Chapter 23
Job's reply to Eliphaz:
5 I would know what he would answer me and understand what he would say to me. [Job 23:5 ESV] Job says that if he could just get an audience with God - instead of being punished without explanation, without cause, without knowledge of what is behind it all - that he would be vindicated by God, and restored. Job denies that he has done any wrong leading to this situation.
Is it ok to ask these things of God? I suppose so as long as it is asked respectfully. However, we have no right to expect an answer...
2025 - Job wants to argue with God about his situation. He wants a chance to convince God that he does not deserve this "punishment". Even Job does not realize that he is not being punished.
2024 - Job still seeks an audience, still says he wants to present his case - to prove his innocence - to God. Is it not presumed in such thinking that God is in fact unaware of the true situation? Back in 22:13-14, isn't Eliphaz pointing this out by asking Job just why God cannot see his situation? Is the darkness too thick, are there clouds through which God cannot see Job's undeserved troubles? Look especially at 13 in the NASB95: "You say "What does God know?"" And this is a really good question. Job's "solution" to his problem is a direct audience with God so he can debate the injustice of his situation...with God in heaven he wants a debate! As if God does not know. As if he is SO good that he can stand before God and argue successfully that God has messed up in this case. This is a big prideful problem on Job's part. He is the best man...but all his best deeds are but filthy rags before God. Job will not win his case, not ever.
2021 - Though a righteous man, in this chapter Job seems to be very prideful. He pictures himself demanding an explanation from God for all his suffering. He thinks his life of righteousness and faithfulness entitles him to an audience, and he thinks he will win in a dispute with God. Surely this is pride, and the sinful kind.
In vvs 8-27 - the rest of the chapter - Job tells us that he has never wavered in his faith. He is asking God for explanation, for reasons, for the comfort we get when we understand the cause and effect of the things that are happening in our lives. The more "inappropriate" the state of our lives might be, the more we desire that explanation, and the more we can and do and should call upon God for answers. BUT, we are to do so with continuing faith in God, with full assurance that whatever is happening, it is God's right to let it be so or to make it so. We can question why, but we cannot question the motives or the justice or the love of the one who does it. Wanting answers is ok. Wanting justification is not ok.
8 "Behold, I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I do not perceive him; [Job 23:8 ESV]
Job has made this statement several times. He cannot get an answer from God, he cannot plead his case, he cannot find out what has caused this his calamity. He sees that as the injustice in his situation. No wonder he is suffering. God has left him alone, refused to answer his prayers. God's presence has been withdrawn, so that Job feels completely alone. His friends are certainly not helping that situation. Like Jesus on the cross, the felt presence of God has gone. 2021 - Like David after Bathsheba. So many Psalms asking how long God will remain withdrawn from him.
Yet still, Job maintains that in the end, he will emerge tested and found true. He knows in his heart that he is a righteous man despite the appearance of punishment. Wasn't it the same for Jesus in the scourging and the crucifixion? Jesus looked to all external appearances as the two thieves crucified with him must have looked. He was counted among the transgressors to those who did not know him. Yet he was sinless. We need to be more than careful about assuming that those who have problems are getting what they deserve. We believe it about others, but we never believe it about ourselves.
2025 - 11 My foot has held fast to his steps; I have kept his way and have not turned aside. [Job 23:11 ESV]. This is our goal, through anything that happens.
Reading Proverbs after the Job section today I came across these verses:
12 A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, 13 winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger, 14 with perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord; 15 therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly; in a moment he will be broken beyond healing. [Pro 6:12-15 ESV]
This is why Job's friends continue to argue that their must be some great sin in Job's life. Though Solomon was not yet born, this principle was already considered correct and causal. (2023 - Or perhaps it was Solomon that wrote down the story of Job, and so his own notions are included.)
2023 - So Job's friends have this inaccurate idea of how justice works in the world. They know how they want it to work, they know how it "should" work, and they are not allowing for the fact that sometimes God does what he wants and when he does, it is no more questionable than when it doesn't. The friends have God in a box as to how he can and cannot behave. Never a good idea. But Job....Job believes this principle just as strongly as his friends, and it is the principle they hold to that is wrong! The difference is that, being the subject of this perceived great injustice, Job knows firsthand that the kind of sin for which the principle dictates this much punishment simply does not exist in his life...so far as anything he has ever been taught! So Job wants to know what it is that caused this. The friends insist that Job has sinned, Job's reply is that if he has, what did he do? Because his learned friends are no more able to discern his sin than he himself is. They are poor comforters. Job thinks he has a right to know. He wants an audience with God to show that he has not sinned. Job does not accept, fatalistically or otherwise, what God has ordained for his life. Aren't we the same? We see a poor person and we think they must be quite lazy, addicted, or evil to be in the state they're in. We tend to think all beggars are lazy or faking their problems to guilt people into giving them something for nothing. But like Job's friends, we have no clue what brought these people to where they are, whether it is real or fake, whether their state is their own fault or some test God is running. We don't know! So we ought to stop being "Job's friends"!
Two possible FB posts. (Summary position...perhaps a verse in 22 or 22.)
2024 - In fact, the principle is exactly correct. In the perfect world that God created for Adam and Eve, it worked exactly as described by Job and his friends. Because we are all created in the image of God, we expect, even crave the justice, the causality, and the judgment before our accuser that the innocent ought to get. What they are all forgetting is that the world is no longer perfect. The fall turned causality from always obvious and visible to completely random. Injustice happens. Good things to bad people, bad things to good people. And there are no longer any "good" people. We all deserve the consequences of our sins, and while those consequences seem to be distributed at random on this earth, we KNOW that believers will be restored to that original perfection in a place where all is causal, perfect, and without sin or evil for eternity. We must keep our eyes on eternity, we must keep our "home" and our "treasure" in heaven, because only there will these rules we all know and understand actually be in full force and effect.
Possible FB post