Job 28 Bible study: Where will wisdom be found?

Chapter 28 has no heading of its own. By the book's headings it stands within the words that open, "Job again took up his parable, and said" (27:1), and the next heading repeats them: "Job again took up his parable, and said" (29:1). It begins underground: "Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place for gold which they refine" (28:1) (tap place), and "Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is smelted out of the ore" (28:2). Man "searches out, to the furthest bound, the stones of obscurity and of thick darkness" (28:3) (tap searches out). "He breaks open a shaft away from where people live" (28:4). "That path no bird of prey knows, neither has the falcon’s eye seen it" (28:7). "He puts his hand on the flinty rock, and he overturns the mountains by the roots" (28:9). "His eye sees every precious thing" (28:10). And the last line of the mine: "The thing that is hidden he brings out to light" (28:11) (tap hidden).

Job 28:21→leads toColossians 2:3

Job 28 asks, "But where will wisdom be found? Where is the place of understanding?" (28:12). Its answers are that wisdom "can’t be gotten for gold" (28:15), that it "is hidden from the eyes of all living" (28:21), and that "God understands its way, and he knows its place" (28:23). Paul writes of "the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden" (Colossians 2:2-3). Paul doesn't name Job or quote Job 28, and no link between the Hebrew and Greek words is claimed, so setting them side by side is a reading. It rests on a shared subject, where wisdom is and that it is hidden, not on a shared English word. Some read the two together: the wisdom that Job 28 says is hidden from all living and known to God, Paul speaks of as treasures hidden in "the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ" (Colossians 2:2). Others read each in its own setting: Job 28 answers its own question, "Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom. To depart from evil is understanding" (28:28), and names no one else; Paul says, "Now I say this that no one may delude you with persuasiveness of speech" (Colossians 2:4), and says nothing of Job. Neither reading makes the wisdom of Job 28 a person, or says Job 28 speaks of Christ.

חָכְמָהchokhmahsay khokh-MAH

Brown-Driver-Briggs gives "wisdom", and among its uses "wisdom, ethical and religious"; Strong's, "wisdom (in a good sense)". It comes four times in this chapter: in both questions, "But where will wisdom be found?" (28:12) and "Where then does wisdom come from?" (28:20); in "the price of wisdom is above rubies" (28:18); and in the answer, "Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom" (28:28). In the Hebrew of Job it comes 18 times. Zophar wished that God "would show you the secrets of wisdom!" (11:6), and Job said, "With God is wisdom and might" (12:13). When the LORD answers Job he asks, "Who has put wisdom in the inward parts?" (38:36), the same word.