JOB
Job is just awesome.  It is the Biblical epic in the manner of Milton and Homer, with immense spiritual intensity.  It can be read as a Biblical allegory, or as the account of God and the war in the heavenlies against Satan.  Jewish scholars have always thought of Job as the allegory of Israel.  It has associations of God, Satan, and a man which we might link with Genesis 2 and 3.

  Above all Job is spiritual cinemascope.

  If we begin with the simple arrangement of the book, the first two chapters and the last 5 chapters form a simple drama.  God allows Job to be afflicted by Satan for a time, and when Job will not yield to Satan, God rescues Job to bless him.
  This simple arrangement then suggests what a Jewish epic poet might say would have happened had Adam not succumbed to Satan.  Blessing and protection in Job 1 and Gen. 1 and 2.  Testing in Job 2 as in Gen. 3.  Reward in Job 42, just reward in Gen. 3.8 through to chapter 4.

  What has made the book famous is the poetry.  Job 17.7 says--What is man that Thou does magnify him and that Thou art concerned with him?  We are reminded of David's paraphrase of this in Psalm 8.4.  Solomon also quotes and paraphrases Job in several places.
  In chapters 3-37 the poet of Job has the four counselors advise Job on how to get out from under his suffering.  The advise comes in three waves, three sections in which each of Job's counselors has his say.  What makes Job relevant today is the underlying message.  It is this message which has made Job worth preserving as the oldest section of the OT.

  Job begins by saying he wishes he were never born--why did I not die at birth, Job 3.11.  But Job knows God has allowed this tragedy, in fact Job says God has done this suffering upon him, Job 10.8.  His counselors cannot accept that, they must say God rewards the righteous and punishes the sinners so Job must be a sinner, Job 11.13-14.
  But Job has the intimation there is something beyond this in God, Job 12.13-25.  God makes fools, his priests go barefoot, He loosens and He binds, He pours contempt, He makes rulers wander in a pathless place.  This insight by Job that God rules to His own purposes, out of His holiness, sets the stage for Job's greatest understanding of God.

  Beyond justice, God is holy.

  Job knows God does not treat everyone the same, fairness is not His rule.  So Job demands to speak to God personally--I would speak to the Almighty, Job 13.3.  His suffering and God's holiness forces Job into the dramatic rise in thought--Though He slay me, I will hope in Him, Job 13.15.
  Job has realized that even in death he will hope in God.  Job then contemplates what he just said.  He says in Job 14.14--If a man dies will he live again?  This has become Job's hope.  Not the cessation of pain but life through death. That God is to be trusted in life and death will free every man from sin, death and Satan.

  What this means is beyond fairness is God's holiness.  In order to bring Job through suffering God must make Job realize that if God were merely treating every man the same as the counselors say, no man would ever know God in this life.  Men would only know His rule, not His person.
  In order for Job to go from knowing God's rule to knowing God as a person, Job must be able to stand before Him.  He asks God this, but it can only happen if God allows.  God must give Job the act of standing before Him.

  This is grace.

  It is the risk of life through death, as Job says in 13.15.  Because forgiveness replaces punishment, grace glows over justice.  In order to stand before Him, God must choose Job.  Job begins to realize this in a slender manner, Job 16.6-22.  That choosing comes from God's holiness, the theme of the entire OT from Genesis 12 on.  It is this choosing which is God's love.  In the NT this is stated in John 15.16--You did not choose Me, but I chose you.

  What Job comes to realize is justice bars him from God.  Grace includes him in God, Ephesians 1.7.  Grace is God's choosing Job in order to love him, so that Job's relationship to God is God's love chosen and returned.
  No wonder the manuscript of Job has survived the centuries when so much other ancient writing has not.