October 7

Reading: Job 16

     1 Then Job answered and said:

 

2  “I have heard many such things;

     miserable comforters are you all.

3   Shall windy words have an end?

     Or what provokes you that you answer?

4   I also could speak as you do,

     if you were in my place;

     I could join words together against you

     and shake my head at you.

5   I could strengthen you with my mouth,

     and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.

 

6  “If I speak, my pain is not assuaged,

     and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?

7   Surely now God has worn me out;

     he has made desolate all my company.

8   And he has shriveled me up,

     which is a witness against me,

     and my leanness has risen up against me;

     it testifies to my face.

9   He has torn me in his wrath and hated me;

     he has gnashed his teeth at me;

     my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.

10  Men have gaped at me with their mouth;

     they have struck me insolently on the cheek;

     they mass themselves together against me.

11  God gives me up to the ungodly

     and casts me into the hands of the wicked.

12  I was at ease, and he broke me apart;

     he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces;

     he set me up as his target;

13  his archers surround me.

     He slashes open my kidneys and does not spare;

     he pours out my gall on the ground.

14  He breaks me with breach upon breach;

     he runs upon me like a warrior.

15  I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin

     and have laid my strength in the dust.

16  My face is red with weeping,

     and on my eyelids is deep darkness,

17  although there is no violence in my hands,

     and my prayer is pure.

 

18 “O earth, cover not my blood, and let my cry find no resting place.

19  Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven,

     and he who testifies for me is on high.

20  My friends scorn me;

     my eye pours out tears to God,

21  that he would argue the case of a man with God,

     as a son of man does with his neighbor.

22  For when a few years have come

     I shall go the way from which I shall not return.

 

Job is responding in poetic verse now to Eliphaz a second time.  In the first five verses we discover how much his friends are hurting him in his misery.  Job makes it clear that they are just repeating things that everyone says.  That never helps.

If you have ever lived lament you know how important it can be to have a good friend, as opposed to bad friends or no friends at all.  Proverbs 18:24 says, “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”  Proverbs 17:17 tells us, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”  A friend of mine who is a pastor, quoting from a movie he once saw, told me, “Every person is fighting a hard hidden battle, so be kind.”  Ann Voscamp writes, “Only speak words that make souls stronger.”

What kind of friend are you to those who are really suffering?  Of course, you cannot be a close friend to everyone, but God has made you a friend to someone.  How can you be faithful to that calling?

In the following verses Job launches into full blown lament.  Not only has God attacked him like a wild animal (vs. 9) but Job tells his friends that they have only added to the pain and misery.  Beginning in verse 11, Job speaks of God as the one who has brought him to the depths of despair.  Job feels as though God has attacked him.  Is he wrong?

What Job does not know is that God is doing something else as well.  We only know this because we know how the story ends.  At this point, Job does not.  Joni Erickson Tada writes, “Sometimes God permits what He hates in order to accomplish what He loves.”

In verses 18-22 we read the desperate cry of Job’s heart.  What does he want at this moment above all else?  He wants a “witness in heaven.” (vs. 19)  He wants a friend who will love him.  He wishes he could talk to God (argue his case) like a man speaks with his neighbor.  Where can we find such a witness?  Where can we find such a friend?  I think Job is longing for Jesus.