“I have esteemed the words of [God’s] mouth more than my necessary food.” These words are spoken by Job as he defends himself from the accusations of his three friends, who are trying to explain his sufferings. My subject is not Job’s sufferings, but the necessity of the spiritual nourishment that God’s word provides. What was available to Job in that far-off day we do not know.
The general consensus of scholars is that he lived in the patriarchal age, the times of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Nothing had been written down at that time, and what Job treasured was what God spoke to him personally – perhaps infrequently – of which he treasured every syllable. More than that: the comparison to food shows that Job received a nourishment from it that he could get nowhere else.
Spiritual Food
Job’s wealth had provided physical food up to then (but God had provided even that). But God’s word was “food” for his heart and his mind and his spirit, as miraculous as the food God provided for the Israelites in the wilderness. It came, perhaps, while he prayed, or at odd times in his daily work, or at night while he slept or lay awake, or even through the speech of others. But he would recognize it for what it was, and savored it, rolling it around on his spiritual tongue, exulting in its wonders, finally “swallowing” it into his spiritual inwards. There it did its unique work of building up and strengthening his inner man. Because of this, God could brag on him to a surly Satan, “Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and [avoids] evil?” (Job 1:8).
Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth
Many men walk about (and I have been among them) who think and even write about God and His ways, who study His word as the profound thing that it is, yet who do not sit hungrily at the table cherishing each morsel as they take it in, knowing what nourishment is in it for them first, before ever it goes out to others. How many of these consider God’s word a sort of menu which they use to prepare a feast for a flock, but do not first eat for their own sakes? How many of even these look up in gratitude and expectation before they chow down? (Every man ought to eat what God provides while sitting in front of a mirror – but he does, for that is what God’s word partly is.)
Job lived in a day when God’s word came willy-nilly, in an unpredictable manner, and for the current, or coming conditions, and must be recognized and caught, so to speak, on the wing as it passed through one’s heart, and somehow to be cherished and savored in a way that would become part of his permanent memory and mindset. Blessed is such a one who would listen and not lose those vagrant moments.
God’s word lies around us like endless fields of grain
But we are privileged to live in an age and a place where God’s word lies around us like endless fields of grain, each fertile head of which contains what will feed us and strengthen us and grow us up to walk and to work and to wonder over all the riches of God. It is more than our necessary food. Without it, or with it in only dribs and drabs, and that in inattentive taking in, we will weaken and starve. For nourishment is our task, as well as God’s: how we take it in is fully as important as the taking in itself. For we can take in God’s revelations as if they were chewing gum: our “jaws” are busy, but there is no nourishment. “In [God’s] law doth he meditate day and night” (Psalm 1:2): that is how nourishment happens; that, and with an expectant, humble attitude before God. Bon appetit!