Overview
Rev. Jon Ryan examines “This Great Man — Job” through Genesis 25, Genesis 12, Genesis 24, Genesis 45, showing how abraham, jacob, egypt shape a believer’s relationship with God, daily choices, and service to others.
Transcript
Understanding This Great Man — Job
Look at this great man named Job. If you would turn to Genesis chapter 25, please. Who was Job? He kind of appears and we don’t easily see the connections, but Job was a man that lived in a specific area.
We are told that he had specific friends. All these details help us to pinpoint and understand who he is, which is such a great thing. So, to get a running start as we begin to look at this, I’m going to remind you that in Genesis chapter 12, we learn about Abraham.
Abraham was married to Sarah. They were called of God to leave the land where he had grown up and lived for 70 years and to go to a land that God would show him and he obeyed. Later on, years and years after he died, he’s called the father of all them that believe because he obeyed not even knowing where he was going to go to, just that God said to go.
And they traveled up north from where they were living along the Euphrates River. And when they got to as far north as they were going to go on the river, they settled for five years. These details, I’m telling you, can be found in Genesis chapter 12, 13, and on going on.
So, they settled in this land that became known as Haran. Abraham and Sarah had taken on his brother Haran’s son to raise him. His brother’s son was named Lot.
Haran had died prematurely. So, Abraham traveled north, his father traveled north with him, and his brother Nahor also traveled north with Abraham. And they stayed together as a family.
And then when the dad died, Terah was his name, then Abraham continued west as God directed him and ultimately landed into this land that was known as the land of Canaan. And there he settled with his family and we can read about his comings and goings there. And ultimately, he had a son with Sarah named Isaac.
And God provided for Abraham and Sarah and Isaac. And when Isaac was 40 years old, his mother had died. Sarah had died.
And Abraham wanted to get a wife for Isaac. Isaac was a 40 year old man. As a matter of fact, his mother had died three years earlier when Isaac was 37, and he was still grieving over the loss of his mom.
And in Genesis 24, we can read about how Abraham sent a servant back to the land where his father had died and where his brother currently lived to go get a wife for Isaac. The servant went back there and found Rebekah and brought Rebekah to Abraham. And Isaac was delighted with this wonderful woman, and he married Rebekah.
And Isaac and Rebekah were not able to have children for about 20 years, but then when they were 60, when Isaac was 60 years old, then Rebekah had twin boys, Jacob and Esau. And Abraham was still alive while Jacob and Esau grew up until they were 15 years old. So Abraham had Isaac when he was 100.
Isaac and Rebekah had the twin boys when Isaac was 60 and Abraham was 160. And then he got to enjoy his grandchildren until they were 15 when Abraham was 175, and that’s when he died. But in the meantime, in Genesis 25, Sarah had been dead for three years, and Abraham married again.
The Biblical Foundation
And it says in Genesis 25 verse 1, Then again Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah. And she bare him Zimran and Joksham and Medan and Midian and Ishbak and Shuah. The reason I want to give you all this is because there’s significance here that we don’t necessarily put together unless we can grab hold of these names.
Midian is a name of one of Abraham’s sons with Keturah, and he traveled south from the promised land and he settled in a land that became known as the land of Midian. Years later, Moses was born in Egypt, and Moses was a child of Israel parents. His parents were believers, not Egyptian, and Moses was raised by the prince or as a prince in Egypt, and when he was 40 years old, he tried to deliver Israel out of the severe bondage they were in in Egypt.
And his life was in jeopardy, and he had to run away, and he fled to the land of Midian. Midian was one of Abraham’s sons, so these people in Midian would have known the true God. You know, back in those days, they had no written Bible, no written Word of God.
They had what was passed down from generation to generation, word of mouth, and the Word of God was written in the stars. God had taught Adam from the very beginning the Word that was written in the stars, and Moses, as he traveled through the wilderness with Israel, with the two and a half million he delivered out of Egypt, they would camp each night according to the constellations, the 12 constellations that we still look at today. If you’ve got the Zodiac, you know there’s Aquarius, and Sagittarius, and Pisces, and Aries, and Leo, and all these constellations.
Well, they were put there by God, and they had significance. As a matter of fact, the tribe of Judah was associated with the constellation Leo, and that’s where Jesus Christ came from, this tribe of Judah. So, that’s just another kind of a piece of information I want you to hold on to.
So, Moses eventually went to the land of Midian. Well, in here you see the last name. In Genesis 25, in verse 2, you had Zimran, Jokshan, Midan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shua.
Shua was also a son of Abraham, and Shua had children in the next generation. So, Abraham was 160 by the time he married this wonderful woman, Keturah, and had these children. So, these children, Shua would have been, at the time that he was born, Isaac, Abraham’s son, was 60 years old, and Jacob was already born.
So, Shua would have been close to the same age as Jacob, and so that’s important. Look at Genesis 45. Joseph had been in Egypt as a slave.
He was sold as a slave into Egypt. He rose up to run the kingdom of Egypt, and when the famine started, Joseph’s brothers, who were the sons of Jacob, Joseph was a son of Jacob, they all came looking for food in Egypt because Joseph, in his wisdom, had reserved food during the seven previous years. So, they were providing food for all the world at that time.
Joseph revealed to his brothers that he was indeed their brother that they had sold into slavery in Genesis 45. So, he’s able to tell Pharaoh that, my family has come, and I’d like all of them to be able to come here. There’s going to be five more years of famine, and they can serve or live out here with us.
Pharaoh loved Joseph because Joseph had saved his country. Certainly, he had preserved his leadership as the head of state, Pharaoh, because he had this great man that was wise enough to store food during the plenteous years. So, when everyone else was during the second year of the famine, everyone else was starving, they had food more than enough for themselves.
They were able to feed others. And so, Pharaoh certainly consented to bring your family over, and in Genesis 46, we read, And Israel, Jacob’s name had been changed to Israel. And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father, Isaac.
Examples and Spiritual Lessons
So, again, there’s Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob’s name is changed to Israel. And now, his son Joseph, who we thought was dead, is not dead.
He’s alive, and he’s over in Egypt, and he’s calling for him. And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here I am, or here am I. And he said, I am God, the God of thy father.
Fear not to go down into Egypt, for I will there make of thee a great nation. And I will go down with thee into Egypt, and I will also surely bring thee up again, and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes. So, he got the green light to go, because they had been forbidden to go to Egypt back during the time of Abraham.
When Abraham first made a trip to Egypt and nearly lost his wife, God said, Don’t go to Egypt anymore. And so, Jacob, even though he knows his son is there, needs permission from God to go to Egypt. And so, they traveled there.
And it says in verse 5, And Jacob rose up from Beersheba, and the sons of Israel carried Jacob, their father, and their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him. And then it goes on to tell us who all came. And these are the names of the children of Israel which came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons, Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn.
And it tells you who Reuben’s children were that came. And the sons of Simeon and his children. And the sons of Levi and his children.
And the sons of Judah and his children. And the sons of Issachar, Tola, and Phuva, and Job, and Shemron. So, Job was the great-grandson of Abraham, or the great-great-grandson.
And so, here, this is who Job is. And all these people come into Egypt. It says in verse 26, And all the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob’s sons, wives, and all the souls, were three, four, and six.
Sixty-six. And then Joseph’s already there, and he’s got a wife and two daughters, so that totals 70. So, that’s who came into Egypt in the second year of the famine.
So, I want you to see who this guy Job was. And I mentioned a couple other names in there. Now, let’s go to the book of Job.
And so, Job found himself in Egypt with 69 other relatives, and most of them were males. Job did not have a female believer that he could marry, and he did not want to marry an Egyptian. But that’s where they’re living is in Egypt.
So, it makes sense that Job would go back to the land where his grandmother came from, where Rebekah came from, and where his mother came from, his grandmother, I guess I should say. Jacob married Rachel and Leah and had Issachar, and Issachar had Job. So, his grandmother was from this land, and his great-grandmother was from this land, where Job goes and settles, the land of Uz.
Faith in Action
Uz and Buzz were two sons of Abraham’s brother Nahor. When Abraham had first left for the Chaldees, went up north along the Euphrates River, he stayed there till his dad died in the land of Haran. They named that city after his brother that had died.
And Nahor, his other brother, settled in the city of Nahor, and he had Uz and Buzz. So, Job traveled up to where there were some believers to marry and found a woman and started his life with her in the land of Uz. Job 1.1. There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was perfect and upright and one that feared God and eschewed evil.
So, not that he was perfect and that he was flawless, he just walked before God maturely, and evil was distasteful to him. Verse 2. And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters. He had ten children, and he just had an abundance.
It says in verse 3, his substance also was seven thousand sheep and three thousand camels and five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred she-asses and a very great household. So, this man was the greatest of all the men of the east. So, again, it may be a bit challenging to put into your thinking caps, your brain, but we have Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
And then when Abraham’s wife, Sarah, dies, he marries a woman, Keturah. Around that same time, Jacob, Abraham’s grandson, has married and he has two wives, Rachel and Leah, and they have children. They have the twelve tribes.
One of Jacob’s sons is named Issachar. Abraham has sons. One of them is Midian and one of them is Shua.
And so, they’re similar in age to these sons of Jacob. Midian was and Shua was. And why is that important? Well, because look what it says in chapter 2 of Job.
Job has just endured terrible calamity. He’s lost all of the agriculture that he had, all the animals that he had, those five hundred she-asses, and all these camels, and he’s even lost all ten of his children. And so, it says, Job’s three friends came to visit him.
Now, when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came, every one from his own place. Eliphaz the Temanite, I’m going to stop there for a second, Jacob, it was Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Isaac had two sons. They were twin boys, Jacob and Esau.
Now, the focus is on Jacob because Jacob is who had the twelve tribes, and that’s where the lineage of Jesus Christ came from. But Jacob had a twin brother Esau, and Esau had a son named Teman, T-E-M-A-N. And so, like in that same time frame as Shua, Abraham’s son with Keturah, Shua, and Job and his son Issachar was this Esau’s son Teman, and Esau’s son Teman had a son named Eliphaz.
So, here it says in verse 11, Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuite. Remember, I said Abraham had a son named Shua? Shua had a son named Bildad. So, see, these names that are put in here are not just random names.
Walking in Love and Confidence
These are people that are part of the extended family. At the time of Joseph bringing his family over into Egypt where all the abundance was, there were still other family members, members of Abraham’s family, Midian and Shua and others like that, that didn’t go to Egypt, but they were still part of the family. They still have been brought up by Abraham and taught about the true God like Abraham would have taught them.
That’s ultimately how Moses learned about the true God because that word had been passed down from generation to generation. So, here you see these friends Bildad the Shuite and Eliphaz the Temanite and Zophar the Namathite. These were all family that had heard about Job.
They had kept in touch. They heard about the terrible things that had happened to Job and his family, that he had lost all of his children in this horrific storm, that all their goods that they had built for their livelihood had either been stolen or destroyed. Even Job was sick from head to toe with sore boils.
So, these three friends came to his aid, just like family might do that in our day. They hear that somebody’s had a real bad situation and they might come to see what help they could offer. Here in Job 2, verse 12, And when they lifted up their eyes far off and knew him not, they lifted up their voices and wept.
It was worse than that they had heard. Job was a mess. He had boils all over him from head to toe, it says.
They had expected this man to be pretty initiated, pretty beaten up over what he had gone through. It says, And they rent every one his mantle and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. These were indications of great grief to rip your mantle and to throw dust up in the air.
So, they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights and none spake a word unto him, for they saw that his grief was very great. So, I just wanted to kind of lay down the foundation for you that these men that came were dear friends. They had left whatever was going on in their own families and traveled east to come to this land of us where their relative Job lived and they were there just to be with him.
Sometimes the greatest thing you can do when somebody’s in great grief is just be there. You don’t have to say anything. Sometimes just being there, giving them a hug, and sitting quietly with them praying perhaps is enough.
After a week, these folks that came, these friends, began to speak. That’s when they got themselves in trouble. They ultimately were called miserable comforters because they got caught up in what would have likely been the talk around the community.
You know, as people are prone to do, this guy Job lost everything. He must have had it coming. He must have done something awful to have all this happen to him all at once.
People tend to go that way. It appears that these friends got caught up in this and they began over the next number of chapters to accuse Job of these things. But Job, as we read through the chapters, and there’s 42 chapters, he retained his integrity.
He refused to blame God for what happened and he refused to take the blame himself, saying that he deserved it. He knew that wasn’t the case. He loved God.
Applying the Teaching in Daily Life
Sometimes bad things happen to good people, but if we stay the course as we don’t crater and begin to fall into condemnation or begin to blame God, God will make the way to escape that we may be able to bear it. Just don’t give up on God. It says all the way in the book of Peter, it mentions that we can take a look at the patience of Job.
So, let’s go to Job 42. There’s quite a bit that goes on in these exchanges back and forth. God speaks for four chapters and just kind of sets things straight to what’s really going on.
And it’s really great that the way that God speaks in these chapters 38 through 41 is He’s just saying, you know, aren’t I the one that created the heavens and the earth? Aren’t I the one that put the stars in the sky and did all these things? In other words, I can do that, so I’m going to take care of you, Job. And it says in Job 42, verse 1, then Job answered the Lord and said, I know that thou can’t do everything and that no thought can be withholden from thee. Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have uttered that I understood not things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.
Here I beseech thee, and I will speak. I will demand of thee and declare thou unto me. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now might I seeth thee.
See, that’s how they had learned about God as it was passed down. Just to give you an idea, Job was the grandson of Jacob, and he would have learned about how his grandfather had gone to the land where Job is now in, had gone to the land where Job is, and his own relative, his uncle Laban, had cheated him time after time after time. Ten times he cheated him, yet Jacob didn’t get in a big fight with his uncle, he just continued to put his confidence in God.
And he was able to marry this wonderful woman Rachel, and when he wanted to marry Rachel, Laban, Rachel’s dad, put his daughter Leah in first and said, you can’t marry the younger before the older. But that wasn’t the plan, but he just endured. And he had these 12 children, and so Job would have learned how you just don’t give up on God even when things don’t go well.
He would have learned about his uncle Joseph, how Joseph had gone to Egypt and been treated terribly by his own brothers and then by the man who he was serving. His wife tried to accuse him of raping her when he never did that, and Joseph just didn’t give up on God. Joseph continued to trust God and ended up rising to be second in command of the whole country of Egypt.
So, this was part of the legacy that Job was mentioning here when he says, I heard by the hearing of the ear, wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. And it was so that after the Lord had spoken these words unto Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee and against thy two friends. See, they had come over with the intention to help Job, but they had become what’s called in this book of Job miserable comforters because they had fallen in with the community and said Job must have deserved all this.
For ye have not spoken of me, the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath. Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering, and my servant Job shall pray for you. See, God’s not telling him to get the heck out of here.
God wants to. This is part of the extended family of Job. So, God’s going to show them how they can get it right, how they’ve been off in the wrong direction for a long time.
Six months it appears this all took place. And God’s saying, take these sacrifices and go to see Job and he’ll pray for you. And it goes on in the middle of verse 8, For him will I accept, lest I deal with you after your folly, and that you have not spoken of me, the thing which is right, like my servant Job.
So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did according as the Lord commanded them. The Lord also accepted Job. And the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends.
A Life Shaped by God’s Word
Also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. See, Job had to get to the place where he realized even though he had lost everything, his children, all he had worked for, his properties, his flocks, he still had the greatest thing going. He still had a real relationship with God, the Creator of the heavens and earth.
And he had more going for him than these friends who came to console him from distant places had. And so he prayed for them because he had more to give. And with that, God was able to turn it around where Job was given twice as much as he had before.
It’s just incredible. And Job lived for another 140 years. So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than the beginning, for he had 14,000 sheep, and 6,000 camels, and 1,000 oxen, and 1,000 she-asses.
And he also had seven sons and three daughters. See, so he got 10 other children, which at the return of Christ, at the judgment comes, he’ll have 20 children, twice as many. He called the name of the first Jemima, the name of the second Ezekiel, and the name of the third Kerenhapak.
And all the land, there were no women found so fair as the daughters of Job. And their father gave them inheritance among their brethren. And after this lived Job 140 years.
And he saw his sons and his sons’ sons, even four generations. So Job died being old and full of days. Job was certainly a great man.
And I just wanted to help you to see how it fits together. You know, Moses was 55 years old when Job died. So there’s a connection even there.
Moses is accredited with writing the book of Job. Moses fled to the land of Midian. He would have learned about these families.
He would have learned about Midian, and Shua, and would have learned about Job, and would have been able to write this amazing book of Job. So father, I thank you for your love, your goodness, your grace. Thank you for your word.
And that we can put things together so we can understand how you take care of us. And that we just never need to give up on you. We may face some challenging times as we go through this life.
And yet we know that you are always there for us. That you always will make a way for us. So God, I thank you for the great example of this man, Job, and how he stood faithfully on your word.
And even his friends learned to not charge you with folly, but to just respect you and what you have available. Thanks for all of us in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Key Takeaways
- Midian is a name of one of Abraham’s sons with Keturah, and he traveled south from the promised land and he settled in a land that became known as the land of Midian.
- So, these children, Shua would have been, at the time that he was born, Isaac, Abraham’s son, was 60 years old, and Jacob was already born.
- And these are the names of the children of Israel which came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons, Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn.
- It says in verse 26, And all the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob’s sons, wives, and all the souls, were three, four, and six.
- Eliphaz the Temanite, I’m going to stop there for a second, Jacob, it was Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Isaac had two sons.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the main message of “This Great Man — Job”?
Rev. Jon Ryan examines “This Great Man — Job” through Genesis 25, Genesis 12, Genesis 24, Genesis 45, showing how abraham, jacob, egypt shape a believer’s relationship with God, daily choices, and service to others.
Which scriptures are central to this teaching?
The teaching draws especially from Genesis 25, Genesis 12, Genesis 24, Genesis 45, Genesis 46.
How can believers apply this teaching?
Believers can receive the truth presented, verify it in Scripture, and put it into practice with faith, humility, love, and consistent action.
Scripture References
Genesis 25; Genesis 12; Genesis 24; Genesis 45; Genesis 46; Job 1
This text was prepared from the teaching audio or source document. Please verify scripture references against your own Bible.
