05 June   

Bible In 365 Days                                                                                                           

Job 14-16

Job 14

Taking a more general outlook, Job declared that man's life is ever transitory, and full of trouble. This should be a reason why God should pity him, and let him work out the brief period of its duration in quietness (Job 14: 1-6). Naturally, following this, he spoke of what the end of a man's doing is, showing the endlessness thereof. There is hope for a bee that it will bud again, but there is none for a man (Job 14: 7-12). This dark assertion seems to have created in the mind of Job a question of wondering hope, If a man die, shall he live?

He declared that if this were so, then he could endure through all the days of warfare (Job 14: 13-15). The whole answer ends in lamentation over his present condition, which is so strangely in contrast to the hope suggested.

Thus ends the first cycle. In it Job's friends had, with differing emphasis propounded the one general philosophy that God is righteous, and punishes the wicked while He blesses the good. They had left Job to make the personal application. He had denied their philosophy by opposing facts to their arguments. He was not wicked but just, and yet he was afflicted. He could not understand it himself, and while refusing to accept their view, was crying out to God for some explanation.

Job 15

Here the second cycle of argument begins, and again Eliphaz is the first speaker. It is at once evident that Job's answers had wounded him.

He first criticized Job's manner, charging him with using mere words as arguments. His manner, moreover, had been characterized by unwarranted boldness, and by absence of reverence in the presence of God. In the second place, he criticized Job's claim to wisdom, and, in so doing, he compelled satire to answer satire (Job 15: 7; Job 12: 2). Finally, he formally criticized Job's attitude toward God. How dare he turn his spirit against God, in whose sight the very heavens are unclean?

Turning from his rebuke of Job's attitude, Eliphaz again declared his view of the meaning of his affliction, first arguing the truth of what he said from its antiquity. The whole of what follows may be summarized as a declaration that the wicked suffer. The reason for the suffering is next set forth as rebellion against God (Job 15: 25-28). Apart from the fact that these words did not fit the case of Job, they constitute a magnificent description of the unutterable folly of the man who rebels:

He runneth upon Him with a stiff neck, Upon the thick bosses of His bucklers.

Finally, Eliphaz declared the punishment of such (Job 15: 29-35). The sharpness of this passage will be detected by noticing how the punishment of the wicked, as Eliphaz described it, was a description of the condition to which Job had come. There is a great change in tone between this address of Eliphaz and the first. There is no tenderness here. The philosophy of life is stated wholly on the negative side, and it was impossible for Job to misunderstand the meaning.

Job 16

Job immediately answered. His answer dealt less with the argument they suggested than before. While the darkness was still about him, and in some senses the agony of his soul was deepening, yet it is impossible to read the whole of this answer without seeing that through the terrible stress he was at least groping after light, if at the moment we may not say that he saw any gleam of it. He first manifested his impatience with these men. Their philosophy was not new. He had heard many such things. Their comfort was nothing; they were "miserable comforters." Their pertinacity was his chief trouble. The folly of criticizing sorrow from the vantage point of prosperity is declared. Job said that he could speak as they if they were in his place, but he would not do it. He would attempt to strengthen them.

Following this outburst of scorn, we have a new statement of his grief. It was helped neither by speech nor silence. In describing his suffering he spoke of God's relentless method. In the midst of this he said:

Mine adversary sharpeneth his eyes upon me.

The word is not the same as that translated "Satan," but it indicates an enemy. Whether Job so understood it or not may be very doubtful; but in the light of what we know of the preliminary controversy in heaven it is quite possible to read this section as though he had seen some faint outline of the shadow of the foe.

Immediately following, he said: God delivereth me to the ungodly.

He was evidently conscious of a definite force against him. Perhaps there was more than he knew in what he said.

Continuing, Job now cried out in his distress, and here again it is most remarkable to see how his faith triumphed over his doubt. He declared that his witness was in heaven. He prayed that God would maintain His favor with Him.