Job 28:20 - Meaning and Application

Job had asked this question already, and here he asks it again (Job 28:12). It is too important to let it drop. We must keep seeking until we get a clear answer.

Job’s answer is that wisdom has two sides. One kind is hidden in God, secret and beyond our reach. The other kind God has revealed to people, and that belongs to us and to our children. The hidden wisdom is God’s secret will, the way he orders his providence, that is, his wise rule over all things. We cannot know in advance what God will do, or fully explain why he is doing what he does now.

This hidden wisdom is beyond us. It is too high for us to reach (Job 28:21, Job 28:22). It is hidden from every living person, including philosophers, rulers, and even saints. Even the birds of the air cannot uncover it. They may fly high in the open sky, but they still cannot enter God’s counsel. Human reason, even at its best, cannot measure the deep purposes of God.

Job and his friends had been arguing about God’s ways in governing the world. Job’s point is that they were fighting in the dark. We are foolish when we argue strongly about matters we do not understand. Human reasoning cannot sound the depths of divine counsel. We should be content not to know future events until time reveals them (Acts 1:7), and not to know the secret reasons of providence until eternity reveals them. God is still a God who hides himself (Isaiah 45:15), and clouds and darkness are around him.

Yet even though this wisdom is hidden from all living, death and destruction say they have heard of it. They cannot explain themselves, because there is no wisdom, planning, or knowledge in the grave. Still, beyond death and the grave there is another world, and those dark places lead to it. There we will see clearly what now is hidden from us. Death, as it were, says to the curious soul, “Be patient a little longer. Soon I will bring you to a place where even this wisdom will be known.” When God’s mystery is finished, it will be uncovered. Then we will know as we are known. When the veil of flesh is removed and the clouds are cleared away, we will understand what God does, even though we do not now (John 13:7).

This wisdom is hidden in God, as the apostle says (Ephesians 3:9). All of God’s works are known to him, even when they are not known to us (Acts 15:18). He always has good reasons for what he does, even when we cannot explain them (Job 28:23). God understands the way of wisdom. People often act without knowing what they are doing. New events push them into new plans and force them to change direction. But God does everything according to the purpose he formed in himself, and he never changes it. People may do things they cannot justify, but every act of God has wisdom in it. He knows both what he does and why he does it, the whole chain of events, and the place of every event in that chain.

Job gives two reasons why God must understand his own way, and why only he can do so. First, all events are directed by an all-seeing and all-powerful providence (Job 28:24, Job 28:25). He looks to the ends of the earth, both in distance and in time. Far-off ages and far-off places are open before him. We do not understand our own path, and we certainly cannot understand God’s path, because we are short-sighted. We know very little about what is happening in the world, much less what will happen. But the eyes of the Lord are in every place. Nothing can be hidden from him. So the reasons why some wicked people prosper in a striking way, while others are punished in a striking way in this world, are hidden from us but known to him. One day’s events and one person’s life often depend on another’s, so only God, who sees everything at once and clearly, is fit to judge each part.

God is also all-powerful. He can do everything, and he does everything with perfect care. To show this, Job mentions the winds and the waters (Job 28:25). What is lighter than the wind? Yet God knows how to weigh it. He brings it out of his treasuries (Psalm 135:7), keeping exact account of what he sends out. He does not scatter it carelessly. The wind is one of the most mysterious things to us. We hear it, but we cannot tell where it comes from or where it goes. Yet God gives it out by weight, wisely deciding both where it will blow and how strong it will be.

He also weighs and measures the waters of the sea and the rain. He assigns the amount of every tide and every shower. There is a constant movement between clouds and seas, between the waters above and the waters below. Water rises as vapor and falls as rain; air becomes water, and water becomes air. But God keeps exact account of all that is carried in this great exchange for the good of the world. If providence is so exact in these things, it must be much more exact in giving favor or anger, reward or punishment, to human beings according to what is right.

The second reason is that all events were planned from eternity by God’s certain knowledge and unchanging decree, that is, his eternal decision (Job 28:26, Job 28:27). When he set the order of nature, he also planned every part of his rule over the world. He established the course of nature. Job mentions especially a rule for the rain, and a path for thunder and lightning. Their causes, their effects, their uses, and their results were all appointed by God’s purpose. That is why Scripture says he prepares lightning for the rain (Psalm 135:7; Jeremiah 10:13). When he did that, he also laid out the measures of his providence and drew up a complete plan of the whole work from beginning to end.

Then, from eternity, he saw in himself and declared to himself the plan of what he would do. He prepared it, fixed it, and established it. He arranged everything in readiness for all his works, so that when anything had to be done, nothing would be lacking, and nothing unexpected could happen to throw it off course or out of time. Everything was ordered as exactly as if he had studied it out and searched it through, so that whatever God does, nothing can be added to it or taken from it, and therefore it will last forever (Ecclesiastes 3:14).

Some take Job to be speaking here of wisdom as a person, and translate the words, “Then he saw her and showed her,” and so on. If that is so, then this fits with Solomon’s teaching about the eternal wisdom of the Father, the eternal Word (Proverbs 8:22, etc.). Before the earth was made, he was with God (John 1:1, John 1:2).

The second kind of wisdom is the knowledge of God’s revealed will, that is, the will of his commands. This is within our reach. It is suited to our ability and will do us good (Job 28:28): “To man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom.” We should not say that when God hid his purposes from man and forbade him the tree of knowledge, it was because he begrudged him anything that would lead to real happiness. No, he let man know all he needed to know for duty and for happiness. He would trust him with as much of his sovereign mind as was fitting for a subject, but not as much as would make him think himself fit to sit in God’s council.

He said this to Adam, the first man, in the day he was created, as some think. God plainly told him that it was not for him to spend himself in curious searches into the secrets of creation, or to pretend that he could explain all the workings of nature. He would find that impossible, and it would not profit him. Archbishop Tillotson said that only the wisdom that made the world can fully understand the philosophy of it. But let man count this as his wisdom, to fear the Lord and turn from evil. Let him learn that, and he has learned enough. Let that knowledge serve his purpose.

When God forbade man the tree of knowledge, he allowed him the tree of life, and that is Christ and the life he gives (Proverbs 3:18). We cannot reach true wisdom except through divine revelation. The Lord gives wisdom (Proverbs 2:6). And that wisdom is not found in the secrets of nature or providence, but in the rules for our own conduct. God did not say to man, “Go up to heaven and bring happiness down,” or, “Go down to the deep and bring it up.” No, “The word is near you” (Deuteronomy 30:14). He has shown you, O man, not what is great, but what is good, not what the Lord your God plans to do with you, but what he requires of you (Micah 6:8). “To you, O men, I call” (Proverbs 8:4). Lord, what is man, that he should be so regarded and visited?

“Behold” means mark this, pay attention to it. Let anyone with ears hear what the God of heaven says to the children of men: the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom. Here we have the description of true religion, pure and undefiled. It is to fear the Lord and turn away from evil, which fits God’s description of Job (Job 1:1). The fear of the Lord is the root and summary of all religion. There is a slavish fear of God, coming from hard thoughts about him, and that is against religion (Matthew 25:24). There is also a self-protective fear of God, coming from fearful thoughts about him, and that can be a good step toward religion (Acts 9:5). But there is a childlike fear of God, coming from great and honorable thoughts about him, and that is the life and heart of all religion.

Wherever this fear rules in the heart, it will show itself in a constant care to turn from evil (Proverbs 16:6). That is essential to religion. We must first stop doing evil, or we will never learn to do good. “Virtue lies even in fleeing from vice.” Religion is also praised here as wisdom and understanding. To be truly religious is to be truly wise. As God’s wisdom appears in the ordering of religion, so man’s wisdom appears in practicing and obeying it. It is understanding, because it is the best knowledge of truth. It is wisdom, because it is the best way to manage our lives. Nothing more surely directs our path and helps us reach our goal than being religious.