Today, I am reading and commenting on Job 16-21.
As I have read the Book of Job time and again in order to write this blog each year I have become convinced that it is only toward the end of this passage that Job begins to say things for which God rebukes him at the end of the book. In his first two monologues in today’s passage, Job acknowledges that he has an intercessor/advocate who stands before God pleading his case. The following statement from the first of Job’s three monologues in this passage expresses the great hope which all Christians have in Christ:
Even now my witness is in heaven;
my advocate is on high.
My intercessor is my friend
as my eyes pour out tears to God;
on behalf of a man he pleads with God
as one pleads for a friend.
Yet even after hearing Job’s plea that their arguments offer him no comfort, nor provide him with a path to reduce his suffering, Bildad continues to argue that the righteous will prosper and that those who suffer are wicked. To which, Job replies that such an argument offers him no comfort because God denies him justice, which is the point where Job begins to say things which lead God to rebuke him at the end (although not as great of a rebuke as that which God gives to his friends). But even here Job expresses a thought which every Christian I know holds dear.
I know that my redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
It is only after Zophar once more makes the claim that the wicked always suffer upon this earth that Job points out that this is not the case. Sometimes, often times, it seems as if the wicked do not suffer in this life at all. Perhaps the thing we can most do to comfort ourselves about the wicked who seem to live a life of ease with no concerns is remember, that for them the promise that they will see God with their own eyes is not something which gives joy.
I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.