man does not know its value, nor is it found in the land of the living. 14 The deep says, ‘It is not in me’; And the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’ 15 It cannot be purchased for gold, nor can silver be weighed for its price. 16 It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir, in precious onyx or sapphire. 17 Neither gold nor crystal can equal it, nor can it be exchanged for jewelry of fine gold. 18 No mention shall be made of coral or quartz, for the price of wisdom is above rubies. 19 The topaz of Ethiopia cannot equal it, nor can it be valued in pure gold. 20 “From where then does wisdom come? And where is the place of understanding? 21 It is hidden from the eyes of all living, and concealed from the birds of the air. 22 Destruction and Death say, ‘we have heard a report about it with our ears.’ 23 God understands its way, and He knows its place. 24 For He looks to the ends of the earth, and sees under the whole heavens, 25 to establish a weight for the wind, and apportion the waters by measure. 26 When He made a law for the rain, and a path for the thunderbolt, 27 then He saw wisdom and declared it; He prepared it, indeed, He searched it out. 28 And to man He said, ‘behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.’ ”
It is not likely that someone would say at a hospital, ‘what’s all the hubbub, bub?’ - Unless, it was the loudest, most insane day ever experienced in a place that is usually quiet. A hubbub is chaotic, disorganized, loud, and distracting. Sometimes, hubbub can mean a controversy as we see in the book of Job. It is a loud confused noise that is especially unintelligible and comes from many sources.
So, why am I bringing this up? If you have been studying this book of the Bible with us you will most likely be confused as to the reason or purpose all this information regarding precious metals and jewels is inserted?
Back in chapter 11 verse 6 we learned that Zophar had wished that God would show Job the "secrets of wisdom’’ Job says ‘no’ to this statement, "secret things belong not to us, but things only our Holy God wants to reveal.
When you have time on your hands you can either be inspired by our Precious Holy Spirit to invest in seeking knowledge. This is why you hear from us Pastors to take time to read the word of God on a daily basis. In the Old Testament we see a king who sought out worldly knowledge but with the gift of wisdom could see and understand its significance. I am talking about Solomon. Let us look at the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 1, “12 I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 And I set my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven; this burdensome task God has given to the sons of man, by which they may be exercised. 14 I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind. 15 What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be numbered. 16 I communed with my heart, saying, “Look, I have attained greatness, and have gained more wisdom than all who were before me in Jerusalem. My heart has understood great wisdom and knowledge.” 17 And I set my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is grasping for the wind. 18 for in much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.”
Job observes that man goes to extreme pains to gather rare stones and metals from the earth yet if he put in just a little of that effort would be able to obtain something which is more valuable and that is ‘wisdom’.
1 “Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place where gold is refined. 2 Iron is taken from the earth, and copper is smelted from ore. 3 Man puts an end to darkness, and searches every recess for ore in the darkness and the shadow of death. 4 He breaks open a shaft away from people; in places forgotten by feet they hang far away from men; they swing to and fro. 5 As for the earth, from it comes bread, but underneath it is turned up as by fire; 6 its stones are the source of sapphires, and it contains gold dust. 7 That path no bird knows, nor has the falcon’s eye seen it. 8 The proud lions have not trodden it, nor has the fierce lion passed over it. 9 He puts his hand on the flint; He overturns the mountains at the roots. 10 He cuts out channels in the rocks, and His eye sees every precious thing. 11 He dams up the streams from trickling; what is hidden he brings forth to light.
Our Holy God hid in the earth certain metals such as gold and silver in small quantities. In heaven these rare items are used in building materials. I like the story of a rich guy who wanted to take his wealth with him so he packed a suit case full of gold. When he got to heaven he was asked to open his bag. When the angel saw what was in the bag he asked the guy as to why would bring road and sidewalk material to heaven?
Have you ever seen some TV programs that go around and ask people on the street questions? I think it became popular by Jay Leno. One time the TV personality asked some people what is the 49ers? Almost all said it was a pro football team. When asked what was the reason behind the name they did not know.
The discovery of gold nuggets in the Sacramento Valley in early 1848 sparked the Gold Rush, arguably one of the most significant events to shape American history during the first half of the 19th century. As news spread of the discovery, thousands of prospective gold miners traveled by sea or over land to San Francisco and the surrounding area; by the end of 1849, the non-native population of the California territory was some 100,000 (compared with the pre-1848 figure of less than 1,000). A total of $2 billion worth of precious metal was extracted from the area during the Gold Rush, which peaked in 1852. Miners extracted more than 750,000 pounds of gold during the California Gold Rush.
On January 24, 1848, James Wilson Marshall, a carpenter originally from New Jersey, found flakes of gold in the American River at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains near Coloma, California. At the time, Marshall was working to build a water-powered sawmill owned by John Sutter, a German-born Swiss citizen and founder of a colony of Nueva Helvetia (New Switzerland). (The colony would later become the city of Sacramento.) As Marshall later recalled of his historic discovery: “It made my heart thump, for I was certain it was gold.”
Though Marshall and Sutter tried to keep news of the discovery under wraps, word got out, and by mid-March at least one newspaper was reporting that large quantities of gold were being turned up at Sutter’s Mill. Though the initial reaction in San Francisco was disbelief, storekeeper Sam Brannan set off a frenzy when he paraded through town displaying a vial of gold obtained from Sutter’s Creek. By mid-June, some three-quarters of the male population of San Francisco had left town for the gold mines, and the number of miners in the area reached 4,000 by August.
Throughout 1849, people around the United States (mostly men) borrowed money, mortgaged their property or spent their life savings to make the arduous journey to California. In pursuit of the kind of wealth they had never dreamed of, they left their families and hometowns; in turn, thousands of would-be gold miners, known as ’49ers, traveled to this place.
By the end of the year, the non-native population of California was estimated at 100,000, (as compared with 20,000 at the end of 1848 and around 800 in March 1848). To accommodate the needs of the ’49ers, gold mining towns had sprung up all over the region, complete with businesses seeking to make their own Gold Rush fortune. The overcrowded chaos of the mining camps and towns grew ever more lawless, including rampant banditry, gambling, and violence. San Francisco, for its part, developed a bustling economy and became the central metropolis of the new frontier.
The Gold Rush undoubtedly sped up California’s admission to the Union as the 31st state.
After 1850, the surface gold in California largely disappeared, even as miners continued to arrive. Mining had always been difficult and dangerous labor, and striking it rich required good luck as much as skill and hard work. Moreover, the average daily take for an independent miner working with his pick and shovel had by then sharply decreased from what it had been in 1848. As gold became more and more difficult to reach, the growing industrialization of mining drove more and more miners from independence into wage labor. The new technique of hydraulic mining, developed in 1853, brought enormous profits but destroyed much of the region’s landscape.
Though gold mining continued throughout the 1850s, it had reached its peak by 1852, when some $81 million was pulled from the ground. After that year, the total take declined gradually, leveling off to around $45 million per year by 1857. Settlement in California continued, however, and by the end of the decade the state’s population was 380,000.
Iron and brass, less costly but more serviceable metals, are taken out of the earth, and are there found in great abundance, which lowers their price, but is a great kindness to mankind, who can be much better without gold than without iron.
Job, having spoken of the wealth of the world, which men put such a value upon and take so much pains for, here comes to speak of another more valuable jewel, and that is, wisdom and understanding, the knowing and enjoying of God. Job asks a good question. Men know where to search for precious metals and stones but do they know where to find wisdom? It is not found here.
12 “But where can wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? 13 Man does not know its value, nor is it found in the land of the living. 14 The deep says, ‘It is not in me’; And the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’ 15 It cannot be purchased for gold, nor can silver be weighed for its price. 16 It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir, in precious onyx or sapphire. 17 Neither gold nor crystal can equal it, nor can it be exchanged for jewelry of fine gold. 18 No mention shall be made of coral or quartz, for the price of wisdom is above rubies. 19 The topaz of Ethiopia cannot equal it, nor can it be valued in pure gold.
Job points out two things that cannot be found out concerning this wisdom:
I. The price of it, for that is inestimable; its worth is infinitely more than all the riches in this world. No one can possibly give a valuable offer for it, with all the wealth this world can furnish them with. This Job enlarges upon in verse 15 where he makes an inventory of the most valuable treasures of this world. Gold is five times mentioned; silver comes in also; and then several precious stones, the onyx and sapphire, pearls and rubies, and the topaz of Ethiopia. These are the things that are highest prized in the world’s markets: but if a man would give, not only these, but, even all he is worth in the world, for wisdom, it could not purchase it. There is no purchasing wisdom. It is a gift of the Holy Ghost, which cannot be bought with money
2. The place of it, for that is undiscoverable. He asks, ‘Where can wisdom be found? This is that which we should cry after and dig for. During Job’s day it was not found on earth for God had only given limited amounts. As miners who dig deep in the earth and they will tell you they haven’t found it. Ask the mariners, Wisdom can never be obtained either by trading on the waters or diving into them, can never be sucked from the abundance of the seas or the treasures hidden in the sand. We are the ones who live today that can access and gain wisdom. It is found in God’s Word.
Men can more easily break through the difficulties they meet with in getting worldly wealth than through those they meet with in getting heavenly wisdom, and they will take more pains to learn how to live in this world than how to live forever in a better world. So blind and foolish has man become that it is useless to ask him, Where is the place of wisdom The question which Job had asked in verse 12 he asks again here; for it is too worthy, too weighty, to be let fall, until we understand the importance of what is asked. Job sums up his thoughts on this subject by stating that there is a twofold wisdom, one hidden in God, which is secret and does not belong to us, the other made known by Almighty God and revealed to man, which belongs to us and to our children.
20 “From where then does wisdom come? And where is the place of understanding? 21 It is hidden from the eyes of all living, and concealed from the birds of the air. 22 Destruction and Death say, ‘we have heard a report about it with our ears.’ 23 God understands its way, and He knows its place. 24 For He looks to the ends of the earth, and sees under the whole heavens, 25 to establish a weight for the wind, and apportion the waters by measure. 26 When He made a law for the rain, and a path for the thunderbolt, 27 then He saw wisdom and declared it; He prepared it, indeed, He searched it out. 28 And to man He said, ‘behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.’ ”
What An Amazing Holy God Is The Lord of all things. What knowledge, intelligence, and power does He possess? His secret will is out of our reach. He has reserved all this to Himself. It belongs to the Lord our God. To know the particulars of what God will do hereafter, and the reasons of what he is doing now, is the knowledge Job first speaks.
This knowledge is hidden from us. It is high, we cannot attain unto it: It is hid from the eyes of all living, even of philosophers, politicians, and saints; it is kept close from the fowls of the air; though they fly high and in the open firmament of heaven, though they seem somewhat nearer that upper world where the source of this wisdom is, though their eyes behold afar off, yet they cannot penetrate into the counsels of God. No men, even those in their speculations, soar highest and think themselves, like the fowls of the air, above the heads of other people, cannot pretend to this knowledge. Job and his friends had been arguing about the methods and reasons of the dispensations of Providence in the government of the world. "What fools are we’’ say Job, "to fight in the dark thus, to dispute about that which we do not understand!’’ The line and plummet of human reason can never fathom the abyss of the divine counsels. Who can undertake to give the rationale of Providence, or account for the maxims, measure, and methods of God’s Rule?
Clouds and darkness are round about men. Though this wisdom is hidden from all living, yet destruction and death say, we have heard the fame of it. Though they cannot give an account of themselves (for there is no wisdom, nor device, nor knowledge at all in the grave, much less this), yet there is a world on the other side death and the grave, on which those dark regions border, and to which we must pass through them, and there we shall see clearly what we are now in the dark about. " When the mystery of God shall be finished it will be laid open, and we shall know as we are known; when the veil of flesh is rent, and the interposing clouds are scattered, we shall know what God does, though we do not know fully now
Known unto God are all his works, though they are not known to us. Our Majestic Mighty God does all according to the purpose which He purposed in Himself, and which He never alters. Men sometimes do that which they cannot give a good reason for, but in every will of God there is a counsel: He knows both what He does and why He does it, the whole series of events and the order and place of every occurrence. When he settled the course of nature he foreordained all the operations of his government.This knowledge He has in perfection, but keeps to Himself.
Our Holy Father God rules over all things. He Is Omniscient. He looks to the ends of the earth, both in place and time; distant ages, distant regions, are all under His observation. We do not understand our own way; much less can we understand God’s way, because we are short-sighted. How little do we know of what is going on in the world, much less of what will be done? Oh, just watch the news? Yeah, right. The eyes of the Lord are in every place; as the scripture says they run to and fro through the earth. Nothing is, or can be, hidden from Him; and therefore the reasons why some wicked people prosper remarkably and others are remarkably punished in this world, which are secret to us, are known to Him.
He Is also omnipotent. He can do everything, and is very exact in all He does. He Is the most excellent book keeper. For proof of this Job mentions the winds and waters. What is lighter than the wind? Yet God hath ways of positioning it. He knows how to make the weight for the winds, which he brings out of his treasuries, keeping a very particular account of what he draws out.
We hear the sound of it, yet cannot tell from where it comes or where it goes; but God gives it out by weight, wisely ordering both from what point it shall blow and with what strength.
Our Great and Holy God both weights and measures the waters of the sea, and the rain-waters. He has ordained a great and constant communication between clouds and seas, the waters above the firmament and those under it. Vapors go up, rains come down, air is condensed into water, water rarefied into air; but the great God keeps an exact account of all this for the living beings benefit and sees that none of it is lost.
Our Holy God has never said, ‘Gee how did that happen? He settled the course of nature. He decreed the rain to fall on the earth and a way for the thunder and lightning by a divine purpose and that nothing unforeseen could happen.
Therefore the knowledge of God’s revealed will, the will of His precept and this is within our reach; it is level to our capacity, and will do us well: Unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord that is wisdom. Let it not be said that when God concealed his counsels from man, and forbade him that tree of knowledge, it was because he grudged him anything
He made it easy for us to comply with His ways by keeping the advice short and to the point. He said, ‘behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.’ When God forbade man the tree of knowledge He allowed him the tree of life. Essential to our lives is this fact. We must first cease to do evil, or we shall never learn to do well.
