The Anguish of Job

22 Innocent or wicked, it is all the same to God.

That’s why I say, ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’
23 When a plague sweeps through,

he laughs at the death of the innocent.
Job 9:22-23 (NLT)

We are studying the book of Job on Wednesday nights, and when we got to these verses last night there seemed to me to be a real chilling effect apparent on our group.

"He laughs at the death of the innocent." - yeah, that'll do it.

Further word study didn't help.
Hebrew Strong's Number: 3932
Hebrew Word: ‏לָעַג‎
Transliteration: lāʿag
a primitive root; to deride; by implication (as if imitating a foreigner) to speak unintelligibly :- have in derision, laugh (to scorn), mock (on), stammering.
—Strong's Talking Greek & Hebrew Dictionary

But other scholars shed some light.

One may think that here Job spoke wrongly about God (9:23), for is it true that God really "laughs when a plague suddenly kills the innocent"? But the meaning of the word "laughs" must be understood in the context of 9:23-24, where Job was speaking of times of calamity or when wicked persons were in power. God destroys both the guiltless and the wicked in military or natural disasters (9:22), and in that sense he does mock the despair of the innocent. Innocence is no plea against suffering in this world. That sentiment is of one piece with the teaching of Ecclesiastes, which shows that being either good or bad is no guarantee of prosperity in this life because death mocks everyone.—Tyndale Concise Bible Commentary

And Spurgeon wrote some very helpful words when he opined:

"As one is startled by a shriek, or saddened by a groan, so these sharp utterances of Job astonish us at first, and then awake our pity. Physical sufferings had placed a strain on Job's mind, and he sought relief by expressing his anguish. Like some solitary prisoner in the gloomy keep of an old castle, he carves on the walls pictures of the abject despondencies which haunt him. His afflictions are aggravated by vain efforts to alleviate them: he wounds his hand with the rough hammer and nail with which he is engraving his griefs.

Of such tortures many of us have had a taste." - Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Yes we have.

And if we are not careful, our experiences can twist our view of God and place us in error. Job was not describing God as He is. He was describing God as He appeared to be based on Job's knowledge of Him and his situation at that time.

Remember this.

35 Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?36 (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.” )

37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:35-39 (NLT)

Amen.

Job Chapter 2 recap

1 One day the sons of God came again to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before the Lord. 2 The Lord asked Satan, “Where have you come from?”

“From roaming through the earth,” Satan answered Him, “and walking around on it.”

Again, a gathering in which Satan is present among the angels before God's throne.

3 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? No one else on earth is like him, a man of perfect integrity, who fears God and turns away from evil. He still retains his integrity, even though you incited Me against him, to destroy him without just cause.”

God is presented as aware of the earlier trial, and its results.

4 “Skin for skin!” Satan answered the Lord. “A man will give up everything he owns in exchange for his life. 5 But stretch out Your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse You to Your face.”

Then Satan makes his revised argument. Since his earlier scheme didn't work, this was his new one. The idea behind it is a simple one - people will act to preserve themselves at the expense of anything or anyone else.

“In Job’s ancient culture, ‘skin for skin’ was a bartering term meaning to trade one skin for another. The Devil is accusing Job of being willing to risk the skin of his children and livestock in order to protect his own skin.” (Lawson)

"When it came down to it, Abraham betrayed his wife to save his life. David forsook his sanity to save his life. Peter denied Jesus to save his own life. There is certainly some truth to the statement, all that a man has he will give for his life." (Guzik)

6 “Very well,” the Lord told Satan, “he is in your power; only spare his life.” 7 So Satan left the Lord’s presence and infected Job with terrible boils from the sole of his foot to the top of his head. 8 Then Job took a piece of broken pottery to scrape himself while he sat among the ashes.

Notice that God is in control here, and Satan again can only work within the boundaries that God sets for him. This is not meaningless suffering, but the opposite. The idea that God will be glorified and Satan defeated as a believer trusts God even though everything is going wrong is on display.

There are so many skin diseases that could have fit this description. Guzik develops the diagnosis from other passages in Job.

"• Intense pain (My bones are pierced in me at night, and my gnawing pains take no rest; Job 30:17)
• Peeling and darkened skin (My skin grows black and falls from me; Job 30:30a)
• Pus-filled, erupting sores (My flesh is caked with worms and dust, my skin is cracked and breaks out afresh; Job 7:5b)
• Anorexia, emaciation (My bone clings to my skin and to my flesh; Job 19:20)
• Fever (My bones burn with fever; Job 30:30b)
• Depression (I loathe my life; I would not live forever; Job 7:16 and My heart is in turmoil and cannot rest; days of affliction confront me. I go about mourning, but not in the sun; Job 30:27-28)
• Weeping (My face is flushed with weeping; Job 16:16a)
• Sleeplessness (When I lie down, I say, ‘When shall I arise, and the night be ended?’ Job 7:4)
• Nightmares (Then you scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions; Job 7:14)
• Putrid breath (My breath is offensive to my wife; Job 19:17)
• Difficulty breathing (He will not allow me to catch my breath; Job 19:18)
• Failing vision (On my eyelids is the shadow of death; Job 16:16b)
• Rotting teeth (I have escaped by the skin of my teeth; Job 19:20)
• Haggard looks (When they raised their eyes from afar, and did not recognize him; Job 2:12)
• Painful swollen sores all over his body (painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head; Job 2:7)
• Intense itching (to scrape himself; Job 2:8)
• This condition lasted for months (Oh, that I were as in months past; Job 29:2 and I have been allotted months of futility; Job 7:3)"

As anyone who has had a chronic disease knows, the physical disability also brings with it a psychological cost. Satan knows this of course, and his intent is to attack the whole man, not just his physical self. People who stay hopeful have a much better chance to fight off illnesses and recover. If Satan can get Job to lose faith in God then Job will lose his hope. In that case, Satan will win.

9 His wife said to him, “Do you still retain your integrity? Curse God and die!”

This is an interesting verse for a lot of reasons. The fact that Satan took everything from except his wife is always a point of derision as men often comment on how perfect that strategy is to cause Job more misery. I tend to think that if Satan could have taken her from Job he would have. That whole "bone of my bone,flesh of my flesh" deal? Might apply here.

The Septuagent, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures adds some verses that our modern translations don't. And she talks in King James English! :)

"How long wilt thou hold out, and say, “Behold I wait yet a little while, expecting the hope of my deliverance?” For, behold, thy memorial is cut off from the earth – [even thy] sons and thy daughters, the pangs and pains of my womb, which I bore in vain, with sorrows; and though thyself sittest down to spend the nights in the open air among the corruption of worms, and I am a wanderer, and a servant from place to place, and house to house, waiting for the setting of the sun, that I may rest from my labours and my pains, which now beset me. Now curse God and die." (Cited in Bullinger)

We aren't served well though even by the verse as popularly translated. The "Curse God" quote? It literally should be translated sarcastically as "Well 'Bless God'!" The idea is that Job hasn't given up but his wife has and is now gone so far as to ridicule her husband.

10 “You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept only good from God and not adversity?” Throughout all this Job did not sin in what he said.

And yet Job treats his wife very kindly. Notice he doesn't say she IS a foolish woman, he says she is "acting like" one of them.

Still, her actions must have really hurt him. Ray Steadman writes:

"I do not know if women fully understand how much their husbands depend on them. I think husbands often draw emotional strength from their wives far more than either they or their wives realize. Here was a severe attack addressed to the very soul of Job, in which he felt his wife abandoning him, advocating that he turn from his faith and renounce his God."

Satan must have really thought he had Job.

Job’s Three Friends Enter the Picture -

11 Now when Job’s three friends—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite—heard about all this adversity that had happened to him, each of them came from his home. They met together to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. 12 When they looked from a distance, they could ⌊barely⌋ recognize him. They wept aloud, and each man tore his robe and threw dust into the air and on his head. 13 Then they sat on the ground with him seven days and nights, but no one spoke a word to him because they saw that his suffering was very intense. Job 2:1-13 (HCSB)

We'll have plenty of time to crack on Job's friends in later chapters, but I think there's a moment here where we can appreciate what they have done.

They came to Job. They didn't have to come, and knowing what they believed about what had happened and why, they still cared enough about their friend to come.
They wept for and with Job. It's easy to do the minimum and get out. These guys came and suffered with Job.
They sat in silence with Job for seven days. I'm sure there was a lot they wanted to say to Job, but they sat in silence until Job spoke.
They intended all the best for Job, and were persistent in wanting and doing what they thought was best for Job.
They spoke their opinion about Job and his condition to Job himself, instead of speaking about him to others. If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say "some people have said..." or the like, Bunny and I could have a nice meal out. Job's friends were mistaken about what was behind this event, but they were men enough to tell Job instead of hinting around about it or gossiping with someone else.

Suffering is one of the wedges that Satan uses to tear believers away from God and to keep people from coming to faith in God. So any treatment of this human condition that can help us understand how to live through it is essential. Ray Steadman wraps it up by writing:

"But let us never forget what we have been shown at the beginning of this book: it is God who is doing this, ultimately, and he has an aim in view. And because he does not tell us at this point what it is, we, too, must suffer through this with Job. We must feel to some degree with him what he is feeling, and sense the protest, the anguish, the emptiness of his life. Nevertheless, we must remember that there is an answer, God does have a reason, and it will be made clear as the book unfolds."

Stay tuned..

Job Chapter 1

Well, we began our study of the book of Job last night. I'll be posting a recap every week of what we observed as a group in the text for those who might have missed the study.

1 There once was a man named Job who lived in the land of Uz. He was blameless—a man of complete integrity. He feared God and stayed away from evil.
Job 1:1 (NLT)

The NLT begins the verse almost sounding like a children's story. It reflects an interesting phrasing in the Hebrew that serves to put the story in place as a stand alone work, and not a continuation of another.

The land of UZ - Abraham's hood, Uz "lying somewhere to the Northeast of Palestine. Tradition supports such a site. Josephus says "Uz founded Trachonitis and Damascus" (Ant., I, vi, 4). Arabian tradition places the scene of Job s sufferings in the Hauran at Deir Eiyūb (Job's monastery) near Nawa.—International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

"blameless" - does not means sinless. The word's use means "complete" and the sense is that he was a man of integrity - well balanced - aware of his nature and active in living out his devotion to Yahweh. That's also reiterated with the next clause and the follow-on sentence.

Then cue the ominous music... kind of a foreshadowing scene appears next.

2 He had seven sons and three daughters.3 He owned 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 teams of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and he employed many servants. He was, in fact, the richest person in that entire area.
Job 1:2-3 (NLT)

Knowing what we know already, we're thinking about just how much Job is about to lose, and yet I get the feeling that when Job saw this he simply saw God's blessings - His undeserved grace. He probably would have been surprised to know that he was the richest person in his area.

4 Job’s sons would take turns preparing feasts in their homes, and they would also invite their three sisters to celebrate with them.5 When these celebrations ended—sometimes after several days—Job would purify his children. He would get up early in the morning and offer a burnt offering for each of them. For Job said to himself, “Perhaps my children have sinned and have cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular practice.
Job 1:4-5 (NLT)

So this is an extended family that is still very close. And their patriarch father is still very active in their lives - their spiritual lives. It was mentioned that Job was "a priest to his family", and that's exactly what Job is acting as. However I have to mention that there is no provision for someone making a sin offering for another person in the OT. But this dad was concerned that in all the celebration, his kids might have forgotten the God that made it all possible. "Cursed" seems to me to be too strong.

The same Hebrew word means to "curse," and to "bless"; GESENIUS says, the original sense is to "kneel," and thus it came to mean bending the knee in order to invoke either a blessing or a curse. Cursing is a perversion of blessing, as all sin is of goodness. Sin is a degeneracy, not a generation. It is not, however, likely that Job should fear the possibility of his sons cursing God. The sense "bid farewell to," derived from the blessing customary at parting, seems sufficient (Ge 47:10). Thus UMBREIT translates "may have dismissed God from their hearts"; namely, amid the intoxication of pleasure (Pr 20:1). This act illustrates Job's "fear of God" (Job 1:1).—Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6 One day the members of the heavenly court came to present themselves before the Lord, and the Accuser, Satan, came with them.
Job 1:6 (NLT)

Oh would I love to see this scene. How does this work? Is it like a King's court with the thrones at the end of a great hall, and assorted court functionaries (in this case angels) and uh... Satan. In the Hebrew there is a definite article in front of the word "The Satan."

In the Book of Job, Satan is first designated by name: "Satan," Hebrew, "one who lies in wait"; an "adversary" in a court of justice (1Ch 21:1 Ps 109:6 Zec 3:1); "accuser" (Rev. 12:10).—Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

“Where have you come from?” the Lord asked Satan.

Satan answered the Lord, “I have been patrolling the earth, watching everything that’s going on.”
Job 1:7 (NLT)

So with that scene in mind, and thousand upon thousand upon thousand of angels in front of Almighty God, God spots Satan. The pastor in me understands how easy it is to spot some one who is obviously at odds with what you are saying. You can be reading 1 Corinthians 13 and someone there might be upset with the songs we just sing, or with the Bible version you read and they look like they just bit down on a sour pickle.

I let it go.

God on the other hand.. spots the miscreant and singles him out. He asks what Satan has been doing and Satan gives him an update.

Cue that spooky music again.

8 Then the Lord asked Satan, “Have you noticed my servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless—a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil.”
Job 1:8 (NLT)

So God knows Job personally. Kind of heart warming. God is proud of His servant. Maybe Max Lucado is onto something when he writes that "your picture is on God's refrigerator."

And Satan knows Job well too.

9 Satan replied to the Lord, “Yes, but Job has good reason to fear God.10 You have always put a wall of protection around him and his home and his property. You have made him prosper in everything he does. Look how rich he is!11 But reach out and take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!”
Job 1:9-11 (NLT)

Satan knows human nature, and he's betting that nothing will in the end trump the human bent toward selfishness. Basically his premise is that Job is good because it's rewarding for him. That as long as his life is good, Job will be good. But when things change for the worse, Job will go back to normal human default behavior. "What's in it for me?"

So what we can gather from this interaction is that both God and Satan are very aware of what people do and what people ARE. Also that Satan has access to the very throne room of God. But more important - God and Satan are NOT equals. Satan only speaks when spoken to, and his actions are limited to what God will allow. Satan had evaluated Job's situation and saw that God's hand was on him and that he was untouchable unless God allowed tests and trials by Satan.

And...

12 “All right, you may test him,” the Lord said to Satan. “Do whatever you want with everything he possesses, but don’t harm him physically.” So Satan left the Lord’s presence.
Job 1:12 (NLT)

God sets the boundaries of the test. And Satan immediately goes to work. The results are devastating. Reread what God said to Satan. The limits of what Satan could have done included a range of options. Satan could have begun with small tests and worked his way up. He could have spread a series of sharp trials over a period of time. Instead one after another the reports of devastation come in, culminating with the loss of Job's family (with one notable exception).

13 One day when Job’s sons and daughters were feasting at the oldest brother’s house,14 a messenger arrived at Job’s home with this news: “Your oxen were plowing, with the donkeys feeding beside them,15 when the Sabeans raided us. They stole all the animals and killed all the farmhands. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”
16 While he was still speaking, another messenger arrived with this news: “The fire of God has fallen from heaven and burned up your sheep and all the shepherds. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”
17 While he was still speaking, a third messenger arrived with this news: “Three bands of Chaldean raiders have stolen your camels and killed your servants. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”
18 While he was still speaking, another messenger arrived with this news: “Your sons and daughters were feasting in their oldest brother’s home.19 Suddenly, a powerful wind swept in from the wilderness and hit the house on all sides. The house collapsed, and all your children are dead. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”
Job 1:13-19 (NLT)

Now some of these occurances were things that happened normally in that area of the world. Tribes were always warring with each other, and bandits were always out to steal. But two of them were clearly what we would call "acts of God." "The fire of God" could have been volcanic activity, and the Scirocco winds of the area sometimes fierce. But it appears that Satan's license included use of whatever he chose to use.

My immediate reaction to this was a memory of the outcry after hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans after some pastors suggested the possibility that God had caused it to happen. When you read this passage, you cannot say that God caused these calamities, but it is very clear that they would not have happened without his permission.

20 Job stood up and tore his robe in grief. Then he shaved his head and fell to the ground to worship.21 He said,


“I came naked from my mother’s womb,

and I will be naked when I leave.

The Lord gave me what I had,

and the Lord has taken it away.

Praise the name of the Lord!”


22 In all of this, Job did not sin by blaming God.
Job 1:20-22 (NLT)

So after a series of devastating blows that took everything Job had the day before away including the family he loved so passionately - blows that occurred so close together there was no time to catch his breath - Job reacts by reminding himself and all of us of just where the blessings he had lost came from. He was devastated in grief and his actions showed it. I suspect you would have heard his weeping for miles.

But for all the pain and the heartbreak - Job collapses before his God.

Would we?