Job 7-12
Day 6 & 7 Notes & Takeaways
We like talking about having the faith to be healed, but what about having the faith to be sick?
We begin Job 7 with Job’s deep devastation. He is so overwhelmed with grief that he desires for God to end his life. He is now full of sores which had bred worms on his body, scabs, and broken skin. His suffering is not just internal, but external.
Job 7:6 we see that he is without hope, he has no reason to expect a long life. He also notices that his friends grow weary and don’t heed much of what he says, so he turns to God and speaks to him, and that’s what we should do! When others won’t listen to us, we can always turn to God. His arm is not shortened, neither his ear heavy (Isaiah 59:1).
I love that even in his pain and suffering, Job has an admiration for God. In Job 7:17 he says, “What is mankind that you make so much of them, that you give them so much attention?” See Psalm 8:4, 144:3.
How painful is it for Job that he truly believes he is God’s target. He believes that God is against him. But God had marked him for good, his pain and suffering was but only for a moment.
In Chapter 8 we see Bildad speak to Job about the reasons he believes Job is suffering. He also believes Job did something to deserve losing his family. He talks about God’s justice but what he forgets is God’s grace and mercy. The kind of God Bildad speaks about is not a complete picture of the God we serve. He is just, but kind, mighty, but merciful.
In the next chapter we see that Job begins to talk about the character of God. He understands what Bildad is saying, but he also knows that he is completely innocent of any wrongdoing. He has no sin to repent of that would cause any of the tragedies that he has had to go through. Notice in Job 9:20 that he knows that he is innocent of the charges his friends put against him, but he understands that he is also a sinner in God’s eyes, because he is human, like you and me. In verse 33 & 34 he talks about a mediator, “someone to bring us together” (Job 9:33-34). He doesn’t realize that one day we would have a mediator, Jesus. He didn’t know that God would one day send his son to live as a human, die on a cross for our sin, rise up to heaven, and be our intercessor (Romans 8:34). In 1 John 2:1 we read that Jesus is our “advocate with the Father,” and in Hebrews 7:25 we learn that Jesus “always lives to intercede” for us.
In Job 10 we see Job once again cry out to God and although he clearly knows that God is not limited in his vision like humans are, he questions whether God does indeed see him the shallow way his friends see him (with human eyes of flesh). This also made me think of Jesus, who would one day come to fully understand humanity by becoming like one of us, fully human (Hebrews 2:14-18).
As he continues to speak he wondered if God’s only purpose was to destroy what he made (Job 10:20). Notice the words turn away from me, which is similar to the words Moses used in Edodus 32:12, “turn from”.
The words of Zophar start the next chapter of Job. He is more hotheaded and angry than his two friends. He comes to Job with anger and blames him for what is happening in his life.
Are all these words to go unanswered? Is this talker to be vindicated? Will your idea talk reduce others to silence? Will no one rebuke you when you mock? Job 11: 2-3
All of this anger and so called “advice” from his friends are only causing Job more pain and anguish. I love what the Eden to Eternity commentary states, “Job’s friends serve as reminders to us how we should care for the broken and the suffering. We must not put ourselves in the place of God to judge and tell them what they must do or try to determine the cause of their suffering for them. We must instead “weep with those woh weep'“ as Romans 12:15 instructs us to do."
We will finish Job and come back to where we left off in Genesis on January 18. I hope you’re learning a lot and enjoying it all at the same time! Make sure to follow RF on Instagram, and join our FB Group to stay up to date for our upcoming weekly zoom sessions!
