Main news for 21 January 2025

Job rightly says that his suffering outweighs his friends' exhortations, and therefore his words are unrestrained. But his sufferings begin to exceed even Job's ability to bear them, and for the first time he expresses the wish to die.

It often happens that sinful desires which we directly and consciously reject take root secretly in the soul, undermine the will, and in one form or another try to take possession of us. Something similar happens to Job. He does not appear to blaspheme God, but in essence he follows the advice of his wife that he had initially rejected: "curse God and die." But refusal of the life given by Him very often reveals a refusal of Him Himself.

Job's position before God is unstable, but in the face of his friends it is stronger; therefore Job firmly rejects their speeches, filled with shallow self-confidence. His friends proceed from general considerations, but they do not understand the real pain of the person before them. Job's confidence that he is right can be challenged and will be challenged by God, but it is supported by pain, which his friends lack.

Job 6:1-2

NOTES

Of course, Job has nothing to say in reply to Eliphaz about what has been said. But he understands perfectly...

Of course, Job has nothing to say in reply to Eliphaz about what has been said. But he understands perfectly well that his friend's words in this case miss the target (vv. 26-30). Job had no intention at all of denying the obvious religious truths that were known to him no less than to Eliphaz or to any of his other friends. Job does not argue with Eliphaz or object to him at all. He says: how much longer can I endure, and what can I hope for (vv. 11-13)? The most terrible thing has happened: something has fallen upon a righteous person that he does not deserve in any way, and a human being can do nothing about it, because God explains nothing to him. He only strikes blow after blow, and human strength is not boundless (vv. 2-4).

Job had always feared sin and impurity most of all, and now he has fallen ill with a disease that makes a person unclean, a disease known to be sent by God to the most terrible sinners as punishment for their sins. Now God forces Job to live precisely in such impurity, like the worst sinner (vv. 5-7). It would be better if He gave Job the chance to die: death is the lot of everyone, there is no sin in it, and the death of a righteous person is as pure before God as his life. But death does not come, and there is no end in sight to a life spent in impurity (vv. 8-10).

Job, as we can see, is frightened not by death, but by a life whose meaning and purpose he does not see, and by a punishment whose reason he does not understand. In such a situation, it would truly have been better for his friends to keep silent and simply be near the sufferer, without trying to "instruct" him with common truths and general phrases (vv. 14-20). But they cannot be silent, and Job himself tells them why: they are afraid (v. 21). This, of course, is not fear of leprosy; otherwise Job's friends would hardly have come to him, and certainly would not have spent a whole week beside him. What frightens Job's friends is what he says. Job's words do not fit into the framework of traditional religiosity, and his friends try to "bring him to his senses," or in essence, to squeeze him back into the old framework that has become too tight for the sufferer. But Job stands firm in what he says; he is convinced that he is right (vv. 24, 29).

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