Job 15-17, Job and Eliphaz, Round Two

I haven't forgotten about Job. I usually try to write at least two of these a week, but I got sidetracked last week. Life's been pretty busy lately. I was also struggling with the passage and wanted to make sure I had studied it adequately before writing about it. Plus, I'm trying to condense each blog appropriately so that each blog contains one person speaking and Job's response. Therefore this week will be Eliphaz's response to Job and Job's corresponding answer. I'm basically trying to put three chapters of Scripture in one blog. It's rather difficult and I beg your pardon for the delay. That being said, onward and upward! (Cue the Superman theme music).

I'll give you the short version of Job up to now: He suffered tremendously. His friends told him it was because he was sinful. Job knew he was a righteous guy and began asking "Why God?" In the last section Job specifically turned his attention directly to God, fully knowing he was being bold and brazen towards the Almighty and he just might decide to drop a Chevy Malibu on his head. Eliphaz did not care for Job's words toward God and steps in to talk once again. We all await with baited breath for Eliphaz to speak, (sarcasm intended). Please read along Job, chapters 15-17 in your Bible, online, or on your brilliant phone.

Old Chevy Malibu.

Job 15:1-6. Eliphaz thinks Job should have more sense than to talk to God like this. "Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge...Should he argue in unprofitable talk? (1-2). In the last chapters Job announced his intention to present his case directly to God. It was a pretty bold move. Eliphaz tells Job that the way he was speaking to God was irreverent and foolish. "But you are doing away with the fear of God and hindering meditation before God," (4). Wise men, according to Eliphaz, do not speak to God boldly and challenge his ways. Apparently Eliphaz was not familiar with Moses, David, Abraham, and Jeremiah boldly poured our their hearts to God and still lived to speak of it

Job 15:7-13. Eliphaz rebukes Job arrogance in refusing to listen to the counsel of his friends. "Are you the first man who was born, or were you brought forth before the hills?" (7). We, according to Eliphaz, are wise men as well. We're just as old and experienced as you. Why do you stubbornly refuse to listen to what we have to say? "What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that is not clear to us?" (10). Eliphaz and his buddies are getting a bit frustrated that Job won't submit to the words of brilliance that drip from their tongues like honey, (sarcasm intended yet again). And here, ladies and gentleman, is my favorite verse in these chapters. "Are the comforts of God too small for you, or the word that deals gently with you?" (11). Eliphaz calls the counsel he and his friends have given as "comfort" and "words that deal gently". ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!? These guys have been telling Job he was dirty rotten sinner and God should be treating him worse. If this is what you call comfort, then I'd hate to see you when you're angry. (The same is true of the Hulk by the way).

Job 15:14-16. No man can be righteous before God according to Eliphaz. "What is man, that he can be pure? Or he who is born of a woman, that he can be righteous?" (14). Eliphaz's point is this: 'Job, you say you're not suffering because of your sin. But man is inherently sinful. There must be something in your life that would cause God to treat you this way'. Obviously there is some truth to what Eliphaz is saying. Man is a sinful being and no man is righteous before God. I don't think Job would dispute this. The problem is, Job knows there wasn't an issue of sin in his life to warrant the punishment and suffering he was experiencing. This is why Job cried out for God to answer him and explain why he had treated Job this way. Job did not claim to understand why he was suffering, but he did know the reason given by his friends, i.e. "It's because of your sin", was wrong.
P.S. One has to wonder, if Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar believed what they were saying, then why weren't they expecting God to drop a grand piano on their own heads? Irony abounds.

How Job's friends view God.

I'll go ahead and tell you that the rest of chapter 15 is a bit odd and wordy. If you can make sense of it you're a better person that me, (which isn't saying much, but still). In 15:17-24, Eliphaz describes what happens to the wicked. He provides the basis for his wisdom, which is his own experience and what he has learned from the aged. "I will show you, hear me, and what I have seen I will declare what wise men have told, without hiding it from their fathers," (17-18). Basically Eliphaz says that wicked men suffer all of their lives. "The wicked man writhes in pain all his days," (see I told you so), "distress and anguish terrify him;" etc. (20, 24).

All of this comes upon the wicked, "because he has stretched out his hand against the Almighty, because he has covered his face with his fat and gathered fat upon his waist," (25, 27). Basically, the wicked suffer on earth because they've rejected God, selfishly gathered up for themselves, and defied the Almighty. To which I have one question: If that's true, why aren't Hollywood, Las Vegas, and Washington, D.C. burning wrecks of God's punishment? Listen I'm sure there are fine folks in those places, but they represent the epitome of what Eliphaz is describing. The fact of the matter is, which Job has already pointed out, that the wicked sometimes prosper and live long and healthy lives. Evil men don't always get what is coming to them. Sometimes the evil harpy on the Bachelor wins the guy and the diamond ring. Godly people don't always get the promotion. Sometimes good folks get robbed. What Eliphaz is preaching doesn't match up with reality.

Job 15:29-35. Eliphaz ends with more discussion about how awful he believes sinners have it on earth...somewhere Fidel Castro and Kim Jong Il are laughing. The verses speak for themselves. "he, (the sinner), will not be rich, and his wealth will not endure...It, (punishment), will be paid in full before his time...for the company of the godless is barren, and fire consumes the tents of bribery." Somewhere Hugh Heffner is like, 'oh really?' I am not sure what Eliphaz was trying to convey to Job here. He just comes across sounding wordy. Apparently Job didn't care for Eliphaz's words as we shall see is Job 16.

So what's the point of Eliphaz's rambling in chapter 15. He's upset at Job's rejection of God's punishment, Job's attitude towards God, and his refusal to accept the "comfort" of his friend's counsel. He then ends on a wild rambling monologue about how and why the wicked suffer. What does this mean for you and me? I don't really have any other conclusions except that Eliphaz is a horrible counselor and that he talks too much. Seriously. I wish I had a more spiritual conclusion than that but I don't. I think Job would agree with me that Eliphaz should stop talking.

Job, like Wolverine, is angry. 

Job 16:1-6. Job's response: You guys are lousy counselors. "I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all. Shall windy words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?" (2). Job told his friends that their words offered no help. If he were in their place he would be a much better helper to a friend who was suffering. "I could strengthen you with my mouth, and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain," (5).

Job 16:7-17. Job launches into a long statement about how God has broken him to pieces. Here are some verses that will break your heart. I would quote them in their entirety to show the depth and size of Job's anguish, but alas space will not permit it. Still, a lengthy selection is necessary. "Surely now God has worn me out, he has made desolate all my company...He has torn me in his wrath and hated me; he has gnashed his teeth at me...God gives me up to the ungodly and casts me in to the hands of the wicked. I was at ease, and he broke me apart...He slashes open my kidneys and does not spare...he runs upon me like a warrior...My face is red with weeping, and on my eyelids is deep darkness." Wow! I read verses like this and I feel so unqualified to talk about suffering, pain, and faith in God because I think about people going through difficult divorces, cancer, the loss of a child, the unjust imprisonment of a loved one, or natural disasters. I think of folks like these and I know I don't know the first thing about suffering and loss. Nevertheless, some people understand what Job was talking about and how he felt like God was treating him. Such raw emotion is hard to digest, but there are those out there who understand what he was feeling.

The greatest superhero of all time. Period.

It's worth pointing out that Job did not blame Satan for what had happened, but put the responsibility at the feet of God. Does that mean God is responsible for evil? No. But it does mean God is in charge. How does that make sense? If I could tell you that I'd be a very rich man. We know God is holy. He is without sin. He cannot do evil or sinful actions. YET God is also sovereign over everything that happens in the universe. Jesus said a sparrow does not fall apart from the Father's will. So how do these two contradictory ideas marry? I don't know. It's a Biblical tension we all have to wrestle with. Job knew that God was in control, which is why he directs his comments towards the Almighty. "God has...He has...He has...He broke me...He slashes...He runs upon me," (see verses above). Job rightly understands God is sovereign, (a fact none of his friends disputed, by the way). What he doesn't understand is the God's reason for these events. "Although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure," (17).

Job 16:18-7:2, Job asks that even if he should perish, he wants someone to make his case before God. "O earth, cover not my blood, and let my cry find no resting place...that he would argue the case of a man with God...For when a few years have come I shall go the way from which I shall not return." It's not really clear who the "witness" in heaven would be.

Job 17:3-5. Job's plea for someone to stand with and believe in him. These verses are tricky. Job seems to be asking God to lay down a pledge, or a promise of payment. This would be a bet, or agreement on Job's innocence. Job is having to ask God to do this because his friends did not believe in his innocence. "Since you have closed their hearts to understanding, therefore you will not let them triumph," (4). If nothing else these verses highlight how alone Job is and has no one to stick up for him, believe in him, or plead his case. I reckon many people who have experienced similar suffering have felt the same way.

Job 17:6-16. Job's despair at his rejection by people around him and expectation of a death without any hope or resolution. "He has made me a byword of the peoples, and I am one before whom men spit," (6). Now Job challenges his friends to bring their arguments again, through he expects no wisdom from any of them. "But you, come on again, all of you, and I shall not find a wise man among you," (10). He then says that he thinks he will die with out hope, without light, and without answers from God. "Where then is my hope? Who will see my  hope? Will it go down to the bars of Sheol, (the grave)? Shall we descend together into the dust?" (15-16).

Even superheroes have bad days.

These last two chapters are tough. Job expresses his despair at how God has treated him, his repugnance at the foolishness of his friends, and how utterly lonely and hopeless he feels. Do you know what scares me? Clowns. Do you know what else scares me? Snakes. Do you know what else? The thought that I may one day find myself in Job's position, as a man all alone, abandoned by friends, with questions about God, faith, good and evil and suffering. It's terrifying to imagine myself even close to where Job is right now. I am not sure what I would do. I'm scared to think I would not be strong enough to survive. I am scared to think I would not be strong enough to trust God. This also breaks my heart to know that some people I know either have been or are right now in the same position Job finds himself in these chapters.

If you are in the same sort of situation may the Lord, in his divine and confusing sovereignty, grant you the grace to endure with whatever faith you have. May Jesus, with his heart that weeps with those who weep, give compassionate care and love to you. May the Holy Spirit grant you the faith when you have none of your own. Amen.