Chapter 20 starts with
Zophar accepting a check in his approach to the debate. Something about Job’s unyielding
posture sustains his course though. To an extent I agree.
We have the advantage
of knowing how God later judged Job’s position as being a somewhat precocious.
So, I have to concede that Zophar at least has some ground to feel that Job
protesteth a bit much in his self-defense.
They are all right, yet all wrong and truth is
somewhere in the middle of it all.
The picture below is a
case in point. Mandela's statue as seen from the side, helps to explain the point that sometimes an image is more a function of its contrast than the details within the frame. The contrasts in Job's debate, reveal God in their midst.
Divine truth is
often skirted by our shadings. We are collectively often at or near, but
sufficiently off the mark to miss the frame as we reveal all that truth
isn’t.
In that sense, the four men were respectively north, south, east and west of the frame,
individually shading in their perspectives of truth with reference
to each other.
Yet, what emerges is a concept of the true God in our midst.
Self-vindication is not the yardstick of
righteousness
Zophar exposes the
wicked, the presumptions of the wicked and the problems they create in life,
using that to imply that self-vindication is never good. We cannot be righteous
in our own eyes, for that relies on a subjective plumb line.
Contemporary humanism
suggests that every man is a law unto himself and that we are gods. As such,
many would say, “if it feels so good, how can it be so bad”. It invites a
subjective morality that has no absolute reference and is thus not moral at
all.
Job is peeved
In Chapter 21, he gets
uppity. I can’t blame him. He sees the mockery of his friends, which may not be
their intent at all, but tells them to listen and then mock on anyway.
He cites how the
wicked live all their days in comfort and get away with everything in life, pending
judgment after death, where all share the same worm. They shun God and go their
own way.
Yet the righteous
often suffer, often living off scraps or going hungry for no reason. It reveals
the unfairness of life - a bitter pill to swallow.
Job cuts Zophar’s
position to ribbons. He is a formidable debater. Clearly, sin and whatever it
is he is supposedly guilty of, cannot explain his crisis. As such, he holds his
ground and argues that the matter is between God and him, and that God needs to
answer.
Eliphaz seeks to identify the root cause
In Chapter 22 he goes
on the rampage, effectively accusing Job of having enjoyed his wealth with no
regard for the poor in his community. That is what has ensnared him. He adds to
the argument the perception that the wicked also hold, that God doesn’t see it
all.
His proposition is for
Job to humble himself and inquire of God.
Having been in my own
deep crises, let me come to Job’s defense. He privately spent hours trying to
identify the cause and was humbler before God than the dialogue reveals, but is
on the defensive because they are painting him into a corner that doesn’t
resonate with his understanding of things. He is cynical because they are
over-simplifying the issue.
My defense is
confirmed by Job’s own counter in Chapter 23, in which he gives us a glimpse of
the tears he has cried before God. He finds what I can truly relate to, that no
matter how you look at it, God remains silent. He is neither to the left or
right, ahead or behind us.
Then in Chapter 24, he
reveals the other undisclosed aspect of his life, the real Job, a man who is
deeply in touch with the injustices of his culture. He is unfairly judged and
reveals the naivety of his friends. He may seem to live well, but never at the expense
of others.
A bit of respite
Almost by way of a
summation pursuant to a break, Bildad makes a very short speech that brings it
all back to “well God is still God” and if not even the moon or stars, for all their
brightness, are pure in his eyes, neither are we – and he is also right. That
is our lot. We are found out.
Conclusion
I can only add this.
Things are rarely as they seem. Opinions are always readily available, hot out
of the oven, in fresh supply, from every well-meaning source – when we are
down.
Whether by deliberate
intrusion, as happened when someone spent a weekend dogging me with every
attempt to explain my life and what I should do differently, or by implication,
as in the philosophies or opinions expressed in the public domain, we are up against
it all.
To me, the greatest
virtue of Job-like struggles is to free us from all of that conjecture, so we
can stand on a firm rock, rooted and grounded in our faith.
The Nazarite community
was divided over Jesus, with some wanting to throw Him off a cliff and others
wanting to crown Him. He rejected both, stepped between them and advanced to
his higher calling, answerable to no one but the Great God above us all.
God help us to get
there, where, as Paul said, we stand within our thickened armor, the breastplate
that protects our hearts and the helmet that guards our minds. The new covenant
confirms it is feasible, for God swore to teach us His ways so that no else
needs to.
(c) Peter Missing @ bethelstone.com
