Job 3 - 5

Job Questions, Eliphaz Indicts

Note: I will probably not follow the spreadsheet exactly since it stops and starts without regard to the conversational breaks, i.e. today's reading will cover 3 through 5 to encompass all of Eliphaz's speech.

After sitting silent with his three friends for seven days, Job speaks.  His speech sets the tone of the further conversations with his three friends and comforters.  Job curses the day of his birth. He does not curse God and his cursing of his birth is hyperbolic and consistent with other emotional expressions (see 1 Kings 19:4 and Jeremiah 20:14-18) by prophets under extreme duress.  Although a "perfect" man in God's eyes, Job was still just a man and subject to the vacillations of human emotions.

Job sincerely questions his existence in the light of his terrible suffering. Since human existence is defined by human conception and birth, it is only fitting and natural that Job's initial outburst would examine these subjects. He asks "why" seven times in chapter 3 - twice each in verses 11 and 12, and again in verse 16, 20, and 23.  Each of these are a progression from the moment of life in the womb and his birth, to his delivery and initial nursing, to his initial experiences as a baby, to his receiving light and growth, to his present situation.

If his life had meaning and his birth had purpose, what end is served by his present condition?  If his condition is the purpose, then why is not he granted the privilege and release of death?  Verse 25 reveals that Job must have had some suspicion that things would not always be so perfect, "What I always feared has happened to me. What I dreaded has come true."  These statements are a partial answer to his questions of why was he born, in that they reveal that Job knew that living a prosperous life also was not a complete answer to what purpose is there to life. In other words, in all his initial prosperity, there gnawed at Job a tinge fear and dread.

First to speak to Job is his friend Eliphaz the Temanite.  He must have been chief among the three since his speeches are the longest and most ornate.  He assumes a familiarity of Job (4:3-6) rehearsing Job's greatness and integrity.  Yet Eliphaz is quick to judge and indict Job (4:7-8) before expressing empathy for his plight (5:8), and even this empathy is terse and vacuous at best.

Eliphaz sets himself up as somewhat of a "know-it-all" (5:27) and is not shy about expressing how spiritual he is.  One can find nary a trace of humility in his initial speech to Job.  He has a mystical relationship with God (4:12-13, 16) causing eerie sensations in his flesh (4:14-15). This somehow makes Eliphaz a spiritual authority on suffering.  In Eliphaz's opinion, the cause of all of Job's problems is clear - Job is getting what he deserves because he must have sinned against God (4:7-8, 17, and 5:17).  Eliphaz sees Job's prior sacrifices and purification rituals as an admission of sin, where Job and God sees them as Job's necessary duties in his relationship with God.

Eliphaz has spiritual knowledge and understanding of God  which is demonstrated eloquently in 5:9-16, but Eliphaz uses this knowledge to tear down and not to build up. In his eyes, Job must have sinned and so Job must now seek forgiveness and correction from God.  His hubris is revealed in 5:27, "We have studied life and found all this to be true. Listen to my counsel, and apply it to yourself." (emphasis mine).  His position is correct. His counsel is to be heeded. It is good for Job but not necessarily for Eliphaz.

May God bless you and bless the reading of His Word.