“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.

Job 27:12 can be pretty difficult to understand in our modern translations so let me put it another way: “It’s as plain as the nose on your face.”   Job’s friends, I suppose like all of us were good church people who loved to give advice to someone who was facing some spiritual 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 bits 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 of wisdom from Kenneth Copeland, southern drawl and all. I will be launching a new book in a couple weeks entitled: “Whom My Soul Loves.”  In this book I share a dark period of my life where my struggle with Asperger’s Syndrome caused me to question whether God existed and all this love and feeling His presence was just something I conjured up in my mind.  As I was going through this I candidly shared my feelings on my blog.  There were any number of people ready to share their advice, their insights and deep understandings none of which were of any value relevance to me personally.

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?”   Literally form the Hebrew he is saying: “You all perceive (and what happens?)  This vanity becomes your vanity.”

The word in the Hebrew for perceive is very interesting to those in the prophetic movement.   It comes from the root word chazah which means a vision, deep spiritual insight or a prophecy.   To put it in terms that is easily understood in today’s language what Job is saying is: “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 this word is repeated two times in the text.  This repetition is meant for the two words to play off of each other and create 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 spelled with a Sere’ rather than a Pathah is havel  is used to express foolishness and 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 its lacks clarity and is useless and has made you foolish.

How has it made his friends foolish?   When you look at the word haval and it’s built in commentary you discover how.  The word is spelled Hei, Beth and Lamed. The Hei represents self-deception.  Couple this with the next letter the Beth you  have the expression of  feeling spiritually superior to others and then finally the Lamed which in its shadow represents self-importance. Thus the word haval gives a good description of Job’s friends.  They were deceived by their feelings of superiority and self importance and it ended up making 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.  Sometimes we just take ourselves too seriously when we give out prophetic words or advice.

It is interesting to note that the word  haval for vanity has a numerical value of 37.  A prophetic 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 haval or deceived by the shadow of the Hei with the shadow of the Beth feelings of superiority and 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 if you point out the splinter in someone else’s eye, they may turn around and point to the beam in your own eye.