Job 17 (Listen)

17:1   “My spirit is broken; my days are extinct;
    the graveyard is ready for me.
  Surely there are mockers about me,
    and my eye dwells on their provocation.
  “Lay down a pledge for me with you;
    who is there who will put up security for me?
  Since you have closed their hearts to understanding,
    therefore you will not let them triumph.
  He who informs against his friends to get a share of their property—
    the eyes of his children will fail.
  “He has made me a byword of the peoples,
    and I am one before whom men spit.
  My eye has grown dim from vexation,
    and all my members are like a shadow.
  The upright are appalled at this,
    and the innocent stirs himself up against the godless.
  Yet the righteous holds to his way,
    and he who has clean hands grows stronger and stronger.
10   But you, come on again, all of you,
    and I shall not find a wise man among you.
11   My days are past; my plans are broken off,
    the desires of my heart.
12   They make night into day:
    ‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’
13   If I hope for Sheol as my house,
    if I make my bed in darkness,
14   if I say to the pit, ‘You are my father,’
    and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’
15   where then is my hope?
    Who will see my hope?
16   Will it go down to the bars of Sheol?
    Shall we descend together into the dust?”





Devotional:

But come back and try again, all of you. I will not find a wise man among you (Job 17:10 CSB).

If all we have to depend on our friends as family as our only source of wisdom, then we, as Job stated, wouldn’t have much hope, because the source of wisdom is God. Job was seeking the truth and wasn’t finding it in his friends’ words. Can you imagine if we have friends like that in the middle of our storms?   

“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, since it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness” (1 Corinthians 3:19). Job had enough sense to not settle with untruth but was determined to continue seeking it. How easy is it for us to convince ourselves to settle with the untruth that the world offers us? Do we become content with the world’s answers, or do we have the sense enough to say, “try again?”  

Pray it:  Father, help me look to you and not other places for true wisdom. May I cling to your truth and perspective rather than adopt ideas or viewpoints that do not reflect the truth. May I be found to be wise because I look to the source of true wisdom. Amen.

Share it: Share a verse or thought from this passage with someone today?