What Not to Do, Pt 2
Intro
ILLUSTRATION: I remember my Grandpa as a strong, vibrant, fun man.
He used to let us ride his lawn mowers, drive his tractor all over the farm.
We hunted in the grove of trees behind the barn, dug huge holes in the trees by the house.
He would entertain us for hours with stories of the Indians who lived in the chicken coop.
And when he retired from farming and moved into town, he would tell us how the Indians had been reluctant to pack up, but they had finally followed and lived in what we called the secret passage in the basement.
I remember the day the cancer returned. What had started in his big toe had spread throughout his body and gone to his brain.
He spent weeks in the hospital before returning home for the final months of his life.
Watched him whither from a great man of over 6’ to a wisp of flesh and bone.
The night before he passed away, as we had at least once per week since the terminal diagnosis, we had gone to his bedside, held his hand, arrived home late.
The next morning, awakened early to news of his passing.
Mom and Dad had to go to Waterloo to help with funeral preparations and all that, brothers and I had to go to school, get our homework for the next few days.
I vaguely remember teachers and friends offering the traditional “I’m sorry”’s and “It’ll be okay”’s
What I remember most about those days is when, at the funeral, I looked back and saw our pastor and his family in the congregation.
I don’t know that he ever said anything to my dad. I certainly don’t remember him saying anything in particular to me about it. But I do remember, vividly, that he was there.
Detour: When Life Goes Wrong
Working through the book of Job, which follows the account of a man by the same name who, in one day, lost
7,000 sheep
3,000 camels
500 yoke - pair - of oxen
500 female donkeys
all his servants
all 10 of his kids
and on a second catastrophic day...
lost his own health
saw his own wife turn against him.
As we’ve gone, we’ve been searching for answers to two of the most vexing questions in human history
Why do bad things happen?
How should we respond when they do?
We learned a lot about the question of why from Job 1-2.
Bad things happen to great people, too. I.e., they don’t necessarily happen to us because we did something wrong.
God is always in control, but that doesn’t mean that He likes it when we’re going through bad stuff.
Sometimes, the best answer we’re going to get is simply that Satan is out to get us.
And we discovered in that fact that why the bad stuff happened isn’t nearly as important to God as how we respond to it when it does. So we’ve been working through Job’s conversation with his three friends, which began in Job 3, to find keys for how we should - and shouldn’t - respond to the detours we take when life goes horribly wrong.
But as with any conversation, there are two sides to this discussion.
Job’s - the guy who is actually in the middle of the bad stuff - gives us essential insight into what’s okay and how far we can go in our grief
his friends’ - the guys who came to sympathize with and comfort Job - mostly show us what not to do when someone we know and love is going through a tough time.
Two weeks ago, we focused on these friends and learned we should not
make assumptions (i.e., assume we know what’s going on, how to fix it, or why it’s happening in the first place)
be insensitive (i.e., be a jerk, either knowingly or not)
reduce the situation (i.e., make a mole hill out of a mountain)
This week, we return to these friends as the conversation enters rounds 2 and 3.
The friends will continue to maintain that bad things happen to bad people; therefore, since bad things are happening to Job, Job must be a bad person.
They will also continue the themes established in round 1:
Eliphaz, the wise man, is going to appeal to wisdom and reason
Bildad, who emphasized tradition, is going to continue to selectively cite the past as “proof”
Zophar, who was all about common sense, is going to continue in the “everyone knows…” train of thought.
But Job has now rejected them all at least once, criticizing them, and sharply, for their platitude answers and pathetic friendship. And so…
emotions are a bit charged
reason is a little less clear
tone is markedly less gentle.
All of which combines to create the perfect storm for more examples of what not to do when your friend is in trouble.
Indeed, I think we can five things we should avoid, and in doing so, five things we should aim to do instead.
Listen (Job 15:9, 17).
First up today: Eliphaz.
Job refused to concede guilt, challenged their intelligence
Eliphaz, who had started out patient, even sympathetic, loses his patience
Job 15:9: What do you know that we don’t? What do you understand that is not clear to us?
Job 15:17: Listen to me and I will inform you. I will describe what I have seen.
Have you ever met someone like that?
No matter how much you know, they know more.
No matter what you’re going through, they’ve been through much worse.
They’ve been there, done that, and they know it all.
So they don’t need to listen to anything you have to say.
So they don’t.
Rather, they feel obliged to share their wealth of wisdom and insight into your situation, to tell you all about how bad it was when they were in your shoes.
As though that will help anyone.
CONFESSION: A few months back, I was confronted with the reality that, too often, this is me. So our first point this morning isn’t just for you; it’s certainly for me.
When your friend is going through the ringer, don’t be a know-it-all.
Don’t dazzle them with how much you know about the situation.
Don’t horrify them with how much worse you had it when it happened to you.
Instead - and here’s what I want you to write down - listen.
Google
make an effort to hear something; be alert and ready to hear something
take notice of and act on what someone says; respond to advice or a request
You can’t do that if you’re talking.
You can’t do that if you’re goofing around.
You can’t do that if you’re absorbed in what you know and what’s going on in your life.
So stop all that stuff!
Don’t talk.
Pay attention.
Focus on them and their situation.
And then make an effort to hear what they have to say and to respond accordingly.
Listen.
Be patient (18).
Eliphaz went on in ch 15 to describe the lot of the bad guy:
A wicked man writhes in pain all his days (20)
He will no longer be rich; his wealth will not endure. His possessions will not increase in the land (29)
the company of the godless will have no children (34)
Basically, custom tailored his argument to say that Job was a bad guy.
Job responded in chs 16-17
Criticizes his friends as “miserable comforters” (16:2)
Maintains his innocence
Laments his situation as unjust
By the time he’s done, Bildad can hardly wait. In fact, that’s exactly what he says:
Job 18:2: How long until you stop talking? Show some sense, and then we can talk.
Goes on in vs 3: Why are we regarded as cattle, as stupid in your sight?
Could have been because they were
wrong
saying stupid stuff
Reflecting God
(15:1-6) “Up to this point Eliphaz has been the most sympathetic of the three counselors, but now he has run out of patience with Job and denounces him more severely than before.”
(15:2) “empty” is literally “long-winded.” Job will use the same term in 16:3 to hurl the same charges back at Eliphaz.
(15:2) “hot east wind” refers to “the sirocco that blows in from the desert.”
(15:7-10) “Job, says Eliphaz, presumes to be wise enough to sit among the members of God’s council in heaven when in reality he is no wiser than ordinary elders and sages on earth.”
(15:11-13) “Eliphaz chides Job for replying in rage to his friends’ attempts to console him with gentles words, which Eliphaz believes come from God himself. But Eliphaz has been guilty of cruel insinuation, and the other two counselors have been even more malicious. Genuine words of comfort for Job have been few indeed.”
(15:14-16) “This is the second time that Eliphaz has emphasized the basic sinfulness of all humanity. In comparison with God’s absolute purity, even the angels seem impure. How much more human beings!”
(15:17-26) “Eliphaz now bolsters his earlier advice with traditional wisdom: The wicked (a caricature of Job) can never escape the suffering they deserve.”
(15:20-35) “A poem on the fate of the wicked. Eliphaz’s caricature continues with a variety of figures: a belligerent sinner who atacks God (vv 24-26); a fat, rich wicked man who finally gets what he deserves (vv 27-32); a grapevine stripped before the fruit is ripe (v 33a); ‘an olive tree shedding its blossoms’ (v 33b). As long as Eliphaz rejects Job’s insistence that the wicked go on prospering, eh does not have to wreslee with the disturbing corollary: the mystery of why the innocent sometimes suffer.”
(15:23, 30) “darkness” = “Death, characterized by the journey to the netherworld.”
(15:35) “Once initiated, sinful thoughts develop quickly into evil acts.”
(18:1-4) “Bildad resents what he perceives to be a belittling attitude. He considers Job’s emotional reaction as self-centered and irrational.”
(18:5-21) “Bildad returns to the theme of his first speech - all suffering is the result of sin (ch 8). Here he notes some o the ways in which the wicked ar punished. They experience darkness, traps, terror, hunger, disease and childlessness. The implication is that Job, who has also suffered these things, must be hiding some sin. Bildad is correct that sin does bring suffering, but he is wrong to apply this to Job. Job is not responsible for his own suffering.”
(18:17) “Apparently Bildad nows nothing of punishment in the realm of death. The only retribution beyond the grave is having one’s memory (name) cut off by not leaving any heirs.”
(8:21) “Having no intimate knowledge of God is synonymous with being wicked.”
(20:2-3) “Zophar takes Job’s words, especially his closing words in 19:28-29, as a personal affront. Job has dared to assert that on Zophar’s theory of retribution Zophar himself is due for punishment.”
(20:4-11) “Zophar is proud that he is a wealthy and prosperous man, for, in his view, that in itself is proof of his goodness and righteousness. But the joy and vigor of the wicked will always be brief and elusive.”
(20:10, 19) “OPpression of the poor is the mark of the truly wicked. On this subject, Job had no quarrel with Zophar.”
(20:12-15) “An evil man’s wicked deeds are like tasty food that pleases his palate but turns sour in his stomach.”
(20:20-25) “Although the wicked may fill their bellies, when God vents his anger against them there will be nothing for them to eat.”
(20:28) “The floods of rushing water reference here was a reference to the wadis and such which flooded and caused great damage when rain came.
(20:29) “Like Bildad in 18:21, Zophar concludes his speech with a summary statement in which he claims that all has said is in accord with God’s plans for judging sinners. Such is the fate God allots the wicked.”
(22:1-26:14) “The third cycle of speeches, unlike the first and second, is truncated and abbreviated. Bildad’s speech is very brief, and Zophar does not speak at all. The diaogue between Job and his friends comes to an end because his friends cannot convince Job of his guilt - Job cannot acknowledge what is not true.”
(22:5-11) “In his earlier speeches, Eiphaz was the least caustic and at first even offered consolation. But despite what he said in 4:3-4, Eliphaz now reprimands Job for gross social sins againt the needy, who are naked and hundry, and against widows and the fatherless. For only proud Eliphaz has for Job’s alleged wicedness is his present suffering. In ch 29 Job emphatically denies the kind of behaviour of which Eiphaz accuses him.”
(22:12-20) “Eliphz inally appears to support the argument of Bildad and Zophar, who were fully convinced that Job was a wicked man. Eliphaz makes a severe accusation: Job ollows the path of the ungodly (v 15), who defy God’s power and say, ‘What can the Almight say to us?’ (v 17; see vv 13-14). They even have contempt for God’s goodness.”
(22:21-30) “Eliphaz makes one last attempt to reach Job. In many ways it is a commendable call to repentance: submit to God (v 21), lay up God’s word in your heart (v 22), return to the Almighty and forsake wickedness (v 23), find your delight in God rather than in gold (vv 24-26), pray and oben (v 27) and become concerned about sinners. But Eiphaz’s advice assumes (1) that Job is a very wicked man and (2) that Job’s major concern is the return of his prosperity. Job had already mad it clear in 19:25-27 that he deeply yearned to see God and be his friend.”
(25:1-6) “Bildad adds nothing new here, and Zophar, who has already admitted how emotionally disturbed he was, doesn’t even comment.”
(25:2) “Bildad apparently considered heaven as a place of warfare, where God must use his celestial troops to establish order.”
Archaeological
(15:10) “Age, with its tested experience, was equated in ancient times with wisdom.”
(18:13-14) “The ‘king of terrors’ - a personification of death - is reminiscent of the Canaanite deity Mot (‘Death’), whose devouring throat supposedly reached from earth the sky. The prophet Isaiah reversed the figure, picturing God swallowing up death forever.”
(22:12) “The Bible refers in a most striking manner to the height of the stars - that is, to their distance from the earth. Note that our galaxy alone is approximately 100,000 light years across!”
ESV Study Bible
(15:1-21:34) “The positions established by each participant harden in the second round of speeches. Once again Eliphaz (ch. 15), Bildad (ch. 18), and Zophar (ch. 20) align Job’s suffering with the punishment due to the wicked. Job’s responses (chs. 16–17; 19; 21) typically show his refusal to accept responsibility for his situation (e.g., 19:2–6) and characterize the wicked not as sufferers but as those who prosper despite their careless godlessness (e.g., 21:7–16).”
(15:1-35) “In his second response, which initiates the second round of dialogues, Eliphaz dispenses with his earlier commendation of Job’s character (see 4:3–6) and opens by accusing him of speaking out of iniquity rather than wisdom (15:2–16). The second half of the response is a more aggressive assertion of the content of Eliphaz’s first speech: the consequence of wickedness is suffering, and thus suffering indicates that a person is wicked and should not protest innocence (vv. 17–35).”
(15:2) “Eliphaz argues that Job’s words reveal someone who is full of wind rather than wisdom.”
(15:4) Eliphaz asserts that “Job has become careless in his complaint to God and is doing away with the very thing that will bring him relief (namely, repentance and humility before God) and thus is hindering his meditation from being heard.”
(15:8) “The question” - Have you listened in the council of God? - “ought to appear ironic to the reader, who has been made privy to the conversations represented in the prologue (1:7–12; 2:2–6). Eliphaz is himself guilty of the very sort of presumption for which he criticizes Job: he has concluded wrongly that Job’s suffering is a transparent indicator of God’s judgment.”
(15:20-35) “In a section intended to function like the description of the foolish man in his first response (see 5:2–5), Eliphaz portrays the wicked man to implicate Job. Central to the portrayal are the images of one who is terrified as judgment comes to him amid his seeming prosperity (see 15:21, 24, 27, 32–33). Eliphaz is hoping that Job will see himself in the images and turn from defending himself to repentance.”
(15:31-35) “With the presumption that his perspective is clear and right, Eliphaz mercilessly chooses vocabulary that focuses on the loss of Job’s offspring as indication of God’s judgment: emptiness (15:31), his branch will not be green (v. 32), the early loss of grape or blossom (v. 33), his company is barren (v. 34), and conceive, give birth, and womb (v. 35). Given what the reader knows about Job, this section ought to instill humility on the part of any person who seeks to pursue another with rebuke—and compassion for Job as one who endured not only the loss of his children but also the presumptuous, compounded, and condemning “comfort” of his friends.”
(18:1-21) “Like Eliphaz, Bildad omits any of the appeals to Job in his first response (see 8:5–7) and opens by venting his frustration (18:2–4): Who is Job to maintain his position and criticize the words of his friends? The remainder of Bildad’s response is an unyielding description of the end of the wicked (vv. 5–21) that appears to be motivated as much by his reactive irritation as by any further desire to correct Job.”
(18:5-6) “Bildad is likely responding to Job with the repeated images of the light of the wicked (flame, lamp) going dark (put out, does not shine) to make the point that Job ought to take the “darkness” (see 17:12–13) as precisely such a warning (see also 18:18).”
(18:7-10) “Bildad uses the vocabulary of a trap (net, snare, rope) in these verses to argue that what Job describes as God breaking him apart (see 16:7–14) is better described as Job suffering the consequences of his own sin (his own schemes throw him down, 18:7).”
(18:11-14) “The vocabulary of these verses has led some interpreters to explain the references to the firstborn of death and the king of terrors as allusions to figures in either Babylonian or Ugaritic mythology. While it is difficult to discern whether such an allusion is intended, it is clear that Bildad is personifying the process and finality of death: calamity is wearing the wicked person (i.e., Job) down, which will lead ultimately to the finality of death itself (v. 14). When Bildad uses the phrase “the firstborn of death,” he may be intentionally picking up the familial references from Job’s response and turning them against him (see 17:14).”
(18:14-21) “Bildad refers throughout this section to the destruction of both the house (e.g., tent, vv. 14–15; habitation, v. 15; dwellings, place, v. 21) and the household (memory, name, v. 17; posterity, progeny, and survivor, v. 19) of the wicked in order to assert that Job’s circumstances show he is one who knows not God (v. 21).”
(18:21) “God will judge the wicked (Rev. 20:11–15). But justice is delayed for the sake of salvation (Ps. 73:3; 2 Pet. 3:9).”
(20:1-29) “In his second response, Zophar opens with a brief expression of frustration (vv. 2–3), presumably in response to Job’s insistence that God has brought about his circumstances and Job’s belief that God will yet vindicate him. The remainder of the response is one long description of the short and insufferable life of the wicked, by which Zophar intends to implicate and rebuke Job (vv. 4–29).”
(20:3) “Zophar may be referring to Job’s response to his last speech, in which Job sarcastically criticized his friends and claimed that he was not their inferior (see 12:2–3).”
(20:6-7) “Zophar warns Job that whatever height a wicked man may have achieved will not change the fact that, when his end comes, it will be quick and complete.”
(20:10-21) “Zophar argues that neither the wicked man (vv. 12–19) nor his offspring (v. 10) will enjoy the benefits of what he has acquired, because he has gained it through the oppression of others (vv. 19–21). Instead, his children will be forced to beg from the poor (v. 10), who were some of the very people their father oppressed to gain his wealth (v. 19). The description also includes several images that describe the way of the wicked as something like gluttony: their hunger for evil is unrestrained and insatiable (vv. 12, 13, 20, 21), which leads to whatever has been gained instead rotting them from the inside out (vv. 14–16).”
(20:23-25) “Although Job had referred to his circumstances as equivalent to God attacking and breaking him open (see 16:12–14), Zophar uses similar imagery of sword and arrow to assert that it is God who will indeed strike the wicked with the wrath of his judgment. Zophar is likely hinting that Job ought to take his own description of feeling “broken open” as an indication of God’s impending judgment rather than of any injustice from God.”
(20:27) “The friends wrongly assume that Job’s circumstances on earth are a transparent indicator of his guilt before God in heaven.”
(22:1-25:6) “The consistent pattern of the first two cycles unravels in this last dialogue. Eliphaz begins by depicting Job’s life as a constant stream of wicked activity (ch. 22), in contrast to the perception Job offered in his first speech (cf. 4:6–7). Job’s reply (chs. 23–24) strongly implies that the divine power that has touched him is typically capricious and destructive. Bildad offers the beginning of a reply (ch. 25, only six verses), before Job interrupts with a further assertion of the impenetrable mystery of divine power (ch. 26, beginning Job’s final reply to his friends). No room appears in this cycle for a contribution from Zophar.”
(22:1-25:6) “If there was any comfort in the friends’ attending to Job, it has entirely evaporated. The two parties have argued themselves increasingly apart, revising earlier judgments as they do so.”
(22:1-30) “n his final speech, launching the uniquely shaped third cycle, Eliphaz revisits earlier themes with renewed fervor and finality: he questions whether Job has any basis to lament before God (vv. 2–4), asserts again that Job’s circumstances reveal his abundant evil (vv. 4–11), compares Job’s words to those of the wicked (vv. 12–20), and calls him once more to repent so that he might find his ways established by God (vv. 21–30).”
(22:2-4) “Eliphaz opens his response with three rhetorical questions that ask Job whether it makes any sense that God would bring suffering on one who is wise (v. 2), blameless (v. 3), or who fears him (v. 4).”
(22:2-4) “Eliphaz argues that, since wisdom is profitable for the person and not somehow profitable for God (vv. 2–3), there could be no purpose for suffering other than to indicate judgment and a need to repent (v. 4). In framing his response this way, Eliphaz inverts Job’s own earlier reasoning that any sin of his could be of no consequence to so great a God (7:20). He also continues to assert that Job’s circumstances on earth are transparent and exhaustive indicators that can and ought to be read only as signs of God’s judgment.”
(22:5-11) “ Eliphaz assumes that Job’s circumstances reveal significant evil in his life, and thus he feels justified in describing the likely ways that Job has sinned.”
(22:6) “Eliphaz’s first accusation evokes the law that a person should not take someone else’s life necessities to secure a debt—like a cloak (see Ex. 22:26; Deut. 24:17–18) or a mill or millstone used to grind grain for food (see Deut. 24:6).”
(22:8) “False accusations imitate those of Satan (1:11; 2:5) and anticipate the false accusations against Christ (Matt. 26:59–60; 27:13; Luke 23:10, 14) and against his people (Rev. 12:10).”
(22:9) “ In his description of Job’s presumed mistreatment of widows and the fatherless, Eliphaz speaks in terms similar to the warnings in the law against such practices (see Ex. 22:22; Deut. 24:17) and to prophetic oracles of judgment (see Isa. 1:17; Jer. 22:3; Ezek. 22:7).”
(22:13) “In response to Job’s continued insistence that the wicked prosper on earth and that his circumstances are not the consequences of sin, Eliphaz asserts that Job is guilty of implying that God is so high that he is unable to “know” or judge life on earth.”
(22:13) “A question similar to the one that Eliphaz puts in Job’s mouth here (What does God know?) is used of the wicked in Ps. 73:11, but it comes amid a lament over their prosperity and safety that is itself similar to Job’s complaint (see Ps. 73:1–17).”
(22:13) “Eliphaz wrongly equates Job’s attitude toward God with that of the wicked.”
(22:17-18) “In these verses Eliphaz essentially quotes some of Job’s words from 21:14–16. However, where Job was arguing that the wicked prosper in spite of open rebellion, Eliphaz is asserting that their prosperity and rebellion are momentary and that the wicked are “snatched away before their time” (22:16). Thus, when Job said, “the counsel of the wicked is far from me” (21:16b) in order to distance himself from the rebellion and practices of which his friends accused him, Eliphaz uses the same words to cast Job’s position on these matters as itself the counsel of the wicked (22:18).”
(22:21) “Implicit in the plea for Job to “Agree with God” is Eliphaz’s presumption that his interpretation of Job’s circumstances is equivalent to God’s. In particular, it seems Eliphaz thinks his argument in vv. 17–18 should be a compelling enough reason for Job to relent and finally agree that his suffering is rooted in his wickedness.”
(22:30) “This verse is another instance of unintended irony in the words of the friends. Eliphaz is suggesting that Job’s repentance would lead to his being able to intercede and bring deliverance even for one who is not innocent. What Eliphaz does not know is that he stands in need of the very deliverance he describes and that it will in fact come through Job’s intercession on his behalf (see 42:7–9).”
HCSB Study Bible
(15:4) “Eliphaz suggested that Job's intemperate attitude had affected his proper reverence for God. How then could Job claim to be wise? Wisdom begins with the fear of God (see Pr 1:7).”
(15:5-6) “liphaz believed that Job's stance against his friends' counsel was dictated by an underlying iniquity. In defending himself Job used cunning terms to cover his guilt. Yet Job's words condemned him (9:20).”
(15:7-10) “Eliphaz wanted Job to realize that he had no claim to superior wisdom (12:1-3; 13:1-2). In words bordering on sarcasm, Eliphaz stated that Job had neither priority of birth nor privileged access to the heavenly council (1:6; 2:1). Job should understand that time-tested wisdom, which had been handed down long before Job's father, was on the side of his friends.”
(15:11-13) “Eliphaz claimed that in his passion Job had thoughtlessly turned his anger against God with excessive language (7:1-2,11-20; 9:14-19; 10:3,17; 13:25-27).”
(15:17-19) “Eliphaz appealed to his special grasp of traditional wisdom and wide experience (4:8-9,12-21; 5:3-7,27). His experience and understanding were in harmony with the wisdom that came from the early inhabitants of the land. That was a time of pure knowledge when no foreigner was present to bring corrupting influences to bear.”
(15:20) “Job had maintained that God gave no special treatment to the blameless (9:22), but gave control of the earth to the wicked (9:24; 10:3). Eliphaz agreed with Zophar (11:20) that the wicked lived out their few years in pain. Neither of these polarized views corresponds with reality.”
(15:30) “As tender shoots wither before a scorching sun or a blasting desert wind, so the wicked will lose everything in God's judgment (4:8-9; Isa 11:4). God's mouth can be used figuratively as the vehicle of His judgment. His breath represents the ease with which His mighty power accomplishes the deed and is a suitable figure for a desert wind.”
(15:35) “Rather than achieving their wicked goals, the godless metaphorically bear children named trouble... evil, and deception. What they did to others would cause their own downfall. Womb is the same word translated "himself" at the opening of Eliphaz's speech (see "his belly" in textual footnote at v. 2). Framing or bracketing a section of material in this way is a literary device called inclusio that is often not evident in the English translation.”
(18:3) “Bildad believed Job's rejection of their counsel was tantamount to calling them unthinking animals (12:7; Ps 73:22).”
(18:4) “Bildad attempted to correct Job's perspective. It was not an angry God who was tearing at Job (Job 12:14; 16:9) but his own anger at God. God was not obligated to empty the earth or move a rock just to satisfy Job's self-serving demands. As the physical order of the earth is established by divine law (Ps 104:5-7; Isa 45:18), so are God's moral standards (Pr 11:20-21). For God to interrupt the laws of nature on Job's behalf would be as wrong as failing to hold him accountable for his sins.”
(18:5-6) “As a lamp is put out, leaving a tent to grow dark, so misfortune would come to the wicked and his life would take a turn for the worse. Light represents a blessed life lived in accordance with the high standards of God, while darkness symbolizes the opposite (Pr 4:18-19). In other contexts light represents truth and knowledge, and darkness indicates error and ignorance (Dan 5:14; 2Pe 1:19).”
- Barker, Kenneth, ed. Reflecting God Study Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000.
- Archaeological Study Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: The Zondervan Corporation, 2005.
- The ESV Study Bible. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2008.
- The HCSB Study Bible. http://www.mystudybible.com