A Reflecton on Job 19:26-29

Bring it on Lord! I can take it!! - I hope!

a reflection on Job 19:26-29

by @minidvr for #digidisciple 10^th June 2014

The #Bigbible website lists Job as a book of ‘Wisdom’, which was a surprise to me as I thought that it was a book of ‘Lament’ it certainly reads like one. Job is the victim in the story. An upright and steadfast man, who ‘fears God’ a term which speaks of his faith, belief and hope in God’s mercy and mankind’s ultimate redemption from sin and wickedness. But also smacks of an element of self righteousness

Job is set up for Satan by God. My interpretation is a test of God’s power over Satan, rather than a deliberate persecution of Job. Somehow this speaks volumes for God’s faith in Job’s steadfast faith, and perhaps above all hope that despite whatever befalls him, God’s bountiful mercy will prevail.

Satan arranges for Job to lose everything, sons, daughters, animals, possessions, servants. Job laments, but remains steadfastly committed to God. Satan next attacks Job’s health and

 sends painful, unsightly disease on Job. Job is on the very edge and even his wife turns on him and tells him to curse and scapegoat God ^(V2.9) but Job refuses ^(V.2:20) and continues to praise God.

Next, Satan sends Job’s friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite ^(V2:11). Job’s friends at first attempt to console him, than, perhaps provoked by Satan turn on him and condemn him Job responds with cursing his life, and wishing that he’d never been born ^{(Job 3)}. But God responds and answers all Job’s questions and complaints, thoroughly in the form of a correction ^{(Job 5)} ending in  ”You shall come to your grave in ripe old age, as a shock of grain comes up to the threshing-floor in its season. See, we have searched this out; it is true.   Hear, and know it for yourself”.^{(Job 5:26-27)}.

The verses from the whole book that jump out to me are: Job19:26-29 - where Job accepts his lot, and reflecting on the Lord’s words, expresses great faith and hope in God’s redemptive power:

²⁵ For I know that my Redeemer lives,    and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;
²⁶ and after my skin has been thus destroyed,    then in my flesh I shall see God,
²⁷ whom I shall see on my side,
    and my eyes shall behold, and not another.    My heart faints within me!²⁸ If you say, “How we will persecute him!”    and, “The root of the matter is found in him”;²⁹ be afraid of the sword,    for wrath brings the punishment of the sword,    so that you may know there is a judgment’

But Job still goes on to justify his right to complain against what he perceives God permitting his suffering at the hands of Satan, ^{(Job 6)}. He reflects and rails against his suffering ^{(Job 7)}. Job rejects Bildad’s contention that he should repent ^{(Job 8),} Job saying that there’s no umpire between him and God, and that God knows that he fears him and has done no wrong. And the story proceeds through many chapters, where wisdom is given and Job eventually relents that he has been justifying himself and not God. God relents and restores Job’s fortunes two fold ^{(Job 42:10-17).}

So what is this all about?

It seems to me that the whole book is about the nature of God, a God who has made himself known to us through creation and throughout the history of mankind in so many ways. But is still a mystery beyond our pure, limited understanding. But it’s also about our inability to recognise that the nature of God is infinite and inestimable. We can seek to comprehend it in words, pictures or actions, but our comprehension as St Paul says “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” ^{(1 Cor:13:12)}. It also speaks to me about suffering and how it’s borne.

Rev Pam Smith in her introduction to Job writes

“We may find it harder that Job does to accept that the answer to ‘Why does God allow suffering?’ is simply‘That’s God’s business’”. 

I have thought long and hard about suffering. My own father departed this life after a long illness, impatiently borne. He professed a belief in God, but his actions betrayed that the belief he held was much like a superstition, rather than one founded on a deep faith and trust and love for God, which might have sustained him in his illness. His life ended with great pain and ongoing operations to remove gangrenous parts of his body, until it could no longer function and he succumbed to toximia and pneumonia.

My father’s life and and death had a profound effect on my own life. For many years it drove me away from the God who I perceived as merciless and cruel - in fact, I couldn’t believe that a God who was supposed to be love, would allow such suffering. I turned away, unlike Job, who at least stayed and complained and I ignored God completely.

I can’t say that I still get suffering. Once I found God once more, my personal experience of his love and mercy in my life and the peace and reconciliation is profound. It comes from allowing his presence in your life in a spirit of hope, faith, love and trust. This has been a blessed gift. It has shown me that suffering can be borne in hope. Suffering is shared with that of Jesus on the Cross, who suffered and died for our redemption. Suffering may be laid at the foot of the Cross and the spiritual healing and peace that flows from that can restore balance into any life, not just mine. It’s not a cure or a promise of a cure, but a consolation worth more if we are able to accept it.

I know that I have shouted at God at times. I know that I have asked him the Why! question often, and somehow, like Job, the answer has become clear, sometimes through my own actions, but more often from the actions or words of others whose witness through faith has shone out to me so many time. I can’t claim that God spoke directly to me as he did to Job, but I know that trust and hope have been given to me through his actions in a way that I can have no doubt about.

I don’t have any smart conclusions - Job is to big for that, but I leave you to reflect on the words of Job 42:1-7:

42 Then Job answered the Lord:

² ‘I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.³ “Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?” Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,  things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.⁴ “Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.”⁵ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you;⁶ therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.’

 This post originally posted at www.bigbible.org/digidisciple on 10th June 2014