Scripture Daily

Context No. 547 of 4322 · Job

Context · Reflection

Job 28:17-28: in context

17Gold and glass can’t equal it, neither will it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold. 18No mention will be made of coral or of crystal. Yes, the price of wisdom is above rubies. 19The topaz of Ethiopia will not equal it. It won’t be valued with pure gold. 20Where then does wisdom come from? Where is the place of understanding? 21Seeing it is hidden from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the birds of the sky. 22Destruction and Death say, ‘We have heard a rumor of it with our ears.’ 23“God understands its way, and he knows its place. 24For he looks to the ends of the earth, and sees under the whole sky. 25He establishes the force of the wind. Yes, he measures out the waters by measure. 26When he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder, 27then he saw it, and declared it. He established it, yes, and searched it out. 28To man he said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom. To depart from evil is understanding.’”

This is a great poem in the middle of Job about wisdom, and it circles one question: where can wisdom be found? First it establishes wisdom's value by comparison. Gold and glass cannot equal it; it cannot be bought with the finest gold or exchanged for coral or crystal or rubies; the topaz of Ethiopia does not compare. Wisdom is worth more than every precious thing people mine and hoard. But then the poem admits something humbling: for all its value, wisdom cannot be found the way those treasures are. It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing. You cannot dig for it or purchase it or acquire it by being clever or rich. Where, then, does it come from?

The poem's answer arrives in two movements. First, God knows the way to it; he alone understands where wisdom dwells, because he is the one who established the wind and measured the waters and set the course of the rain. And then, at the very end, having ruled out every glittering and elite path to wisdom, God tells a human being where it actually lies: behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding. That is the resolution of the whole search. True wisdom is not an intellectual treasure reserved for the brilliant or the wealthy. It is given to anyone, however ordinary, who reveres God and turns from evil.

That relocates where I go looking for wisdom. When I want to be wise, to understand my life, to know what to do, I reach for information, expertise, cleverness, the counsel of the impressive, as though wisdom were a treasure I could mine or buy with enough effort. Job says it cannot be found that way at all. The wisdom I am actually looking for is given along a humbler road entirely: fearing God and departing from evil. Am I chasing wisdom where it cannot be found, in cleverness and information and status, when the fear of the Lord and turning from evil is the only place it is actually given?

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