Job 3

¹ After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. ² And Job said: ³ “Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’ ⁴ Let that day be darkness! May God above not seek it, nor light shine upon it. ⁵ Let gloom and deep darkness claim it. Let clouds dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. ⁶ That night—let thick darkness seize it! Let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months. ⁷ Behold, let that night be barren; let no joyful cry enter it. ⁸ Let those curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up Leviathan. ⁹ Let the stars of its dawn be dark; let it hope for light, but have none, nor see the eyelids of the morning, ¹⁰ because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hide trouble from my eyes. ¹¹ “Why did I not die at birth, come out from the womb and expire? ¹² Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should nurse? ¹³ For then I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept; then I would have been at rest, ¹⁴ with kings and counselors of the earth who rebuilt ruins for themselves, ¹⁵ or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver. ¹⁶ Or why was I not as a hidden stillborn child, as infants who never see the light? ¹⁷ There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest. ¹⁸ There the prisoners are at ease together; they hear not the voice of the taskmaster. ¹⁹ The small and the great are there, and the slave is free from his master. ²⁰ “Why is light given to him who is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, ²¹ who long for death, but it comes not, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures, ²² who rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they find the grave? ²³ Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in? ²⁴ For my sighing comes instead of my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water. ²⁵ For the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. ²⁶ I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest, but trouble comes.”

Job 4

¹ Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said: ² “If one ventures a word with you, will you be impatient? Yet who can keep from speaking? ³ Behold, you have instructed many, and you have strengthened the weak hands. ⁴ Your words have upheld him who was stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees. ⁵ But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed. ⁶ Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope? ⁷ “Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? ⁸ As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same. ⁹ By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed. ¹⁰ The roar of the lion, the voice of the fierce lion, the teeth of the young lions are broken. ¹¹ The strong lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered. ¹² “Now a word was brought to me stealthily; my ear received the whisper of it. ¹³ Amid thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men ¹⁴ dread came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake. ¹⁵ A spirit glided past my face; the hair of my flesh stood up. ¹⁶ It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes; there was silence, then I heard a voice: ¹⁷ ‘Can mortal man be in the right before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker? ¹⁸ Even in his servants he puts no trust, and his angels he charges with error; ¹⁹ how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed like the moth. ²⁰ Between morning and evening they are beaten to pieces; they perish forever without anyone regarding it. ²¹ Is not their tent-cord plucked up within them, do they not die, and that without wisdom?’

The following came in the mail this past week on a glossy flier from the Pruet School of Religion at Ouachita Baptist University:

6th Annual Conference on Issues in Christian Counseling

2016 Topic: Depression

Minister’s Banquet – Thursday, February 25 – 6 p.m.

Counseling Conference – Friday, February 26

The titles of the breakout sessions are telling:

Depression: Illness or Choice

Cultural and Social Construct Influences on Depression and Individual Responses

Pharmacotherapeutic Management of Depression

Dark Nights and Depression: Exploring Salutary Depression for Believers

Pastoral Care of Depressed Persons

Test Everything and Hold Onto What is Good: Using Christian Cognitive Therapy for Treating Depression in Teens

Ministry Skills for Youth Ministers[1]

It strikes me as interesting that there is an entire conference on handling depression through Christian counseling. The breakout session titles hint at the complexity of the issues involved and the wide range of focus hints at the number of people who are affected by depression. Depression is a powerful thing and a pervasive thing. If the depressed person cannot pull free from its grasp, it can end in a sense of ultimate and crippling despair.

Stephen Lawson has passed along a fascinating story told by the great German reformer Martin Luther.

            Martin Luther told a parable in which the devil was listening to his demons report their progress in destroying the souls of men. One evil spirit said, “There was a company of Christians crossing the desert, and I loosed the lions upon them. Soon the sands of the desert were strewn with their mangled corpses.”

            “But what good is that?” barked Satan. “The lions destroyed their bodies, but their souls were saved. It is their souls I am after.”

            Then another unclean spirit gave his evil report: “There was a company of Christian pilgrims sailing through the sea on a vessel. I sent a great wind which drove the ship on the rocks, and every Christian aboard was drowned.”

            But Satan retorted, “What good is that? Their bodies were drowned in the sea, but their souls were saved. It is their souls I am after.”

            Then a third fallen angel stepped forward to give his fiendish report: “For ten years I have been trying to cast one particular Christian into a deep despair and depression. At last, I have succeeded.” And with that report, the corridors of hell rang with shouts of triumph. The sinister mission had been accomplished. The soul of a believer had been defeated.[2]

I do not share this story to suggest that those who are depressed are somehow possessed by the devil. Rather, I share it to make the simple and fairly obvious point that the depression is a weapon the devil often uses to drive people to utter despair.

Job 3 represents, I believe, a classic statement out of the depths of depression and despair. In it, Job, sitting in the ruins of his life, finally speaks, and his words are dark and painful words.

Job announces that it would be better for him if (a) he had not been born or (b) he could go ahead and die, both of which are realities that belong in the hands of God.

In chapter 3, Job openly laments his very existence. He does so before his watching friends after they have all sat silently for seven days. It is hard to imagine a much more painful outburst than what we witness here.

¹ After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. ² And Job said: ³ “Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’ ⁴ Let that day be darkness! May God above not seek it, nor light shine upon it. ⁵ Let gloom and deep darkness claim it. Let clouds dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. ⁶ That night—let thick darkness seize it! Let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months. ⁷ Behold, let that night be barren; let no joyful cry enter it. ⁸ Let those curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up Leviathan. ⁹ Let the stars of its dawn be dark; let it hope for light, but have none, nor see the eyelids of the morning, ¹⁰ because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hide trouble from my eyes. ¹¹ “Why did I not die at birth, come out from the womb and expire? ¹² Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should nurse? ¹³ For then I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept; then I would have been at rest, ¹⁴ with kings and counselors of the earth who rebuilt ruins for themselves, ¹⁵ or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver. ¹⁶ Or why was I not as a hidden stillborn child, as infants who never see the light? ¹⁷ There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest. ¹⁸ There the prisoners are at ease together; they hear not the voice of the taskmaster. ¹⁹ The small and the great are there, and the slave is free from his master. ²⁰ “Why is light given to him who is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, ²¹ who long for death, but it comes not, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures, ²² who rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they find the grave? ²³ Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in? ²⁴ For my sighing comes instead of my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water. ²⁵ For the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. ²⁶ I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest, but trouble comes.”

I wish I had never been born! Truth be told, this may be a thought that many folks, at one time or another, have had. Job proclaims this, but he actually proclaims even more than this. J. Gerald Janzen points out that in verses 3-10, Job’s curses move from the day of his birth backwards to the night of his conception and in verses 11-16, Job moves from the idea of his dying in childbirth backwards to his dying in the womb before birth.[3]

It is not only that Job wishes he had never been born, it is also that he wishes he had never been conceived. It is not only that Job wishes he had died in childbirth, it is also that he wishes he had died before childbirth, died in the womb. This is a powerful statement arising from deep anguish of the soul.

There is also a theological component in Job’s complaint, a kind of parodying of creation itself. Steven Chase points out that whereas God in Genesis 1 said, “Let there be light!” Job in Job 3 said, “Let there be darkness!”[4] What is more, as Janzen notes, the creation account of Genesis begins with “let there be light” and ends with the giving of rest. Job 3 begins with “let there be darkness” and ends in verse 26 with, “I have no rest.”

This raises the question of whether or not Job sins in chapter 3, whether or not Job curses God in chapter 3. Truth be told, it is hard to say. The parodying of Genesis 1 comes closest to suggesting that he did, but it should be observed that Job never actually curses God Himself. True, he curses his own conception and birth, but he does stop short of cursing God.

To curse one’s conception and birth is indeed a serious thing, for, in so doing, one is cursing what God called good. More than that, in questioning why he had not been allowed to die, Job was questioning yet another reality that should reside only in the hands of God.

Even so, it must be kept in mind that grief and anguish are messy things, that people grieve differently, that our theology in the crucible of pain has sharper edges than our theology in the green fields of ease, and that no man or woman of God should be judged solely and wholly by what they say when they are hurting in profound ways.

This should be kept in mind within the Church. We should show grace and mercy to those who are in pain. We often give vent to the most unsettling questions when we are suffering. Some do not. Some do. It seems like an injustice to parse the anguished exclamations of a broken heart from a safe distance when one has never walked the particular path of suffering that another is walking.

I have learned this in my own ministry: your presence is of more value than your words. As we will see, Job’s friends miss this point, and worse, but we must not. Simply being near, being patient, refusing to judge the anguished cries of the suffering, and loving the suffering friend with a deep sense of understanding and grace is the calling of the people of God. There will come a time for talking, but even then it must be careful.

We should be careful with Job 3. Any of us might sound like this at any time. It does not mean that the one who speaks such in the midst of pain has abandoned Jesus. It may only mean that they are trying to hold on as best they can in the midst of a catastrophic tragedy by shouting a theology devoid of nuance and dispassion.

Eliphaz counters that Job simply must have sinned. In so doing, Eliphaz upheld the faulty formula and showed a lack of sympathy for a genuinely grieving friend.

Of all the pain Job endured, the pain of prying and unsympathetic friends may have been the worst. In the aftermath of his cry of agony, Eliphaz speaks. In doing so, Eliphaz demonstrates the power of the old and faulty formula that the book of Job is seeking to shatter.

¹ Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said: ² “If one ventures a word with you, will you be impatient? Yet who can keep from speaking? ³ Behold, you have instructed many, and you have strengthened the weak hands. ⁴ Your words have upheld him who was stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees. ⁵ But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed. ⁶ Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope? ⁷ “Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? ⁸ As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same. ⁹ By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed. ¹⁰ The roar of the lion, the voice of the fierce lion, the teeth of the young lions are broken. ¹¹ The strong lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered. ¹² “Now a word was brought to me stealthily; my ear received the whisper of it. ¹³ Amid thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men ¹⁴ dread came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake. ¹⁵ A spirit glided past my face; the hair of my flesh stood up. ¹⁶ It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes; there was silence, then I heard a voice: ¹⁷ ‘Can mortal man be in the right before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker? ¹⁸ Even in his servants he puts no trust, and his angels he charges with error; ¹⁹ how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed like the moth. ²⁰ Between morning and evening they are beaten to pieces; they perish forever without anyone regarding it. ²¹ Is not their tent-cord plucked up within them, do they not die, and that without wisdom?’

Steven Chase points out that Eliphaz is appealing to “the ancient concept of justice” or “the doctrine of retributive justice” that says “the righteous will be blessed and the evil will be punished by God in this life; and conversely…if one is blessed he or she must be righteous, and if one is punished he or she must be evil.”[5] That is what I am calling the “faulty formula” to which Eliphaz adheres. It is a critical mistake.

One of the most pernicious effects of the faulty formula is that it short-circuits actual care and compassion and causes those who should be comforting a suffering friend to diagnose a cause instead. Conversely, one of the liberating things about realizing how faulty the old formula is is that we are thereby liberated from the need to assess and are freed to be for our friend what we need to be. Jettisoning this overly-simplistic approach to suffering allows us to come down from our judge’s chair and simply be a friend.

Eliphaz, however, is still in the clutches of this unfortunate way of thinking and it manifests itself in his approach to Job. After reminding Job that he, Job, had himself offered words to those who were struggling, Eliphaz commences to dispense some of his own verbal medicine. When one watches the flow of Eliphaz’s thoughts, however, it is evident that he is bent on forcing Job into the pre-fabricated template of retributive justice. So, for instance:

• In verse 6 Eliphaz explicitly ties Job’s confidence in his own integrity, thereby insinuating that if his confidence now fails him it must be because his integrity does not, in fact, remain unblemished. Job, in other words, must have sinned to be struck thus by God.

• In verses 7-11, Eliphaz waxes eloquent on the faulty formula by reminding Job that the wicked are punished and the good are blessed. The uncomfortable and profoundly unhelpful conclusion could hardly have been missed by Job.

• In verses 12-21, Eliphaz next waxes mystical, telling Job that he has had a most unsettling vision in which “a spirit” came by him and implicated all of creation of sin. In saying this, Eliphaz not only attempted to make himself an actual oracle for allegedly divine truth, but he seemed to be trying to prod Job into a confession of his sin by reminding him that, after all, everybody sins.

The upshot of these components of Eliphaz’s speech is that Job was deprived on the comfort he so desperately needed and was subjected instead to a less-than-subtle suggestion that Job had, in the end, brought his deplorable state upon himself. Put another way, Eliphaz foisted his pre-fabricated and highly deficient theology of suffering of poor Job. In this way, Eliphaz was implicitly using Job’s own suffering to buttress his, Eliphaz’s, own notions of the way that reality works.

It is a powerful temptation, this desire to be judge and jury over life’s calamities. It is also a profoundly insulting thing to do. Perhaps we play the part of Eliphaz the Temanite because we realize that if we were to jettison our nice, neat explanations for suffering, we might have to accept that there is indeed some mystery about these things, that we might not have God pinned down in quite the way we want, that His ways might indeed be mysterious and even perplexing, and that we might have to learn to trust more deeply in the deep providences of the God who sometimes allows His beloved children to suffer.

Nothing so frightens the erstwhile theologian like the possibility that – gasp! – he might not actually know it all. I hope I can be forgiven for suggesting that Eliphaz sounds like somebody who has just graduated from seminary and who, fortified with their newly minted diploma that says “Master of Divinity,” sets out to explain the deep things of God to those mired in ignorance. In truth, Eliphaz felt that he had mastered divinity, and in lecturing suffering Job, he actually seemed to think that he was doing him a favor.

Hear me: when your friend is suffering, he does not need a master, he needs a friend. Your suffering friend does not need your hypotheses on why, he simply needs you to be near and to love him. When your friend is in the pit of anguish, she does not need your judgment, she needs your understanding and your grace.

Beware the temptation to explain!

Beware the temptation to fix!

Beware the temptation to diagnose!

Beware the temptation to probe!

Christian friend, it is in suffering that we are most privileged to be the hands and feet and voice of Christ to those in need. For it is in the sufferings of Christ that we find the only true safe harbor for the weary and weeping soul.

Do not give your suffering friend your wisdom. Give your suffering friend the cross of Christ that reminds them that there is One who is wise enough to speak and One who has hurt enough to sympathize and One who has emerged victorious in order to carry us through the valley of the shadow of death.

Give them Jesus, friends. Give them Jesus.

 

[1] https://www.obu.edu/christianstudies/files/2016/01/2016-ICCC-BROCHURE.pdf

[2] Steven J. Lawson, Job. Holman Old Testament Commentary. Vo.10 (Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2004), p.33-34.

[3] J. Gerald Janzen, Job. Interpretation. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1985), p.64.

[4] Steven Chase, Job. Belief. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), p.31.

[5] Steven Chase, p.40.