“Considered both a theological and a literary masterpiece, the book of Job is an honest portrayal of God allowing a good man to suffer. The test of Job’s faith, allowed by God in response to a challenge from Satan, revealed God’s loving sovereignty and the supremacy of divine wisdom over humor wisdom (personified by Job’s friends).
Believing that God is good despite the apparent evidence to the contrary, Job rested in faith alone. In the depths of agony he could still proclaim, “I know that my Redeemer lives.” In the end God silenced all discussion with the truth that he alone is wise. Yet he vindicated Job’s trust in him, proving that genuine faith cannot be destroyed.
The book of Job begins the section of the Old Testament books commonly known as the Wisdom Books. There isn’t much known about the historical setting of Job, but we do know it is a brutally honest poetic examination of the problem of suffering.
If you look to the book for an answer to the problem of evil, you’ll probably find it unsatisfactory. In fact, much of the book seems focused on unmasking the inadequacy of simplistic theological answers, as seen in the words of Job’s friends, who try to help him understand why such a great tragedy has befallen him.
Instead, the only answer to the question “why?” seems to be that we will never understand the mystery and must trust in God’s wisdom and power. Ultimately, the act of God speaking to Job seems answer enough for the humbled sufferer.
The unknown author was probably an Israelite writing sometime between 1500 and 500 B.C.”
So let’s jump in. Who was Job? Job was a man in the land of Uz and was blameless and upright. He feared the Lord and turned away from evil. He had seven sons and three daughters. He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys. He also had many servants and was the greatest of all the people in the east.
One day the sons of God went to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also went among them. God and Satan had a chat about Job. Basically, God explained how Job was an upright man of the Lord and there was none like him on earth.
Satan asked if Job feared God for no reason, and went on to say that as soon as he had a reason he would turn away and curse the Lord. So, God gave Satan permission to mess with Job saying that all he had was in Satan’s hands. However, Satan could not stretch out his hand to him.
One day Job received bad news after bad news, each from one messenger that had escaped the situations to tell him about them.
- The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were feeding beside them when the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword.
- The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them.
- The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword.
- Job’s sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, and a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon them and they all died.
Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
In all of this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.
Again there was a day when God and Satan had a conversation about Job. God said to Satan that Job still held fast to his integrity, although God was incited to destroy him without reason.
Satan answered, “Skin for skin!” meaning that all a man has he will give for his life. But if he were ill in bone and flesh, he would curse God. God told Satan again that Job was in his hands, but he was to spare his life.
So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown on his head. When Job’s wife asked if he still held fast to his integrity he replied, “Shall we receive food from God, and shall we not receive evil?”
In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
Now when Job’s three friends Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathire heard of all the evil that had come upon him, they made an appointment together to go and show their sympathy and comfort him.
When they saw him from a distance they did not recognize him. They raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. They sat with him for seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word, for they saw that his suffering was very great.
After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. Job’s very existence, which had been a joy to him because of God’s favor, was now his intolerable burden.
He is as close as he will ever be to cursing God, but he does not do it.
Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said to Job that he has done many things to help others, “But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed. Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?”
Eliphaz tells of a hair-raising, mystical experience mediated through a dream, through which he claims to have received divine revelation and on which he bases his advice to Job.
He went on to discuss that all mortals are sinful; therefore God has a right to punish them. Job should be thankful for the correction God was giving him. God even charges the angels with error and sees them guilty, so of course man would be.
Without mentioning him, Eliphaz implies that Job is resentful against God and that harm would follow because of it. So he continued and said to Job, “As for me, I would seek God, and to God would I commit my cause, who does great things and unsearchable, marvelous things without number.”
He discussed all the miracles of the Lord and how God has always provided for his people: sends rain to water the fields, lifts up those who mourn, saves the needy, gives hope to the poor, etc.
Eliphaz continued, “Behold, blessed is the one whom God reproves; therefore despise not the discipline of the Almighty. For he wounds, but he binds up; he shatters, but his hands heal. He will deliver you from six troubles; in seven no evil shall touch you.”
The speeches of Job’s friends contain elements of truth, but they must be carefully interpreted in context. The problem is not so much what the friends knew but with what they did not know: God’s high purpose in allowing Satan to buffet Job.