Chapter 10
2024 - And yet here, to open this chapter, Job DOES "go to court" with God. He DOES ask why, what is it that he has done.
Job openly complains to God about his situation, and prefaces it with these verses:
1 "I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. [Job 10:1 ESV]
2 I will say to God, Do not condemn me; let me know why you contend against me. [Job 10:2 ESV]
Job wants to understand what this is about. He is sticking with his belief that he has committed no sin worthy of this kind of oppression.
2023 - NO! Job believes he HAS sinned in a way that deserves this punishment, but he maintains that he has no idea what it is he did wrong. THIS is Job's position! Bildad and Eliphaz can't believe Job doesn't know because this much punishment comes from a really big sin. How could one have a sin that big in their life and not know what it was they did? This is the point of contention between Job and his three friends.
In verse 7, Job pleads not guilty, and he says the judge knows he isn't guilty, yet the sentence continues:
1 "I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. [Job 10:1 ESV]
2023 - 8 Your hands fashioned and made me, and now you have destroyed me altogether. [Job 10:8 ESV]. As I read this, I saw in it the Bill Burr argument. Is Job really saying here, in the oldest book of the Bible, that he wouldn't be sinning if God had not made him this way. Is he really saying the sin is on God, because God in fact created the man and the situation that caused him to sin, and the flaw that results in man's sin. The flaw in the argument is always the same. God made us perfectly. And he gave us free will to act as we choose. And Adam chose poorly. We all suffer for our earthly Father's sin. It must be that way, because then, our heavenly Father's righteousness can repeal ALL that sin.
18 "Why did you bring me out from the womb? Would that I had died before any eye had seen me 19 and were as though I had not been, carried from the womb to the grave. 20 Are not my days few? Then cease, and leave me alone, that I may find a little cheer 21 before I go--and I shall not return-- to the land of darkness and deep shadow, 22 the land of gloom like thick darkness, like deep shadow without any order, where light is as thick darkness." [Job 10:18-22 ESV]
These verses are about as deep in the pit of depression as a person can get. But note, Job does not take matters into his own hands. Life and death are for God to decide, and earthly misery and punishment though no offense has been committed are also for God to decide. Jesus certainly suffered more, and never did a wrong thing anywhere.
2024 - Is Job saying here that if God won't tell him what he did to deserve all this suffering, then he'd rather not have been born. Why did God go to all the trouble of creating Job and then put him through this inexplicable (to Job) pain? Or can't God at least give him a few minutes of respite before he dies?
2024 - Job is focused on this life isn't he? He suffers here, it is earthly pleasure that he reminisces about, it is earthly comfort and riches and family that made his life worth living. Job's focus is still on earth and its rewards rather than on heaven and the rewards that await there for patient suffering. AND YET, these things that Job is saying and doing are NOT sin. We know that God holds Job up as one of the three greatest examples of faithfulness in all the Bible.
How is it that Job is looking at things that we can't comprehend?
Does it, after all, come down to the fact that Job never says "take away my suffering"? If the principle is true that says suffering is the result of sin, Job can't even repent to make it go away. Maybe that is the key here. Job implies that he is happy to repent if just knew what he's done wrong. But God is not only punishing him, but has shut the door to the repentance that would bring relief - according to the theology of Job and Bildad. Job never suggests that he is perfect, Job wants to repent of this sin he can't even identify, but God won't show him what it is. The door of repentance for salvation from suffering remains closed. What is Job to do but wish that he had never even been born. That is the only refuge from what is happening.
2021 - I noticed this time through that one of Job's friends speaks in a chapter, and then Job gets two chapters to answer. In the first, he answers his friend directly. In the second, Job addresses God directly. Job asks God to "leave him alone". Job does not see his suffering as arising from natural occurrences. Job doesn't think he has a skin condition because he wasn't getting enough vitamin D. Job sees his situation as the will of, and caused by, God. He is only half right. Job knows he is powerless against God. Job knows there is no "authority" that can call God into court as defendant, so that Job can plead for mercy and win the suit, and have God stop this. There is no one who can bring this about. God has the last word, whether we agree with it or not. Job and his friends - since they do not have a copy of the book of Job to read - do not "allow" for the possibility of God giving Satan leave to do his worst so that God can establish as true some larger thesis. In this case, even mortal man can be more faithful, more loyal, more submissive to God - as per design! - than the mighty angel Lucifer. Lucifer's real point is that he (Lucifer) was not being given justice in heaven because he was so very nearly perfect, and therefore he had a right to rebel and attack, because even the most faithful of all God's creations would have done the same thing if treated unfairly. THIS was the point. And God allows all these things to happen to Job to say no, even a human, created much lower than the angels, can remain faithful in the face of all the calamity that can be heaped on him - far more injustice than Lucifer ever had to bear.
Oh my goodness. A worthy point is being made here, surely worth all that happened.
Can I make a FB post of this, the true reason for Job's sufferings?