Job 13-19

All Job’s friend’s exhortations concerning his need to repent and their affirmation of the righteousness of God, only resulted in Job calling them liars and worthless physicians, Job 13: 3! He told them that if they were really wise then they would show it by being completely silent, vs 4!

He told them that there was no need for them to justify God, by speaking deceitfully for Him and showing Him partiality, vs 9,10, for if they did so, God would eventually rebuke them, vs 11! Job is so sure of himself that he is ready to face God and defend His ways before His maker, vs 15,16,18.

All he desires is that God’s hand of wrath be removed from him and that God show him clearly what his sin actually is, vs 21,23. Sometimes, he wonders if he is being punished for the sins of his youth, vs 26. Since man’s life flees like a shadow, He wonders why God is hunting him down so brutally, *Job 14: 2,3!

Once again Eliphaz is shocked on seeing the the way in which Job speaks about God, Job 15! He is now even more convinced that Job suffers in torment because he is a wicked man, vs 20, and that his wealth will not endure, vs 29, and so, he continues to voice many such other negativities against Job!

Job is devasted at Eliphaz’s comments and sees his friends as miserable comforters, Job 16:2. He reckons that if he was in their place, he would have been a better comforter to them, vs 5.

Then he goes back to mentioning how God has allowed him to suffer pain, devastated his entire household, torn him up, persecuted him, abandoned him to evil men, allowed people to speak against him and scorn him and unite against him, shatter his peace and crushed him… although he did no violence and his prayer was pure, vs 6-17!

Yet, he still believes that His witness, advocate and intercessor is in heaven and watches over him, even as he weeps before God being fearful that he has only a few years more to live, vs 19-22! He feels God has made him a byword to people who spit in his face, Job 17: 6.

Bildad exhorts him to be slow to speak, *Job 18: 2, and take time to understand, or else their words will sound foolish to him. He tells him that his anger will not change his circumstances, vs 3, but instead will only serve to harm him! He warns Job that if he continues in wickedness, he will abide in darkness, his steps will be restricted, be trapped in a net and that terror, calamity and the most terrible kind of death will be his lot, as well as his descendants will perish and his memory wiped out from the earth altogether, vs 5-21! However, Job is not convinced! He is perfectly sure that he has been wronged by God, Job 19:6! He says that his cries for justice bring no answer, vs 7.

He feels that he has been forsaken by God and people too, be it his relatives, kinsmen, servants brothers, youth, closest friends and wife as well, vs 7-19. He pleads with his friends to have pity on him, and to stop pursuing him as God does, vs 21,22! Nevertheless, he is confident that his Redeemer lives and even after his body is destroyed, he shall see Him in his flesh, vs 25! Once again, these chapters show us how wrong Job’s friend’s were in their assessment of Job’s standing before God, because they were judging him on the basis of how he was reacting to his trial and not on the basis of who he actually was before this fiery trial came his way!

On the other hand, Job was absolutely honest and accurate about what he said with regard to how he had lived an upright life before these trials came his way. Therefore, he was perplexed when he considered how God was rewarding him for the same, and how his friends misjudged him on that account.

Little did he know that the one who was against him, all this while, was the devil, and not God at all! And from that point of view, he was wrong about what he said about God!

How about us? If we know that we are living godly in Christ Jesus, by God’s grace, then are we confident to believe that God looks upon us with favour, and that God is for us and not against us, and so any persecution or fiery trial that we face is nothing but a test orchestrated by Satan, (designed to destroy us), but permitted by God with an aim to enhance and promote us, while also using it to cleanse us from pride in the process?

*Let us meditate on these nuggets of truth and internalise them in our peculiar situations so that we respond rightly and thus come to the high position that God intended for us in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Rowena Thomas
Mumbai, India.