As Job continues to struggle and seek understanding as to why he is consumed with suffering, he still trusts that God is aware of his situation (Job 23.10) and that he continues to follow in God’s steps. Job also continues to believe that when all is said and done he will “come out as gold”. The reason he believes that will be the case is because he has “treasured the words of His mouth more than my portion of food” (Job 23.12). I have often wondered what are those “words” to which Job refers? Tradition tells us that the book of Job could very well be the oldest book of the Bible. It has been generally believed that the first five books of the Bible were written by Moses. It is also believed that events of the life of Job predates what Moses wrote concerning the Law. We know that God spoke to the Patriarchs in the past (Hebrews 1.1). It could be that Job has received these “words” for one of the Patriarchs. It could even be that Job had received these “words” from God Himself, because we know that God does answer Job at the end of the story. It doesn’t really matter as to how he received these “words”, what does matter is that He valued God’s message more than “his portion of food” (Job 23.12). We know that God’s word is profitable to us (II Timothy 3.16), but how valuable do we consider it to be in our lives today. If we are honest with ourselves, very few of us really consider the words of God more valuable than or daily portion of food. I know we must eat to be able to physically survive, but even Jesus said that “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. ” (Matthew 4.4; Deuteronomy 8.3). The media continues to tell us that America has an obesity problem, meaning we eat way too much and are fat. I wonder how different our lives would be if we had to consider our Bible more valuable to us than food. It is my prayer that we treat God’s word more valuable than the food we eat and in time, that will perish, and we all become fat from the words of God.