Job 7 – A Distinguished Gentlemen!

In our last declaration we discovered that Bildad who is described as the “traditionalist” of the

group by most commentators pretty much picked up where Eliphaz left off except his tone was a bit more aggressive to me.  He insinuates that Job’s hypocritical lifestyle has caused his own calamity and that his children were killed because they too lived ungodly lives.

Have you ever been in a situation where you knew you were innocent (not necessarily of a crime, per se’) but the more you tried to explain or defend your position the worse it appeared to get?  I have and it is utterly frustrating especially if your accuser already has it out for you and/or they are set in their ways.  I don’t know about you but when I’m not feeling well I don’t have the grace to put up with a lot of foolishness or rhetoric especially if it is something that is not favorable.  It’s best to talk to me when I’m feeling like myself.  Can you imagine Job’s level of frustration?

In Chapter 9 Job response to Bildad is far more courteous and gentlemanly than his “traditionally religious” friend Bildad whose monologue was in my opinion harsh and disrespectful no matter how well intended.  The bottom line is that Bildad was rude and I believe arrogant at least in this instance because his message was not delivered with love and humility.  How can a person accept “truth” from a rude messenger? 

Job first starts off by talking about the wisdom of God, a point that none of them could argue and then he agreed with the general premise of Bildad’s message, that God rewards the righteous and corrects (or judges) sinners.  Not only was it true, it was a smooth move on Job’s part because it disarmed the Three Amigos (Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar) and stroked Bildad’s ego all at the same time.  Whether or not that was Job’s intention is not clear but it doesn’t change the dynamic.  Job obviously suffered more than normal; yet no one could rightly accuse him of sinning more than normal. If Job was not righteous before God, then how could any man be?    

Because we are dealing with the Patriarchal era it is important for me to reiterate righteousness in two senses as I have done previously:

1.     A “relative sense” as both Noah (Genesis 7:1 -- Next God said to Noah, “Now board the ship, you and all your family—out of everyone in this generation, you’re the righteous one.) and Job (Job 1:1 -- Job was a man who lived in Uz. He was honest inside and out, a man of his word, who was totally devoted to God and hated evil with a passion.) were so considered.

2.     A “forensic sense” declared and considered righteous by God through faith (Romans 5:18-19 -- Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right.

Job knew far better than the Three Amigos that he was committed to the commitment.  He walked the walk and talked the talk.  People didn’t have to wonder if he was a man of God (and I don’t mean a preacher either).  He lived out loud as an upright man before God.  He was the priest of his home, he taught his children to reverence and respect God, he interceded for his children, loved his wife and though it was acceptable in his culture he had a monogamous relationship with MJ (Mrs. Job).  That lifestyle carried over into his business as a fair employer.  He gave wise counsel to countless people, helped where he could and gave of himself.  He wasn’t about to allow his friends steal his testimony or guilt him into thinking he was not what he knew he was, a righteous man of God.  The bigger question to the Three was:  “I don’t mean no harm fella’s but if I’m not righteous before God then who is?”  Don’t be offended by that statement because it’s not arrogance, its assurance.  Job understood that no one could debate with God and though we can ask questions of God, we cannot ever demand answers.   Consider Job’s statements;

·       Job praised the might of God and all of his splendor, creation – the sun, moon, stars, heavens, mountains, etc. but that was no comfort to him because when he considered the vastness of God’s creation it made him feel even more insignificant and more distant than ever.

·       Job agreed with a second premise of Bildad that one is never blessed by hardening one's self against God. Yet Job did not think that this principle applied to himself in this situation, because he knew in his heart that he had not hardened himself against God. 

·       Job was well aware of the great works of God in the universe, there was no arguing the majesty and power of God but the greatness and might of God didn’t comfort Job; it made him feel that God was too great to either notice or care.  Mind you, Job’s perception of God was not the truth, it was merely his state of thinking during these “discussions”. 

It almost seems like Job is crying out to his friends:  “Why is God so hard to figure out?”  But as far as they were concerned, God wasn’t hard to figure out.  The problem was simple to them, Job had sinned in some bad and unusual way, therefore all this disaster came upon him. Unfortunately for Job, he didn’t have Job 1:1-2 as a point of reference like we do so he had to rely on his own heart and integrity and he knew that God was not so simple to figure out.

I’m out of time, we’ll have to pick up tomorrow but I want to close on this.  Job was in a deep state of depression no different than the Prophet Elijah (1 Kings 19) from the hit placed on him by Jezebel and Jonah (Jonah 1) from warning the people of Nineveh to repent.  The difference in the circumstances was that they were both running from something.  Job wasn’t running but he was depressed no less and was in the midst of a full blown pity party on the edge of bitterness, so clearly his friends counsel wasn’t working.  Lastly Job knew God as the creator, not for his tender mercies nor did he have the advantage of knowing the Messiah (God wrapped in flesh) as the Redeemer the New Testament, the great High Priest or the Comforter, thus the loneliness was magnified by one million.

In His New Excellence,

Tania Not Tanya