Empathy Trumps Judgment - Job 6-7

Job 7:4-6 (ESV)

When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’

But the night is long,

and I am full of tossing till the dawn.

My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt;

my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh.

My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle

and come to their end without hope.

You can’t read Job without reading one of the first verses and reading one of the last:  

Job 1:8 (ESV)   And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?”    

Job 42:1-2 (ESV) Then Job answered the LORD and said: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

Job is in the midst of a very deep depression.    He sees the darkness of death without the lens of hope.   In the above passage he is not just using metaphorical words to describe his experience, he is actually sitting on the side of the road, scrapping the boils on his skin:

Job 2:7-8 (ESV)

So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes.

When he states, “My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt; my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh,” he is not just making it up and using hyperbole.  As we read scripture it is important that we capture the real moment we are reading about.   When Job’s three friends showed up they see Job on the side of the road.   They came to encourage him.  They left apologizing and asking his forgivness for the way they judged him (see Job 42:7-9).    They failed to really capture Job’s mental, physical and spiritual condition.  We can do this when we work with others.   The first friend,  Eliphaz, has already given Job and ear full.   What Job needs right now is to see God’s love and compassion.   That is what happens at the end of the book by a fourth friend, Elihu.  When we work with others we need to really see their pain and point them to the one who shared their pain and can heal their pain vs beating them up with our words.