What Job and I Both Know is True
Job's friend Eliphaz, who speaks in chapters 4 and 5, really had me going this morning. He seems to care deeply about Job and to know God's character well. I was cheering him on as I read, although I had a niggling thought in the back of my head that I might be interpreting something incorrectly because Job's friends don't have a great reputation among Bible scholars. That nagging thought caused me to read with more discernment, and this is what I discovered.
Eliphaz shows some compassion to Job, acknowledging so much of his pain. I would love it if someone recognized so precisely how exhausted I was! He says, essentially, "you're so tired from all this you can't even think straight! You have been the one to encourage me in the past, but now you're the one who needs it." (chapter 4, verses 1-5, my paraphrase)
Aaaw! Such a good friend.
Keep reading through verse 11 and it's easy to see what Eliphaz is saying as simple common sense. His words echo the Proverbs. "In my experience, those who plow injustice and those who sow trouble reap the same."
Same, Eliphaz. I've seen it too.
Later in chapter 5 he says something that had me grabbing my highlighter: "For distress does not grow out of the soil, and trouble does not sprout from the ground. But humans are born for trouble as surely as sparks fly upward." I can hear my grandpa muttering it right now as he builds a fire. Humans, man. We mess everything up.
Eliphaz knows about God and men. He lists some of my favorite qualities of God, plus all the ways God provides for those who trust Him. "He does great and unsearchable things, wonders without number...he saves the needy...so the poor have hope, and injustice shuts its mouth." Eliphaz also rightly praises people who receive discipline from God as wise, happy, and redeemed.
At first glance, he seems like a pretty wise guy, like he's spent a lot of time reading the Proverbs. I want to throw my hands up and ask, "where's the lie?"
But at second glance, and especially after reading Job's response in chapter 6, I see it.
It's an ancient lie, one that always begins with the same question of the serpent in the tree. "Did God really say...?"
The first clue is in chapter 5:6, "isn't your piety your confidence and the integrity of your life your hope? Consider: who has perished when he was innocent?"
Um, lots of people.
The Bible is clear that no man is innocent, that all have sinned and fallen short of perfection. But Eliphaz is asking Job to figure out which sin he committed that brought God to cause all this calamity. Job's not saying he's without sin, but his response indicates he believes he's above reproach. No one is innocent before God, but people are wrongly, falsely accused of crimes, innocent children are abused, wars cause the deaths of thousands caught up in political fights bigger than them. And throughout the scriptures, God champions the causes of those who have been treated unjustly. From Eliphaz's perspective, our relationship with God is transactional: if we are righteous and good, God will bless us. God deals harshly with the unjust and unrepentant, but he gives mercy to the humble. In his mind, innocent men don't suffer, foolish ones do. So Job must not be innocent.
It sounds true, because his advice is embedded with other truths like "anger kills a fool" (vs. 2), "the children of a fool aren't safe" (4), "God will set the lowly the high" (11), "those who do not reject the discipline of the Almighty are happy" (17). If there are any lessons I want my children to learn the easy way, it's these "don't be foolish" ones. Maybe Eliphaz speaks from experience about the consequences of foolish behavior. But he wrongly makes a promise out of a proverb—there is no guarantee in scripture that being wise will result in avoiding calamity.
Eliphaz sounds like a righteous preacher at the pulpit, proclaiming God’s holiness. He asks, "can a mortal be righteous before God?"
But it appears that Job knew something his friend Eliphaz didn’t. He put his hope not in his own righteousness, though he was confident his trials were not the result of his own sins, but in the righteousness of Someone else.
Jesus wasn't born yet, but Job knew Him.
"For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth."
Job 19:25
Jesus was mortal, He died on the cross. But He was innocent, and therefore capable of redeeming all of humanity by His death and resurrection. I am mortal, and I deserve to die for my sins. But I have put my trust in Jesus' righteousness, His innocent death on the cross, and therefore I, a mere mortal, am made righteous before God.
"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."
2 Corinthians 5:21
Hallelujah, what a Savior. A mortal can be righteous before God.
This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "True".