Old Testament · Poetry and wisdom
Job chapter 28
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There is a place where silver comes from, and a place where they burn the gold clean.Iron is pulled out of the dirt, and rock is .A man puts an end to the darkness. He hunts to the farthest edge of everything for ore lying in the gloom, in .He sinks a shaft far from anywhere people live, in ground no foot remembers. Down there, cut off from everyone, he hangs and sways on the rope.Up above, the ground gives out its bread. Underneath, it is churned as if by fire.Its stones are where the lies, and its dust carries gold.No hawk knows that path. No falcon’s eye has ever caught it. have never walked it. No lion has crossed that way.He sets his hand against the flint and turns whole mountains over at the root.He cuts tunnels through solid rock, and his eye catches every precious thing.He plugs the streams where they seep, and whatever was hidden he hauls into the light.But — where is it found? Where is the place of ?No one alive knows what it is worth, and it is not turned up anywhere in the land of the living. says, “Not in me.” The sea says, “Not here with me.”You cannot hand over solid gold for it. You cannot weigh out silver as its price.It cannot be measured against the gold of , or against costly onyx and lapis.Gold and are not its equal. You could not trade a bowl of fine gold for it.Coral and crystal are not even worth naming. Hauling wisdom up is worth more than pearls.Topaz out of is not its equal. It cannot be measured against the purest gold.But wisdom — where does it come from? Where is the place of understanding?It is hidden from the eyes of everything alive, kept back even from the birds of the sky. and Death say, “Only a rumor of it reached our ears.”God is the one who understands the way to it. He is the one who knows where it lives.Because he looks out to the ends of the earth. He sees everything there is under the sky.When he gave its weight and measured the waters out by measure,when he set the rule the rain runs by and cut a road for the crack of the thunder —that was when he saw wisdom and took its measure. He set it in place and searched it all the way through.And he said to human beings, “Look — , that is wisdom, and is understanding.”