Job 6-7
6:1 Then Job answered and said: 2 “Oh that my vexation were weighed, and all my calamity laid in the balances! 3 For then it would be heavier than the sand of the sea; therefore my words have been rash. 4 For the arrows of the Almighty are in me; my spirit drinks their poison; the terrors of God are arrayed against me. 5 Does the wild donkey bray when he has grass, or the ox low over his fodder? 6 Can that which is tasteless be eaten without salt, or is there any taste in the juice of the mallow? 7 My appetite refuses to touch them; they are as food that is loathsome to me. 8 “Oh that I might have my request, and that God would fulfill my hope, 9 that it would please God to crush me, that he would let loose his hand and cut me off! 10 This would be my comfort; I would even exult in pain unsparing, for I have not denied the words of the Holy One. 11 What is my strength, that I should wait? And what is my end, that I should be patient? 12 Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh bronze? 13 Have I any help in me, when resource is driven from me? 14 “He who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty. 15 My brothers are treacherous as a torrent-bed, as torrential streams that pass away, 16 which are dark with ice, and where the snow hides itself. 17 When they melt, they disappear; when it is hot, they vanish from their place. 18 The caravans turn aside from their course; they go up into the waste and perish. 19 The caravans of Tema look, the travelers of Sheba hope. 20 They are ashamed because they were confident; they come there and are disappointed. 21 For you have now become nothing; you see my calamity and are afraid. 22 Have I said, ‘Make me a gift’? Or, ‘From your wealth offer a bribe for me’? 23 Or, ‘Deliver me from the adversary's hand’? Or, ‘Redeem me from the hand of the ruthless’? 24 “Teach me, and I will be silent; make me understand how I have gone astray. 25 How forceful are upright words! But what does reproof from you reprove? 26 Do you think that you can reprove words, when the speech of a despairing man is wind? 27 You would even cast lots over the fatherless, and bargain over your friend. 28 “But now, be pleased to look at me, for I will not lie to your face. 29 Please turn; let no injustice be done. Turn now; my vindication is at stake. 30 Is there any injustice on my tongue? Cannot my palate discern the cause of calamity? 7:1 “Has not man a hard service on earth, and are not his days like the days of a hired hand? 2 Like a slave who longs for the shadow, and like a hired hand who looks for his wages, 3 so I am allotted months of emptiness, and nights of misery are apportioned to me. 4 When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’ But the night is long, and I am full of tossing till the dawn. 5 My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt; my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh. 6 My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle and come to their end without hope. 7 “Remember that my life is a breath; my eye will never again see good. 8 The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more; while your eyes are on me, I shall be gone. 9 As the cloud fades and vanishes, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up; 10 he returns no more to his house, nor does his place know him anymore. 11 “Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. 12 Am I the sea, or a sea monster, that you set a guard over me? 13 When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,’ 14 then you scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions, 15 so that I would choose strangling and death rather than my bones. 16 I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are a breath. 17 What is man, that you make so much of him, and that you set your heart on him, 18 visit him every morning and test him every moment? 19 How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit? 20 If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of mankind? Why have you made me your mark? Why have I become a burden to you? 21 Why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For now I shall lie in the earth; you will seek me, but I shall not be.”
Introduction
In the West Wing, season 1, episode 3, President Bartlet is wrestling with a national security issue. We learned in the last moments of the previous episode that an American military plane has been shot down by terrorists. Here is part of the conversation that occurs when President Bartlet, his Chief of Staff Leo McGarry, and Admiral Percy Fitzwallace discuss how to respond:
President Bartlet: What is the virtue of a proportional response?
Admiral Fitzwallace: I’m sorry?
Bartlet: What’s the virtue of a proportional response? Why’s it good? They hit an airplane, so we hit a transmitter, right? That’s a proportional response.
Fitzwallace: Sir, in the case of Pericles -
Bartlet: They hit a barracks, so we hit two transmitters?
Fitzwallace: That’s roughly it, sir.
Bartlet: It’s what we do. I mean, this is what we do.
Leo: Yes, sir, it’s what we do. It’s what we’ve always done.
Bartlet: Well, if it’s what we do, if it’s what we’ve always done, don’t they know we’re going to do it?
Chief of Staff Leo McGarry: Sir, if you would turn your attention to Pericles One.
Bartlet: I have turned my attention to Pericles One. It’s two ammo dumps, an abandoned railroad bridge, and a Syrian intelligence agency.
Fitzwallace: Those are four high rated military targets, sir.
Bartlet: But they know we’re going to do that, they know we’re going to do that! Those areas have been abandoned for four days. We know that from the satellites. We have the intelligence.
McGarry: Sir.
Bartlet: They did that, so we did this, it’s the cost of doing business, it’s been factored in, right?
McGarry: Mr. President -
Bartlet: Am I right or am I missing something here?
Fitzwallace: No, sir, you’re right sir.
Bartlet: Then I ask again, what is the virtue of a proportional response?
Fitzwallace: It isn’t virtuous, Mr. President. It’s all there is, sir.[1]
I think this conversation seems right to us. We side with the President. We put ourselves in the shoes of deciding that proportion should favor us. The President has a friend who was killed on the American plane that was shot down. And so, he wants to overreact. He wants to, as we learn later in the episode, use the American military to exact retribution. But mostly, he wants to determine how a “proportional response” is defined. And so do we. We want to look at the blessing in our lives and say: ‘I deserve that.’ And we want to look at the suffering in our lives and say: ‘That seems worse than I deserve.’ We want to be the ones who determine what we deserve…what others deserve.
Job 6-7 begins to grapple with this idea. Job, having faced the first response of his friend, Eliphaz, speaks. I think the eight stanzas of poetry we find in these two chapters work this way:
Job Defends His Cries (stanzas 1-2, 6:1-13)
Job Deserted by His Friends (stanzas 3-5, 6:14-30)
Job Despairing Over Life’s Brevity (stanzas 6-7, 7:1-10)
Job Determined to Speak (stanza 8, 7:11-21)
1. Job Defends His Cries
The first two stanzas of Job’s poetic speech begin to defend his crying out in chapter 3. The context here is important. As know from chapters 1-2, Job is facing a terrible situation. His land has been destroyed, his livestock stolen, his servant and even all of his children killed. He is then struck with “loathsome sores.” While he does not know about the maneuvering of the Satan and God in conversation from these two chapters, he cries out in pain to God. It is not very explicit yet, but by 3:23, Job does start to look at God as the one responsible for the tragedies he is facing. And as we saw last week, Eliphaz the Temanite has accused Job of overstating his pain and not looking closely enough at what he might have done to cause God to reprove or punish him this way (see especially 5:17-27—though Eliphaz stops short of accusing Job of sin in this speech, that will become more explicit in future speeches).
In our text, in these first two stanzas, Job responds with an emotional outburst to the content of Eliphaz’s speech. Job argues that he, Job, has not understated his wretched state as Eliphaz accused. Notice the metaphors Job uses to describe his anguish. Verses 2-3: “Oh that my vexation were weighed…for then it would be heavier than the sand of the sea.” This is no mere minor complaint. It is superlative after superlative. The weight of all the sand in the sea does not compare to his pain. And the cause becomes more explicit. In verse 4, it is God who has struck him, who has pierced his flesh with poisonous arrows. It is no wonder that he cries out in pain. The rhetorical questions of verses 5-6 make this point. Job tells his “friend” Eliphaz that of course he has a good reason to be making this noise, making this scene, crying out in this way. And then, just like in the first speech in chapter 3, Job’s words turn dark. His pain is so great, so deep, that death is preferable. His anguish is so intense that the only comfort he might find is in death, in God finally giving him release from the torture (verses 8-10).
2. Job Deserted by His Friends
But it is not just God against whom Job complains. While he defends his cries of pain and tries, once again, to convey how truly grieved he is, it is not just his relationship with God that seems to be crumbling around him. In a book that revolves around three or four cycles of speeches between Job and his friends, it took exactly one speech from friend for Job to feel abandoned by his friends as well. With the last three stanzas of chapter 6, Job responds to Eliphaz’s tactics.
Verses 14: “He who withholds kindness from a friend, forsakes the fear of the Almighty.” As we will see later in the book, “fear of the Almighty” is synonymous with wisdom. Job is saying that the unkindness Eliphaz has shown in his accusation is foolish and offensive. Like the torrential streams of melted ice coming down a mountain, so swift is his friends’ ability to jump to conclusion about his pain (verses 15-17). Like a mirage disappearing in the eyes of a caravan in the desert, so quickly does his friends’ compassion pass away (verses 18-20). Job, in this moment, feels abandoned. Verse 21: “For you have now become nothing; you see my calamity and you are afraid.” And it frustrates him. Job challenges the friends. He says: ‘if I have done something wrong that makes me deserve this, then show it to me. My vindication is at stake.’ He challenges Eliphaz and the friends to show him what he has done. ‘Show me my reproof,’ he says. Verse 25 points us back to Eliphaz’s comment in 5:17. Job’s comment in verse 26, I think, captures the tone of his frustration with the friends. Verse 26: “Do you think you can reprove words, when the speech of a despairing man is wind?” It is a powerful statement. Job is saying to Eliphaz: ‘I am crying out in pain and you want to correct my grammar?’ Job’s whole argument is that his horrible situation is way out of proportion to whatever he might have done. His friends just don’t get it. They want to quibble over words while he bares his soul in agony. They are so insensitive in their betrayal, in their lack of compassion for their friend, it is as though they are gambling with orphans (verses 27).
3. Job Despairing Over Life’s Brevity
Job then turns to the philosophical. With the first two stanzas of chapter 7, he considers the fate of mankind and compares it to that of a servant or slave. Verse 1: “Has not man a hard service on earth, and are not his days like the days of a hired hand?” He considers that the life of every person is riddled with grief and nights of misery. His life, like every person’s, is filled with restlessness and pain. The mental anguish of which he has been speaking is inseparable from the physical pain in verse 5: “My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt; my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh.” And what’s more, life is short. Faster than the weaver’s shuttle, his days pass before him (verses 6). Life is like a breath (verse 7). It is entirely too short to live in such anguish as Job is living. The day is coming so soon when Job will perish and God will not behold him in this life. Job is wondering, then, why God would strike him this way. Why, when life is so short, would God foist upon him such calamity? Job defends his complaint again.
4. Job Determined to Speak
With verse 11, the final stanza of chapter 7 shows Job’s renewed commitment to speak. He says, in his first tricolon since verse 10 of the last chapter: “Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.” And speak he does. The sense of it is: ‘I am not going to shut up.’ Having considered the depth of his anguish in chapter 6, the desertion of his friends, and the brevity of his life, he addresses God. And in this fascinating moment of irony, he asks God to leave him alone. This man, who once had the comfort of family and at least three good friends and something of a good relationship with God, now feels abandoned by everyone except God. And because it is God who torments him, he mostly wants God to leave him alone. Verses 17-19: “What is man, that you make so much of him, and that you set your heart on him, visit him every morning and test him every moment? How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit?” This is a powerful moment. Job wants, more than anything, a moment’s peace. Somehow, he thinks that this is only possible if God will leave him alone, give him a minute to rest, a brief reprieve from feeling so much pain.
In asking God to leave him alone, Job returns in the last two verses to the question he yelled at his friends. Only this time, the question is, I think, a sincere one directed to God. Job has spent the last two chapters voicing the complaint that his circumstances are far worse than he deserves. If this is reproof, then it is an overreaction to whatever paltry sin he has committed. He asks God what he has done to deserve this and then, in the same breath, asks God why he can’t get over it already. Verses 20-21: “If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of mankind? Why have you made me your mark? Why have I become a burden to you? Why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity?” He is saying: ‘Why, why O Lord, can’t you get past this?’
Conclusion
As I begin to conclude, we should see the speech as a whole. His word to Eliphaz is clear: ‘I am not overreacting in my cries of pain, the God who torments me is overreacting.’ And his question for God is equally clear: ‘What could I possibly have done to deserve this?’
I think there are a couple lessons here. The first is the hard lesson that Job is, ultimately, not completely right and Eliphaz is not completely wrong. This is not what anyone who is suffering wants to hear, but the New Testament does assert that all of humanity does deserve the wrath of God and ultimately death because of our sinfulness (see Romans 3:9-23). Eliphaz is wrong in his assertion that only the wicked suffer and the righteous will prosper. But he is not wrong about Job. Job should consider his sin as a root cause of his suffering. Original sin brought suffering and death into the world and Job’s sins make him a part of that. “For, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Remember, while Job seems to argue that the punishment is way out of proportion to his crimes, he does not claim sinlessness. Chapter 7, verses 20-21 make that clear. Job, for his part, is also wrong. He shows an amazing arrogance in presuming that he does not deserve the pain he encountered. He actually puts himself in the place of God, judging his own sins as though God is wrong to have struck him the way he has. The lesson is clear: Job, no more than President Bartlet, gets to determine the virtue of the proportional response. Job’s complaint is bold and, I think, foolish. “For the wages of sin is death” says Paul in Romans 6:23.
But, importantly, Job’s complaint also ironically anticipates that of Jesus. For, Jesus was the only truly righteous person to suffer. And when, like Job, he cried out in pain, asking for God to explain his forsaking of him (in Mark 15:34: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”), he is the only person who deserved an answer. He is the only person who actually got more suffering than he deserved. He is the only person whose punishment was out of proportion to his crimes. For he was, unlike Job, truly sinless. And because he was sinless and yet died, taking the eternal penalty for sinners, we have hope. Each of the Romans statements I have mentioned has a second half. Romans 3:23-24: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Job rightly identifies the only possible way forward. His only hope is the vindication found in God. And while he asks God to leave him alone, he knows that his hope is found in God alone.
The second lesson is one for those of us with friends who might be suffering. We ought to learn something from Eliphaz’s failed tactics here. While his theology may have been (partially) correct, and while all who suffer are sinners and so deserve, in part, their suffering—this is no way to be a friend. In this respect, God vindicates Job. God states very clearly at the end that he is not impressed with the friends. And it is no wonder. As we work through the responses of Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar, their stunning lack of sympathy and their overwhelming lack of love become abundantly clear. There is a warning for us here—especially those of us who err on the side of theological truth over humility and Christ-like love. As I mentioned already, there is tremendous hope in suffering. Whatever pain we face, whatever losses we encounter, whatever anguish we feel, it in some way anticipates the death of Jesus Christ on our behalf. But he did not just die. He rose again. And because he died on our behalf, and because he rose again, we have a powerful hope. As we consider our own grief, and as we come alongside those around us who are in the storm, grappling with the harshness of this life, we do well to remember this hope. We do well to point to the only person who provides vindication—even the vindication we do not deserve. And in the table we are about to approach, we celebrate that vindication.
Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we come to you broken and hurting and saddened by the effects of sin in this world—the effects we face and even what is faced by those around us. We come to you knowing that only bring us beyond pain to hope. Help us to see what Job did not yet see, that you do bring salvation. And as we gain hope, help us to be a comfort to others. We pray this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] Aaron Sorkin, “A Proportional Response,” in The West Wing (Season 1, Episode 3).