Read Job
21-22 & Acts
10:1-23
To discover:
As you read consider what Job is
trying to stress.
To ponder:
Job asks for “consolation” from his
friends by asking them to break from their mocking just for a moment, in order
to listen to him. He defends his impatience by the fact that he is not
addressing man. Presumably his point is that God is fully able in both his
power and wisdom to act justly in this life, but puts this off, making Job’s
impatience justified. Job says his friends should join in his “astonishment”
and “terror” at this (21v5-6), because it means that despite the fact that the
wicked reject God, refusing to serve or pray to him, they nevertheless experience
happiness and prosperity with their families, homes and livestock, before dying
in peace (21v7-15). Of course this is not always the case, but it often is. And
it is a critical argument for Job, overturning the contrasting assumptions of
his three friends. 21v16 is uncertain, but may mean that Job has nevertheless
kept himself from the counsel of the wicked (see Ps 1) because he has known
their prosperity is ultimately in God’s hands and so could be removed by him.
This truth would only exacerbate his present frustration at God having removed
all he had despite him keeping from their counsel. It is particularly hard when
we purposefully choose God over the ways of others, only to find them
prospering and ourselves struggling.
21v17-21
rhetorically bring the answer that the wicked do not often suffer under God’s
anger in the ways outlined. Moreover, the idea that their sons do is no comfort
because the wicked don’t care about the family they leave behind and should
suffer for their own sins anyway. Yet Job still notes that no-one can instruct
God on what he does as he judges even the highest beings. Nevertheless, from
the human perspective those ways seem arbitrary in that one dies in prosperity
and another in bitterness, and both are then buried in the ground. So it seems
that the prospering wicked have it better than the bitter righteous like Job.
And here it is no comfort to say the wicked have no legacy (21v27-28) as they
are spared calamity and rebuke during their life. So Job’s reflections here cry
out for a final accounting for how people live, which Jesus so clearly taught.
Without it, there really is no justice to life.
Eliphaz
responds for a third time and more forcefully. By stating God is not benefited
by any wisdom or righteousness in Job, he wrongly suggests God is so removed
that he is unconcerned by such things. Eliphaz then recounts what he assumes
Job has done as an explanation for his sufferings (22v4-11). He goes on to
charge Job with assuming God cannot see what he has done in order to judge him,
and so walking as evil men had done in the past (22v13-15). Moreover, echoing
Job’s own words, Eliphaz says he himself stands apart from the ways of the
wicked knowing God can remove all they have, to the joy of the righteous
(22v16-18, see 21v14-20). By this means Eliphaz urges Job to do the same,
implying God sees his sins and this is why he is suffering. He therefore calls
him to repent and so “submit” to God by heeding Eliphaz’s instruction. And he
promises Job will then be restored to prosperity, renewed into blamelessness,
and rejoice in God answering his prayers and delivering the needy through Job’s
righteous acts (22v21-30). Because we have seen God remove these things despite
Job’s uprightness, we know these are promises Eliphaz can’t make, warning us
against giving those who suffer false hope for this life.
Praying it home:
Praise God that his final justice
grants us patience with the injustices of this life. Pray for that patience in
those you know who suffer.
Thinking
further:
We are half way through the year. Congratulations! Keep going.
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