Tradition's ubiquitous attempts to chronicle Job's life, somewhere within 1995 B.C. to 1520 B.C., will reluctantly compute at best. We dispute conventional chronology assigns to Job and Behemoth origins, affinity, and purpose. Discrepancy between traditional proposals and reality is so vast as to fail workability with other symbolism.
To get a handle on Job's existential perspective as he sits discussing theology with his friends, we find him distracted with an image of Satan: an entity who is given power to affect Job's life. Misfortune then befalls Job, but he maintains his spiritual integrity though spicing his discourse with self-righteousness. The God spirit then addresses Job's lack of power over the Beast, and which Beast has great power over the elements; yet, God rather than Job has the power to 'make' Job and the Beast, have control over them, and have the wherewithal to destroy both. Job, then, is put in his place, reaffirms his faith, prospers, lives to an old age, and promises to live unto Messiah. Job does win the battle, after a fashion; but he wins only after an omnipotent God humbles Job's self-assurance. He denigrates Job's lack of dominion over Behemoth whom God made with Job (made at the same time as Job [Job 40:15]).
We discover tradition to be at fault by misjudging Job's time frame by a great margin, by about 1200 to 1800 years! Surely, such unscholarly exegesis justifies serious distrust of traditional renderings. Behemoth identity and relation to Job receives total misinterpretation in traditional circles, even in today's perceived enlightenment. Conventional failure to intercept Job's proximity to messianic timeliness, resurrection, judgment, and soteriological fulfillment broadcasts a like failure to connect with Paul's admission in A.D. 68, and which is revealed at II Timothy 1:10, "And is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ,..." 'Now' and 'appearing' carry very revealing present tense semantics, compared to the future tense in I Timothy 6:14 (A.D. 65), 'until the appearing,' written three years earlier!
Writing style and faith expressions in Job Chapter Nineteen reveal a prophetic disclosure announcing Messiah installation -- to be 'witnessed in Job's latter years.' Reference also includes an herbivorous leviathan, whose actions and susceptibilities suggest people, though hidden in Beast symbolism. Internal evidence inheres a much later date than the Patriarchal Age; traditionally, this Age posits as starting point for Jobian chronological ascertainments but is several hundred years premature. Moreover, Job prose contains subtle hints to a Jordan River habitat, not dissimilar to geographic scenes compatible with a much later Age.
Bible scholars have advanced countless theories concerning the Behemoth identity in Job 40:15. A late twentieth century church bulletin, in this author's possession, suggests Behemoth to represent a dinosaur. If we should accept this identification, or other assigns suggesting Beast entry to be hippopotamus, elephant, crocodile, etc., then, we will have allowed time-honored invention to supersede common sense.
Events, Ages, and Chosen People consistently appear in historical conformity, habitual in the Hebrew writing style. If we conform comprehension to their consistent writing style and sensible reasoning, then, Job lived after Ezekiel's time -- Ezekiel being contemporaneous with Daniel who died circa 500 B.C. We should also properly exercise reasoning for the 'was, is, and is to come' Hebrew writing format; tentatively, we expect Job to have lived sometime within Exilic Age boundaries--in the Sixth Hebrew Age sometime after 516 B.C. How did Ezekiel know about Job circa 590 B.C.? The answer emerges in another question: How did he know 'every man's sword would be against his brother' (600 years to his future, Gog from Magog, Ez. 38:21)? To be sure, Job lived after Daniel.
In Job 1:1, text places Job's residence in the Uz locality. Uz must be recognized as a symbolic substitute for Judah, albeit a wicked designation. Determination for Job's residence is made with such ease; it appears frighteningly implicative. How could definition have lain unchallenged for so long a period?
Reevaluation of words contained in Job 19:25-:28 brings us to conclude: Job's place in history is not nearly so ancient as thought in the past. In 19:25-:26, in Job's own words, he expects to see Messiah in person, with his own eyes, in his old age, and in 'last days.' He continues, in paraphrase of19:27: 'I will see Him for myself; my eyes shall behold, and will not turn aside.' Job expected to look upon Messiah, though his skin will have become old and wrinkled, and his mind senile, circa AD 30.
Job was born in the last and Sixth Hebrew Age quarter, and lived into first century A.D.; Domiciled in Judea, he lived not very distant from the Temple in Jerusalem. More importantly, we need to determine identity for Behemoth; for, he did not resemble four-legged animals but identified with beast interchangeability detailed in Revelation 13 and 17. Job represented a Beast part, one of the mass constituting Beast definition, as Judean and as children of Israel. Job tribulations, from evidence gathered, occurred about 100 B.C.
Job 42:3 admits things to terrible for understanding, paraphrased: 'therefore, I utter things I understand not; these things are too wonderful for me, which I did not know.' Even so, we present Job's entire exposition and historical precedence in new and harmonic interpretation; now, all can sift evidence and determine the real principals taking part in those vignettes comprising Job's mysterious cabbala and troubles. In Job's confession, we discover why Old Testament testimony is beyond the casually read layperson. If Job could not understand his own testimony, then, how can modern materialists expect to properly exegete Job time frame, Behemoth identity, and penetrate the cause and effect transpired in faith inducements?
Even in the incertitude of Job's ruminations, this author believes his own time frame computation and Behemoth assignment to be above reproach and to surpass all available commentary. You decide!
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