As for me, is my complaint against man?
Why should I not be impatient?
Look at me and be appalled,
and lay your hand over your mouth.
Job has just heard the final argument about his disaster from Zophar, one of his three friends. Zophar, like the other two friends, has given a brief, but condemning reason for Job’s plight: He is wicked. Zophar uses his own observation to make the claim that only the wicked suffer the way Job is suffering. Since the wicked suffer like this and Job is suffering like them, Job must be wicked. This is Zophar’s philosophy of life. In chapter 21, Job is about to counter Zophar’s argument with his own philosophy, based upon his own observations. To Job the wicked actually enjoy life and live with impunity throughout their days. Both men live in this world, but they observe two different experiences. Both are right. Zophar is correct, the wicked do receive punishment for their wickedness. Albeit not always on this earth and now always quickly in their time frame. Job is correct, also, that the wicked in this world seem to live at ease and have no fear of God. They seem to not need Him in their lives. But they do, eventually, suffer deeply for ignoring God. The case here in this argument is not who is right but rather how should they handle Job’s case. Job’s friends have no place in their thinking for Job’s innocent suffering. He tells them that he is not there to argue with them. His complaint is not against men, he states. His complaint is against God. He is suffering and wants God to explain it to him. While he awaits God’s answer, he demands that these men, who came to comfort him, look at him. At this point, these three have become so ingrained in their arguments against Job, they have ceased to see Job. Remember when they first saw him, when they traveled from afar and laid their eyes on Job’s condition?
Job 2:11-13 (ESV)
Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him. And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.
Job remembers that day. He remembers them looking on him in pity. They now look at him piety. He now tells them to lay your hand over your mouth as they see him, again. That is exactly what they did the first time. Twenty chapters later, however, they are no longer appalled about Job’s condition they are now arguing about Job’s philosophical position. How quickly we as a people can turn from empathy and sympathy to judgment and sarcasm. These friends have turned from sitting in silence to standing in judgment. Job wants them to just look at him. He needs someone to see him as he is. Instead of showing Job compassion, these men are no longer seeing Job’s condition and are not trying to comfort him. They are looking away from Job’s physical and psychological and spiritual pain and are instead justifying their own philosophical positions. This is so true of our world today. We do not see the pain, we only want to justify our thought about its cause. Jesus came to the woman at the well and saw her pain. Jesus came to the death of Lazarus and wept because he saw the pain of the people. We do not have the mind of Christ because we are too busy exalting our own mindset. We would do well to be friends who really look at those in pain.
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