Day 145. Job 5-8

Job's friend Eliphaz continues his discourse in a somewhat brighter vein. What is the point of asking questions that begin with Why? It is useless. It is enough to say that there is a reason for suffering, and that God knows it. "Misery does not come from the earth," Eliphaz says, "nor does trouble sprout from the ground" (5:6). It is not random and meaningless. It is simple a part of human life—"human beings are born to troubles, just as sparks fly upward" (5:7)—which everyone must endure.
Eliphaz commends himself to the judgments of God who is not only powerful—"he does great things and unsearchable, marvelous things without number" (5:9)—but also ultimately just. Contrary to appearances, he is always at work frustrating those who are crafty and nefarious, and he saves "the needy from the sword of their mouth, from the hand of the mighty" (5:15). So God alone is worthy of our trust, and we should submit ourselves resolutely to his discipline because it is always mixed with mercy. "He wounds," Eliphaz tells Job, "but he binds up; he strikes, but his hands heal" (5:18). And the LORD will ultimately justify the good; the one who follows the rules and obeys the laws will be granted a long and fruitful life and a peaceful death. So he calls upon Job to submit himself to the punishment of God, even though he may not understand its purpose, in the assurance of his ultimate vindication. This is commonplace wisdom,
experience-proven advice; everyone who is wise accepts it—"We have searched this out: it is true" (5:27)—and so also should Job.
But when Job replies his suffering is so great—"the terrors of God are arrayed against me" (6:4)—that cannot be attributed to just discipline or a setback that must be endured. The time-worn, commonplace answers are not enough for him —"they are like food that is loathsome to me" (6:7). He will not let his suffering be trivialized. Instead, he expresses the wish that God would "crush" him, rather than force him to live as he is, without hope. He is not strong enough to bear the suffering he experiencing—"Is my strength the strength of stones," he asks," or is my flesh bronze?" (6:12). There are limits to his endurance. His friends, in spite of their good intentions are as useless as a stream that dries up in hot weather (6:15-17). They see what has become of him, and they are "afraid" (6:21), because his despair threatens them. He asks of nothing of them but that they make him "understand how I have gone wrong"
(6:24). If my sufferings are the wages of some sin, don't mince words—tell me what is it I have done to deserve them.
Now Job turns and speaks directly to God, reminding of him of the limitations of human life that the Creator may have forgotten and may need to be reminded of. He calls upon God to justify his apparent lack of justice. If human beings receive the just reward of their labors, then Job has been "allotted months of emptiness," and "nights of misery" (7:3). This is nothing to look forward to, nothing to give his live any savor—"My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle," he laments, "and come to their end without hope" (7:6). And at his death, he will disappear "as a cloud fades and vanishes" (7:9).
"Sheol" is the place underground where ancient Israelites believed that the dead go. It is a dark and dusty cave from which no one returns. With the exception of the Book of Daniel, hope in the Old Testament is this-worldly—the hope of a long and prosperous life and the joy that comes with children --and it is of this hope that Job has been bereft.
He will not restrain himself any longer (7:11); he will address God plainly, since he has nothing further to loose, not even hope. He feels the presence of God as oppressive. He demands to know why God watches him so closely; he chaffs under the scrutiny of One who is always seeking faults to punish.
Ancient people believed that God had created the world by overcoming the "Sea" or "the Dragon" (7:12), which represented for them the watery chaos, which always threatens to overwhelm the created world and demands constant vigilance. Job tells God that he is not the monster that needs to be watched (7:12). The oblivion of sleep does not give him refreshment—instead God scares him with dreams and terrifies him with visions (7:14) so terrible that Job says he "would choose strangling and death rather than this body" (7:15). He hates his life so much he would not accept immortality even if it were offered him (7:16). He would prefer to be ignored by God, if God's attention makes him a target for his punishment. He feels the presence of God not as mercy and love, but as an insuperable burden—"Will you not look away from me for a while, let me alone until I swallow my spittle" (7:19).
Now we hear Bildad, the second of Job's friends, remonstrate with him. He professes to be disgusted by Job's complaints. He reaffirms the belief that God cannot work except justly (8:3). The death of Job's children must be the result of some sin they committed. "If your children sinned against him," Bildad tells Job, "he delivered them into the power of their transgression" (8:4). It was their fault. (This is a belief that many people express—that suffering, particularly the sufferings of other people, are occasioned by their sins. They deserve what they are getting because they are lazy or immoral or whatever.) But at the same time that he expresses these callous sentiments, he offers Job a sort of easy consolation. "If you are pure and upright"—suggesting that in some way Job has not been heretofore—the Lord will "restore you to your rightful place" (8:6). In fact, you may end up better off than you started (8:9).
He appeals to the wisdom of past generations. Those who are wicked may thrive for awhile like weeds in a garden, but they do not endure long, and when they are "destroyed from their place, then it will deny then saying, 'I have never seen you'" (8:13). There is justice built into the whole order of things, Bildad says. The good will triumph in the end because God is just—"God will not reject a blameless person, nor take the hand of evildoers" (8:20). For Bildad Job's despair threatens the traditional beliefs by which people of his time live. There is justice built into the order of things. The universe is not absurd. There is meaning in every event—an easy answer that the story of Job challenges.