I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Job 1-5.

There are a lot of things that can be learned from studying the opening chapters of the Book of Job.  I want to focus on Job’s response to suffering misfortune.  When Job received news that he had lost all of his worldly possessions and that his children had been killed in a disaster, all on the same day, he threw himself on the ground in grief and worshiped God.  Then later when he was struck with a terrible illness and his wife advised him to curse God and die, he declined to do so.  Job was willing to accept both the good and the bad which came from God.  Job continued to worship and praise God even as he suffered.  Doing so is not easy and human nature spurs us to do as Job’s wife advised, but following Job’s example will bring us joy in due time.

Eventually, Job expressed the wish that he had never been born.  Such a response to suffering such as Job’s is perfectly understandable.  Job’s friend Eliphaz felt a need to respond to his friend’s deep depression, which is only natural.  We need to read what Eliphaz says here in light of the fact that at the end of this book God takes him to task for what he said to Job.  And here I find it quite clear what Eliphaz did wrong.  He begins by telling Job that he is wrong to be depressed by what he is experiencing.  Even the good advice which Eliphaz gives in the middle of this monologue becomes a sort of condemnation because of the rest of what he says.  Certainly it is good advice to suggest that those who suffer depression, whether they do so in isolation or as a result of other suffering, take it to God, because God has indeed done wonderful things which are too marvelous to understand, but Eliphaz worded his suggestion so as to imply that Job had not already done so.  In a way. Eliphaz’s response to Job suggests that Job’s suffering is not real.  When we encounter those who are suffering, we should strive to remember that their suffering is real, even if the cause may not be.  Perhaps Eliphaz meant to suggest to Job that pretending to be happy would help his situation.  That would not have been bad advice, sometimes pretending to feel a particular emotion will cause us to feel that emotion.  It probably would not have helped in this case.  I will repeat that Eliphaz was wrong to suggest that Job was in the wrong for feeling badly about the suffering he was enduring.