When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, had gotten wind of his troubles (Job 1:13-19), each came from their own country and paid a visit to their friend Job for the purpose of mourning and comforting him (Job 2:11). When they got there, Job was unrecognizable at first sight. They were not prepared for what they were about to see with their own eyes: destruction and desolation; this was not the view you would expect from the wealthiest man in the east.
The stories of what happened to Job were one thing; seeing it with their own eyes was quite another. Job was covered in boils from toe to head and suffering from that malady while his heart was in deep sorrow – his grief was very great (Job 2:13). It had to have been surreal and disturbing.
Job had gone from being the wealthiest and most influential man of all the people in the east to hanging on by a thread, losing everything, his children, many of his servants, and all of his livestock. His friends went to mourning immediately (Job 2:12; cf. Job 2:7-8)! They may or may not have known about Mrs. Job crying out to her husband to curse God and die, before they arrived (Job 2:9). It had to have pierced his heart like a dagger!
For seven days and seven nights his friends spoke not a word to Job (Job 2:13). With Job breaking his silence in Job 3:1, the dialogue between him and his three friends continued on until Job 32:1. Keep in mind, that during these back-and-forth conversations between Job and Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, Job was physically, mentally, and spiritually suffering! After seven days and nights of silence, the mourning by his friends eventually turned to scorn. These men were the coldest of empathizers and counselors.
By Job 32:1, apparently the answers and accusations of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar were unable to convince Job that his integrity had been compromised by personal sin for we read,
So these three men ceased answering Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes (Job 32:1, the collective opinion of his three comforters).
Elihu, another friend of Job, the youngest of the five, picks up the baton in Job 32:2 after everyone was done speaking out of respect to their age (Job 32:4) and revealed he was angry with all four of these men! His anger was aroused against Job after listening to his words. Elihu came to believe that Job justified himself rather than God (Job 32:2). Job had challenged the ways and justice of God! We can empathize with his situation and not really knowing why all of this happened to him and his family, but challenging Yahweh in ignorance is inexcusable.
Elihu was also angry with Job’s three scornful friends (cf. Job 16:20a) because he observed that they had found no answer, and yet had condemned Job (Job 32:3). By Job 37:24, Elihu had finished without interruption, and his anger was vented! There was still unresolved anger, however, that remained to be satisfied, Yahweh’s.
Following Elihu, Yahweh finally answered Job out of the whirlwind in Job 38:1 through Job 41:34 and presented him with over 70 questions of His own to Job! By Job 42:1, Job answers Yahweh (Job 42:1-6). I will cite the last two verses,
(Job
42:5) I have heard of
You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You.
(Job 42:6) Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
Though Job had gone through a meat grinder, he quickly recanted of challenging the ways of Yahweh. Perhaps at the moment, he had forgotten his words to his beloved wife back in Job 2:10b,
Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?
If we truly believe this, we will not question God’s ways (cf. Isa 55:8-9). If we also truly believe that nothing enters our lives without God’s permission, then believers are not victims (cf. Rom 8:28)!
In Job 42:7, Yahweh speaks to Eliphaz the Temanite for the first time in all of this,
My wrath is aroused against you and your two friends [Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, for you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has.
These three “concerned” friends of Job (Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar) had quickly learned that not all of what they had been saying about Yahweh to Job was right, and that Job had spoken what was true about Yahweh, but he did question Yahweh and was rebuked for challenging His ways. God does not have to give an account to none of His creatures! If anyone should foolishly go down that rabbit hole, please be advised not to expect a positive response from Yahweh!
Job’s friends had also made false allegations against him. And ironically, now it would be up to their friend Job, whom they have been beating up while he was down, figuratively speaking, to intervene on their behalf before Yahweh or risk being the object of God’s displeasure! Yahweh was silent concerning Elihu, the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram (Job 32:2).
I would have loved to have heard how that discussion went down between Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar once they discovered their very lives were dependent on Job! Job’s friends would have to seek his forgiveness or else! These friends of Job had literally sinned against God, hence the offering up for themselves a burnt offering, for their folly or sin (Job 42:8).
Job would graciously mediate through prayer to Yahweh for his friends to gain acceptance of his friends’ burnt offerings to appease His anger. Job’s spiritual resume was no fluke, he was a remarkable man who was
Blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil (Job 1:1; cf. Ezra 14:14-20; Jas 5:11).
Nobody ever said Job was perfect, but he was vindicated because he had spoken right about God while his friends made some (not all) erroneous comments concerning the character and works of God in their conversations with Job. What they did was unwise, unfriendly, and unloving.
Fortunately for them, they were wise enough to obey Yahweh to avoid wrath time (Job 42:9). Whatever words were exchanged between Job and his “supporters,” the graciousness of Job and Yahweh is seen in v9, Yahweh had accepted Job [’s prayer on their behalf]. Job was the true friend here, and God had kept His Word. The rascals were Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar.
It has been said, though I cannot recall who said it, that when we sin, we step outside the purpose for which we were created (to bring glory to God through our worship and service to Him), thus violating God’s moral law, and being held accountable to Him for the trespass (cf. Rom 3:23). This stepping outside the purpose for which we were created hurts the violators, hurts others, and fails to bring glory to God.
Since Job’s time predates Moses, the prime directive had yet to be given by God to Moses; it was still future (Deut 6:5; Lev 19:18; cf. Jesus linking the two as inseparable with an inherent priority to love God with the totality of our being: Mk 12:29-30, love for God, and Mk 12:31, love for neighbor). We have the luxury of seeing a violation by Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar of this great principle that genuine love for God precedes a genuine love for people.
When Job’s three friends came to mourn with him and to comfort him (Job 2:11), the word comfort took on a whole new meaning – mourn and scorn! They evaluated Job’s troubles with a wrong understanding of God and misinterpreted Job’s spirituality by the circumstances surrounding him. I do not see a form of love (the agape kind, speaking anachronistically) anywhere in the sympathizing!
Such a principle of the quality of our love for God governs our love for our neighbor may or may not have been circulating in the oral traditions before the Law of Moses was given. Nonetheless, we see through OT and NT teaching that Job’s friends obviously had a love problem with Yahweh, resulting in negative treatment of Job because they were convinced that Job’s calamities were the result of sin which we know from Job 42 was unfounded.
We can’t look at the bad things happening to good people and make a spiritual judgment that sin is in the camp based on ignorance. Speculation is not factual, sufficient, or deserved! How about being given the benefit of the doubt? We will talk a little more about this in Part 2. Many love to project the guilt of sin onto others based upon their own perceived righteousness, having no rational or theological basis whatsoever for believing sin is in the camp!
Self-righteous folks always have a love problem with Yahweh, and you can see it in their rigid rules on life and inflicting hypocritical or unfair judgments upon others, similar to the unloving Pharisees in Jesus’ day who were at zero value in service for God; this makes sense since the majority of their unbelieving members had personally rejected Christ!
Can we as believers be guilty of this very thing of having zero value in service for
Jesus? Yep, whenever we abandon our love for God and are running cold with the
head and hands but without the heart. <><
%20MG%20t-bkgrd%2060x44.png){kind=small}
%20sunflower%20makeover%2045x63.png){kind=small}
