Job Tells of Earth’s Treasures
28 “Surely there is a [a]mine for silver
And a place [b]where they refine gold.
2 “Iron is taken from the dust,
And copper is smelted from rock.
3 “Man puts an end to darkness,
And to the farthest limit he searches out
The rock in gloom and deep shadow.
4 “He [c]sinks a shaft far from [d]habitation,
Forgotten by the foot;
They hang and swing to and fro far from men.
5 “The earth, from it comes food,
And underneath it is turned up as fire.
6 “Its rocks are the [e]source of sapphires,
And its dust contains gold.
7 “The path no bird of prey knows,
Nor has the falcon’s eye caught sight of it.
8 “The [f]proud beasts have not trodden it,
Nor has the fierce lion passed over it.
9 “He puts his hand on the flint;
He overturns the mountains at the [g]base.
10 “He hews out channels through the rocks,
And his eye sees anything precious.
11 “He dams up the streams from [h]flowing,
And what is hidden he brings out to the light.
Job is going somewhere with this passage that we’ll look at next time, but here Job talks about the efforts of man to find beautiful and valuable things in the earth. We see the same things today, people are always coming up with different and more creative ways to uncover the earths riches. In and of itself, there wouldn’t be anything wrong with that, but time and again we see this pursuit drive folks to do things they wouldn’t do in their right minds.
We’ve seen several oil booms in our area, and people flock to the area for a season, starting new businesses, and hoping to strike it rich. Many do make considerable money, but ultimately too much oil is produced and it drives the price down to a place it would never be if it weren’t for the overzealous activity.
And it’s all for what? To buy a bigger house and some fancy “toys”? Often people end up going too far just trying to impress others and show that they’ve really succeeded, and this isn’t limited just to oil booms and mining. Our society is consumed with accumulating status symbols, as if there were somehow value in that.
These possessions are not intrinsically evil or wrong (at least not most of them), but it’s what it does to our hearts. This pursuit is prone to producing price in our hearts and cultivating a greed that cannot be quenched. It can drive us to do foolish things or worse… Instead, we need to lift our eyes off ourselves, and see that there’s a higher purpose for wealth and indeed a higher goal in this life.
In the scope of this earth, our lives are a short span, but we are destined for eternity. As such, we need to fix our eyes on the Author and Perfecter of our souls. I can’t really say it much better than the Bible itself: “seek first the kingdom of God…” He will take care of your needs, whether you gain success by earthly standards or not. There is nothing greater that we can make our life’s pursuit, than God himself, and to make Him known to others. Everything else in this world are mere trifles, as sand on the shore in comparison to the riches of knowing God and being known by Him.