Job 15:7-10
“Are you the first man who was born?
Or were you brought forth before the hills?
Have you listened in the council of God?
And do you limit wisdom to yourself?
What do you know that we do not know?
What do you understand that is not clear to us?
Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us,
older than your father.
Tag: Old Age Wisdom Can Be Wrong
Eliphaz is now on the soapbox. He is the third of Job’s friends to come to “comfort” him ... at least that was their intent back in the beginning:
Job 2:11
Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him.
However, comfort was soon abandoned and confronting took its place. Eliphaz is about to attack Job and accuses him of not “fearing the Lord.” The basis for Eliphaz’s insight is listed in the above verses. Eliphaz is contending that Job is not the only one with wisdom in this company of five (Job, his three friends and another friend, not yet named). In fact, Eliphaz claims they have wisdom because they are “old” ... gray-haired and aged ... old than your farther.” Apparently, one of the three is a very old man. Eliphaz, like many of the aged, thinks that their many years of observation, experience and situational education has equipped them to explain what is happening to Job. How many times does this happen in a given day .... someone of the aged telling someone else what the “truth” is based upon their years of experience and observation. The problem with all of Eliphaz’s wisdom, however, is that it is completely off based. Job is a man of God, who fears the Lord. God gives wisdom, not based upon the years of age, but upon those who fear Him:
Proverbs 9:10
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.
Job, according to the first chapter of this book, is a man who feared the Lord. All of us, like Eliphaz, can make the mistake that just because you have been around and have experiences and years, you have some kind of wisdom. But, wisdom from God comes by fearing Him, not by growing old in front of Him. Old age is a good teacher, but it does not guarantee wisdom. Job was NOT in this situation because he lacked fearing the Lord. God had allowed this to happen to Job for God’s purpose. Eliphaz, like most of us who only “observe” life, made a wrong conclusion based upon his observations. Observations do not pull back the veiled to see behind the curtain of what we simply see. Observations can’t see the heart and the mind of mankind. It would be great to use the old age God gives us to study the knowledge of God. That is the old age wisdom we can learn from and depart to others. Notice what young Elihu, who is sitting in silence, nearby, has to say, later:
Job 32:6-10
And Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite answered and said:
“I am young in years,
and you are aged;
therefore I was timid and afraid
to declare my opinion to you.
I said, ‘Let days speak,
and many years teach wisdom.’
But it is the spirit in man,
the breath of the Almighty, that makes him understand.
It is not the old who are wise,
nor the aged who understand what is right.
Therefore I say, ‘Listen to me;
let me also declare my opinion.’
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