Job
2
We’re dipping into what Tennyson called, “The greatest poem whether of ancient or modern literature.” It’s the book of Job where ‘the greatest man among all the people of the East’ finds himself with one foot in the grave and his world suddenly turned upside down and he hasn’t a clue why this has happened to him. He’s parked up at the city dump where the garbage is tipped. He is covered in painful sores from head to foot. Severe itching torments him.
Job looked down the road and saw his three friends coming towards him – Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar – surely they would understand and sympathise with him and comfort him. Job chapter 2 verses 12-13 says, “When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognise him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.”
Job’s friends were most helpful to him whilst they identified with him in his tragic circumstances and remained silent. It’s when they try to explain why these events have happened that they make matters worse by inferring that Job’s been up to no good and has brought these disasters upon himself.
Picture the scene in chapter 3. The catalogue of catastrophes that have stunned Job and sent him reeling cause his anguish to erupt in despair. He says, “If only I’d not been born.” “Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb?” (verse 12). Job laments, “What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me, I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil” (verses 25-26).
It becomes clear, at the end of the book of Job, that his three friends were speaking a fair amount of nonsense. Some things they said were right, some were wrong. They offered Job a dangerous mixture of half-truths that sounded plausible, but wasn’t right (chapter 42 verse7).
The first up to try and interpret these frightening events is a man called Eliphaz. His is the voice of experience. He insinuates that Job must have done something wrong to deserve such treatment at the hand of God. Listen to him in chapter 4 verses 7-8. “Consider now: who, being innocent, has ever perished? Where were the upright ever destroyed? As I observed, those who plough evil and those who sow trouble reap it.”
Eliphaz has had a dream in the night, although there is no indication that it is from God. Eliphaz declares (chapter 5 verses 7-8) “Man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward. But if it were I, I would appeal to God; I would lay my cause before Him.” In chapter 5 verse 17 Eliphaz says, “Blessed is the man whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.”
Eliphaz‘s diagnosis is wide of the mark. God does discipline His children, but He does not destroy them. Chastening is not always the reason that God’s people suffer. To assume that “God is correcting you” may not necessarily be right. Who are you, Eliphaz, to make such a judgement? What he’s come out with, hasn’t helped at all.
In chapters 6 and 7 we find Job crying out like a wounded animal. He insists there is no secret sin in his life. There’s no need for him to get right with God because he is right with God. The analysis of the situation provided by Eliphaz is wrong.
Job is traumatised. He says his misery is heavier than the sand of the seas. “No wonder my words have been impetuous” (chapter 6 verse 3). He states, “The arrows of the Almighty are in me” (verse 4). He feels like God’s dartboard and he can’t work it out. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. He wishes that God would finish him off. “Then I would still have this consolation – my joy in unrelenting pain – that I had not denied the words of the Holy One” (verse 10). He still believes that God is a good God. He doesn’t know something that we were told in chapters 1 and 2 that all these dreadful events have come from Satan ‘without any reason’ on Job’s part. He maintains his integrity is at stake.
Job is in dire straits, unsightly to look at. Chapter 7 verses 5-7 reveal his despair. Job says, “My body is clothed with worms and scabs, my skin is broken and festering. My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and they come to an end without hope. Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath; my eyes will never see happiness again.”
Perhaps I’m addressing someone whose whole world is in ruins. You find it easy to identify with Job when he says to God, “Let me alone; my days have no meaning (chapter 7 verse 16). You’re puzzled, battered and bewildered by events, so unexpected that you’ve been knocked for six and can’t think straight. It all seems so unfair. Trust in God, though you can’t feel Him. Persevere, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ and, in the darkness, still commit your way to Him.