“The more I live, the more I’m convinced that common sense is becoming a lost art, and that if I fail to keep up with what’s going on in the world around me, I can be part of the problem!

In the age of modern technology, the buzzword is “intuitive.” A tablet salesman told me, “This piece of technology is intuitive. Just follow your common sense and it will be easy to use.”

Bildad steps into the ring. Coached by Eliphaz at the beginning of the second round, Bildad launches a furious burst of invective against the wicked. The wicked deserve all they’re going to get; and more.

It’s a simple-minded and single-minded sermon. There are, so Bildad would argue, just two groups in the world, the righteous and the wicked. And the wicked have had it!

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 wouldn’t be so bad if Zophar were writing an essay in a first year class at theological college. It wouldn’t be so bad if we were reading some kind of attempt to spell out what happens to wicked people in the economy of the Judaic God. It wouldn’t be so bad…though we might well wonder how the professor would mark this essay! It is incredibly fundamental, unfeeling, simplistic.

There’s a marvellous comparison between Zophar’s fundamental simplicity that writes off the wicked in virtually a single stroke, and Job’s thoughtful exploration of human nature in relationship to God.

I want, says Job, to do my thinking in the presence of God, as a conversation partner with God.

“You, LORD, are the light that keeps me safe,” begins this psalm attributed to David, the man chosen by God to become Israel’s greatest king. From his youth as a shepherd, tending his father’s flocks day and night, David had known darkness and its dangers. But his confidence in the LORD was so sure, so true, that even in times of darkness he could proclaim, “I am not afraid of anyone.”