Job 2:3 Swallow Him Alive For No Reason! 11-02-2025 Initial Podcast

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Transcript

Welcome to the InAllWisdom Podcast,
A daily podcast dedicated to wisdom for life.
I am Jim Donnelly, your host.

Today’s podcast is from Job chapter two.

Swallow Him Alive For No Reason!
 is the title. 
Stay tuned for this episode about wisdom for life.
 
I have completed a commentary on
The book of Ecclesiastes, all 222 verses.
My book title is:
Ecclesiastes Amplified: A Collection of Wise Words 
We have set the publication date for 2026.
 
In the meantime, I am working on 
the book of Job, 
all forty-two chapters, all 1070 verses.

My book title prompts 
a different approach to understanding
the book of Job: 

My book title is: 
Job Is A True Story–Well Written Well Spoken

Subtitled: A Trues Story About Our Mighty God - Who Has Chosen Not to Distance Himself From Human Suffering 
 
Job is forty-two chapters long. A daily podcast will allow me to read through the entire book of Job every six weeks. 

I started this method of reading and commenting yesterday, November 1, 2025.  

Each daily podcast will start with a reading from a chapter in the book of Job. 

I am taking this trek through Job 
for you and with you. 

Because most people on planet Earth have never heard the true story of Job. 

Reading a chapter a day will help them. 

It will also help many of you 

who know the book of Job 

but have never read it all. 

When you are reading along in the book of Job, 

it is often very hard to figure out who is speaking; 

who is the target of the conversation; 

and harder still sometimes, to understand what they said.


Last, for each month of this podcast, I will choose a different version of the English Bible from which to read. 

This method will help all of us 

to better understand 

what has been written for us. 

Today’s podcast title is:
Swallow Him Alive For No Reason!


 

Allow me first to read Job chapter two. It is thirteen verses long. 

This month, November, I am reading from The Legacy Standard Bible. 

The Book of Job Chapter Two

 

1 Again, it was the day that the sons of God came to stand before Yahweh, and Satan also came among them to stand himself before Yahweh. 

2 And Yahweh said to Satan, “Where do you come from?” Then Satan answered Yahweh and said, “From roaming about on the earth and walking around on it.” 
3 And Yahweh said to Satan, “Have you set your heart upon My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil. And he still holds fast his integrity. So you incited Me against him to swallow him up in vain.” 
 
 
4 Satan answered Yahweh and said, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. 
5 However, send forth Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh; he will curse You in Your face.” 
 
6 So Yahweh said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand, only spare his life.” 

7 Then Satan went out from the presence of Yahweh and struck Job with terrible boils from the sole of his foot to the top of his head. 
8 And he took a potsherd to scrape himself while he was sitting among the ashes. 
9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!” 

10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the wickedly foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept calamity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. 

 11 Then Job’s three friends heard of all this calamity that had come upon him. So they came each one from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to console him and comfort him. 
 12 Then they lifted up their eyes at a distance and did not recognize him, and they lifted up their voices and wept. And each of them tore his robe, and they threw dust over their heads toward the sky. 
 13 Then they sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great. (Job 2:1-13, LSB).

Death was knocking on Job’s front door
And you enticed Me against him, to swallow him alive, for no reason. (see Job 2:3).
וַתְּסִיתֵ֥נִי ב֖וֹ לְבַלְּע֥וֹ חִנָּֽם׃
wa=tȧsīt-i=nī b=ō l˙=ballïʿ=ō ḥinn-am  

Job was in danger of being killed by Yahweh. 

King David wrote a Psalm explaining: “Had it not been Yahweh who was on our side, Let Israel now say, ‘Had it not been Yahweh who was on our side when a man rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us alive, when their anger was kindled against us; Then the waters would have flowed over us, the stream would have swept over our soul; then the raging waters would have swept over our soul.’” (See Psalm 124:1-5).

How was King David suddenly brought into this conversation? 

In one of his Psalms, King David quoted from the song of Moses, a conjunction: “If not”. 

“If not”, connects to a fear that surfaces in the song of Moses: “Had I not feared the provocation by the enemy, Lest their adversaries misjudge, lest they say, “Our hand is triumphant, And Yahweh has not done all this.” (Dt 32:27, LSB). 
David knew that there was a second instance of “If not” in Deut. 32:30, which established the fact that Yahweh has sovereign control of Israel and their enemies.

King Solomon, David’s son, quoted that second instance of “If not”:  
 Unless Yahweh builds the house, 
 They labor in vain who build it; 
 Unless Yahweh watches the city, 
 The watchman keeps awake in vain. (Ps 127:1, LSB).

King Solomon’s used the second instance, a different Hebrew word, also translated: “If not” from Deut. 32:30, and used: “How could one pursue one thousand, And two put ten thousand to flight, Unless their Rock had sold them,” (Dt 32:30, LSB). 
 

“Swallow Alive” is how David described it; 

So, how is it possible for Yahweh to be enticed to swallow Job alive?

Elihu, “one perfect in knowledge,” provides some understanding: “But you were full of judgment on the wicked; judgment and justice take hold of you. Beware lest wrath entice you to scoffing; and do not let the greatness of the atonement turn you aside. (Job 36:17-18, LSB). 

I will explain how “one perfect in knowledge” describes Yahweh; when the writer of Job takes us there. Along with an explanation of who Elihu is referring to in Job 36:17-18. 

In the meantime, I think that the Song of Moses gives us the best explanation of Yahweh being enticed to do something that will not glorify Yahweh: 
Deuteronomy 32:19 “And Yahweh saw this and spurned them 
Because of the provocation of His sons and daughters. 
 20 “Then He said, ‘I will hide My face from them; 
I will see what their end shall be; 
For they are a perverse generation, 
Sons in whom is no faithfulness. 
 21 ‘They have made Me jealous with what is not God; 
They have provoked Me to anger with their idols. 
So I will make them jealous with those who are not a people; 
I will provoke them to anger with a wickedly foolish nation, 
 22 For a fire is kindled in My anger, 
And it burns to the lowest part of Sheol, 
And it consumes the earth with its produce, 
And it sets on fire the foundations of the mountains. 
 23 ‘I will heap calamities on them; 
I will exhaust My arrows on them. 
 24 ‘They will be wasted by famine, and consumed by plague 
And bitter destruction; 
And the teeth of beasts I will send upon them, 
With the venom of crawling things of the dust. 
 25 ‘Outside the sword will bereave, 
And inside terror—
Both choice man and virgin, 
The nursing baby with the man of gray hair. 
 26 ‘I would have said, “I will cut them to pieces [scatter them among the nations, is the threat]; 
I will cause the memory of them to cease from men,” 
 27 Had I not feared the provocation by the enemy, 
Lest their adversaries misjudge, 
Lest they say, “Our hand is triumphant, 
And Yahweh has not done all this.” ’ (Deuteronomy 32:19-27, LSB).

Yahweh refused to be enticed, lest Yahweh not be glorified. Instead, he commanded The Satan, “Keep watch over his life”, make sure Job stays alive.
I will leave you here to ponder the above sentence. Later, I will explain my thoughts.

For now, just knowing that words from “The Unforgettable Song” show up in Psalms 124 and 127. Repeated twice. Is a most successful accomplishment by Yahweh. To know Yahweh has done all this is the point. Yahweh fear that God would not receive all the glory for all the great works that He has done; and David had the same fear; and eventually Solomon showed up at Home Plate ready to hit another one out of the park; resulting in full praise given to the Name of Yahweh. 


We have come to the end of today’s InAllWisdom Podcast. A daily podcast dedicated to wisdom for life.



Thank you for listening!



Please join me again for another interesting episode of Wisdom for Life.



Until he comes on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory,

may

       “Yahweh bless you, and keep you;

        Yahweh make His face shine on you,

       And be gracious to you;

       Yahweh lift up His face on you,

       And give you peace.’” 

Legacy Standard Bible (Nu 6:24–27).

 [1] Richter, W., Riepl, C., & Rechenmacher, J. P. (2016). Biblia Hebraica transcripta (Job 2:3). Lexham Press.