Job is one of the Bible’s least-known books, even though it’s totally God-inspired! And I’ve come to see how little I’ve grasped it – again, though it’s God-inspired…! But: it’s a long, very challenging book. So: these next 2 weeks we’ll offer a map of the issues in the turbulent central section, chs 3>31.
Hidden in these amazing chapters are much of the ancient world’s most astounding poetry; more, they recognize, embody, what titanic struggles truly godly believers may and do go through. We need to know of these….!
Let’s say at the very start that we’d better get used to the contradictions in what godly Job says. We’re given a realistic account of what comes from the desperate agony of pain and bereavement he’s in, and we grow as we work prayerfully at disentangling what’s right in what he says – or howls – from what is not. We saw something similar recently in 2 Samuel, and over it all stands Hebrews 5:14: `Solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.` In particular the force of what Job screams out against God in the powerful chapters 9, 16:9,11-17, 19:6-7,21-2 is remarkable (`Surely, O God, you have worn me out… God assails me and tears me in His anger… God seized me by the neck and crushed me, yet my prayer is pure… God has wronged me and drawn His net around me`), and it’s understandable that young Elihu is seriously shocked (34:9). Likewise, once past the sheer howl of chapters 3 and 6:1-13 where Job cries out for death, we run into very contradictory comments about his own righteousness. On the one hand, he occasionally acknowledges that there have been times when he has sinned (7:21,10:7, 13:26, 14:4,17); but at most points he insists adamantly on his innocence (9:21,10:7,12:4,13:16,23, and see later 23:10,27:5-6 and 33:9). His passionate longing, therefore, is to defend himself: `I desire to speak to the Almighty, and to argue my case with God!` (13:3; see also, passionately and powerfully, 9:32-35, 13:13-23, and ch23).
But he can’t (13:20-22, 23:3-16). And much of the time he feels that this is because God is too great, too terrifying, too inaccessible, and as Bildad puts it later, `man is but a maggot` (25:6; see also Job’s self-description as a `wind-blown leaf… dry chaff`, 13:25). Indeed, Bildad does say, as do Job’s other friends, that `If you are pure and upright, [God will]… restore you to your rightful place` (8:6), and Job responds, `Indeed, I know that this is true. But how can a man be righteous before God?` (9:2) – where `righteous` seems to mean `justified`, `right with God`. But then immediately Job cries out against the total impossibility of this:
`Though [a mortal] wished to dispute with Him,
he could not answer Him one time out of a thousand.
His wisdom is profound, His power is vast…
He shakes the earth from its place
and makes its pillars tremble.
He speaks to the sun and it does not shine;
He seals off the light of the stars.
He alone stretches out the heavens
and treads on the waves of the sea…
How then can I dispute with Him?
How can I find words to argue with Him?
Though I were innocent, I could not answer Him;
I could only plead with my Judge for mercy.
Even if I summoned Him and He responded,
I do not believe He would give me a hearing.
He would crush me with a storm
and multiply my wounds for no reason.
Even if I were innocent, my mouth would condemn me;
if I were blameless, it would pronounce me guilty….
I despise my own life… that is why I say,
“He destroys both the blameless and the wicked”…
He mocks the despair of the innocent…
If I say, “I will forget my complaint,
I will change my expression, and smile,”
I still dread all my sufferings…
Since I am already found guilty,
why should I struggle in vain?
Even if I washed myself with soap
and my hands with cleansing powder,
You would plunge me into a slime pit
so that even my clothes would detest me…` (NIV)
Yet, astonishingly, it is right here that a first hint of the gospel comes:
`If only there were someone to mediate between us,
someone to bring us together,
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…` (Ch 9)
(Let me raise here a question: what’s the difference, what changes, between Job’s speech about the huge greatness of God here, and God’s very similar self-revelation in ch38? Is it that here Job sees God as far off, too great to either care or be fair? [Like Zophar in ch11?: `Can you fathom the mysteries of God?… They are higher than the heavens above—what can you do? They are deeper than the depths below—what can you know?`] Whereas, in ch38 God reveals Himself as indeed great beyond imagination – but also as a God who answers, a God whose ways are indeed beyond our conception, but who nevertheless comes graciously and caringly near?)
But as these chapters develop we watch Job’s anger building: against himself (`I loathe my very life`, 10:1); against his friends (13:4-5); and equally against God. Anger, Atkinson notes in his Bible Speaks Today commentary, can often be the highly understandable flipside of deep depression and bereavement such as Job’s. So Job is in a very different place now from the worshipping acceptance we saw back in 1:21 and 2:10: `Does not man have hard service on earth?… Therefore I will not keep silent; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul… What is man that You make so much of him?… Will You never look away from me, or let me alone even for an instant? If I have sinned, what have I done to You, O watcher of men? Why do You not forgive my sins? For I will soon lie down in the dust…`(ch7)). And this:
`I say to God: Do not declare me guilty,
but tell me what charges You have against me.
Does it please You to oppress me,
to spurn the work of Your hands,
while You smile on the plans of the wicked?
Are Your days like those of a mortal,
that You must search out my faults and probe after my sin —
though You know that I am not guilty
and that no one can rescue me from Your hand?…
Your hands shaped me and made me….
You gave me life, and showed me kindness,
and in Your providence watched over my spirit.
But this is what You concealed in your heart,
and I know that this was in Your mind…!` (Ch10, NIV).
One vital lesson for us here has to be that, when Job screams this kind of thing at God, `God can take it` (Atkinson) – and so will God’s relationship with him. THANKYOU GOD! Nevertheless, some of what we’re given in this prehistoric book feels as powerfully bleak as anything in our contemporary poetry:
`So man wastes away like something rotten,
like a garment eaten by moths.
Man born of woman
is of few days and full of trouble.
He springs up like a flower and withers away…;
Do You fix Your eye on such a one?
Will You bring him before You for judgment?
So look away from him and let him alone,
till he has put in his time like a hired man!
At least there is hope for a tree:
If it is cut down, it will sprout again…
At the scent of water it will bud,
and put forth shoots like a plant.
But a man dies, and is laid low…
As the water of a lake dries up
or a riverbed becomes parched and dry,
so he lies down and does not rise;
till the heavens are no more, men will not awake
or be roused from their sleep…` (ch14, NIV)
There are at least two last, crucial takeaways for us here. First, these powerful verses are a question, they are precisely not the whole story. What this book, and God’s own intervention soon, will demonstrate, is that we are not maggots: we truly do matter, and what we do matters. `I despise my life`, Job tells God, `Let me alone; my days have no meaning. What is mankind that You make so much of him, that You examine him every morning?` (ch7). But as usual, if we want the whole story we must read the whole Book – specifically Psalm 8 that asks exactly the same question: `What is man that You are mindful of him?… You have made him a little lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honour!` So there is something complex, paradoxical, here, which in certain moments of clarity Job senses only God can resolve (`Give me, O God, the pledge that You demand!`, he cries, fruitlessly as he thinks, 17:3). We recognize here the desperate cry of pre-gospel humanity, the desperate place we might have been in: `If only there were someone to arbitrate between us… someone to remove God’s rod [of judgment] from me!` (9:33). But if we are not maggots, and our actions (good and bad) genuinely matter, then that repeated question `How can someone be righteous before God?` becomes crucially vital too; these realities of Job’s agony, from the depths of prehistory, point us to the cross which proved how colossally each of us matters, and our actions; and how it was God Himself who `removed the rod` from us, by taking it on Himself…
But what also is utterly amazing is how, right after these incredibly bleak words we’ve just quoted from 14:1-12, the fantastic poetry of that chapter suddenly turns into Job’s astonishing and wonderful visionary cry of 14:13-17:
`If only You would hide me in the grave
and conceal me till Your anger has passed!
If only You would set me a time
and then remember me!
If someone dies, will they live again?
All the days of my hard service
I will wait for my renewal to come.
You will call, and I will answer You;
You will long for the creature Your hands have made.
Surely then You will count my steps
but not keep track of my sin.
My offences will be sealed up in a bag;
You will cover over my sin…`
Do we, who have got used to the ideas of forgiveness, resurrection, eternal life, value these things aright? But what surely amazes us is how, in Job’s agony, prophetic, visionary – God-given, surely – insights suddenly shine out, in ways quite astonishing in such a prehistoric old testament context; insights that fade in and out, like the sun coming out from behind tempestuous clouds, then immediately being obscured as the squalling thunderclouds of despair roll back in. And it happens so often! – Job’s clear awareness of the ransom he and we need (read 17:3 and 9:34, and compare 33:23-28); and equally clearly of the `intercessor` or `advocate on high` he and we need, who will `plead with God [on our behalf] as a man pleads for his friend`; just like 1 John 2:1-2 shows us, and Heb 2:17 and 7:25. (Read Job 16:19-21; somehow this was already known?) And then there’s Job 19:25-27:
`I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that in the End he will stand on the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see Him
with my own eyes—I, and not another!
How my heart yearns within me!….`
In some way now lost to us Job clearly had access, as he says, to the revelatory `words of [God’s] mouth` (23:12); and personally I find these archaic hints of a Redeemer, fading in and out as Job’s agony zigzags towards its healing, these revelations even in prehistory of Jesus, the cross and so much more, incredibly faith-building. (Praise God! This is a mighty book!) I’m reminded of the cheering way several NT passages promise us that suffering and glory go together like the two sides of a coin (read Rom 8:17-18, 2 Cor 4, 1 Peter 4:13, 5:1); might we even wonder if it’s Job’s brokenness that opens the way uniquely for his vision of Jesus?? (`My face is red with weeping!` is what leads to `My advocate is on high… as my eyes pour out tears to God!` in 16:19.)
But then – and so realistically – the thunderclouds roll back in, just as they can in contemporary life: immediately after those wonderful verses we’ve quoted in 14:13-21 comes this, equally powerful, but…:
`But as a mountain erodes and crumbles
and as a rock is moved from its place,
as water wears away stones
and torrents wash away the soil,
so You destroy a person’s hope.
You overpower them once for all, and they are gone;
You change their countenance and send them away.
If their children are honoured, they do not know it;
if their offspring are brought low, they do not see it.
They feel but the pain of their own bodies,
and mourn only for themselves…`
Despair overwhelms Job likewise right after the `My advocate is on high!` passage, in 17:1 (`My spirit is broken, my days are cut short… Where then is my hope?`) And he’s crying out in pain again straight after the wonderful `I know that my Redeemer lives!`, in 19:28. And — this, the Bible shows us here, is what really happens, though surely never fruitlessly, to godly believers….
This has been one of the longest Bible posts I’ve ever offered here! But, I’ve really wanted to supply a map of this immensely powerful section, lengthy as it is like a challenging mountain range! We need to grasp this huge, Spirit-inspired record! But here is a good place to pause; we’ll finish it off next week…
