Job 21-23 Personal Theology Over Pain

Thoughts

Job 21

Job asks his friends to listen instead of attack and then they can continue mocking. His words are meant for God, not them.

Job questions: “Why do the wicked live, reach old age, and grow mighty in power?” Their children are safe, their homes secure, their animals multiply, and their days are filled with laughter. They say to God, “Depart from us”, yet nothing bad seems to happen.

Job wrestles with the wisdom of God out the reality God allows the wicked to flourish. 

Job mocks the friends’ same predictable claims.  He notes that some wicked people die happily and content, while others die in bitterness and misery… yet they both end up in the same dust. Job knows what they’re thinking as hey still insist “the wicked are punished” but their reasoning doesn’t match what anyone can observe.

“Have you never questioned those who travel?” he asks, pointing to how experience contradicts their claims. The wicked often escape destruction and are honored at their funerals.

Job concludes: “How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood”

Cycle 3 of Speeches

Job 22 Eliphaz’s Final Speech

Now Job’s friends go from being a little indirect to full on confrontation. Eliphaz claims no human can benefit God or influence His justice. Once again he suggests Job’s suffering must be due to sin, not righteousness. “Is not your evil abundant? There is no end to your iniquities.”

Eliphaz lists imagined wrongs Job must have done: exploiting the poor, withholding charity, mistreating the vulnerable.

He twists Job’s earlier words to imply arrogance that Job thinks God cannot see human behavior.

But you say, ‘What does God know?
Can he judge through the deep darkness?
Thick clouds veil him, so that he does not see,
and he walks on the vault of heaven.’

He reminds Job of the “fate of the wicked,” using history. 

He finally urges Job to “return to the Almighty” for peace and blessing. He believes that true repentance as the key to regain prosperity.

Job 23

Job longs for a fair hearing: “Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his seat!” (v. 3) Job believes if he could stand before God, he could lay out his case and be redeemed. He’s confident that God would listen to him  if he could just appear before Him.

Job searches in every direction…forward, backward, left, right… but cannot perceive God’s presence. His pain is not just from suffering, but from the silence and absence of God

Despite God’s hiddenness, Job trusts God knows him and he has kept God’s way, treasured His words, and not turned aside.

Job acknowledges that God acts according to His own purpose and no one can change His plans. He knows God’s will is supreme, but he can’t grasp the reasoning.

“God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me.” (v. 16)

Questions

In Chapter 21 Job mentions the “day of calamity”: is he referring to judgment day or is it poetic?

If Job’s friends are so close to him that they sit in silence for 7 full days, wouldn’t they know Job’s heart and if he had truly sinned against God?

Application

The friends came to comfort Job, but somewhere along the way, their theology became more important than his pain. They started out sitting in silence but once Job began speaking honestly, they grew uncomfortable. His grief didn’t fit their doctrine. So rather than expand their view of God, they decided to attack Job.  Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar  prioritize being right about God over being there for their friend. We are all guilty of it. We quote verses to explain away pain. We correct instead of comfort. We speak when silence would be better. In trying to protect God, we can actually misrepresent Him. We haven’t gotten there yet but Job 42:7 says  “You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” We shouldn’t prioritize the feelings of others over true sound doctrine, but we can’t assume we have all the answers, especially ones that silent others’ pain.