Job 28

Job 28 is a poem placed after the debate between Job and Job's three friends (chapters 3–27) and before Job's final long monologue (chapters 29–31). In the preceding chapter, Job 27, Job declared that he would never surrender his integrity. This chapter then briefly interrupts the flow of the debate.

Outline

• Verses 1–11 Human beings dig shafts deep into the earth and descend on ropes to mine silver, gold, iron, copper, sapphires, and gold dust. They find a path unknown even to the kite, the falcon, and the lion, and they bring hidden things to light.
• Verses 12–19 Yet the poem asks where wisdom and understanding are to be found. Wisdom is not in the deep or in the sea, and neither fine gold, silver, the gold of Ophir, onyx, sapphire, coral, crystal, rubies, nor the topaz of Cush can equal its worth.
• Verses 20–22 The same question is repeated. Wisdom is hidden from all living things and from the birds of the air, and Destruction and Death say they have heard only a rumor of it.
• Verses 23–27 God alone knows the way to wisdom and the place where it dwells. When God fixed the weight of the wind and the measure of the waters and appointed the paths of the rain and the lightning, He saw wisdom and established it.
• Verse 28 God tells humankind that the fear of the Lord is wisdom and that to depart from evil is understanding.

Key Verses

• Job 28:12 "But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding?": the question that drives the entire chapter.
• Job 28:23 "God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place thereof": this reveals that the answer to the question lies not with human beings but with God.
• Job 28:28 "Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding": the conclusion of the chapter and one of the defining verses of biblical wisdom literature.

People and Places

• God: Portrayed as the One who looks to the ends of the earth and knows the way to wisdom.
• Ophir: A place mentioned several times in the Bible as a source of fine gold. Its exact location is uncertain, with proposals including Arabia, India, and East Africa.
• Cush: A place name generally understood to refer to the region of the upper Nile, roughly present-day northern Sudan.
• Destruction and Death: An expression that personifies the realm of the dead as if it could speak. "Destruction" is Abaddon in Hebrew.

Points for Reflection

• Who is speaking: Job 27:1 introduces Job's words, and Job 29:1 likewise begins, "Moreover Job continued his parable, and said." For this reason, some interpreters read chapter 28 as a continuation of Job's speech, while others regard it as an interlude inserted by the narrator. Some biblical scholars also hold that the chapter was added later.
• Connection to the opening of Job: The expressions "fear" and "depart from evil" in verse 28 echo the words used to introduce Job in Job 1:1. Many interpreters therefore see this chapter as calling the figure of Job back to mind.
• Connections to other Scriptures: Verse 28 expresses the same idea as Proverbs 9:10 and Psalm 111:10. Its depiction of wisdom as a presence beside God resembles Proverbs 8. In the Christian tradition, the chapter is sometimes read alongside 1 Corinthians 1:22–25, which calls Christ "the wisdom of God," and Colossians 2, which says that the treasures of wisdom are hidden in Christ.