Job 28King James Version
A remarkable poem about wisdom, set in the middle of the book like a jewel. Men dig deep into the earth for silver and gold and sapphires, but where shall wisdom be found? Man does not know the price. The deep and the sea say it is not in us. 'The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.'
A poem on the location of wisdom interrupts the dialogues. Humans mine silver, gold, iron, copper from the earth's deep places, places birds of prey have never seen. But where is wisdom? It cannot be mined. The deep says it is not in me. The sea says the same. It cannot be bought with gold. Death says it has heard a rumor of it. God understands its way and knows its place. And to humans: fear of the Lord is wisdom, and departing from evil is understanding.
Wisdom is not accessible to human searching or purchasing. It is located in God alone, and its only available expression to humans is the fear of the Lord.
28: "And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding." The climactic statement of the poem: wisdom is not achieved by intellectual effort but received through proper relationship with God.
Ancient mining operations in the Sinai and Negev are described with geological accuracy: shafts cut into stone, miners suspended on ropes, rivers searched for gold dust. The ancient reader would have known these operations firsthand or by report. The poem uses the most impressive human technology of its day to illustrate what wisdom is not.
No character is speaking here in the dialogue sense. This is a hymn, possibly attributed to Job or to a narrator. Its placement between Job's speeches and Job's final summation is deliberate: wisdom is the subject no one in the dialogue has fully grasped.
Chapter 28 is one of the greatest wisdom poems in ancient literature, standing with Proverbs 8 and Sirach 24. The mining imagery is based on actual ancient mining operations, including Egyptian gold mines in the Sinai Peninsula. The poem argues that human technological capacity is extraordinary, but wisdom eludes it entirely.
After all the speeches and counter-speeches, this chapter arrives as a pause. No one has found wisdom. The friends thought they had it. Job thought he could argue to it. The poem says: no one mines their way to it.
1Surely there is a vein for the silver, and a place for gold where they fine it.
2Iron is taken out of the earth, and brass is molten out of the stone.
3He setteth an end to darkness, and searcheth out all perfection: the stones of darkness, and the shadow of death.
4The flood breaketh out from the inhabitant; even the waters forgotten of the foot: they are dried up, they are gone away from men.
5As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is turned up as it were fire.
6The stones of it are the place of sapphires: and it hath dust of gold.
7There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not seen:
8The lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it.
9He putteth forth his hand upon the rock; he overturneth the mountains by the roots.
10He cutteth out rivers among the rocks; and his eye seeth every precious thing.
11He bindeth the floods from overflowing; and the thing that is hid bringeth he forth to light.
12But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding?
13Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living.
14The depth saith, It is not in me: and the sea saith, It is not with me.
15It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.
16It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire.
17The gold and the crystal cannot equal it: and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold.
18No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls: for the price of wisdom is above rubies.
19The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shall it be valued with pure gold.
20Whence then cometh wisdom? and where is the place of understanding?
21Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the fowls of the air.
22Destruction and death say, We have heard the fame thereof with our ears.
23God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place thereof.
24For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven;
25To make the weight for the winds; and he weigheth the waters by measure.
26When he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder:
27Then did he see it, and declare it; he prepared it, yea, and searched it out.
28And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.