Proverbs of Ashes - Job 12-13

Job 13:6-12 (ESV)

Hear now my argument

and listen to the pleadings of my lips.

Will you speak falsely for God

and speak deceitfully for him?

Will you show partiality toward him?

Will you plead the case for God?

Will it be well with you when he searches you out?

Or can you deceive him, as one deceives a man?

He will surely rebuke you

if in secret you show partiality.

Will not his majesty terrify you,

and the dread of him fall upon you?

Your maxims are proverbs of ashes;

your defenses are defenses of clay.

It is too bad we can’t hear tone in a passage of Scripture.  It would be nice to hear Job’s tone in the above words. He is speaking to his three friends who came to console him.    In verse four of this passage, he refers to them as physicians.   We have no knowledge that they were, but when we read their words spoken to Job, they might be classified as a philosophical theologians.   They have a philosophy about pain and suffering.  Job calls these ideas they present to him as maxims.  He is calling them out for their thoughts and beliefs and if examined by God these maxims would prove to be proverbs of ashes.    They are defenses of clay to Job.   This is the world’s mindset and thoughts about innocent suffering.  Remember, we can NEVER read a passage in Job without reading the beginning and then end of the book:

Job 1:1 (ESV)

There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.

Job 42:7 (ESV)

The LORD Rebukes Job’s Friends

After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.

These men came, armed with ideas.  They end up leaving as idiots.   Their philosophy did not meet the moment.  Their theology was mis-guided; often true but applied wrong.   Like the Pharisees, they twisted doctrine to meet their dogma:

Matthew 23:16-22 (ESV)

“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.

Man’s dogma is simply proverbs of ashes.