ESV Chronological Plan, Day 21 | Job 15-17

LOOK | WHAT DOES IT SAY?

Job 15:1-17:16

THINK | WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

(A) My read is that Eliphaz is a genuinely godly, though mistaken, man. He really goes after Job here--and Job points it out ("miserable comforters are you all... I also could speak as you do, if you were in my place; I could join words together against you and shake my head at you. [Or,] I could strengthen you with my mouth, and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain," Job 16:2-5). Partly, Eliphaz is offended at Job's claim that God is treating him like an enemy without cause, though he is innocent, which would then seem to make God out to be unrighteous. Job probably did get right up to the line of saying something like this in chapter 16, but he did -just- hold back. So Eliphaz is finding himself unable to comfort Job, because Job is saying something that Eliphaz believes is wrong--surely a mistake in priorities given the needs of the moment. But there is also an element of Eliphaz being offended due to his seniority; Job is clearly much younger than his friends, and Eliphaz can't believe someone so much younger than him would claim to be able to correct him: "Are you the first man who was born?... Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us, older than your father" (Job 15:10). Eliphaz can't listen to someone who he feels is wrong, and who is also his junior (by many years). His only conclusion is that this young man needs to be harshly put down to learn some humility, and so he spends the rest of the chapter painting the picture of "the wicked man" (15:17-35) who not coincidentally looks like Job looks and feels like he feels. It's petty, and personal, and the kind of mistake good people make when they take offense and start talking past each other.

(B) Have you ever felt like God has put you in a difficult place? Or like you don't understand why you are going through something--you've searched for what might be the spiritual cause, and though you do find things that you need to correct, nothing seems to be especially the cause of what you are facing? Have you wondered why God is allowing things to happen in your life? That's where Job is at. He is not trying to accuse God of unrighteousness, he replies, but there is a difficulty there: "I was at ease, and [God] broke me apart; he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces... He breaks me with breach upon breach; he runs upon me like a warrior... although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure" (Job 16:12, 14, 17). And, because of the way the book is set up, we have seen that Job is right. He has been made to suffer though he has not been especially guilty of any wrong. Wouldn't it be amazing if each of us could see into the spiritual realm to understand why we are experiencing the things we're going through? But we can't. And, at this point at least, neither can Job. All he (and we) can do in this situation is to know the truth and yet say, "Even though he slay me, I will hope in Him" (Job 13:15).

(C) Where is the Gospel in this passage? With increasing frequency and clarity, it's all over the place.

(1) Somehow Job is able to understand that"even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and he who testifies for me is on high" (16:17). And strangely, this witness who argues Job's case before God is--God himself! He says, "My eye pours out tears to God, that he [God!] would argue the case of a man with God. like a son of man [i.e. a human being] does with his neighbour" (16:20-21). John Calvin once wrote that man's knowledge of himself could lead them to God ("every man, being stung by the consciousness of his own unhappiness, in this way necessarily obtains at least some knowledge of God," Institutes 1.1.1), and here through knowledge of himself and his own experience, Job has been able to reason out that the God who is his judge (who is doing all this to him, so far as he knows) must also be God his advocate (who knows his piety), and therefore in some strange way God must advocate for him with God. Christopher Ash writes,

"In 16:18–21, in one of the most extraordinary passages in the book, Job cries out to the God who is attacking him. Just as the blood of Abel cried out from the ground for justice (Gen 4:10), so the blood (the sufferings) of Job cry out to heaven for vindication: 'O earth, cover not my blood.' Somehow Job believes that there is a 'witness' for him in the presence of God, who will testify for him that he is a true believer (Job 16:19). Who is this witness? It must be God himself. Somehow in God there is a witness who speaks for the believer against the wrath of God. Such a longing finds its fulfilment at the cross of Christ."

(2) Secondly, and this is not the end of the Gospel in today's reading but for space I will have to wrap up here, Job also asks God to "lay down a pledge" for him (17:3). For all Eliphaz's hurtful and untrue words in chapter 15, he was right about at least one thing: no man can be pure before God--"What is man, that he can be pure? Or he who is born of a woman, that he can be righteous? Behold, God puts no trust in his holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in his sight" (15:14-15). And so, Job knows that not only will God have to advocate for him with God, but God will need to make an offering for him as he used to do for his own children: "Lay down a pledge for me with you; who is there who will put up security for me?" (17:3). Has Job intuited the need for God to mediate with him and provide the sacrifice to wash away his sin, which is more effective than any he could offer for himself? Yes. Here is Christopher Ash again: "In 17:3 [Job] appears again to call on God to 'lay down a pledge for' him. This probably means he is appealing to God to give security in Job’s place, to provide a substitute to die in Job’s stead." And many, many years later, for Job and for you and for me, that's what happened.

RESPOND | WHAT IS OUR PART?

The biggest thing that I got out of today's reading was the Gospel, and that we need to, like Job, just cast ourselves at the feet of God and to put our trust in Him continually. We could all do that afresh over and over again, and need it just as much every time. Let's not hang on to our wisdom or our age or our experience like Eliphaz, let's not see ourselves primarily as correct people there to straighten up the wrong people, but let's wrestle with what we see in the world and come to realize, like Job, that God is the only answer to the questions that we have for God.

PRAY | HOW DOES THIS BRING US CLOSER TO GOD?

Here is a prompt for prayer: "God, I need you. Help me to lean on and trust you, for everything, during every part of every day. Help me to enjoy a vibrant, rich, personal relationship with you. Even when everything else in my world is falling apart, help me like Job to trust in you."