October 21
Reading: Job 30
1 “But now they laugh at me, men who are younger than I,
whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.
2 What could I gain from the strength of their hands,
men whose vigor is gone?
3 Through want and hard hunger
they gnaw the dry ground by night in waste and desolation;
4 they pick saltwort and the leaves of bushes,
and the roots of the broom tree for their food.
5 They are driven out from human company;
they shout after them as after a thief.
6 In the gullies of the torrents they must dwell,
in holes of the earth and of the rocks.
7 Among the bushes they bray;
under the nettles they huddle together.
8 A senseless, a nameless brood,
they have been whipped out of the land.
9 “And now I have become their song;
I am a byword to them.
10 They abhor me; they keep aloof from me;
they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me.
11 Because God has loosed my cord and humbled me,
they have cast off restraint in my presence.
12 On my right hand the rabble rise;
they push away my feet;
they cast up against me their ways of destruction.
13 They break up my path;
they promote my calamity;
they need no one to help them.
14 As through a wide breach they come;
amid the crash they roll on.
15 Terrors are turned upon me;
my honor is pursued as by the wind,
and my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.
16 “And now my soul is poured out within me;
days of affliction have taken hold of me.
17 The night racks my bones,
and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.
18 With great force my garment is disfigured;
it binds me about like the collar of my tunic.
19 God has cast me into the mire,
and I have become like dust and ashes.
20 “I cry to you for help and you do not answer me;
I stand, and you only look at me.
21 You have turned cruel to me;
with the might of your hand you persecute me.
22 You lift me up on the wind; you make me ride on it,
and you toss me about in the roar of the storm.
23 For I know that you will bring me to death
and to the house appointed for all living.
24 “Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand,
and in his disaster cry for help?
25 Did not I weep for him whose day was hard?
Was not my soul grieved for the needy?
26 But when I hoped for good, evil came,
and when I waited for light, darkness came.
27 My inward parts are in turmoil and never still;
days of affliction come to meet me.
28 I go about darkened, but not by the sun;
I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.
29 I am a brother of jackals
and a companion of ostriches.
30 My skin turns black and falls from me,
and my bones burn with heat.
31 My lyre is turned to mourning,
and my pipe to the voice of those who weep.
In chapter 30 Job continues his closing lament that he began in the previous chapter. He has been remembering previous days, better days, when he lived with a good reputation and God’s blessing. Now he is lamenting what he has become. Together, these two chapters serve as an exposition on Job 2:12, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.”
Job’s lament in chapter 30 is an echo of his beginning lament in chapter 3 but less agonizing and more aware of the social and spiritual dimensions of his loss. It is more subdued, reflective, humbled, full of weakness rather than defiance.
Read verses 1-15 carefully. Where Job formerly was respected by the most respectable, now he has the contempt of the most contemptable. When God puts a man on the path of humility that man learns to see himself differently because others see him differently. You might want to think that this is not true of yourself, that your inner strength tells you that you are still the same person. But hardship beats that out of a man. You learn that you have no basis for thinking yourself better or wiser or stronger or closer to God than anyone else.
Then, in verses 16-19 Job looks inward and observes his mental and spiritual state. He is what Jesus would call “poor in spirit.” He is sure he has nothing to offer God.
That is why, in verses 20-23, he looks upward and cries out to God. He knows that, even though the Lord has been cruel to him, he has no other hope. This is real humility. He is like the Canaanite woman who came to talk to Jesus in Tyre while His disciples looked on with disapproval.
Jesus answered her, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” And he answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Matthew 15:24-27
Then Jesus praised the greatness of her faith and gave he what she desired.
Job closes the chapter pleading his case to God. He is saying to God that he, who would weep and grieve for those in distress, now has no one to weep for him. Job is telling God that he has no one else to turn to. Therefore, God must hear him. This is a good prayer.