Beloved, I am glad to share with you today the above theme from Job 3:1 and following. Indeed, as a result of successive waves, seven trials swept over Job. The Enemy (whose hatred is always aroused by God’s love for his own) struck the patriarch five times: in his possessions (three times), in his children, and then in his health. The sixth blow, particularly treacherous, was delivered by his own wife, but the man of God remained steadfast. Then comes the last of these “seven distresses” (Jb 5:17-20), on the one hand he did not expect. Three friends came together to pay Job a condolence visit. And what Satan’s furious assaults have failed to produce, the approach of these comforters will accomplish. In this regard, let us note how difficult it is to make a good visit to someone who is going through the trial, and how important it is to prepare it in prayer. These men are there, silent, who consider in his desolation the one they had known and honored in his prosperity. To show them his misery, to be taken in pity, is more than Job can bear. The bitterness long contained finally overflows.
In heartbreaking terms Job “cursed his day”; he wishes he had never been born. He wishes death. But in His wisdom and love, God had not allowed Satan to go that far. We now hear the passionate outbursts of Job’s pain. He cannot bear the presence of his friends. He had gone through many afflictions and bitter trials, but these friends had come to contemplate his misery without a word to him. It was too much for him. Did they suspect it? He could not bear doubts about his relationship with God, especially on their part. Weren’t they his friends? If they loved him, why this ominous silence of seven days and seven nights? It may have been that he was first of all due to their deep sympathy for him, but why did they not have a word to say to him? Why not a consolation like a drop of water for her parched lips? They were starting to think, and that is a dangerous thing. In God’s presence, we judge the self and listen to His Word. How often our own thoughts mislead us! What we need is to pray and listen, so that we can receive the Word from God Himself. How different it is, how much it corresponds exactly to what we need! The ears of Job’s friends were not open. There was a Man here on earth whom God woke up every morning, and whose ear He awakened to listen to “like those taught” (Isaiah 50:4). He never knew how slow we were to listen to God’s word. As for the three friends, they at first kept this fearsome and anguishing silence, and Job soon had to learn bitterly what this attitude meant. It was he who began to speak, and then they continued, but it was their own thoughts and not God’s that they made him hear.
Then Job deplores and curses the day of his birth; he does not curse God; nothing like that addresses his mind. However, he expresses in an unseemly way his horror of the day in which his birth was announced. The whole scene of that day appears to him as shrouded in darkness. Everything that had to do with his entry into this world was horrible in his eyes. He cries out bitterly: “Perish the day I am born, and the night that says: A man has been conceived! On that day, let it be darkness.” And again: “That night, let the darkness take hold of it.” Then: “Behold, let that night be sterile; let the cries of joy not enter it.” He asks why he was born to be destined for such misery, why he was not left instead, he cries out ironically, “with the kings and advisors of the earth who build solitudes for themselves.” Is this what the glory of this world leads to? To ruins that kings raise for themselves? The same is true for “princes who have gold, who have filled their houses with silver.” But gold and silver cannot deliver man from pain and death. So this was the life and work in which the kings of Egypt sought fame: the construction of their tombs! But job’s lot seemed even more gloomy. Why hadn’t he been slept in a desolate place like that, or why was he born?
It is with this explosion of bitterness that the first debate between Job and his friends opens. We can notice some differences in the speeches of the latter; they always speak in the same order during the three great discussions of the book: Eliphaz, Bildad and Tsophar follow each other regularly each time in the same order, and Job replies to each of them. It can be seen that at the third discussion, Tsophar, the last interlocutor, is silent, while Job continues his speech so long that it seems almost a response to that of Tsophar that had not been pronounced. In other words, Job completely refutes what his friend would have had to say, if he had spoken. The main part of the book is therefore filled with what we have just recalled: on the one hand, we find three sets of arguments presented by Job’s friends, on the other, and in the most complete way, the latter’s answers to each of them. Then appears a new character, Elihu, who silences Job as completely as he had done to his friends. Finally The Lord ends the discussion, giving, to close all reasoning, the solution of the problem. If it pleases God, we will briefly consider the first discussion, without going into all the details.
Eliphaz the Themanite, who seems to have been the oldest of the three friends and the one who speaks with the most dignity, first reproaches Job for his lack of firmness in the presence of the first misfortune that had befallen him and his family. Moreover, not content with this, he takes job back, because, while he had so well consoled others in their pains, he had yielded under the weight of trial, when it had reached him himself. He maintains the infallible righteousness of God’s ways that can never forget the innocent or spare the guilty. He goes further and tells the story of what was communicated to him by a spirit, he says, and which was secretly revealed to him, his ear having been opened to hear some of the things contained in the visions of the night. He makes a striking description of the latter and the solemn words that have been spoken in his ears. The sum of this revelation was a judgment of the presumption of mortal man who wants to bring God to the bar of his court in any way. He also insists on the madness of the one who resorts to the help of the creature. All things are in the hand of the One who suddenly strikes the fool who thought he was safe. Finally, he invites Job to repentance, adding that if he humbled himself before God, this trial would not be dispelled, but that he would come out of it more blessed than ever.
The following verses have been compiled for your edification and grouped together for your better understanding.
Dialogue between Job and his friends: He regrets being born:
- Weariness of life
Gen 27:46 Rebecca said to Isaac: I am disgusted with life, because of Heth’s daughters. If Jacob takes a woman, like these, from the daughters of Heth, from the girls of the land, what good is life for me? Jb 3:20 Why does he give light to the one who suffers, And life to those who have bitterness in their souls, Ec 4:1 I then considered all the oppressions that are committed under the sun; and behold, the oppressed are in tears, and no one who consoles them! they are subjected to the violence of their oppressors, and no one who consoles them! Jon 4:8 At sunrise, God blew a warm wind from the east, and the sun struck Jonah’s head, to the point that it failed. He asked for death, and said: Death is better for me than life.
- Shadow of Death
Ps 23:4 When I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for you are with me: Your leadership and your staff reassure me. Mt 4:16 This people, seated in darkness, saw a great light; And on those who were sitting in the area and the shadow of death The light rose.
- Despair, pushes men to desire death
Nb 11:15 Rather than treat me like this, kill me, I beg you, if I have found favor in your eyes, and that I do not see my misfortune. 1 Kings 19:4 For him, he went into the wilderness where, after a day of walking, he sat under a broom, and asked for death, saying: Enough is enough! Now, Eternal, take my soul, for I am no better than my fathers. Jer 8:3 Death will be better than life for all who remain of this wicked race, in all the places where I have cast them out, says the Lord of hosts. Rev 9:6 In those days, men will seek death, and they will not find it; they will desire to die, and death will flee away from them.
- Human limitations, man subject to
-Closed path Jb 3:23 To man who does not know where to go, And may God circle on all sides?
-Feet locked in the shackles Jb 13:27 Why put my feet in the vines, Watch all my movements, Draw a limit to my steps, Jb 19:8 He has closed all exit to me, and I cannot pass; He spread darkness on my paths.
-Limited time Ps 90.10 The days of our years amount to seventy years, And, for the most robust, to eighty years; And the pride they derive from it is only pain and misery, for it passes quickly, and we fly away. Ec 8:8 Man is not master of his breath to be able to hold it back, and he has no power on the day of death; there is no deliverance in this battle, and wickedness cannot save the wicked.
-Limits of life Ps 139:5 You surround me from behind and in front, And you put your hand on me. Lm 3.7 He surrounded me with a wall, so that I would not go out; He gave me heavy chains.
-Unable to change a single hair Mt 5.36 Do not swear by your head either, because you can not make white or black a single hair.
-Unable to increase the size Mt 6.27 Who of you, by his worries, can add a cubit to the duration of his life?
From all of the above, we note that it is too remarkable a fact for us not to stop there, namely that the Spirit of God quotes as part of the Scriptures, words that Jehovah judges at the end of the book as having given not only a false appreciation of Job, but also of Himself. These words are not what Jehovah says at the end, nor what Elihu expresses in the debate, as an interpreter, or even Job’s plea. It is the words of Eliphaz that are quoted by the apostle Paul in the New Testament. That is a very striking fact. God Himself declares that Job’s friends did not speak properly; however, the Holy Spirit gives us their talks out of inspiration and uses the words of one of them as part of the scriptures. Certainly, these two points of view fit together without difficulty. One need only examine Eliphaz’s words to realize that they contain nothing that is not according to the truth. On the other hand, if we weigh their application to Job, they are seriously erroneous. How wise are the ways of the Lord and how admirable the teachings of the Word are! In the first epistle to the Corinthians, as in the one to the Hebrews, the New Testament quotes the words of Eliphaz, but here the application is perfectly right. In The story of Job, this is not so, and his friends are the object of divine reprehension for their words, while the application is as right as the scope, when the Spirit quotes them in the New Testament; everything is in its place. This is a striking example of how wonderful God faces everything according to His own wisdom. For the book of Job is concerned with god’s ways in government towards men, in a world where Satan, God’s adversary, introduced sin, suffering, and death. These ways of God, however, always pursue a good purpose (Rom. 8:28). For Job was a rich man, but just and pious. God allowed Satan to take away Job’s wealth, family, and health. With his three friends, Job raises the following problem: why does a just God allow the suffering of a just and innocent being? The three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Tsophar, did not understand these ways of God. According to them, God punished Job because of some sin; these men did not see that God also uses suffering to purify and instruct believers. Desperate, Job opposes his three friends with his own righteousness and righteousness. He feels that he is being treated unfairly, but hopes that God, eventually, will receive him. Elihu then intervenes. He is the lord’s messenger and type (Job 32:8; 33:4). He explains that God uses discipline towards man in order to purify him and bring him closer to him. With his words, Elihu shines the light in the darkness and leads Job into the presence of God. But Job’sconclusions were wrong, because he did not understand that God wanted to get him to probe himself to the depths of himself. And whenGod then speaks directly to Job, he finally recognizes: “My ear had heard of you, now my eye has seen you: That is why I abhor myself, and I repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5, 6). God can then bless Job again. Our prayers are with you all.
PRAYER OF ACCEPTANCE OF JESUS CHRIST AS LORD AND PERSONAL SAVIOR
I now invite every person who wants to become a new creation by walking in the truth, to pray with me the following prayer:
Lord Jesus, I have long walked in the lusts of the world ignoring your love for humans. I admit to having sinned against you and ask your forgiveness for all my sins, because today I have decided to give you my life by taking you as Lord and personal Savior. I recognize that you died on the cross of Calvary and rose from the dead for me.
I am now saved and born again by the power of the Holy Spirit. Lead me every day to the eternal life that you give to all who obey your Word. Reveal yourself to me and strengthen my heart and faith, so that your light may shine in my life right now.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for accepting me into your divine family, so that I may also contemplate the wonders of your kingdom.
I will now choose a nearby waterpoint to baptize myself by immersion, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
All adoration, power and glory are yours, now and forever and ever. Amen!
I would be happy to react to any questions and comments you may have, before sharing with you tomorrow “First cycle of discussions (chapters 4 to 14) First speech of Eliphaz, the man of experience. (Job 4)
May the Lord Jesus Christ bless you abundantly.
David Feze, Servant of the Lord of Hosts.