“Job 27:12: “Behold, all of you yourselves have seen (it), why then are you altogether vain?”

“If the judge should say to the man, ‘Take the splinter from between your eye.’  He would reply: ‘Take the  beam from your between your eye.’”  Babylonian Talmud  Baba Bathra 15b.

“And why beholdest thou the mote that is in they brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in your own eye.”  Matthew 7:3

“There are only two perfect people in this world, thee and me and sometimes I wonder about thee.”   Quaker saying.

I suppose if I were to give a cotton patch version of Job 27:12, I would render the verse as: It’s as plain as the nose on your face.  Job’s friends, I suppose like all of us good church people, loved to give advice to someone who was facing some struggle.  It is rare that I don’t attend a small fellowship (prayer group, Bible study, etc.) where someone doesn’t end up sharing some personal struggle and suddenly it is like sounding the opening bell on the stock exchange.   Everyone has some advice to offer as they carefully avoid the most common sound bites like: “Just trust God,” “Pray about it, “ or “God is faithful.”  Still, sound bites are sound bites and their little bit’s of wisdom easily reveals what camp they come from just as easily as a soldier’s shoulder patch reveals what unit he is with or one’s accent reveals what part of the country one hails from.  One response may clearly show that person to be a faithful follower of TD Jakes, or another will share a bit from Kenneth Copeland, southern drawl and all. I’m not condemning these men of God only pointing out that sometimes we forget it God we are following and not man.

Everyone is waiting for the opportunity to share the depths of their wisdom and knowledge.  We all like to think we’ve cornered the market on truth.  Job’s friend were no exception and after hitting Job with all their wonderful words of wisdom, Job responds by asking: “What, are you altogether vain?” In the Hebrew a literally rendering would be: You all perceive and what happens?  This vanity becomes your vanity.

The word in the Hebrew for perceive is very interesting.  It comes from the root word chazah which means a vision, deep spiritual insight or a prophecy.  What Job is literally saying is: “You say you have a prophetic word. You have word from God.”   But what happens? This vanity becomes your vanity.”  The word vanity is haval which means a vapor, mist or a fog.   This creates a double meaning  for the word and hence, the repetition of the word develops a play on that double meaning.   Something being a vapor, mist or fog is not clearly defined.  A prophecy or vision is often in symbols and it’s meaning is not readily apparent, it is like a mist or fog. Thus one use of the word haval is for something that is not clear or readily apparent.  The second use of the word havel  is to express foolishness or uselessness. Just as a fog or vapor seems to have substance, but when you walk into it, it doesn’t have the substance that it appears to have from a distance.   Thus, Job is saying: “You have a prophetic word, but it lack of clarity and has made you foolish.

How has it made his friends foolish?   When you look at the built in commentary on the word haval it will tell you how.  The word is spelled Hei who shadow represents self deception.  The next letter is the Beth whose shadow shows feelings of  spiritual superiority to others and the final letter is the Lamed whose shadow indicates self importance and from that you have a good description of Job’s friends.  They were deceived by their feelings of superiority and self importance and it ended up turning the word they had from God into foolishness. Of course you and I are never guilty of such things.  Although sometimes I wonder about thee.  I have a friend who told me of someone sharing a word from God.  My friend truly believed it was a word from God, but the person had to fill it up with many words of explanation so much explanation that it distorted the original word from God.  You get a word from the Lord, take my advice, you can trust the Holy Spirit to explain it to that person, he only needs you to deliver the word. Generally these words are only conformational and if it is truly a word from the Lord, the person receiving it will understand a whole lot better than you what it means.

It is interesting to note that the word haval (vanity) has a numerical value of 37.  A prophet’s word also has a numerical value of 37.  If you ever feel you have a word from the Lord for someone, it is best you first examine yourself to be sure you are not deceived by the Shadow of the Hei with feelings  of the Shadow of the Beth feelings of  superiority resulting in the appearance of the Lamed self importance.  If you don’t do that self examination you may end up like the Talmud warns and Jesus Himself reaffirmed that by pointing out the splinter in someone else’s eye, they will turn around and point to the beam in your own eye.