“CAREFULLY EVALUATE EXPLANATIONS.” JOB 3: 1-14:22.
JOB 4: 6-8; 5:27; 8:4-8; 11:13-15; 13:20-24.
PLEASE OPEN YOUR BIBLE TO JOB 4.
In Job 2:11-13 we are introduced to Job’s three friends—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. They had heard of all the evil that had befallen Job. They made an appointment together to come to mourn with Job and to comfort him. From afar they did not recognize Job. They wept, tore their mantles and threw dust into the air. They were expressing the most intense form of grief they could display. Near Eastern protocol demanded that Job should be the first to speak, so they sat silently on the ground for seven days and seven nights.
As the story unfolds, it shows that Job’s friends should have remained silent because the comforters became tormentors. But these good things can be said of them. They came. They grieved with him for a long while. When they had something to say, they spoke directly to him, not behind his back. The problem was that they came with preconceived ideas about why Job was afflicted.
Finally, in Job 3: 1-10 Job broke under the weight of his grief and pain. He did not curse God, but he did curse the day of his birth: he even goes so far as to question God’s wisdom in giving him life. Job gives vent to his frustration, by asking why he was not stillborn, or why he should not have experienced premature death; he yearned that he might die in vs. 11-26.
Shocked at Job’s death desire, his friends took on themselves the responsibility of correcting Job for his brash remarks. Having heard the anguished words of Job they felt they must respond. They began kindly by acknowledging that Job was recognized as a wise man.
In interpreting the Book of Job, it is important to realize that both Job and his three friends entered the book with the same understanding of the cause for human suffering: People suffer because God is punishing them for their sins. Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar all believed this and what is more, they all believed that God protects the righteous from suffering. In this sense, they were all orthodox adherents of the traditional view that suffering is the result of sin.
Furthermore, Job’s friends did not enter the story angry at him or determined to accuse him. They waned to comfort him, and they were profoundly distressed as this suffering. Job 2: 1l-13 makes this clear.
Something happened, however, that set Job on a collision course with his three friends. Terrible calamities had befallen Job, including the loss of all his property, his 10 children, and his health. Job and the others did not realize it, but this was precisely because of his righteousness that Job had been singled out for such horrible suffering. There was nothing in their theology to prepare them for such a thing happening. They simply could not have imagined that this would have been the reason Job was struck so severely.
There was, however, one other matter that brought about a crisis in the relationship between Job and his friends. Job knew that he had not done anything to deserve this horrific suffering, and he refused to go through an artificial act of contrition, confessing sins that he knew he did not commit. Instead, he steadfastly (and correctly) maintained his innocence.
Thus, Job’s theology said that all suffering was punishment for sin, but his own experience told him that this was not so. Therefore, Job had a crisis of faith. According to all that he believed, this calamity should never have happened to him. He cried out in 3: 16 that it would have been better for him to have been stillborn than to have come to this moment.
This crisis in Job’s faith had in turn produced a crisis of faith in Job’s friends. If Job would not admit that in some way, somehow, he had sinned and deserved this punishment, then, Job was an offense to their entire theology. If they admitted that Job had not deserved what had happened to him, then they too must confess that everything that they had believed was false.
In effect, Eliphaz said, “Don’t you have a good and godly life as a firm foundation for expressing hope rather than despair? Eliphaz assumed the best and seems at this point to have expected Job to say yes to this question. Most Bible students think Eliphaz was being positive in his words to Job. However, beginning in vs. 7-8 the implications of Eliphaz’s words became more accusatory. Referring to Eliphaz’s explanation of suffering, Francis Andersen wrote: “This is the teaching that all the friends will affirm in one way or another. It is also Job’s belief. They cannot say any thing else without suggesting that moral effort is not worth while, or that God is somehow unfair. But a terrible pitfall is not far away from all of them. The friends must infer from Job’s suffering that he has sinned: Job must infer from his innocence that God is unjust.
Eliphaz at first gently sought to persuade Job. At this point, he still believed that Job was for the most part a good man. Later, he and his friends in their frustration would accuse Job of being absolutely vile.
Here, he asked, “Isn’t your piety your confidence, and the integrity of your life your hope?” In this, Eliphaz was repeating his basic theology that the righteous are protected by God while the wicked suffer. He asserted that Job, as a good man, should simply turn away from whatever sins he had committed and understand that God will show favor to him. Eliphaz sought to be very reasonable with Job. In vs. 7 he asked, “Consider: who has perished when he was innocent? Where have the honest been destroyed?” Eliphaz assumed that the answer to the first question was “no one,” and the answer to the second was “never.” Again he probably expected Job to agree, at least in principle.
If Job would only apply the basic facts to his situation, he would realize that he needed to repent of something, Eliphaz asserted. There was simply no other logical alternative. Eliphaz made the point that he certainly couldn’t remember when righteous people had experienced the kind of suffering that Job had gone through: “In my experience, those who plow injustice and those who sow trouble reap the same.”
There was also an implied accusation in Eliphaz’s words. “You have reaped trouble: therefore, you have plowed injustice. Because you are being punished, you must be guilty.”
When Job spoke the next time, he showed no signs of accepting this broad sweeping principle. It might be true in general, but Job was an exception. When Eliphaz asked who had ever seen an innocent and righteous person perish or be destroyed, he probably means, “Who has seen a good person die before his time?” Job was not yet dead, but he considered himself worse off than if he were. Thus his response to “who has seen a good person suffer” could have been, “You’re looking at one now!”
In vs. 8 Eliphaz spelled out the general principle he was speaking about. It’s the law of sin and retribution. Eliphaz based this on what he had seen: that is, he based it on his own observations. “They that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness reap the same.”
This law of the harvest is stated by Paul in Gal. 6:7, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Paul went on to state that this law applies positively as well as negatively. “For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption: but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”
Eliphaz and his friends assumed that goodness would be rewarded in this life and sin would be punished in life or, if very serious, by early death. They did not believe the godly are with out faults and sins, but they assumed they would repent and be blessed. Thus beginning in Job 5:8 Eliphaz urged Job to turn to God, implying Job had turned away from God.
Finally, in words that were meant to be pastoral, Eliphaz said, “We have investigated this, and it is true! Hear it and understand it for yourself.” “Simply take our advice,” Eliphaz argued, and “things would be better for you!”” Eliphaz was exhorting Job to confess sins he had not committed.
Two strengths in Eliphaz’s view were the law of sin and retribution and the justice of God. God is just, and people reap what they sow. The weakness of his explanation was to apply it to everyone.
PLEASE READ JOB 8: 4-8.
Early on in the dialogues, Bildad, like Eliphaz, was not willing to make a full-scale attack on Job. He suggested that the primary culprits were actually Job’s children: “Since your children sinned against Him, He gave them over to their rebellion”. Even though Bildad was not directly attacking Job, his words were very cruel. Job’s children had all just died, and Bildad was saying in effect, ‘Well, after all your children were very wicked.” What words could have been more insensitive to a grieving father! And of course, it was also completely false. The text never suggests that Job’s children were evil, and it clearly shows that Job’s suffering, including the deaths of his children, was a result of his own moral integrity.
Bildad must have shared Eliphaz’s view that punishment for the worst sins was premature death. Bildad may have assumed that Job had already reached the same conclusion: but even if he had, it was a cruel thing to say. This kind of insensitivity in judging someone else is a sin.
In Job 8: 5-7 Bildad offered Job hope God would restore him if he would do two things---earnestly seek the Lord as he asked for mercy and live a righteous life. Bildad---like Eliphaz---did not believe a righteous person could suffer, as Job was suffering. The implied point here was that Job was not now pure and upright, but recall that in Job 1:8 God had said Job was more upright than any man on earth.
Vs. 8 makes clear Eliphaz based his view on tradition: “For ask the previous generation, and pay attention to what their father discovered.” This is still a strong tradition in our world today.
Bildad then felt that he could make a promise to Job in God’s behalf: “But if you earnestly seek and ask the Almighty for mercy, if you are pure and upright, then He will move even now on your behalf and restore the home where your righteousness dwells.”
The reward proffered in this promise was this: “He will move even now on your behalf and restore the home where your righteousness dwells. Furthermore, Bildad said, “Then, even if your beginnings were modest, your final days will be full of prosperity.”
Bildad did not realize it, but he was actually anticipating what would happen to Job. God would restore Job’s home and Job’s final days would be full of prosperity. But it would not happen in the way Bildad expected!
Instead, Job would come to understand God’s ways more profoundly. Job would not confess to some sin he had not committed, but he would realize that his righteousness was no basis for demanding that God keep him safe from all suffering. In that, Job was wrong, and he had no basis for complaining that God was unfair in allowing him to suffer. As for Bildad, he would stand condemned outright before God in Job 42:7-9.
Meanwhile, however, Bildad was convinced that he was right and that if Job would only be reasonable he would see the light as well: “For ask the previous generation, and pay attention to what their fathers discovered.” “This is the wisdom of the ancients,” Bildad said. “Just be sensible and accept it.”
PLEASE READ JOB 11: 13-15.
By the time we get to Zophar, the three friends were absolutely convinced that Job was guilty of some terrible sins and that he must repent. In 11: 6 Zophar said, “Know then that God has chosen to overlook some of your sin.” In other words, “You are not even getting all the punishment you deserve.” Therefore, Zophar suggested, Job need only repent---“redirect your heart and lift up you hands to Him.”
To redirect the heart means to turn from sin, and to lift up the hands to Him refers to seeking God in prayer. Zophar’s call for Job to repent was made more clear in his next words. If there is iniquity in your hand, remove it, and don’t allow injustice to dwell in your tents.
In other words,
Zophar was telling Job to stop concealing the iniquity
that had brought all this suffering upon him.
Zophar added,
“Then you will hold your head high, free from fault.” Zophar
made it very clear that he considered Job guilty. After all, Job’s
hidden sin (Zophar reasoned) was the reason Job could not hold his
head high now. As pious and well-meaning as this
sounds, it was in fact terrible advice since it was based on a
false premise, that Job was being punished for sin.
In the minds of Zophar and his friends, the reason for Job’s suffering was clear---it was a punishment for sin. This outlook is very common. Ancient pagans routinely sought to determine which god they had offended whenever misfortune befell them. But pagans were by no means the only ones who held this view, as John 9: 1-2 shows.
For Jesus disciples, punishment for sin was the only possible explanation for something as calamitous for being born blind. Perhaps, the disciples reasoned it was punishment for the parents’ sin, or perhaps God was preemptively punishing the man himself for some sin he was going to commit. Jesus announced that it was not a punishment for sin at all.
What, then, are the reasons that we suffer? A list of reasons would include at least the following: Natural Disasters, Accidents, Personal illness, Victims of people’s cruelty and sin, pressures our culture puts on us; Trauma in one area of life can rebound into another.
We can suffer the natural consequences of our own foolish actions. We can suffer the consequences of someone else’s foolish actions. We can suffer from commitment to a cause.
But where, you may ask, does God fit into all of this? The basic answer is that God superintends all of it. If we believe that God is sovereign, then nothing happens that He does not allow. Amos 3:6 says, “If a ram’s horn is blown in a city, aren’t people afraid? If a disaster occurs in a city, hasn’t the Lord allowed it?”
In one sense, the city may have simply been in the path of a storm cell, but in another sense, God brought the storm on the city. We should not choose between these two perspectives but realized that both are valid. On the one hand, we are part of a natural world in which things like this happen. On the other hand, God is in control of all things.
What, then, might be reasons that God would bring suffering into our lives? There are at least four possible reasons, and these four are not mutually exclusive of one another.
(1) God may directly punish us for our sins. Deut. 28:15 says: “But if you do not obey the Lord your God by carefully following all the commands and statues I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overtake you.” As Rev. 2:21-22 shows, God does actively bring down suffering upon the heads of sinners who do not repent.
(2) God may be bringing suffering upon us for our spiritual improvement. It is not that the suffering is a punishment; it is a kind of “pruning” to make us grow. Rom. 5: 3-4 says, “And not only that, but we also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character and proven character produces hope.”
(3) God may cause us to suffer redemptively for the good of other people. Paul said in Col. 1: 24 “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I am completing in my flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for His body, that is, the church.”
(4) God may cause us to suffer for His own glory. This was, after all, the reason the man in John 9:3 was born blind: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus answered, “This came about so that God’s works might be displayed in him.” In the case of the man born blind, God was glorified when Jesus did a miracle of healing. In other cases, God may be glorified by a believer, who patiently accepts trials, while continuing to give praise to God.
We can, on the basis of Job 1-2, add he fact that Satanic attacks cause suffering in people. However, we should remember, following Job 1-2, that Satan can never attack a person without permission from God. This fact is behind Paul’s statement in 1 Cor. 5: 4-5 where he says, the sinner who was bringing shame to the Corinthian church “should be delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”
PLEASE READ JOB 13: 20-24.
Job’s speech following Zophar’s was his longest in the first cycle of speeches. It includes Ch. 12-14. In 12:2-3 job offered a sarcastic response to the words of the three friends. God runs the universe. Job agreed, but there are iniquities in it. Once again Job defended himself to his friends. Then in vs. 13-19 he told the friends that he was seeking to go into God’s presence even if it meant his death. Job 13: 20-14:22 is a long address or prayer to God. Job knew that no man can see God and live, but his need was so great that he was willing to take the risk.
It’s important to realize that Job had not done what Satan wanted and cursed God. He had, however, questioned God, because he could not make sense of what God was doing. Job appealed to God to listen to him and respond. “Only grant these two things to me, God, so that I will not have to hide from Your presence.”
Job believed that God had become an enemy to him, and thus all he could do was hide. He wanted God to make a truce, as it were, and allow Job to come out and talk to Him. Jobs’ two requests were as follows. First, “remove your hand from me, and do not let Your terror frighten me.” The hand here is not the hand of kindness. Job was in effect saying: stop hitting me! God’s terror is the series of calamities that God had afflicted Job with, leaving Job to believe that God had simply turned against him for no good reason. “Why do you hide our face and consider me Your enemy?” Job was not only hurting, he was bewildered.
These two conditions met, Job said he would not be afraid to step out and talk to God. Then call, and I will answer, or I will speak, and You can respond to me. But Job did not wait for these conditions to be met. He voiced the gist of his argument right away: How many iniquities and sins have I committed? Reveal to me my transgression and sin.
Many of us, reading these words, instinctively feel Job must have had a lot of hidden sins that God could enumerate to justify His treatment of Job. When we think like that, we are repeating the theology of Job’s friends----if he was suffering, he must have done something wrong and he deserved to suffer.
Job himself at this point thought that suffering was always punishment for sin! We must bear in mind the premise of the whole book in Job 1-2: Job was suffering because he was the most upright man on earth, not because of some sin. But where was Job’s error? Of what did God reprove Job at the end of the book in Ch. 38-41. Job’s error was not in maintaining that he had done nothing to deserve what had happened to him but in maintaining that since he was innocent, God had no right to make him suffer.
Job’s long speech contains a mixture of faith and hope along with doubts and questions. God gave no answer at the time, but later chapters show that God accepted Job’s flawed appeal and eventually met Job’s needs in His own time and in His own way. Job is the most outstanding biblical example of God hearing honest prayers, even when they contain doubts and questions.
NEXT SUNDAY THE LIFE QUESTION IN JOB 28 IS “WHERE CAN I TURN FOR WISDOM IN DEALING WITH SUFFERING AND LOSS.” A.V. DAUGHERTY