Bible Interpretation - Looking for the Hidden Wisdom in Job

The biblical book of Job is an excellent example of the need to search for the hidden wisdom beneath the surface words. I have found that a study of metaphysics, including esoteric astrology and numerology, is essential to reading the Bible at the level of the hidden wisdom. Below is an excerpt from Lesson 15 of my book, “Where Are You, God? A Metaphysical Interpretation of the Biblical Book of Job.” For free, you can download the entire book on my website: www.pathwaytoascension.com.

In my view, much harm has occurred as a result of a literal interpretation of this most important book. Our concept of “God As Love” withers, unless we seek the hidden wisdom in Job. As our planet moves into the “Shift of the Ages” (Gregg Braden), exploring the inner depths of the Bible will be a source of enlightenment and healing for many.

Scripture Reading for this Lesson: Job 42:1-11

Job is now a 5th degree Initiate. He looks back at his old way of life and recognizes the error thinking that predominated. As a result of his erroneous thought patterns and ignorance of Truth, Job was brought to his knees in anguish. God did not inflict the pain. Instead, Job’s suffering was the external manifestation of his own inner dis-ease.

Once we awaken to Truth, we look back and bemoan our mistakes and ignorance. Job is no exception. “Then Job answered the Lord, and said, ‘I know that thou canst do all these things, and that no purpose can be hid from thee. Who am I to think that I can give counsel without knowledge? Therefore thou hast declared to me that I have uttered that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me which I did not know.” Does this mean that we are to sit back and wait for enlightenment before we speak the portion of Truth we know? No. As Job states: “No purpose can be hid from thee.” As long as our motives in doing so are pure, God perceives as beneficial any effort we make to share the Good News of our true identities as child gods. Job realizes that his motives had not always been pure. Instead, he had responded in ways that befitted his highly respected status within the community.

“Hear me, I pray thee, and I will speak; I will ask thee, and declare thou to me; I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee.” Heretofore, Job had been like the majority of us: he had simply allowed the religious leaders to speak of God and followed their instructions. He had not sought Truth on his own; he was asleep spiritually. Job felt no compulsion to seek a deeper personal relationship with God. God was simply a Being about whom Job could debate intellectually with his friends and the elders in the city gate.

Then, Job’s two dark nights of the soul compelled him into a search for life’s true meaning. The biblical narrative appears to say that a few weeks of meditation will lead to cosmic consciousness. The forty-two (42) chapters of the Book of Job signify a journey that can cover the span of numerous lifetimes. Job did not take an intentional spiritual journey through the initiatory process. Instead, it required severe suffering and shock in order to awaken Job enough to compel him to ask questions about life and to seek his own Truth.

Once we awaken enough to take an intentional initiatory journey, we do tend to move along at a more rapid pace. But this takes concentrated effort. The normal human growth process consists of one step forward and two steps backward, until our auric field is purified and we reach the stage of cosmic consciousness. Then, we behold God, face to face. Job has achieved the capacity to see God with his eye, meaning through his 3rd eye chakra. Job can now know God because his conscious awareness has crossed the Rainbow Bridge and he beholds his magnificent I AM PRESENCE. Within this glorious Light, Job proclaims: “now my eye sees thee. Therefore, I will keep silent, and repent in dust and ashes.” Immersed in the Light of his I AM PRESENCE, Job is silenced. No longer is he uttering one sentence after another of intellectual jargon. Instead, he repents of his former mistaken life patterns.

“And it came to pass, after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, ‘My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken in my presence that which is right, as my servant Job has. Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you; for him will I accept, lest I deal contemptuously with you, for you have not spoken in my presence the thing which is right, as my servant Job has done.”

At this point in the story, it is essential to remember that Job’s friends symbolize parts of himself: Eliphaz, his material consciousness; Bildad, his intellectual thought; and Zophar, his darkened, limited thought that flits from one idea to another and therefore, fails to achieve any depth of understanding. As long as we remain stuck in these physical plane patterns of thought, we cannot know Truth. Note that Elihu, who enters the story in chapter 32, is not included in God’s displeasure. Elihu, signifying the Holy Spirit, led Job to the threshold of Truth. But Elihu had to wait on the sidelines until the parts of Job that could perceive only the material and intellectual worlds had exhausted their attempts to explain Job’s suffering.

It is the same with us. As long as we insist upon believing only what we see written in the surface words of a sacred text, only what we can prove in the laboratories of science, and only what we can see, touch, taste, feel, or smell, we cannot find Truth. The Lord would say of us, along with Job’s friends, “You have not spoken in my presence that which is right.”

“So Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite went, and did according as the Lord had told them; and the Lord favored Job. And the Lord restored to Job all that he had lost, when he prayed for his friends; also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.” Job’s achievement of cosmic consciousness included the overcoming of his lower nature, as represented by his three friends. Job did not simply distance himself from his lower nature; he transmuted and transformed it. The initiatory process requires wholistic growth. We cannot ignore our shadow side and expect to move permanently into a higher level of consciousness. We, like Zophar, may catch glimpses of a higher Truth; but these can be only fleeting moments of enlightened vision until we have successfully transmuted and transformed our lower natures. As Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar “did according as the Lord had told them … the Lord favored Job.”

Why does the narrative not affirm that the Lord favored Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar? Because they are the parts of Job that have been transmuted, transformed, and integrated into the higher consciousness he now possesses. The bridge to the past has been burned in the transmuting flame. Job stands, in his newly achieved wholeness of being, in the presence of his Christed Self and I AM PRESENCE. Job is re-united with his eternal Self. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar were temporary parts of Job; they no longer play a role in his life. God favors the eternal Job, the 5th degree Initiate.