Job said, “Oh! That my words were written! Oh! That they were inscribed in a book!”
His prayer was abundantly answered. His ordeal, his words, his case for right, and his outcomes have all been printed in the greatest bestseller of all time.
This isn’t because Job’s words are so great on their own. It’s because God spoke through Job, causing Job’s desires and longings to match His own. Now, Job’s words echo down through time.
Job said, “My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt; my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh…Remember that my life is a breath; my eye will never again see good.”
The Psalmist echoed: “My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.”
Job said, “You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews…”
The Psalmist wrote: “You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.”
Job said, “After my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God.”
The Psalmist echoed him: “Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him.”
I wonder if David read Job. We know that God commanded the Kings of Israel to write out their own copy of His law, and perhaps Job, as one of the oldest books in the Bible, was also among their materials for study.
In any case, Job’s words echo down through David’s in the Psalms, and they all find their fulfilment in Christ, the Word.
Psalm 22 details Christ’s crucifixion so completely, though it was penned a thousand years before.
And before that, who was more likely than Job to cry out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?”
God wrote their words in His book because they were echoes of His Word, the Living Word, the One who was in the beginning with God.
My father-in-law has many memorable sayings, and it always makes me smile when I hear my children repeating them.
“If a little will do you a little good, then a lot will do you a lot of good,” they say about ice cream and chocolate (though not about vitamins or spinach).
And “If you’re waiting on me, you’re backing up,” they say as they jump into the van when we’re late.
My children are saying the phrases, but I know the one who originally spoke those colloquialisms. My children take my father-in-law’s sayings and adapt them to their everyday circumstances, making his words their own.
Job and David spoke God’s truths, even in difficult circumstances, because His Holy Spirit echoed through them.
The more we know His Word, the more we will be able to echo Him also, no matter our circumstances, growing in our knowledge of Who He is, what He has done, and what He is doing. His words become our own the more we become His own.
Sarah Dixon Young 