Whose breath has come out from you
Sat, 25 February, 2006: Today’s Bible readings.
2 “How you have helped him who has no power!
How you have saved the arm that has no strength!
3 How you have counseled him who has no wisdom,
and plentifully declared sound knowledge!
4 With whose help have you uttered words,
and whose breath has come out from you?
Today’s reading completes the third and final round of the discourses of the friends of Job.
In today’s reading, Bildad doesn’t bring any specific charge against Job. Instead, he speaks on something they all agree upon: God’s greatness. God is too great for man, a mere worm, to be justified before Him.
Perhaps Bildad is trying to defuse the situation. He knows Job might be right, or he knows Job will not back down, so why fight any more. Or perhaps he sees the position of the friends as only slightly different from Job’s position: The evil perish versus the evil eventually perish. Perhaps Bildad is just so upset that he can’t speak anything to the point.
In any case, his speech makes no new contribution and makes you wonder why he bothered to speak at all. In any case, Bildad is the last of the three friends to speak as Zophar doesn’t even bother to take his turn in this third and final round of discussions.
It is clear that the friends have completely failed to refute Job, and they are giving up on the attempt.
And so Job asks what they intended to do. How does attacking a man when he is in a desperate situation help anything? How can it help to continually heap abuse upon a man who has just lost everything?
Job then asks where such words could possibly come from. These are not the words of counsel from his wise friends, but they come from another source.
What do we learn from this?
I believe Job has realized the true source of the oppression he has been experiencing from his friends. Eliphaz told us in his first speech that the source of his understanding of God’s judgment against man was a spirit that visited him in the night. The three friends then build upon this to claim that Job is clearly guilty because they can see God’s judgment against him. I believe this was an evil spirit and that is the moving power behind this sustained attack against the suffering Job.
In all of this, Job’s friends are arguing Satan’s case to Job. Satan has said that Job will curse God when things go badly, and to this point Job has not done so. He has spoken rashly. But his wife takes Satan’s side and urges him to curse God and die. The three friends keep heaping abuse upon Job, encouraging him to be angry with God. They bring a message of God’s anger and condemnation, and they do not bring a message of God’s love and mercy. The friends are leading Job to despair of God’s love and mercy rather than to find it a source of hope.
Where is Christ in this passage?
It is possible for us to cause great harm for people who are suffering. We can bring a message of condemnation and judgment that crushes those who are weak. And when we do so, although it is not intent, we are uttering the words of Satan.
There is a time to bring the word of God’s anger against sin. But we must be quick to follow it up with the message of God’s love and mercy upon those who are in Christ Jesus. Our goal isn’t to crush them, but to point them to their need for Jesus Christ.
