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

Often when I am a guest speaker in a group or church I will hand out envelops to members of my audience. Each envelop contains a Hebrew word and an explanation of that word within the context of a passage of Scripture that uses that word. Many have called it a prophetic ministry in that these words I give them are considered a prophecy. No they are just random words handed out randomly to individuals to see how a study of Hebrew words can enhance their understanding of Scripture. Almost without exception after the service people come up to me and say that the word I gave them spoke specifically to them and a need they had been praying about. Then they try to tell me that I have prophetic gifts.  No I do not have prophetic gifts. I do not prophecy, I only randomly pick out words and Scripture passages.  If God chooses to speak to that person specifically that is between them and God.  I do try to follow what I believe is the leading of the Spirit of God when I choose the words and Scripture passages and I trust my assistants who pass out the word to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit but ultimately if they are blessed it is not me, it is simply a matter between them and God. In a way, that is what Job is talking about 27:12.

I ran across something quite interesting in the Babylonian Talmud, in Baba Bathar 15.  Although  the Talmud is not inspired, it is still a nice resource to offer some good illustrations and even Jesus quoted from it as I mentioned yesterday where Matthew 7:3 which appears to be a direct quote from the Talmud. Actually the Talmud did not exist during the time of Jesus it was put together a few hundred years after His death and resurrection.  However, it did exist orally and was known as the Tradition of the Fathers.  Hundreds of years later were these teachings and other teachings compiled into what is known as the Babylonian Talmud.

Now no one knows much about Job, who he was, or what time he lived.   We are not even sure if he was a Hebrew.   That Talmud which is about the most accurate historical record that we have, and it is not without its flaws suggest that Job was one of three advisors to the Pharaoh, the other two were Jethro and Balaam.  Jethro was Moses’s father and you know Balaam the guy who was willing to curse Israel if he was paid well enough and finally had to have  donkey set him straight. Balaam advised the Pharaoh to enslave the Hebrew people, Jethro advised against it and Job sort of sat on the fence.  It is suggested that Job went through his trouble so he would understand the trouble that the Hebrew people would experience under Pharaoh should he cast his deciding vote with Balaam.  If this were the case, Job may well have understood the reason for his suffering.  This could very well have prompted what he said in Job 27:12 and why the sages used the illustration of addressing the splinter in your brother’s eye without removing the board in your own.

As I indicated yesterday, the word seen is chazah which is the same word for vision, prophecy, seer etc.  So Job is telling his friends, “You have given a prophetic word and yet it is vain.” How could a prophetic word be vain?  Job said: “Zeh hevel tehevalu.”  This phrase literally means: “This vain thing has become your vain thing.”   In the Talmud or Tradition of the Fathers the ancient rabbi used an illustration of a judge talking about the speck in the other person’s eye, and that person responded by pointing out the board in the judge’s eye, the rabbis were saying that  Job was telling his friends in 27:12, “You have spoken a prophetic word, or a word from God,  but you must first speak that word to yourself before you speak it to me.  As a judge of Israel I am suffering what they will suffer before I deliver my word to the Pharaoh, so to must you suffer what I suffer before  you deliver that word to me.

The sages were establishing a very important rule of giving a prophetic word.  If you are given a prophetic word, it is first meant for you and you must apply it to yourself, before  you give it to someone else.   For instance, one study that I have received the most responses to was the one about unanswered prayer where I told the story from the Talmud about the king with two daughters, one selfish and one very loving and how the king answered the selfish daughter’s request immediately but delayed in answering the loving daughter’s request for fear she would not spend time with him if he gave her what she wanted.  Someone wrote to me and commented that I had given them a prophetic word.  Yet this word was for me as I was struggling with unanswered prayer and I was just sharing that word on my blog figuring I was not the only one struggling with this. I was looking at the beam in my eye before looking at the splinter in another’s eye.   Was Matthew 7:3 directed at those who feel lead to share a prophetic word or a word from God to others?  If Jesus was quoting from the Tradition of the Fathers then his listeners of that day would have understand this to be such a reference for they were very familiar with the splinter in the eye illustration..

Why must a prophetic word be first applied to the one giving it?  Remember that the word vain haval has a built in commentary meaning “self deception through feelings of spiritual superiority and self importance.   If I were not struggling with unanswered prayer, I would tend to feel a little spiritually superior to those who were having the struggle and thus my little word of prophecy would have  become vain  (haval – useless or foolish).  But if I am having a struggle with unanswered prayer, it would be a little hard to feel spiritually superior to someone who is also walking the same road.

I believe what Jesus is saying in Matthew 7:3 is that you will have to live every sermon you preach, every song you sing for others, every piece of spiritual advice your give, every prophetic word you share or even  every study you (I) write.  If not, your words will be just as vain (useless, foolish) as the words of Jobs friends.