Job is Sick at Heart
June 10, 2020
Commentary
Job launches into a complaint about his sufferings. His friends mock him (vv. 1-15), his body hurts him (vv. 16-19), his God has deserted him (vv. 20-23), and his hope has fled from him (vv. 24-31). To suffer extreme loss as Job did was humiliating. Job had lost his family, possessions, health, position, and good name. However he was wise enough to know that he needed to escape the memory of the past and face the reality of the present. By refusing to live in the past, and by honestly facing the present, Job took a giant step in maturity and integrity.
He starts out by saying “I have told you how it used to be, but now these young scoundrels come around and throw rocks at me. I would never have hired their fathers to tend my flocks” (v. 1). They were prematurely old, and because of their impoverished condition, they had wasted away (vv. 2-3). Their food consisted of whatever they could scavenge (v. 4). As a result of their condition they were driven into the wastelands where they wandered like wild animals” (vv. 5-8).
Job had become the subject of their mocking songs (v. 9). He was held in contempt, and no one was willing to take up his cause (vv. 10-15). He endured unbearable suffering, and at night God wrestled with him, making his clothes like a straightjacket, and threw him in the mud (vv. 16-23). Job had wept for others (v. 25) but now he cries out for himself (v. 24) as only suffering and darkness came (v. 26). His afflictions brought inner turmoil (v. 27). He could not speak encouraging words to others when he himself was in the pit of discouragement (vv. 28-31).
Application
To suffer extreme loss as Job did was humiliating. But to suffer abuse at the hand of young upstarts added insult to injury. I once heard Jerry Falwell say that he never knew God to use a discouraged person. When I start to get down I can’t live in the past or dwell on the present, but must concentrate on the future hope.
Job 30:1– 31 (NET)
1 “But now they mock me, those who are younger than I, whose fathers I disdained too much to put with my sheep dogs.
2 Moreover, the strength of their hands— what use was it to me? Those whose strength had perished,
3 gaunt with want and hunger, they would roam the parched land, by night a desolate waste.
4 By the brush they would gather herbs from the salt marshes, and the root of the broom tree was their food.
5 They were banished from the community — people shouted at them as they would shout at thieves —
6 so that they had to live in the dry stream beds, in the holes of the ground, and among the rocks.
7 They brayed like animals among the bushes and were huddled together under the nettles.
8 Sons of senseless and nameless people, they were driven out of the land with whips.
9 “And now I have become their taunt song; I have become a byword among them.
10 They detest me and maintain their distance; they do not hesitate to spit in my face.
11 Because God has untied my tent cord and afflicted me, people throw off all restraint in my presence.
12 On my right the young rabble rise up; they drive me from place to place, and build up siege ramps against me.
13 They destroy my path; they succeed in destroying me without anyone assisting them.
14 They come in as through a wide breach; amid the crash they come rolling in.
15 Terrors are turned loose on me; they drive away my honor like the wind, and as a cloud my deliverance has passed away.
16 “And now my soul pours itself out within me; days of suffering take hold of me.
17 Night pierces my bones; my gnawing pains never cease.
18 With great power God grasps my clothing; he binds me like the collar of my tunic.
19 He has flung me into the mud, and I have come to resemble dust and ashes.
20 I cry out to you, but you do not answer me; I stand up, and you only look at me.
21 You have become cruel to me; with the strength of your hand you attack me.
22 You pick me up on the wind and make me ride on it; you toss me about in the storm.
23 I know that you are bringing me to death, to the meeting place for all the living.
24 “Surely one does not stretch out his hand against a broken man when he cries for help in his distress.
25 Have I not wept for the unfortunate? Was not my soul grieved for the poor?
26 But when I hoped for good, trouble came; when I expected light, then darkness came.
27 My heart is in turmoil unceasingly; the days of my affliction confront me.
28 I go about blackened, but not by the sun; in the assembly I stand up and cry for help.
29 I have become a brother to jackals and a companion of ostriches.
30 My skin has turned dark on me; my body is hot with fever.
31 My harp is used for mourning and my flute for the sound of weeping.