Job Prepares for Death
“My spirit is broken; my days are extinguished; the grave awaits me. Surely mockers surround me, and my eyes must gaze at their rebellion. Give me, I pray, the pledge You demand. Who else will be my guarantor? You have closed their minds to understanding; therefore You will not exalt them. If a man denounces his friends for a price, the eyes of his children will fail.
He has made me a byword among the people, a man in whose face they spit. My eyes have grown dim with grief, and my whole body is but a shadow. The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent are stirred against the godless. Yet a righteous one holds to his way, and the one with clean hands grows stronger.
But come back and try again, all of you. For I will not find a wise man among you. My days have passed; my plans are broken off—even the desires of my heart. They have turned night into day, making light seem near in the face of darkness. If I look for Sheol as my home, if I spread out my bed in darkness, and say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’ where then is my hope? Who can see any hope for me? Will it go down to the gates of Sheol? Will we go down together into the dust?”
At this point, Job feels completely hopeless. “My spirit is broken; my days are extinguished; the grave awaits me.” Job begs God to tell him what pledge he must make to guarantee he will live because Job is at his wits end.
“You have closed their minds to understanding; therefore You will not exalt them. If a man denounces his friends for a price, the eyes of his children will fail.” Hmm. This passage introduces a new thought: have Job’s “friends” actually been denouncing him because someone who has envied Job is paying them? Until now, we have assumed that Job’s comforters mean well but are simply thick – headed; what if all this verbal acid has come at a price?
“He has made me a byword among the people, a man in whose face they spit. My eyes have grown dim with grief, and my whole body is but a shadow.” Social media has always existed, but in Job’s day it was not electronic; instead, people would gossip and some particularly vicious individual might even make up mocking songs and sing them in the streets. If the tune was catchy enough, soon everybody would pick up the words. Evidently, at least one or more of Job’s comforters spat in Job’s face, presumably after Job scorned their advice.
“The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent are stirred against the godless. Yet a righteous one holds to his way, and the one with clean hands grows stronger.” Job still clings to his innocence despite all the accusations of secret sin. “But come back and try again, all of you. For I will not find a wise man among you.” Job realizes that his accusers have spoken out of the depths of ignorance; while they have exhibited 1 millimeter of wisdom, their ignorance appears bottomless.
“If I look for Sheol as my home, if I spread out my bed in darkness, and say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’ where then is my hope? Who can see any hope for me? Will it go down to the gates of Sheol? Will we go down together into the dust?” Job would like to give up on life; however, he simply cannot. The situation appears hopeless; yet, even at this point, Job refuses to totally give up.
APPLICATION: Why do people enjoy witnessing the sudden downfall of the rich and famous? If a nameless person in a small town loses everything and goes bankrupt, that news scarcely makes a ripple in the public notice. But let a movie star or a famous recording artist or someone on the Forbes list of the world’s wealthiest people lose everything and mainstream new media will speak of little else. When Job lost everything and his body erupted in sores, it was the equivalent of Bill Gates suddenly developing MRSA and going bankrupt at the same time. Such viciousness can only be due to envy, or what my late mother used to call “green – eyed monster.”
The longer we proceed through the Book of Job, the more we realize that Job’s comforters are actually gloaters; they have been secretly envying Job all these years. Now that Job’s fortunes and health have failed, now that his family has been wiped out, these men are jumping in with their accusations and insinuations. What could possibly make anyone behave this way?
Perhaps Job’s friends have found it difficult to justify why Job has succeeded while they have not and have run out of excuses for themselves. If Job’s friends have envied him all these years, his downfall would justify their inability to equal his previous success. What a relief to believe that Job has been secretly sinning so that he has deserved all this suffering and that all his previous success has just been a facade. What a relief to be able to lecture someone who has previously appeared as a paragon of wisdom. “Well, Job isn’t so hot; just look what has happened to him! I always knew there had to be something wrong there.”
Job’s wife doesn’t come in for much attention in this book, apart from her advising Job to curse God and die. But this is a woman who has previously lived in luxury with a lovely family and loads of servants. Now Job’s wife has also been reduced to extreme poverty while she copes with a husband covered with running sores who is sitting in an ash heap and scratching himself with a broken pottery shard. By this point, Job’s wife might be afraid to fetch water at the usual time for fear of what her neighbors will say to her or about her. All Job’s wife’s friends have probably deserted her; after all, she can’t afford to entertain them as she used to. While Mrs. Job might not be suffering physically, emotionally, she is bereft.
The key thing to remember here is that God has not abandoned Job or his wife. Despite appearances. God is continuing to sustain this couple because the story does not end here. Sometimes we are tempted to despair when things don’t go as we have hoped; yet, God is always working and He always has several different aims in view. Perhaps you can identify with Job. Your life appears to have fallen apart and you are losing hope. But don’t give up! God can still open new doors and provide for you in ways you cannot imagine.
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Lord, there are many reading these words who are losing hope that their situation will ever improve. Please speak to their hearts and help them to see the provision You have already made for them. In the matchless Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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