Read Job
18-20 & Acts
9:23-43
To discover:
As you read note Job’s varying
attitudes to God.
To ponder:
Bildad says little more than Eliphaz.
He rebukes Job for going on and considering his friends “stupid” in their
advice, whilst “tearing himself to pieces” in anger. 17v4 seems to be a
suggestion that Job expects the very fabric of creation to be changed to
accommodate him. This may reflect the sense that the friends feel the very
nature of things is that the wicked suffer and the righteous prosper, but Job
is asking them to think it is often the other way around. And so Bildad details
how he sees the fate of the evil man who “knows not God”: He experiences
weakening, having his schemes thwarted, and facing terror and calamity before
finally perishing without offspring or legacy, with “men of the west” appalled
at his fate. Again, there are clear allusions to Job’s situation in having lost
his children and being a horror to those who look on. Job really is being
attacked relentlessly with the accusation that he has done evil and will face
these things in their fullness unless he repents. “The king of terrors” (18v14)
is probably a way of referring to death as a ruler who uses terrors to drag
people into his presence.
As
hinted at before, Job’s response shows that in addition to his previous
sufferings, his friends’ words now torment and crush him. Indeed, he states
that even “if” he had gone astray that would not be their concern. Of course,
in reality it should be (Gal 6v1).
Job
then makes his strongest statement yet: He finally accuses God with doing wrong
against him and withholding justice (19v6-7). This is perhaps the central theme
to the book, which eventually humbles us with the recognition that although the
reasons for suffering are often unfathomable, God does not do wrong or act
unjustly. Perhaps the lesson here, however, is that when we give unwise counsel
to a suffering friend we can so exacerbate their despair that we push them
towards sinning in their response to God.
Job
accuses God with keeping him from moving on in life, removing his honour as an
esteemed and blameless man, gradually tearing him down, uprooting his hope for
the future, counting him like an enemy, alienating him from others, including
his loved ones, and reducing him to nothing but skin and bones (19v8-20). So he
begs his friends for pity and prays his words would be recorded, no doubt as
the only testimony to his innocence. This is ironic, considering we’re reading
his words. Could it be that Job had them recorded after the event?
Yet despite
being so aggrieved, Job still clings in faith to God. Indeed, (although these
verses are uncertain) he seems to see God as his “redeemer” who will vindicate
him beyond death as innocent and, presumably, free him from both his sufferings
and the false accusations. More than that, whether apart from flesh (see
footnote) or in new flesh, he expects to then see God as Moses and others did
on earth. This is what his heart yearns for because he wants an audience with
God in which he can state his case and perhaps be given a reason for all he’s
endured (see 13v3). And so in his Spirit-guided reflections, Job effectively
trusts in the gospel! He even holds that God will judge his opponents if they
continue to hound him. This is the inconsistency displayed when the believer
struggles. They may in one moment seem to be doubting and raging against God,
but in another coming to a point of trust nevertheless. And because salvation
is by grace, that trust is all that is needed for their hope to remain.
Zophar
responds next, still refusing to truly hear Job or see how he is displaying
faith. Instead, he responds to Job’s rebuke with yet another restatement that
the wicked suffer, stating it has been this way since the time of Adam. This is
no doubt why he stresses how those whose “pride reaches to the heavens” then
“perish forever” (20v4-6), just as Adam did. And so Zophar says the wicked are
banished, leaving their children to make amends for what they’ve done. In
particular he notes how under God’s wrath the godless lose their ill-won riches
– perhaps an allusion to Job’s prior wealth (20v12-29). By digging their heals
in, these so called friends are now reinterpreting Job’s past life in a way
that implies he was always dishonest rather than righteous. This is how fickle
those who set themselves against another can be.
Praying it home:
Praise God that at the resurrection
we will not just be freed from hardship, but vindicated as having done right in
serving the Lord. Pray that this would be a comfort for those you know who
suffer.
Thinking
further:
None today.
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