October 10
Reading: Job 19
1 Then Job answered and said:
2 “How long will you torment me
and break me in pieces with words?
3 These ten times you have cast reproach upon me;
are you not ashamed to wrong me?
4 And even if it be true that I have erred,
my error remains with myself.
5 If indeed you magnify yourselves against me
and make my disgrace an argument against me,
6 know then that God has put me in the wrong
and closed his net about me.
7 “Behold, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ but I am not answered;
I call for help, but there is no justice.
8 He has walled up my way, so that I cannot pass,
and he has set darkness upon my paths.
9 He has stripped from me my glory
and taken the crown from my head.
10 He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone,
and my hope has he pulled up like a tree.
11 He has kindled his wrath against me
and counts me as his adversary.
12 His troops come on together;
they have cast up their siege ramp against me
and encamp around my tent.
13 “He has put my brothers far from me,
and those who knew me are wholly estranged from me.
14 My relatives have failed me,
my close friends have forgotten me.
15 The guests in my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger;
I have become a foreigner in their eyes.
16 I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer;
I must plead with him with my mouth for mercy.
17 My breath is strange to my wife,
and I am a stench to the children of my own mother.
18 Even young children despise me;
when I rise they talk against me.
19 All my intimate friends abhor me,
and those whom I loved have turned against me.
20 My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh,
and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
21 Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends,
for the hand of God has touched me!
22 Why do you, like God, pursue me?
Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?
23 “Oh that my words were written!
Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
24 Oh that with an iron pen and lead
they were engraved in the rock forever!
25 For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and at the last he will stand upon the earth.
26 And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
yet in my flesh I shall see God,
27 whom I shall see for myself,
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
My heart faints within me!
28 If you say, ‘How we will pursue him!’
and, ‘The root of the matter is found in him,’
29 be afraid of the sword,
for wrath brings the punishment of the sword,
that you may know there is a judgment.”
Now Job answers Bildad a second time. Job is in the depths of despair.
C.S. Lewis writes in A Grief Observed, “We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, ‘Blessed are they that mourn,’ and I accept it. I’ve got nothing that I hadn’t bargained for. Of course, it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.”
Job begins again lamenting his unfriendly friends. They are “breaking him in pieces with their words.” (vs. 2) They are wronging him by casting reproach upon him. (vs. 3) He says that it may be he has sinned, but they do not know that. (vs. 4) Their arrogance, however, is a small concern. God is closing His net around him. (vss. 5-6)
In verses 6-12 Job lays out his questions about God, even if no one will listen. God has attacked him and broken him down. In verses 13-22 Job adds to this complaint the fact that God has taken away from Job all those who might support him. He has no family to help him. He has no friends who are helpful. Everyone despises him. He has no one. He is alone.
C.S. Lewis writes, “I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they’ll ‘say something about it’ or not. I hate if they do, and if they don’t.”
Then, beginning in verse 23, Job pours out his heart in a plea. I think of this moment as the center of the book. Job has no one to help him. He is crying out to heaven! He wants a record of the injustice that has been done to him and of his words of lament. But more important than that we have the amazing expression of faith in verses 25-27. Commit these verses to memory.
Even though Job is all alone, cannot see any justice, feels like God has smitten him, he is hanging on to this one truth. He has a Redeemer, somewhere, who lives. There will be a resurrection. And when all is said and done his Redeemer will take His stand on the earth and pronounce right judgment. Job’s heart is fainting. His mind is confused. But he will not let go of the fact that his Redeemer is coming. Job stakes everything on this, his only hope. This is faith.