Dr Paul Allen

“There was a man in the land of Uz , whose name was Job.” ( Job 1:1 ) Uz was a son of Aram and a grandson of Shem ( Genesis 10:22-23 ). Shem’s first son, Arphaxad , was born two years after the Flood, and his remaining sons would have been born in some reasonable sequence thereafter, probably around 36 years apart ( Genesis 11:10-26 ). It is unlikely that Aram, Uz’s father, was born past the first century after the Flood. The events at Babel took place during the fifth generation (the generation of Peleg ), and Uz would have been alive then. The land of Uz is later associated with the territory of Edom ( Lamentations 4:21 ), which is near the area southeast of the Dead Sea , toward the upper reaches of the Sinai Peninsula , east of Egypt and just north of the Red Sea. Although that area is not very pleasant now, at the time of Abraham it was “well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah , even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou...

Balaam and the angel, painting from Gustav Jaeger, 1836. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) “Woe unto them! for they . . . ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward.” ( Jude 1:11 ) Balaam is a very complex character recorded in Numbers 22–24. He is cited for an ability to communicate with “the LORD” and had a reputation for accurate prophecy ( Numbers 22:6-8 ). As the new nation of Israel traveled northward into the Sinai Peninsula , Balak the king of Moab became worried that Israel would subjugate his nation and recruited Balaam to curse them. Balaam “loved the wages of unrighteousness” ( 2 Peter 2:15 ) but was astute enough to know that he could not talk God into doing anything God did not want to do! But even though Balaam was aware of the dangers of getting involved on the wrong side of God’s work, he wormed and squirmed through several interchanges with God until he was finally allowed to go. “God’s anger was kindled” at the stubbornness of this man, and the famous in...