John Mark Hicks

Zophar is seething. He can’t stand it.  Does Job really think he can dispute with God? Zophar’s zeal for the righteousness of God demands that he “rebuke” this mocker.  “Will no one rebuke you,” Zophar retorts, “when you mock?” (11:3b).

Zophar’s speech may be divided into three sections:  (1) his rebuke of Job’s insolence (11:2-6), (2) his hymn on divine transcendence (11:7-12); and (3) his appeal to Job to repent (11:13-20). Again, a little theology is a dangerous thing in defending traditional understandings. Zophar’s theology of transcendence grounds his misdirected assault on Job.

Zophars hears Job’s lament as an assertion of Job’s own sinlessness. He puts words in Job’s mouth.  Job never claimed his “beliefs” were “flawless” or that he was “pure” in God’s sight (8:4).  But Zophar cannot hear Job’s dispute with God as anything other than unfaithfulness and anticipates that God will voice his displeasure if he ever does speak to Job. Zophar wants God to teach Job the “secrets of wisdom.”

It seems that “righteous” people tend to hear laments exactly as Zophar hears them.  In fact, many read Job’s words exactly as Zophar read them.  I think it is a dangerous thing to side with the friends against Job given God’s own response to the friends in chapter 42. Yet, we are so schooled to believe that honest, heart-felt, angry laments to God are so sinful that we can’t even hear Job’s righteous venting without condemning him in sympathy with Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar.

Unfortunately, Job’s condemnation is not sui generis.  Many laments are condemned for their harshness and “irreverence.” The spirit of Zophar yet lives in the hearts of the “righteous.”

This rejection of lament is rooted in a misapplication of divine transcendence. Zophar rightly asks, “Can you fathom the mysteries of God?” (11:7). Of course not! Job confesses divine mystery and transcendence–he already has done so in the dialogues and will in his response to Zophar. But for Zophar this means that the divine court will imprison Job rather than release him because this is what God does with “deceitful men” (11:10-12). It does not, seemingly, occur to Zophar that Job is honest and that his cry to the transcendent one is the call of a wounded victim. It is almost as if Zophar’s understanding of transcendence renders God unapproachable and many lamenters have been rebuked on that basis.

Yet, Zophar hopes for Job’s repentance: “if you devote your heart to him,” he pleads, “you will surely forget your trouble” (11:13a, 16a). Hope and security will return; darkness will become light; danger will turn into safety. And Job, Zophar promises, will no longer be afraid; his fear will dissipate–a motivation that was probably quite real to Job.  God will no longer terrify him (Job 11:13-19).  Repent, and everything will be just fine…the same promise that Eliphaz and Bildad offered. Indeed, that has been the theme of Job’s friends in this first round of the dialogue.

Job’s hope, according to the friends, is to renounce his own integrity and repent. If Job were to do so, this would give the accuser (“the satan” in chapte 1) the victory.  For, then, the accusation would certainly be correct–human beings only serve God for profit, for the “stuff.”  If Job is willing to deny his own integrity in order to get his “stuff” back, then he would serve God out of a profit motive rather than out of love. Unwittingly, Zophar asks Job to deny his faithful witness rather than uphold it.

The last line of this section describes the ministry of Jesus in Galilee:  “he went into the synagogues everywhere in Galilee, heralding and casting out demons.” I call this “practicing the kingdom of God.” That is, Jesus announces that the kingdom of God has drawn near and demonstrates its presence through redemptive acts.  This is the basic message of Jesus (1:14-15) and the substance of his ministry–the presence of the kingdom in a broken world.

The story in this section is evidently told from the point of view of Peter which is not surprising if the tradition is true that Mark’s Gospel is a record of Peter’s preaching.  The story about Peter’s mother-in-law never names Jesus but focuses on Peter’s circumstances. The line that the whole city appeared at the door of Peter’s house (1:30) has the ring of an eye-witness. And Peter leads the other disciples in the search for Jesus when he is missing in the morning (1:36).

Whether or not this is the case, the three stories (Peter’s mother-in-law, the healing ministry in Capernaum, and Jesus’ early morning adventure) are progressive in character. We begin with a simple healing at Peter’s house which then explodes into an evening healing service that the whole city attends. The healing in the home is incidental but it solidifies Peter’s relationship with Jesus. The crowd at the door flows from his exorcism at the synagogue as people flock to him to experience wholeness in the bodies and minds.  In the morning we find Jesus alone in prayer, and perhaps that is a response to the busied activity of the previous day. When Peter (and others) find him, Jesus states his intention to go to other villages in Galilee because he has come to herald the appearance of the kingdom.

This movement underscores the importance of the message of Jesus in his healings and exorcisms.  We could focus on the compassionate nature of Jesus’ healing/exorcist ministry as a model of care and love (and the Gospels sometimes do this). We could also focus on the authenticating function of his healing/exorcist ministry (and the Gospels sometimes do this as in Mark 2:1-12). But neither of these are the primary function of his healing/exorcist ministry. Rather, it is a demonstration of the message. The word about the kingdom is put into practice or, better, the kingdom of God is realized or actualized through these redemptive acts. They reverse the curse present in the world.  The kingdom of God redeems brokenness.

This is exactly how Peter characterizes the ministry of Jesus in Luke’s summary of his words to Cornelius in Acts 10:38, “he went about doing good and healing all who were under the tyranny of the Devil, because God was with him.”

But Jesus did not want the healing ministry or exorcised demons to distract from the message. Jesus was not a sensationalist. The message about the kingdom had priority and the healings/exorcisms bore witness to the presence of the kingdom.  The good news must be heard and the healings must be understood through that lens. They are no mere “feel-good” events or popularizing  strategies. They are redemptive acts tied to the kingdom of God. He doesn’t even want the demons to speak because what they would reveal (i.e., his Messianic status) would distract people from his message about the kingdom of God.

Mark accentuates Jesus’ alone time in this account. It follows a presumably long evening of healings and exorcisms that involved the “whole city.” The crowds pressed around him and even the next day they were still looking for him. Such attention–which has the allure of approval, vanity and human glory–becomes itself a temptation. Jesus sought out a deserted place in the early morning to focus on prayer. The word “deserted” (desolate, or desert) is  the same word as the term for “wilderness” used earlier–place where Jesus was tempted by Satan.  Jesus returns to his desert experience in order to gain strength for ministry, resist the temptations of popularity, and focus his ministry.  He emerges from that alone time with a renewed sense of his ministry–“let us go to other towns to heard” the kingdom rather than feed the ego by remaining in Capernaum. Jesus knows his purpose; he knows why he has come. He cannot simply stay in Capernaum.

As we follow Jesus, we, too, must remember why we  follow Jesus, that is, to herald and heal. We announce the presence of the kingdom of God and we demonstrate its presence through redemptive ministry. By this we practice the kingdom of God. We engage in healing and reconciling acts that reverse the curse in the world. We called to embody the kingdom of God now, in both word and deed.  The ministry of Jesus, which we follow, enact and embody, is both the heralding of good news and the enactment of that good news in the lives of people, in the brokenness of the world.

Who can contend with God?  No one, Job answers (9:3). But the problem is that God is contending with (prosecuting) Job (10:2).

His response to Bildad is not direct. As I read him, he basically replies to Bildad’s first question.  It is enough to set Job on fire–”How long will you say such things? Your words are a blustering wind” (8:2).  Job’s response is….”I know, I know, how can I dispute with God? But I will dispute anyway; my soul must speak!”

Job’s “response” to Bildad’s speech (8:2-21) comes in two sections. In the first, Job addresses Bildad’s point about the correlation between righteousness and prosperity or between wickedness and loss (9:2-24). In the second section, Job confronts God (9:25-10:22). In the first section, Job recognizes that no one can “contend with him” (9:3), no one can be “in the right” with God (9:2; cf. 4:17; 8:3). In the second section, Job questions why God “contend[s] against him” (10:3). In the former, Job addresses his friends, but in the latter he addresses God directly.

God is Beyond Our Reckoning

Some don’t like to listen to such lamenting, confrontational speeches.  They think it is demeaning to God, undermines faith, or is an expression of arrogance. Does questioning God–asking him “why” or complaining about how he has decided to conduct the world–mean we no longer believe in God’s transcendence, power or sovereignty? It doesn’t for Job. He begins his response to Bildad with an extended rehearsal of divine sovereignty over creation (9:4-13). He confeses God’s wisdom and power (9:4). His language sounds very similar to what Yahweh himself will say to Job in chapters 38-41.

While some have seen a bit of satirical irony in this praise hymn (Gordis refers to as a hymn to the “King of Chaos”), I think we miss the point if we do not recognize that this same language is present in the Psalms. It is part of the liturgy of Israel. The God who removes mountains, shakes the earth and commands the sun is the God Israel worships. This not a subtle attack on God but a recognition that God is sovereign over chaos as well as order, and that God can bring chaos when he so chooses. The hymn reflects both order and chaos as God tramples the waves of the chaotic Sea (9:8) and arranges (orders) the constellations (9:9). The point is that God is beyond capturing; God cannot be boxed in, even with nice theological rules such as Bildad has imagined. God’s work is “beyond understanding” (9:10). God is active–he moves and passes by Job unseen–and no one can call him to account for his actions.  “Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing’?” (Job 9:12).

Job, then, applies this to his own circumstance.  Twice he begins sections with “though I am innocent…” (NRSV; 9:15, 20-21)–even affirming his blamelessness (same word as in 1:1, 8, 2:3; 4:6; 8:20), only to recognize that God has crushed him (9:17) and destroyed him along with the wicked (9:22), even for no reason or without cause (same word as in Job 2:3).  God is responsible, despite his innocence and integrity, for his calamity…the “calamity of the innocent” (9:23).  God “destroys both the blameless and the wicked.” (9:22), and whatever befalls humanity–including disasters that bring death or the rule of wickedness in the world–is subject to God’s sovereign will.  “If it is not he,” Job asks, “who is it?”

Job knows it is futile to argue with God (9:3, 14-15). But he must speak and declare his feelings (10:1). This is the tension of a lamenter. We know God is great but we still feel what we feel. To stuff our feelings will damage the soul, to numb our feelings denies what is real, and to escape our feelings is an illusion. We must speak!

We recognize that even if we were “blameless” (in the sense of integrity–as God declared Job to be in 1:1 and 2:3), we still do not have a case before God (9:19-20).  His power and justice overwhelm us (9:19) and we know we cannot stand in his presence on our own two feet. But attempting to justify God–from the perspective of lament–is futile since he “destroys the blameless and the wicked,” and “if it is not he, then who is it?” (9:22, 24). Surely God will always be right! Who can dispute that? God is in control and responsible for his world.  To deny that is to remove God from his sovereign perch as Creator.  God is the one with whom we must dispute. And we know we can’t win.

Who can know what God is doing?  No human being can. Who can fathom the work of God in creation? No one. But this does not mitigate the anguish and bitterness that fills the soul as the innocent and blameless experience the terrors of the Almighty.  Humanity can make no claim on God–God does not have to answer Job’s appeal for vindication. At most, humanity can only appeal for “mercy” (9:15, NRSV).

Nevertheless, I Will Say to God….

Nevertheless, Job appeals for vindication. He approaches God with a plea (even demand?), a prayer and a faint hope.

Hope or not, Job must speak.  Job could “forget [his] complaint” and “change my expression and smile,” but this would not change his feelings. He won’t fake rejoicing before the God who knows he is faking.  “I still dread,” Job says, “all my sufferings” (9:27-28).  Job will speak to God; he will not forget his complaint. He will question him….about why he “smile[s] on the schemes of the wicked”….why he “search[es] out my faults and probe[s] after my sin”…why he “oppress[es] me” (Job 10:3-6).

The lamenter will do both–recognize God’s power but complain about his use or neglect of it.

It doesn’t make any sense! Did not God create me?  Job asks. Did not God’s own “hands”–the hands that gave the accuser the power to destroy him in chapters 1-2–create Job (10:8)? Did not God tenderly knit Job together in the womb, give him life, show him kindness and watch over him in his providence (10:10-12)? Job’s hymnic praise in Job 10:8-12 is reminiscent of Psalm 139.

The God who cared for Job is the God who unleashed trying, if not hostile, powers against him. “Why then did you bring me out of the womb?” Job asks (10:18). Let me die, he pleads; let the misery end. He has not changed from Job 3–he still wonders why God keeps him alive.

And the misery is compounded by God’s own plan. Is this “what you concealed in your heart,” O God? “I know,” Job says, that this was in your mind” all along (10:15). You set me up! You showered me with blessings and then you took them away. What kind of trickery is this? It feels like God has betrayed us. We got sucker punched.

Consequently, Job simply wants his “comfort,” that is, he wants to die. Job has not changed his mind. But here he recognizes that death is not so much rest but “gloom,” “darkness,” and “chaos.” It is rest from the suffering, but it is also an entrance into nothingness, a place where there is no light (10:20-22).

You are powerful, God. You created me. You loved me. But I am suffering. You did it. This doesn’t make any sense.

Job does have a glimmer of hope, however.  Perhaps it is better to say it is a yearning, even a request, or a wish.  Maybe that is all it is.  He speaks (9:33-35):

If only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand upon us both, someone to remove God’s rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more. Then I would speak up without fear of him, but as it now stands with me, I cannot.

Job needs someone who will give him the boldness to stand in God’s presence and speak his heart. He needs someone who will mediate, who will place a hand on both himself and God. What Job does not realize is that God is that person. God will come to Job in compasionate care and Job will no longer need to speak. Indeed, he will find comfort (Job 42:6).

Historically, Christians have seen Christological meaning in Job’s wish. Perhaps. Surely Job did not know and he probably does not intend some kind of reconciling mediator.  Rather, he wants someone to mediate the conversation; someone to guarentee fairness in the court of justice, someone to embolden him.

But as I meditate on this yearning, it is a wish, a hope, experienced in Jesus. It is not that Jesus removed the terrors of the Father, but that the Father and Son compassionately came near to us. The Father who loved us sent his Son, and this is how we know love. This is how we know the Father is for us because he gave his Son for our sakes. And thus we boldly go to the throne of grace rather than to the bar of justice.

Job knows it is hopeless to seek vindication from God–Job cannot coerce it from God’s hand, but nevertheless he seeks it, prays for it and ultimately hopes in it. Perhaps, maybe…indeed, by faith, Jesus is God’s response to Job’s  yearning–and ours as well.

Whatever God does is just. God destroyed your life. Therefore, you deserved it.  That is a summary of Bildad’s response to Job’s harrowing lament and plea for wisdom as well as sympathy from his friends in Job 6-7. The hidden premise is that God only destroys the life of the wicked. Somebody, somewhere sinned.

With shocking pastoral insensitivity Bildad blames Job’s children for their own demise (8:4).

When your children sinned against him, he gave them over to the penalty of their sin.

Bildad applies the doctrine of retribution to Job’s children (8:2-7). As readers we know that the sins of the children had nothing–in terms of the Prologue–to do with their deaths. Even more Job had religiously sacrificed for their sins, but–in Bildad’s mind–to no effect. Bildad clearly sees the “justice” of God (8:3). It has to make sense to him; there must be a just, rational explanation for the death of children. That round peg has to fit into the square hole Bildad has been given it.

Bildad extends Eliphaz’s theme, the datum of his visionary experience (4:17).  Can a person be more righteous/pure than God?  God does not pervert righteousness/justice (8:3) and if Job will turn again to righteousness/purity, then God will make his ending better than his beginning (8:5).

Bildad, therefore, like Eliphaz before him, holds out some hope for Job.

If….if….if…you will do better, Job; if you will become more righteous; if you will repent; “if you will look to God and plead with the Almighty,” “if you are pure and upright,” then God, “even now,” will “restore you to your rightful place.” “Your beginnings,” Bildad promises, “will seem humble, so prosperous will your future be” (Job 8:5-7).  Job could possibly expect–if he repents–“laughter” and “joy” once again while the “tents of the wicked” disappear (Job 8:20-22).

Between the two exhortations to repent (8:5-7 and 8:20-22), our friendly theologian–based on the wisdom of the ages–points to the fragility of those who “forget God” (8:13). They are fragile because they trust in what is fragile. They wither and die like rootless plants or blow away like houses built by spiders. They have no hope (8:13).

Bildad’s closing “wisdom” is particularly problematic from Job’s standpoint.  According to Bildad, God does not “reject a blameless person or strengthen the hands of evildoers” (8:20). How ironic!  Job is “blameless”, at least according to the Prologue (1:1,8; 2:3), which uses the same Hebrew word. And it was God who put Job into the satan’s hands as well (1:12; 2:6). God, in fact, did strengthen the hands of the one who attacked Job.

So, there are two choices; there are only two scenarios in Bildad’s mind. Bildad confirms God’s quid pro quo arrangement with humanity and encourages Job to embrace the profit of righteous living. Life is about equity and fairness–God will treat us just as we deserve. If we sin, he will condemn us. If we are pure, he will bless us. It’s that simple, right?

Job does not think so.

Moreover, in the framework of this poetic drama, if Job follows Bildad’s wisdom, then the satan was right after all–human beings are only interested in profit. Job will repent to get back his life even when he thinks he is innocent.

But Job won’t do that.

Is this how you react, Job asks, to a “despairing man”?  Whoever withholds “kindness” from a friend, according to Job, “forsake[s] the fear of the Almighty” (Job 6:14). Job did not give up the fear of God but Eliphaz did not practice it in how he has approached Job in his suffering.

Job’s response to Eliphaz comes in the form of (1) a lamenting monologue (6:1-13), (2) an engagement with the friends (6:14-30), and (3) a lament prayer to God (7:1-21). Job moves from expressions of despair to an invitation for the friends to supply some wisdom that might help (though from Eliphaz’s first attempt he does not expect much, they are like “dry streams”).  From the friends he turns to God and offers a startling, seemingly outrageous, lament.

The Monologue

How can I remain silent, Job asks?  Of course my words are “impetuous”–”my anguish…my misery” weighs more than the “sands of the seas” (Job 6:2-3).  Why should I have patience–from where does the hope arise that “that I should be patient” (Job 6:8)?  His patience is finished; he has none. “Therefore, I will not keep silent” (Job 7:11).

While Eliphaz told Job that “vexation (grief) kills the fool” (5:2), Job wants his “vexation” weighed so that everyone might understand his “rash” words (6:2-3). He must speak because words are all that are left him. He is neither made of “stone” or “bronze” that he would have “power” to help himself (6:12-13). He must speak because there is nothing else for him to do.

God has done this, and he wants God to finish it. The “arrows of the Almighty” have penetrated him (6:4). And his prayer is that God would “crush” him and “grant [his] desire” (6:8-9). Job simply wants his suffering over; he wants to die.

Job’s comfort is that he has not denied the words of the Almighty. He speaks out of anguish but his “joy in unrelenting pain” (Job 6:10; see my post on Job 7:16) is his refusal to curse God and his commitment to trust the One who seems, at the moment, so much like an enemy. While Eliphaz said that the righteous were never “cut off,” Job–using the same verb–says that he had never “cut off” (“denied” [NRSV]) the “words of the Holy One” (6:10).

Amazingly–indeed, absolutely stunning it is–Job knows where his joy lies. From the vantage point of the Prologue, Job has maintained his integrity. From where Job sits, he knows that he has continued to fear God and shun evil. His comfort is that he has not denied his faith.

Engagement with the Friends

“A despairing man,” Job announces, “should have the devotion of his friends, even though he forsakes the fear of the Almighty” (6:14).  Where’s their loyalty? Where is the compassion, the sympathy, the consolation? These friends are fair weather friends; they are like streams fed by “melting snow” in the Spring but are dry  beds “in the heat” of summer (6:16-17). Like an oasis that has dried up, Job’s friends are of “no help” (6:21). They treat Job like those who “cast lots for the fatherless;” they “barter” away his friendship (6:27). They make their deal with God to keep their own blessings and treat Job’s words like “wind” (6:28).

Job is willing to listen, though he may be a bit sarcastic here (6:24-26). Job will be silent if his friends will say something useful. Eliphaz’s descriptions of the plight of the wicked were insinuations that Job himself was one of them. Consequently, Job is willing to listen to any accusations or charges that the friends know. But he wants proof, not just accusations. Job complains that his friends had not really listened to him. His words were honest (or, sweet). They were the words of a person in great distress and despair. But Eliphaz had treated them as if they were nothing but hot air (“wind”). Eliphaz listened to Job’s lament in order to critique rather than suffer with him. Job gets no sympathy from Eliphaz.

Eliphaz’s callous response evokes an assessment of his heart by Job (6:27). Eliphaz is the kind of person who would gamble over fatherless children or barter away a friendship. Eliphaz is the sort of person who turns every situation to his own advantage. Rather than help a friend, Eliphaz becomes defensive of his own traditions and beliefs. Eliphaz’s rebuke is more concerned about his traditions and values than it is about Job’s troubles and spiritual health.

Job gets to the point (6:28-30). The kindness he expects from Eliphaz and his other friends is trust. Job simply wants his friends to believe him. Job is not a liar, and wants to be treated justly and compassionately. What is really at stake in this dialogue is not the traditions of the friends, but the integrity (literally, righteousness) of Job. God affirmed Job’s righteousness or integrity both before and after trouble enveloped him (1:1; 2:3). Job does not belong among the wicked. He is a righteous sufferer. He does not deceive nor does he speak evil. As the narrator commented after Job’s second trial, “In all this, Job did not sin in what he said” (2:10; cf. 42:7).

Lament

Job begins with a third-person lament, but then addresses God directly in 7:1-21.  Job simply wants rest; he wants relief like a slave working in the hot sun wants relief from the shadows of the day or a laborer wants their wages. Instead he has nights of “misery” (same word as in 3:10, 20). Job describes his misery here–sleepless nights, worms, and scabs, and this over “months” (7:3).

The word that parallels “misery” in 7:3 has the meaning of vain, empty or false. It is the language of Psalm 89:47: “For what vanity have you created all the children of men!” Job describes his days as coming to an end “without hope.”

When he addresses  God, Job  is hopeless; he has no future. His “days have no meaning” (7:16). His lament is filled with frustration–why is God so intent on picking on him, testing him. “Why have you,” O God, “made me your target?” (7:20).  How can human beings be so significant to God that he would busy himself with meddling in their lives? Why does not God just forgive and be done with the lot? While Elphaz finds God’s revelation in dreams and visions (5:13), Job only finds terrors (7:14). Job hates life, wants to die, and probes the divine wisdom with “why” questions (7:20-21).

This lament is one of the most vivid and devastating found among Job’s speeches. What is humanity that God pays so much negative attention to them, Job asks (7:17)–practically a parody of Psalm 8. Is Job so dangerous to God that he must set a guard over him just as God must do with the Dragon or the chaotic Sea (7:12)? Is his “sin” so great, is he such a huge “burden,” that God must keep him alive (7:20-21)? What is God doing? Why is God doing this? How can humanity matter so much to God? What’s the point? Has Job’s life been such a problem to God that he decided to send this suffering upon him?

Job is miserable, hopeless, terrified and yet is still speaking to God. He does not curse but he does petition. He asks God to lift his hand and let him die.

The feelings, frustrations, and protests present in Job 7 are not uncommon for sufferers. We yearn for relief. We question the significance and meaning of our suffering. But faith continues to speak, even in the bitterness of soul and the anguish of spirit.

Eliphaz feels compelled to speak. “Who can keep from speaking?,” he asks. Job has cursed the day of his birth and questioned why God has permitted him to live. Eliphaz perceives him as “impatient” (4:5; same word as “offended” in 4:2, NRSV) and “dismayed” (perhaps terrified). He reminds Job that Job has helped the weak with words himself in times past, and now Eliphaz wants to help Job with some wisdom (4:3-4).  Job is not responding well to his situation, according to Eliphaz. He needs some advice…and some “hope.”

What must Job do? Job should rest in the “fear of God” and in Job’s “integrity” (4:6). How ironic! This is how the Prologue characterized Job–a person of integrity that feared of God (exactly the same language). One wonders what Job was thinking at this moment, but given the Prologue we know Eliphaz is barking up the wrong tree.  He might be right about fear God and maintain integrity, trust and obey–but he is preaching to the choir in the case of Job.

Job’s lament in the previous chapter was not a repudiation of that life orientation. Nothing he said entailed that hehad given up either his integrity or the fear of  God. Rather, it was a emotive, heart-rending questioning of why trouble has come to him though he was a person of integrity and the fear of God. Eliphaz is missing the point.

Eliphaz’s Speeches

So, where does Eliphaz go with this? He first appeals to shared traditional wisdom (4:7-11) and then he appeals to his own personal encounter with divine revelation (4:12-21).

Traditional wisdom says that whoever “sow[s] trouble reap[s] the same” (4:8). “Trouble” is the word Job used in 3:10, 20. The troubled are in trouble because they sowed trouble, according to Eliphaz, and the righteous live while the wicked perish (4:7). But Job is righteous–Eliphaz uses the same word that the Prologue used in 1:1, 8; 2:3; Job is not a troubler. Eliphaz has misjudged the situation.

Eliphaz backs up his perspective with his own encounter with God. Eliphaz has “heard [the] voice” of a spirit in a dream or night vision (4:13, 16). The voice said:  “Can mortals be more righteous than God? Can human beings be more pure than their Maker?” (4:17.) But who would deny that in any ultimate sense? Job does not.  But Eliphaz says more. If God does not trust his own servants (angels?), he notes, how would he ever trust those who live in houses founded on dust? (4:18-19). Would God ever trust a human being? And, again, the irony–this is exactly what God did in the Prologue…God trusted Job. Moreover, he entrusted the cosmic witness of faith to Job.

Because of this revelation, according to Eliphaz, Job should listen to his wisdom. Job has puffed himself up with his own righteousness as though he could approach God with his venting. This is, according to Eliphaz, foolish (offensive to God), and fools live in cursed dwellings where “trouble” (same word as in 3:10, 20; 4:8) sprouts up. Their children, Eliphaz says, are unprotected (5:1-7).

Such language must have broken Job’s heart even further. Had he not tried to protect his children through sacrifices and a life of wisdom in the fear of God? But his children are dead. Eliphaz links this to a cursed dwelling due to the trouble that Job sowed. Job is the blame for the death of his children.

After reaching that low point, Eliphaz turns positive. He states his own credo, his own approach to life (“as for me,” 5:8). He offers a praise of God (5:8-16) which is a traditional doxology and applies this to Job’s situation (5:17-26).

The theology in this section is lofty. God reigns over the creation–God sends the rain, lifts up the lowly, frustrates the designs of the wicked, and saves the needy. Consequently, “the poor have hope” (5:16). One could have lifted this out any number of the Psalms. It is almost as if he is quoting a Hebrew liturgy that praises God for creation and divine justice. Eliphaz offers Job hope–God may yet reverse his circumstances.

Job, however, must recognize the “discipline of the Almighty” (5:17). Eliphaz  applies the previous doxology to Job’s circumstances. God will bind up the wounds and heal the strikes, even protect Job from seven “troubles” and bless him abundantly (including having more children, 5:25) if Job will submit to God’s rebuke.

The centerpiece of this application is a beatitude:  “Blessed is the one whom God reproves,” and “therefore,” Eliphaz says, “do not despise the discipline of the Almighty” (5:17). This is traditional wisdom and it may have links to Psalm 94:12 and Proverbs 3:11-12 (which is quoted in Hebrews 12:5-6). There is substantial truth in this saying, but it is lost in Eliphaz’s misapplication. If Job will repent of sowing trouble, according to Eliphaz, then God will return his children, prosperity and health. A little theology is a dangerous thing. God may be discipling Job, but God is not punishing him and there is no promise of children, prosperity and health embedded in God’s testing.

Eliphaz thought he had been helpful. He shared wisdom with Job; what he has said is “true” and if Job  listened well, he would recognize the truth (5:27).

Eliphaz’s Mistakes

Eliphaz, to his credit, does attempt to be conciliatory, gentle and hopeful–he approaches his friend with rhetorical questions.  Apparently, however, Job did not think he tried very hard.  🙂  Despite the best of intentions and with even a small amount of insightful theology (e.g., 5:8-17), we–like Eliphaz–can do more harm than good.

Below I have noted several Eliphaz’s pastoral mistakes.

Mistake One.  The friends thought they had to speak. They could not bear to hear Job’s heart-rending lament in chapter 3 and stay silent. Eliphaz cautions Job about impatience, insinuates that perhaps he should just listen “but who can keep from speaking,” he says (4:2).

Lesson:  Be present and be silent; when in any doubt, choose silence. Don’t speak because silence is uncomfortable.

Mistake Two.  The friends cautioned Job about his words. “Call if you will,” Eliphaz taunts Job, “but who will answer you?” (5:1) Job’s words are dangerous, edgy, and cross the line with God, so they think. Eliphaz thinks Job is insolent and impatient.

Lesson: Listen to their lament. Don’t judge it and don’t critique it. Let it flow and let it go. Listen, listen and then listen some more.

Mistake Three.  The friends reminded Job how God takes care of the righteous. “Consider now,” Eliphaz says, “who, being innocent, has ever perished? Where were the upright every destroyed?” (4:7). What is Job supposed to think about that? If Eliphaz is right, Job can’t be upright or innocent (but the reader knows that the Lord himself declared him such in Job 1-2).

Lesson: “Cheer up, my brother; live in the sunshine!”  “God will take care of you; trust him!” Such platitudes are meaningless when you’ve been crushed. They have an opposite effect than what is intended. Such words may turn the sufferer away from trust because now it appears that God has not considered them worthy of his protection.

Mistake Four.  The friends plead with Job to accept the Lord’s discipline for his sins. God will rescue him from his calamities and secure him against future ones (5:18-26) if only he will “not despise the discipline of the Almighty” (5:17). There may be a place for this if sins are the cause of the circumstances–which sufferers often need to recognize for themselves.  But in Job’s circumstances–tragic events unrelated to his actions, tragedies beyond his control–the advice rings hollow.

Lesson: “God is teaching you something; listen to him, repent and get your life straight.” Never, ever attribute the suffering to some defect in the sufferer. Sufferers may do that for themselves, but it is not the place of the comforter to connect the dots for them if there are any dots to connect.

Mistake Five.  The friends interpreted Job’s suffering and alluded to elements of his pain. Eliphaz does this twice in two sections in Job 5.  From one angle he describes the fool whose house was “suddenly…cursed” and whose children “are far from safety” (5:3-4) but from another angle describes how the Lord will protect the property and children of those who penitently accept his discipline. “You will know your tent is secure; you will take stock of your property and find nothing missing. You will know that your children are many, and your descendants like the grass of the earth” (5:24-25). Unmitigated gall!

Lesson: While the sufferer may talk about the tragedy and give any details that they may like–and we should listen to whatever they want to say about it, comforters never ever (1) interpret the meaning of the suffering, (2) compare past and present, (3) use language that opens up the wounds (“children”), or (4) make promises about the future.

Mistake Six.  Eliphaz projects a future for Job that is “rosy” and filled with blessing, healing and restoration. The condition of this future is Job’s repentance, but if he will repent, then God will give it all back tohim (5:18-26).  Eliphaz talks about the future with such certainty. I suspect he intends to build hope within Job.

Lesson: Don’t promise more than you know. “It will be okay; it will be for the best; everything will turn out alright”–and the almost infinite variations of those “nice” platitudes. We don’t know the future; we don’t know if it is for the best; we don’t know what good, if any, will arise out of the circumstances.

Mistake Seven.  The friends are so confident, so arrogant, so sure of their advice. “We have examined this,” Eliphaz says, “and it is true. So hear it and apply it to yourself” (5:27). Sufferers hate such egotistical, self-centered and self-promoting jibberish.

Lesson: Comforters need a strong sense of inadequacy, humility and powerlessness. Comforters cannot fix it.  They can only sit in it with the sufferer. They have no magic words, interpretations or explanations.

The narrator provides the frame of mind with which to read this magnificent and stunning poem—rather than cursing God (which is what the satan expected), Job curses the day of his birth. The narrator’s introduction underscores that the satan was wrong about Job. At the same time, Job wishes he had never been born or at least that he had been stillborn. The poem is a complaint, a lament that culminates in Job’s description of his own miserable situation (there are many similarities between this complaint and Jeremiah 20:14-18).

The poem is organized into three strophes:  (1) the curse in verses 3-10, (2) the contrast between life and Sheol in verses 11-19, and (3) Job’s desire for Sheol in verses 20-26.

The poem is striking for what it says and what it does not say. There is no repudiation of his earlier confessions of faith (1:21; 2:10). It does not address God directly and lays no blame on God. There is no reflection on the idea of divine retribution and no admission of guilt. Many of the themes that will fill the dialogue between Job and his friends are absent from this opening lament.

Instead, Job is wholly focused on his feelings, and they will emerge again and again throughout the Dialogue. There is no theological reflection, no ideological agenda. It is a dramatic, violent, and harrowing declaration of feelings centered on two points:  “I wish I were dead” and “Why am I still alive after such trouble?”

“I wish I were dead.”  Job wishes he had never been born or at least stillborn. He calls for the reversal of creation (Genesis 1:3-5)  itself when it comes to the day of his birth. He even summons the chaotic cosmic powers of the Leviathan to destroy his birthday (cf. Psalm 74:14; Isaiah 27:1).  That day should sink back into darkness, into nothingness, “because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb and hide trouble from my eyes” (3:10).

“Why am I still alive after such trouble?” The “why” question fills the second and third strophes. Five times (in the NRSV) Job asks “why” in the space of sixteen verses (3:11, 12, 16, 20, 23). The question expresses a depth of feeling that only those who have experienced tragedy can fathom.  Why was he born? Why did he not die at birth? Why does he yet live to experience the bitterness of the soul? Why did he not die with his children?

These feelings and questions resonate with those who have wished they were dead (and I have been among them at times). We understand the question “why?” and we resent those who piously object to asking the question. Sometimes we are told to ask, “Well, why not me?” But the question still remains, “Why me? Why this? Why now?” These questions express our feelings and they probe divine wisdom.  “Why,” Job asks, “is light given to one who cannot see the way, whom God has fenced in?” (Job 3:23.)

At the same time, Job’s language and conceptual scheme seems dependent upon his responses in the Prologue.  (David Herbison, one of my students at LU, alerted me to this.)  Job remembers that he came from his mother’s womb (1:21) and Job here wishes he hadn’t (3:10-11). Job remembers that Yahweh gives and takes away (1:21) and Job here acknowledges that God gives light to him when he doesn’t want it (3:20) while at the same time Job wants the darkness to seize (same verb as “take away”) the night of his birth (3:6). But what is missing is any note of praise in this poem that is present in his earlier response:  “Blessed be the name of Yahweh” (much like it is missing in the lament of Psalm 88). Job, in this poem, is focused on lament, complaint and his misery. There is no room for praise now though he does not abandon the praise of God as the dialogue will demonstrate (cf. Job 12:7-13). Sometimes we don’t feel like praising or quoting Psalm 23.

Sheol looks inviting from where Job sits on the dung heap.  [The Hebrew term sheol is not actually used until Job 7:9.] At least Sheol is quiet and restful (3:13)—restful not only for kings and princes (3:14-15) but also for the wicked as well as the weary (3:17-19). All earthly distinctions are obliterated there; we are all equals there, all dead. Given Job’s present “trouble” or misery (3:10, 20), Sheol is desired above life itself. He longs for it like a hidden treasure (3:21-22). His experience of trouble is analogous to the hardships of Egypt (Deuteronomy 26:7)  and the anguish of the servant in Isaiah (53:11), as he uses the same word those authors use.

Job’s embrace of Sheol as a place of rest stands in contrast with his later characterizations (such as Job 10:21-22) as a place of gloom and darkness. Nevertheless, it is better than his present life.  What characterizes this life now is “trouble” (3:10, 20) and “turmoil” (3:17, 26).  Trouble or misery is one of Job’s favorite words to describe his situation (Job 7:3; 16:2). It is also the word his friends will use to describe what evil people do and receive (Job 4:4; 5:6,7; 11:16; 15:35; 20:22).

The conclusion of the poem is stunning. The last word in Hebrew is “turmoil” (or trouble; also in 3:17)–a word that expresses horrifying emotional distress (cf. Isaiah 14:16; 23:11; Joel 2:11). The term expresses a raging, a protesting, a rumbling (see the literal use in Job 37:2; 39:24). Job is distraught, angry and ready to protest. There is no wimpy acceptance here but a protest, a thunderous rumble from the bitter depths of his soul.

This is Job’s lot at the moment. There is no rest; there is no quiet. His fears have been realized and his food/drink is lament. It makes no sense to him; it makes no sense why God gives life to those who sit where he sits. Why does God continue to fence or hem them in? God would be gracious if he would just snuff out his life and send him to Sheol, but God continues to hedge him in.  What was once a divine protection in 1:10 is now perceived as a divine hindrance—the encircling hedge bars Job from Sheol where he wants to go. God has shut the door on death just as he shuts the door on the sea (Job 38:8).

Death seems better than this life. While Job does not choose suicide, he would prefer death to his present existence. That feeling is not uncommon for sufferers. What we hear in Job 3 is an authentic protest against a life filled with “trouble.” Death is better than that kind of life, at least it looks that way from the dung heap.

This is how Job feels. Let Job sit in it; and when I feel that way, let me sit in it. Sometimes we simply need to grieve—without advice, without correction, without platitudes.  Sometimes we simply have to say what we feel and that is the way sufferers grieve, mourn and endure.

Unfortunately, sometimes friends cannot sit with us and they find it hard to “hear” us. Instead, they are “compelled” to speak when it would have been better if they had never said a word.

Mark begins his snapshot of a day in the life of Jesus at the synagogue in Capernaum, a village located on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus goes to synagogue–he participates in the community of Israel as a practicing Jew, a descendant of Abraham. But there is something new, something different, about Jesus.

What is different is Jesus’ authoritative teaching. The synagogue hearers are twice said to be “amazed” at this teaching (1:22, 27). But why are they amazed? What is so striking about Jesus’ teaching? It does not appear, at this point, to be content. Rather, it is Jesus’ authority (exousia).

His authority is perceived in two ways. One is found in the contrast between how Jesus teaches and the way the teachers of the law teach.  Perhaps we might understand this along the lines of the difference between one who teaches wholly dependent upon the authority of the Torah (the scribes) and another who teaches as a commissioned prophet, one anointed to herald the coming of the kingdom of God. Jesus is no mere teacher who expounds the Torah (though he does this at times). More than that, he is an eschatological prophet…and more than that, as Mark will make clear, the anointed Messianic Son of God. He is, as the demon announces, the “Holy One of God.” Jesus’ authority is immediate whereas the authority of the scribes is mediate. Jesus comes with his own authority while the scribes derive theirs from the Torah.

A second perception of Jesus’ authority surfaces when Jesus exercises dominion over the demons. Here authority is neither the content of his teaching, the manner of his teaching, nor the source of his authority, but the actual, concrete demonstration of that authority. This demonstration is not simply a healing, but an assertion of dominion over hostile powers. “Shut up!” and “Come out of him,” Jesus orders. It is an enactment of the kingdom of God. The reign of God is actualized in this moment; the heralding of the kingdom of God in the teaching of Jesus becomes real in the life of the one healed.

Jesus’ authority, then, is directly related to his proclamation of the kingdom of God–which is the message of Jesus (Mark 1:14-15). He is the eschatological prophet who heralds the kingdom and the one through whom the reign of God comes into the lives of people. This is the authority of Jesus and it is totally unlike any authority that the teachers of the Torah might claim for themselves.

The encounter with the demon underscores the eschatological nature of Jesus’ ministry. Apparently, there  was, to all appearances, a good “church-going believer” in the synagogue that morning who was possessed by an unclean spirit. He seems to have shown no outward signs of that possession until he interrupts Jesus’ teaching. The demon objects to Jesus’ presence and to his purpose.

Jesus came to end the reign of the demonic (“unclean spirits”) in the world. The demon recognizes this but he appears startled that the time has already come (Mark 1:14–“the time is fulfilled”). It is not yet time, so the demon thinks.  But Jesus’ presence tells a different story. The time is now. The new age has begun in the ministry of Jesus as he exercises authority over demons.

It is no wonder that the people are amazed. They are amazed by the authority of Jesus’ presence, both in terms of his personal identity as an immediate representative of God and in terms of his redemptive, eschatological act. Jesus belongs to the new age, the age of the kingdom of God. The reign of God is breaking into the world against the hostile powers that enslave it.

And the news spreads throughout Galilee.  It is good news, it is good news about Jesus (Mark 1:1). God is doing something wondrous, something new. And the people are amazed.

Perhaps we should pause to reflect on where the good news is in our lives, in our communities, in our churches. Where is the amazement? Unfortunately, it seems that people are rarely positively amazed by Christian ministry. They are suspicious. They are sometimes hostile. Perhaps the problem is that Christian ministry is often more self-serving than it is kingdom-seeking. Perhaps it is more about consumption and consumers than it is kingdom-focused. We read the Gospel of Mark to remember, renew and reorient ourselves as God calls and empowers us in kingdom ministry.

Whatever the case may be, the disciples in Mark follow Jesus because Jesus is the anointed eschatological prophet through whom the reign of  God comes into the world. That is also why we follow Jesus.

The good news about Jesus Christ is that the kingdom of God has drawn near. That is how Mark introduces his gospel (Mark 1:1-15). The first half  (Mark 1:16-8:30) narrates the in-breaking of the kingdom of God in the activity of Jesus. The second half (Mark 8:30-16:8) identifies Jesus as the suffering servant who gives his life for the world and inaugurates a new world.

The setting for the first half is Galilee while the setting for the second half is the journey to and ministry in Jerusalem. The former is focused on Jesus’ authority, teaching and mentoring of the disciples while the latter is focused on the passion of Jesus in both anticipation and actualization. In the first half Jesus is the amazing, authoritative teacher who speaks and acts as God’s representative while in the second half Jesus is the redemptive sufferer for the world.

Jesus’ Galilean ministry begins with the call of his first disciples. Mark introduces four key people who will figure promienently in his narrative. He also introduces the language that will shape his understanding of these figures–they followed Jesus.  In Mark 1:16-18, Jesus calls Peter and Andrew, two brothers. In Mark 1:19-20, Jesus calls two other brothers, James and John. In both stories, the final line (in v. 18 and in v. 20) in Greek is “they followed him” (though in Greek it is two different expressions with an overlapping semantic range).

“Follow” is Mark’s word for discipleship (akolouthew is used seventeen times). The concept, however, is more important than the word itself. Discipleship is foundational to the ministry of Jesus. It is his first concrete act in the Gospel–he calls others to follow him. “Come afer me,” he says to Peter and Andrw.  He “called”  James and John. They left everything, but not in the sense that they would never fish the sea of Galilee again or no longer have homes. Rather, they left everything in the sense that they fundamentally reoriented their lives. Their calling (vocaton) to follow Jesus is more fundamental than their careers as fishermen. Their vocation now shapes their careers and what they do with their careers. It is a realignment of priorities.

For us as well, discipleship is a fundamental realignment of our priorities. We find our vocation in following Jesus no matter what our careers may be. Indeed, our careers, shaped by discipleship, are means by which we follow Jesus as we embody the kingdom of God in our various jobs. Those jobs are forms of discipleship as we follow Jesus.  Our careers, as they participate in the mission of Jesus, are one means by which we live our calling (vocation).

What does Jesus call them–and us–to do? The funadmental message of Jesus is key (Mark 1:14-15) and when linked with the language of human fishers a significant point emerges. The language of “fishing” for people is present in the Hebrew prophets (Jeremiah 16:16; Ezekiel 29:41, 38:4; Amos 4:2; Habakkuk 1:14-17), but there it is associated with divine judgment as God gathers humanity for an accounting. The language is also present in Qumran–a community contemporary with the ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus. They regarded themselves as the instrument of God’s ingathering.

The disciples as fishers are those who heraled the message of Jesus to “repent and believe the gospel.” In other words, they are called to gather a community of penitent believers who live in the light of the coming kingdom, the coming eschatological reality (including judgment). As Lane writes, “The summons to be fishers of men is a call to the eschatological task of gatering [a community] in view of the forthcoming judgment of God” (Gospel of Mark, 68).

To be “fishers” is, then, evangelism, the heralding of the good news (gospel). However, we should be careful that we do not immediately associate this with contemporary revivalist preaching or witnessing. Evangelism certainly includes such but the vision is much larger than that. It is the gathering of a community of disciples among whom the kingdom reigns as they live penitently and humbly in anticipation of the eschaton. This envisions a community that heralds the reign of God in all its dimensions–economic justice, ecology, and peace as well as the forgiveness of  individual sins. To be “fishers” is to participate in a community of disciples that heralds the reign of God.

Through calling disciples, some of whom will be called the “Twelve” (Mark 6:6), Jesus mentors a community whose task is evangelism. That community, now empowered by the Spirit poured out at Pentecost, continues in the church. One cannot follow Jesus without participating in community, without heralding the good news, and without praticing the kingdom of God in their lives. Just as we followed Jesus into the water and then into the wilderness, so we follow him in heralding and practicing the good news of the kingdom of God.

In this text, Jesus calls four disciples. These are the first of millions. Contemporary believers are part of that group, and contemporary believers, just like Peter, Andrew, James and John, must be mentored (discipled) by Jesus. That is why we read, study, pray over and meditate upon the Gospel of Mark. Through such Spirit-led focused attention–both in private and in community, we learn how to follow Jesus.

The story narrated by the Prologue is symmetrical and artistic.  It is neatly structured into two encounters between Yahweh and Satan bounded by an introductory affirmation of Job’s character and a concluding mourning with friends.  We may outline it in this manner.

A. Introduction: Job’s Character (1:1-5)

B.  First Encounter between Yahweh and Satan (1:6-12)

 C.  The Disasters on Job’s Children and Wealth (1:13-19)

D.  Job’s Response (1:20-22)

B’  Second Encounter Between Yahweh and Satan (2:1-6)

C’ The Disaster on Job’s Person (2:7-8)

D’ Job’s Response (2:9-10)

E.  Conclusion: Job Mourns with Friends (2:11-13)

As noted in previous posts, Job is a wise person whose soul, like everyone’s, has regions of fear. He fears calamity. His devotion is sincere, his piety is authentic and his wisdom is renown but he nevertheless fears for his children, as most parents do.

The Trials

Yahweh gathered the “sons of God” before his throne and among them was one designated “the accuser” because of the role he would play in the prologue. This one stands as the accuser of humanity, of Job in particular. The accuser turns Yahweh’s invitation to enjoy and delight in Job’s goodness into an accusation against Job.

The narrator introduces us to how meaningful human life is by adopting the literary convention of a “trial” within the divine assembly. Yahweh values Job’s wisdom, accentuates it, and brags about it.  The accuser questions it.  Yahweh decides to test it—and Job himself, later in the Dialogue, senses he is being tested (Job 23:10).  Job’s faith has cosmic meaning; it has a significance beyond its situated exercise in the Transjordan.

Job represents all humanity. We enter this story through Job (or sometimes through the friends).  The significance of his faith is the significance of our faith. We matter to God just as Job mattered.

And this faith must be fully tested. All the props of faith are knocked out from under Job—external blessings (children, wealth) and personal blessings (health, relationships). Ultimately, Job stands naked and alone before God. It is naked faith—no support, no props, no blessings. And Job still blesses the name of Yahweh.

The trials are not so much random acts by Yahweh as they are part of Yahweh’s management of the cosmos. Testing, probing, challenging and exercising faith through struggles is part of the means by which humans are transformed more fully and more deeply.  This is the theology of trial or testing in the hands of Yahweh as the narrator offers it to us.

The Nature of the Trials

Job’s suffering is multi-faceted. There is no easy explanation from a human point of view.  The chaos of nature—though called the “fire of God”—results in death and destruction and the moral outrages of the Sabeans and Chaldeans bring theft and death. It is seemingly chaotic, but it is not. It is specifically permitted, bounded, and empowered by Yahweh.

The narrator calls them “troubles” or “evils” (Job 2:10, 11; 42:11). It is a word that has a wide range of meaning from evil to disasters. Its basic meaning is “evil,” but in varying contexts it  may be translated “troubles” or “disasters.” It is what Job, as a wise person, avoids–he turns away from “evil” (Job 1:1, 8; 2:13), but it is also what he has received from the hand of Yahweh. The narrator uses the same word to describe what Job avoids and what Yahweh empowered.

Job experiences what theodicists have called moral and natural evil, but not ultimately at the hands of a satanic demon or a chaotic reality but by the hand of Yahweh. This is chilling, and immediately we want to find hermeneutical moves to say, “It ain’t so!” But the narrator is clear. Job himself voices it…twice (1:21; 2:10). And nothing in the coming dialogues and monologues as well as Epilogue questions that claim.

Nevertheless, interpreters have attempted to set the Prologue in tension with the rest of the literary work. For example, Yahweh does not take responsibility in the Yahweh speeches, does he? Or, does not the dialogue indicate the futility of attributing these “evils” to God? As we move through Job, we will pay attention to these supposed tensions. But I think they ultimately fail. The whole of the work—from Job in the Prologue, to the friends in the Dialogue, to Job in his monologue, to Elihu in his intervention, the narrator in the Epilogue, and, yes, even Yahweh—lays these “evils” at the feet of Yahweh.

It is for this very reason that Job feels so abandoned, so alone. Though expressing piety in his mourning, it will soon explode in a protesting theodicy. Yahweh is responsible! What’s up with that?

The Mourning Ritual

Friends do arrive. Job is no longer alone. They come to “sympathize with him and comfort him.” These terms are found in parallel in Psalm 69:20 where the lamenter bemoans the lack of support in his community.

Reproaches have broken my heart,

so that I am in despair;

  I looked for pity [sympathy], but there was none,

                    and for comforters, but I found none.

Job, too, looks for such. Perhaps he finds it, at least somewhat in the seven days of silence that his friends weep with him. I imagine this weeping is not inaudible. The silence probably refers more to the lack of dialogue rather than the lack of groaning, crying, and moaning.  The seven days may be symbolic of completeness or perhaps it is the mourning practice of an ancient culture.

The actions of the friends reflect an authentic sympathy. They care for their friend. They share his dust and they share his grief by ripping their clothes. The friends show up; they are present. Nothing need be said; nothing need be shared except the tears.

Job is no longer alone….or is he?