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Job's Reply to Bildad
How Long Will You
1Job said:
2How long will you torture me
with your words?
3Isn't ten times enough
for you to accuse me?
Aren't you ashamed?
4Even if I have sinned,
you haven't been harmed.
5You boast of your goodness,
claiming I am suffering
because I am guilty.
6But God is the one at fault
for finding fault with me.
7Though I pray to be rescued
from this torment,
no whisper of justice
answers me.
8God has me trapped
with a wall of darkness
9and stripped of respect.
10God rips me apart,
uproots my hopes,
11and attacks with fierce anger,
as though I were his enemy.
12His entire army advances,
then surrounds my tent.
I Am Forgotten
* 13God has turned relatives
and friends against me,
14and I am forgotten.
15My guests and my servants
consider me a stranger,
16and when I call my servants,
they pay no attention.
17My breath disgusts my wife;
everyone in my family
turns away.
18Young children can't stand me,
and when I come near,
they make fun.
19 My best friends and loved ones
have turned from me.
20I am skin and bones—
just barely alive.
21My friends, I beg you for pity!
God has made me his target.
22Hasn't he already done enough?
Why do you join the attack?
23I wish that my words
could be written down
24or chiseled into rock.
25I know that my Protector lives,
and at the end
he will stand on this earth.
26My flesh may be destroyed,
yet from this body
I will see God.
27Yes, I will see him for myself,
and I long for that moment.
28My friends, you think up ways
to blame and torment me, saying
I brought it on myself.
29But watch out for the judgment,
when God will punish you!
Reflect
Now hear Job’s descent into the misery of the very bottom of the pit of abandonment.
Listen, says Job to his “friends”, you may think that you’re the ones responsible for taking me down. But it’s not you; it’s God (vs 5-6).It is God who has stripped and broken me. It is God who has caused friends and family – even my wife and little children! – to despise and loathe me(vs13-19). It is God who has pursued me to this bitter end, and all I can do is cry for pity (v21).
Can there be a greater despair? To be pursued by God’s anger? To be devastated and abandoned by the Almighty God himself?
Or, can there be a greater hope? A tectonic shift. For if God is at the causative centre of these terrifying events, is there not the possibility of purpose and meaning and, yes, even eventually, salvation and rescue?
The absolute marvel of religious faith is that it can turn a person from the greater despair to the greater hope. For the same God who destroys is also the one who saves, who rebuilds, who remakes. Ironically, Job’s longing for his words to be written down has come true—for we are reading them now, aren’t we?
Wonderfully, Job’s absolute and unshakable conviction that he has a Redeemer, a Vindicator, an Advocate, is the pre-figurement of the Christ who is to come, the Christ who will indeed one day ‘stand upon the earth’, whom Job will one day see as the divine being who is “on his side!”
Respond
Oh God, there are times when we absolutely despair. When we are sick and lonely; when our friends and family have abandoned us; when we think it is you yourself who have reduced us to a nothingness. Oh God, help us; help us to make that unbelievably miraculous shift of thought, movement of heart, that takes us, like Job, to the place of faith. That we too may know our Redeemer lives! And he is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Michael Pountney
From the Merchant Navy to Moldova, Michael’s career has had a transatlantic diversity. High School language teacher and youth leader in the UK; IVCF staff at universities in BC and Divisional Director in Ontario; Parish Priest in Montreal and Toronto; Principal of Wycliffe College at the U. of T; IFES staff working with leaders in the former Soviet Republic. Retired in Victoria, Michael continues to help plant Anglican Network churches and mentor young leaders. Publications: Bob Goethe and Michael Pountney: “Mars and Venus Go To Church” (2010: Faith Today); Michael Pountney, “At A Distance: Encouragement For Cautious Christians” (2006: Essence Publishing, Belleville, Ontario); “Searching For Home” (2003: GLIA Moldova); Don Posterski and Michael Pountney; “Reconciliation: Seeking Restored Relationships” 2000: Institute For Christian Leadership Formation, World Vision International, Monrovia, California); Michael Pountney, “Getting A Job” (1984: InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois)