Job 16:6-10 (ESV)
6 “If I speak, my pain is not assuaged,
and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?
7 Surely now God has worn me out;
he has made desolate all my company.
8 And he has shriveled me up,
which is a witness against me,
and my leanness has risen up against me;
it testifies to my face.
9 He has torn me in his wrath and hated me;
he has gnashed his teeth at me;
my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.
10 Men have gaped at me with their mouth;
they have struck me insolently on the cheek;
they mass themselves together against me.
When we suffer we often lose all perspective of what is real and what is not. We are not sure what is happening and we begin to question God, blame God and challenge God. And all that is in the context of when we deserve the suffering. When we see suffering in others we do the same thing. Except, instead of blaming God we blame the one suffering. Think about Job in his moment of innocent suffering. The idea that an innocent man would suffer to the extent Job has, is not in the minds of mankind. Remember, we know the beginning of this story and the ending of it. Those in the story, in the middle of it, including Job, do not. Job’s community only knows (and believes) that when people suffer they must have sinned and therefore deserves it. Job, himself, knowing his innocence, has no context for this type of pain and sorrow. In the above verse note what we learn in this unique moment of his trials:
1. (V. 6). Job has listened to his pathetic friends who can only blame him for this suffering. They have told him to be still and allow God to work. He has tried to be still, he has tried to speak, but nothing removes the pain.
2. (V. 7). Job’s situation is that God has both worn him out and those that once supported him. His company is gone. Except for these three pathetic friends, Job feels abandoned.
3. (V. 8-9). His conditioned is actually a bold witness to those who do see him, that something is wrong. Had those who observed him even considered the concept of innocent suffering, they would have compassion on him. But since his audience (his company) only see suffering has the result of sin, Job is despised and this suffering is their main evidence against him.
4. (V. 10). The reaction of the company around him is horrible. They speak harshly to him. Their words and looks are like strikes of the hand to his cheeks. Collectively they form a mass of humanity pressing him.
Our treatment toward someone during suffering is often tied to our ignorance about the suffering and the bias we have formed through it. Like the sailors with Jonah on the boat, we often simply wonder, “What did you do that is making this happen to you and us?”
Jonah 1:7-8 (ESV)
Jonah Is Thrown into the Sea
And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. Then they said to him, “Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?”
In Jonah’s case it was his sin. He was running from God in disobedience. In Job’s case it was Satan using him as a tool to fight God. We know not the reason. Our response to the suffering of others should not flow from ignorance. It should flow from insight that God provides. As he does with Job’s story.
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