Categoria: Job

 Job ends up repenting in dust and ashes as he says to God: “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted”. “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know”. “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you”.

Then comes the book’s epilogue when God rebukes the 3 comforters for having spoken incorrectly, and he makes them offer burnt offerings in payment for their wrong. Then Job interceded for the 3 friends and God accepted this. After Job had prayed for his friends (prayer was key!) he became prosperous again and God gave him twice as much as he had before! All his family and friends comforted him and gave him gold and silver. God gave him 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and 1,000 donkeys. And God yet gave Job 7 sons and 3 beautiful daughters. From this time on Job yet lived another 140 years until he died at a ripe old age.

God continues talking and introduces the sea-monster Leviathan to the debate which was a dragon-like creature with fire coming from his mouth. The creature had air-tight armour-like scales which were impenetrable by javelin, spear or dart, and iron to him was like straw! God says “nothing on earth is his equal – a creature without fear”. Thus God again cuts Job down to size by asking: “Can you pull in the Leviathan with a fishhook or tie down his tongue with a rope”? “Can you make a pet of him like a bird or put him on a leash for your girls”? Thus again God is saying to Job that if he can’t cope with a creature how much less can he dispute and wrestle with the creator!

So it seems to me that God in no way seeks to justify what Job had been going through. God stands aloof and above criticism because he is God! And if Job can’t wrestle with the sea-monster he should certainly not try it on him!

God now confronts Job for wanting to correct and accuse him. So Job admits he is unworthy and acknowledges that he has no answer. Then God asks Job if he wants to discredit his justice? God points out that Job cannot clothe himself with honour and majesty nor can he crush the wicked. God then tells Job to look at the enormous herbivorous animal called the behemoth which is extremely powerful with limbs like rods of iron. God says his maker is able to approach him but asks Job if he can capture him and piece his nose? Seeing that he can’t Job must not accuse God!

God continues questioning Job, this time concerning wildlife, which all is beyond Job’s ability to answer. God asks about goats, deer, donkeys, oxen, ostriches, horses, hawks and eagles. The questions are about them giving birth, gestation periods, nesting, flying, living conditions, feeding etc. Thus God continues to humble Job to make him realize that things of creation and nature are so often beyond his understanding. So the logic is that Job should not be dismayed if he cannot understand his suffering. 

Now comes the time for God to join the debate about Job’s suffering, but God instead speaks from a storm presenting a long discourse about creation. God, to put Job in his place, asks him if he was there when he created the earth? He then asks who made and put limits on the sea and made the clouds? He asks Job too if he had walked in the depths of the sea or comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? He asks as well if Job knows where the snow and hail are stored and whether he understands the lightning and the wind? God further asks if the rain has a father and if ice or frost have a mother? God also questions if Job knows the laws of the heavens and who provides food for the raven? Thus God humbles Job by emphasizing his sovereign complexity and majesty. 

With the imagery of a gathering storm Elihu concludes his contribution to the book of Job showing God’s majestic power over thunder, lightening, snow, rain and ice. On the one hand, Elihu says, the clouds can punish men, but on the other hand they water the earth and thus show God’s love. So Elihu points out to Job that he has no way of knowing how the different forces and aspects of nature function so it is that God is beyond our understanding. He says “the Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power; in his justice and great righteousness, he does not oppress. Therefore men revere him, for does he not have regard for all the wise in heart?”

Elihu starts saying he will speak on God’s behalf as “one perfect in knowledge is with you”! He then goes on to say that God is mighty, but doesn’t despise men. He does not take his eyes off the righteous, but men bound in chains he commands them to repent of their evil. If they obey they will prosper, but if they don’t they will perish by the sword. The godless die in their youth among male sacred prostitutes and he speaks to those who suffer – he speaks to them in their affliction. God is wooing you from the jaws of distress to the comfort of your table laden with food. Now justice and judgement have taken hold of you. Elihu exalts God in his power. How great is God – beyond our understanding. God governs the nations and blesses with clouds, rain, thunder and lightening. Thus Elihu exalts the Lord whilst constantly insinuating Job’s need to repent.

Elihu starts here arguing that wickedness or not makes no difference to God. He says that right or wrong only affects man. God is far above human morality he says. He goes on to argue that God doesn’t answer when men cry out arrogantly, and God doesn’t listen to empty pleas. Clearly Elihu is calling Job arrogant and insincere. The fact is, says Elihu, is that “Job opens his mouth with empty talk; without knowledge he multiplies words”.

Elihu starts this chapter addressing the “wise men” who presumably refers to Job and the friends, maybe sarcastically, or maybe a wider group of listeners. He then says that Job says that “it profits a man nothing when he tries to please God”. Elihu stresses that it is impossible for God to do wrong but he repays a man for what he has done. Here Elihu is reinforcing the retribution arguments of the 3 friends. God, says Elihu, is perfectly above all rulers and kings deciding on matters totally without partiality.  He says there is no place to hide for the evil doers. God overthrows them in the night and they are crushed. Job, says Elihu, speaks without knowledge; his words lack insight. “Oh that Job might be tested to the utmost for answering like a wicked man”! Elihu is therefore essentially following the same line of argument as the 3 friends that secret sin in Job needs to be confessed as this is the cause of Job’s suffering.

Elihu argues that God is not ignoring Job or unwilling to speak to Job. To the contrary, he says, God speaks through dreams, visions and sickness. Elihu says that God speaks in the night to “terrify with warnings” and “to turn man from wrongdoing”. God also chastens with a bed of pain and uses ill health to instruct and to “spare him from going down to the pit”. Elihu speaks of an angel who intervenes “to tell a man what is right for him”. Following such interventions the man’s flesh is renewed like a child’s and he sees God’s face and shouts for joy, and he is restored by God to his righteous state. 

Job has concluded his defence and Job’s 3 friends or comforters have concluded their accusations, but prior to God’s response to everything and Job’s final words, a 4th younger friend named Elihu enters the fray criticizing Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar for their inability to refute Job and criticizing Job for “justifying himself rather than God”. Elihu’s 6-chapter intervention starts by arguing that is not just the elders who have wisdom, but it is the breath of the Almighty that transmits it. He then asserts that the 3 friends were unable to prove Job wrong. Therefore Elihu said he was bursting to speak “like bottled-up wine” in “new wineskins ready to burst”. He promised to be completely unbiased and would flatter no one. 

This chapter is Job’s final defence in this book’s debate about human suffering. First of all Job lists the sins he has not committed like lust (“to look lustfully at a girl”), deceit, adultery (“enticed by a woman”), injustice to servants, negligence concerning the poor, and greed “pure gold” and “great wealth”). Job requests again for God to hear his case saying: “Oh, that I had someone to hear me! I sign now my defence – let the Almighty answer me”. “Let God weigh me in honest scales and he will know that I am blameless”.

Now Job laments being mocked by worthless men who spit in his face and remove all his dignity. Job also bemoans his physical suffering as his “skin grows black” and his body burns with fever. He says he has become a brother of jackals and a companion of owls as he just mourns and wails. Job also says that he cries out to God without receiving an answer and he feels that God is attacking him and tossing him about in a storm! This chapter focusing on Job’s current suffering stands in stark contrast to the previous chapter which relished his life prior to everything going wrong.

 Chapter 29 is a long reminiscence of the good old days when Job recalls the time “when God watched over” him, and when “God’s intimate friendship blessed” his house. He says that then his “path was drenched with cream” and olive oil poured out of the rock. Job then goes on to recall how respected he used to be in the city and how he was spoken well of. He also remembers his positive social action rescuing the poor, assisting orphans, helping the dying, bereaved, blind and lame. He recalls how he was all set for a long blessed life. Sadly for Job all this had drastically changed.

In chapter 28 Job presents a poetic interlude to the heated debate about suffering when he praises man’s abilities to mine gold, silver, copper, iron and precious stones whilst on the other hand being totally unable to find true priceless wisdom. God, says Job, is the only source of true wisdom. “God understands the way to it and he alone knows where it dwells”. For Job concludes that “the fear of the Lord – that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding”.

 Job vehemently defends himself before God and against his friend’s accusations saying that whilst he has breath he will not speak wickedness or deceit. Job says that he will never concede to his friend’s judgmental arguments insisting that he has a clear conscience. Job says that his wicked friends are his enemies full of meaningless talk who will eventually face the fate of the godless. Such a fate will involve their children being killed, their widows not weeping for them and they will be be swept away under God’s judgement.

Now comes the longest speech of Job in the book lasting 6 chapters. Initially Job sarcastically criticizes Bildad’s unhelpful words as worthless. Then Job goes on to exalt God’s supreme power over creation who “suspends the earth over nothing and wraps up the waters in the clouds”, yet they don’t burst. However, says Job, these are but the fringe of his works. For our great God is incomprehensible. 

This short chapter contains Job’s friend Bildad’s third and final speech in which he exalts God’s supreme power and perfection as opposed to the weakness and impurity of man who is but a maggot and a worm! Implied here is Job’s impossibility to being justified before God as he is so weak, inferior and insignificant. Bildad’s argument against Job seems to me to be painfully weak.

Job now questions why God does not set times for judgements as he observes that the wicked go unpunished for long periods though eventually God’s justice catches up with them. Job says that the wicked feed their flocks on stolen pasture, drive away the orphan’s donkey, take the widow’s ox, and ill-treat the poor. The poor are also left lacking clothes, lack adequate housing, and children are ill-treated and go hungry. Despite all this God does nothing Job says. Job also cites murder and theft as practiced crimes as well as adultery and burglary. Eventually though Job says that the grave snatches away sinners and the worm feasts on them, and they are forgotten. “For a little while they are exalted, and then they are gone”!

Now Job complains bitterly that God’s heavy hand is on him despite his groaning, and he says that he would love to find God so as to be able to state his case before him. He felt that as an upright man he cold present his case and prove his innocence. However Job says that despite searching in all directions he cannot find God. However Job expresses his certainty that “when he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold”. For Job reconfirms his faithfulness to God closely following him in obedience, but he confesses that he is terrified by all he is going through which is not surprising.  

Eliphaz now returns for his third and final time and he accuses Job of unrighteousness with endless sins, stripping men of their clothes, denying water to the weary, withholding food from the hungry, and sending widows away empty handed as a callous rich landowner. Eliphaz accuses Job of thinking God is way up in the sky where “thick clouds veil him, so he does not see us”. He urges Job to “submit to God and be at peace with him” so as to regain his prosperity. He further urges Job to return to God so as to experience restoration. Constantly Eliphaz accuses and urges Job presuming his hidden sin and guilt. Eliphaz is judgmentally misguided and misdirected.  

Now Job vehemently rebuts his friends’ theory that all sin is punished in this life, because he points out that some “wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power”. He points out that sometimes the wicked’s children flourish as do their herds of cattle. “They spend their years in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace”. Such wicked people, Job says, reject God and have no desire to know him. Job struggles with the mystery of suffering when on the other hand sometimes the wicked are snuffed out like a lamp or blown away like straw in the wind. Job acknowledges God’s sovereignty judging even the highest. He struggles to understand why some die well nourished whilst others die in bitterness of soul never having enjoyed anything good. The fact is, Job points out, that all end up buried side by side in the dust and eaten by the same worms. So Job says to his friends that their simplistic theories applied to him are nonsense and full of falsehood.

Chapter 20 contains the return of Zophar with a scathing attack on Job’s integrity. Zophar says that Job is experiencing the inevitable results of hidden sin. He says that “the mirth of the wicked is brief, the joy of the godless lasts but a moment”. Zophar goes on to say that Job’s ill-gotten riches have become like poison in his stomach as he has exploited the poor. This Zophar says is combatted by God with arrows, darkness and fire as natural disasters punish Job’s alleged guilt. For he thinks it is God who has reclaimed houses, children and wealth as “rushing waters on the day of God’s wrath”.

Job reacts to the criticisms of his friends saying they are crushing him with their words and shameless attacks. Job then goes on to bemoan that he has been wronged by God who has stripped him of his honour. God, says Job, has uprooted his hope and counts him as an enemy. Job then goes on to lament that owing to his suffering leaving him “skin and bones” he has been abandoned by his brothers, acquaintances, friends, kinsmen, servants and even his wife! Job then cries out asking for his friends to have pity on him as the hand of God has struck him. However then Job cries out some beautiful words of faith and trust in God saying: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes – I and not another. How my heart yearns within me!”

In this chapter Bildad returns to his attacks on Job as he had started in chapter 8. Bildad accuses Job of considering his 3 friends stupid and of wanting to alter basic factual structures as pertaining to the earth and its rocks in order to come to terms with his predicament. Bildad’s view clearly was that the reason for Job’s suffering was that he was “an evil man… who knows not God.” Job’s sin, thinks Bildad, makes him like a lamp snuffed out and with a weakened step. Job, he thinks, has been caught in a net, snared by a trap with a hidden noose awaiting him. Job’s “roots dry up below and his branches wither above.” Job, he feels, has no legacy, and is in a dark place “banished from the world” without offspring.

Job starts chapter 17 saying that his spirit is broken and that the grave awaits him. Job says that he has become a byword for everyone as they spit in his face! Despite such despairing feelings Job says “the righteous will hold to their ways, and those with clean hands will grow stronger.” However then he switches back to despair criticizing the lack of wisdom of his friends and says his “plans are shattered.” Job returns to desire death saying his only hope is the grave and says his father is corruption and his mother or sister is the worm. He ends the chapter expressing his feeling of utter hopelessness asking, “Who can see any hope for me?”

Job says that he has heard all Eliphaz’s arguments before. He complains about his miserable long-winded comforters. Job also complains about God’s harsh treatment of him devastating his household and assailing him with gnashed teeth. “All was well with me, but he (God) shattered me; he seized me by the neck and crushed me.” Job accuses God of shooting arrows against him and piercing his kidneys. Job says his face is red with weeping and that deep shadows encircle his eyes despite him being free of violence and living a life of pure prayer. Job pleads with God for help.

Now Job’s ‘friend’ or ‘comforter’ Eliphaz returns to goad him. Eliphaz says that Job’s words are empty and that he is a bag of wind! He says Job’s words are useless and without value, and that Job’s own words condemn him and testify against himself. He asks Job who he thinks he is because he is not the owner of wisdom and the wisdom of the aged back Eliphaz and friends’ point of view. He asks how Job can speak to God the way he does? “What is man that he could be pure”? asks Eliphaz. If God doesn’t even trust the angels how much less would he trust man? Eliphaz says that distress and anguish come to man because “he shakes his fist at God and vaunts himself against the almighty”. Man might be fat but he will end up living in ruins and his wealth will not endure”. Eliphaz tells Job to stop trying to deceive himself because “the company of the godless will be barren”.

Job now continues by decrying the brevity and frailty of human life being just a “few days”, “full of trouble”, “like a fleeting shadow” that does not endure. Job says man’s days are determined by God and his months are numbered. He compares human life to that of a tree saying that a tree can sprout from the stump after being felled, whereas with a man “he breathes his last and is no more”. Thus man is worse off than a tree. Job wishes God would hide him in the grave until his anger had passed! Job imagines that God could seal his offences in a bag and cover his sin. For Job declares to have lost hope, just feeling pain as he mourns. 

Here Job continues to stand up to his friends who are no more the owner of truth than he is. Job calls his friends “worthless physicians” and tells them that they should not put words into God’s mouth. For his friends’ maxims are ashes and their defences are clay. Job insists that he wants to speak to God. For his faith in God is steadfast and he says “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him”. And Job insists that once he can present his case to God he will be vindicated. Job asks God what he has done wrong and what sins he has committed? He also suggests that his friends would be wiser to keep quiet!

Job now refutes his friends’ “wisdom” and ensues on a strong attack of their arguments during 3 chapters, insisting that he is in no way inferior to them. Job points out that true wisdom and power belongs to God who controls all creation. He seems to say that his friends’ logic of ‘sin produces suffering’ is not always the case as many wicked men have been allowed to live happy lives by God. Job clearly showed that he did not share his friends’ simplistic world view. (Life is not black and white… it is coloured!) Job knew he was a righteous man yet he had become a laughing-stock to his friends. Job clearly argued that he was righteous but the just don’t always prosper and the wicked weren’t always punished. Job showed that he didn’t understand why some things happened, but he trusted in God nevertheless. Job closes the chapter showing that he was well aware of God’s greatness despite being bewildered by his current suffering.

Now is the turn for Job’s third friend or comforter to comment on Job’s predicament. His name is Zophar, (and with friends like the 3 “comforters” who needs enemies?) Zophar accuses Job of idle talk and mockery, and that Job’s hidden sin was the cause of his suffering. Nevertheless Zophar says that Job should be grateful because God was even letting him off from a lot! Zophar points to God’s mysteries as fathomless being longer than the earth and wider than the sea, and God recognizes deceitful men. The only solution, Zophar says, is for Job to put away his sin and allow no evil to dwell in his tent! For if Job puts his life right before God things will change and “life will be brighter than noonday, and darkness will become like morning”. However he says that “the eyes of the wicked will fail” and “their hope will become a dying gasp”!

 Job now continues to struggle to come to terms with why on earth he is experiencing such horrific suffering. Job starts this chapter saying he loathes his very life and begs of God that he tells him what charges he has against him. He asks God if it gives him pleasure to oppress him? Job says that God seems to be searching for his faults and probing for sin even though he knows that he is not guilty. Job accuses God of stalking him like a lion and displaying his awesome power against him. Job says he wished he’d never been born, but he just hoped for a little bit of joy before death.

 In this and the following chapter Job replies to Bildad exclaiming “how can a mortal be righteous before God”? For Job recognizes that God’s wisdom is profound and his power is vast. With beautiful poetry Job finds himself at a loss to discuss with God his predicament because God is almighty moving mountains, shaking the earth, controlling the sun and the stars. How can I dispute with God, asks Job? How can I find words to argue with God? Even if I was innocent, says Job, I could only plead with God for mercy. Job found himself snookered because he didn’t understand what had brought such terrible suffering on him, he was not aware of any hidden sin, yet there seemed that no resource existed to sort out his dilemma. In despair he exclaims that “even if I were innocent, my mouth would condemn me”. And Job’s further bewilderment is expressed when he says that God “destroys the blameless and the wicked”! He goes on to say how he dreads all his suffering and sees no way to prove his innocence. If only, Job sighs, there was someone to arbitrate between him and God!

Now comes Job’s second friend or comforter called Bildad and he poured on the agony too insisting with Job, as had Eliphaz, that all his suffering was a result of hidden sin. Bildad states bluntly that Job’s children had received their penalty from a just God and Job’s only way forward was to plead with God and change his ways to purity and uprightness. Bildad insinuates that Job had forgotten God and was trusting in fragile spiders’ webs. For clearly God never rejects a blameless man, Bildad affirms, so clearly Job is declared guilty!

 Job now continues to struggle to understand his horrific suffering saying that he feels like a slave who endures nights of misery tossing and turning. His “body is clothed with worms and scabs”, and he thinks about death. Job complains in the bitterness of his soul that he would prefer to be strangled to death! Job says that he despises his life because his days have no meaning. Job asks God in what way has he sinned because he feels like he is God’s target who has become a burden to God. Job asks God why he does not pardon and forgive him?

In chapters 6 and 7 Job replies to Eliphaz expressing his extreme anguish and misery that he is experiencing, saying that the arrows of God’s poison are in him. Job rejects Eliphaz’s criticism as saltless food or the flavourless white of an egg! Job then repeats his desire to end his life in the light of his extreme suffering. He expresses his frailty faced with such overwhelming adversity, and says that not even his friends stick with him and are like dried up streams in the drought! Job’s friends, like Eliphaz, “have proved to be of no help” because they imagine dreadful things and are afraid. Job tell his friends to “show me where I have been wrong” and their arguments prove nothing and are very hurtful. He accuses Eliphaz of treating “the words of a despairing man as wind”. Job says bluntly that he is righteous and wouldn’t lie to anyone’s face! He says that his integrity is at stake and tells Eliphaz to reconsider his arguments and not be unjust.

Here Eliphaz continues with his theory that hidden sin is bringing its consequences to Job’s life. Eliphaz insinuates that Job is a fool for not realizing and admitting that what Job is going through is from God as a result of hidden sin because “hardship does not spring from the soil, nor does trouble sprout from the ground”. Eliphaz proposes that Job should “appeal to God” and lay before him his cause. He says he should “not despise the discipline of the Almighty” because he will wound but also will heal, God will ransom from famine and save from the sword in battle. In other words Eliphaz says that God will do all this for Job and give him more children making his “descendants like the grass of the earth” if he puts right that which is necessary in Job’s life.

This chapter and the next contain the first speech by Job’s friend or comforter Eliphaz. Eliphaz insinuates that Job’s suffering is a result of hidden sin. For “should not your piety be your confidence and your blameless ways your hope?” For the innocent do not perish, Eliphaz says, nor are the upright destroyed. But those who sow trouble reap what they sow! Eliphaz even cites some sort of vision where a spirit questions human piety before God saying “Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can a man be more pure than his maker?” For human sinners “are crushed more readily that a moth!

After 7 days silence Job cursed the day of his birth. Job poetically struggles here to come to terms with his horrific suffering. Job wished that the light of his birth become darkness. He curses the joy of birth calling on the monster of the deep Leviathan to be roused in its place. Job wished that his mother’s womb had been closed, or that he had been still born, or that he had died soon after birth. Job lamented the knees that had nursed him and the breasts that had fed him. Job asks why those who long to die are not allowed to and talks of the joy of reaching the grave! Job says his groans pour out like water and that what he most feared had come upon him and he had no peace.

On another day the angels and Satan had an encounter with God and God remarked to Satan about Job’s uprightness despite all he had just gone through. Satan retorted that Job was so resolute because his own flesh and blood was untouched and that if Job was subject to physical suffering he would curse God. So the Lord handed Job over to Satan to torment him physically as long as he didn’t kill him. Then Satan afflicted Job with a mass of sores from head to toe. Job’s wife suggested that he curse God and die, but Job rejected this and remained without sin. Then Job’s 3 friends or comforters, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, went to visit Job and were devastated by what they found and wept out loud at the sight of Job’s suffering. The friends stayed with him for 7 days and remained in total silence in respect for Job’s catastrophic suffering.

The book of Job is a book about suffering. The suffering of a righteous man who loses wealth, family and health at the hand of Satan, permitted by God. There ensues long discussions of the predicament involving Job’s friends and comforters, and eventually his life is restored.

Chapter 1 initially tells us about Job in the land of Uz who was blameless before God. He was wealthy and blessed with 7 sons, 3 daughters, 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 donkeys and many servants. He was the greatest man of the east.

One day God pointed out Job to Satan as someone who was upright shunning evil. Satan retorted that Job was so perfect because he had everything going for him, but if his good fortune changed he would soon curse God. So Satan left God’s presence.

Then a series of catastrophes overtook Job and he lost his oxen, donkeys, sheep, camels and sons and daughters! Yet Job reacted with worship saying that the Lord giveth and takes away so praise be given to the name of the Lord.