Job (7)

Job 19-21

At the heart of the book of Job comes his ringing affirmation of confidence:"I know that my Redeemer lives." In ancient Israel a redeemer was a family member who bought a slave's way to freedom or who took care of a widow. What tremendous faith Job had, especially in light of the fact that he was unaware of the conference between God and Satan. Job thought that God had brought all these disasters upon him! Faced with death and decay, Job still expected to see God--and he expected to do so in his body. When the book of Job was written, Israel did not have a well-developed doctrine of the resurrection. Although Job struggled with the idea that God was presently against him, he firmly believed that in the end God would be on his side. This belief was so strong that Job became one of the first to talk about the resurrection of the body.