Job 4–27 (selections) · Read 10 min · think and write 15 min
Last time, Job’s three friends came. “They sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great” (Job 2:13). Then Job spoke, and cursed the day he was born (Job 3).
In this lesson, the friends speak too. From chapter 4 to chapter 27, the three friends take turns speaking and Job answers each one, three rounds in all. They had come “to sympathize with him and to comfort him” (Job 2:11).
1Then Job answered,
2“I have heard many such things. You are all miserable comforters!
3Shall vain words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?
4I also could speak as you do. If your soul were in my soul’s place, I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you,
5but I would strengthen you with my mouth. The solace of my lips would relieve you.
6“Though I speak, my grief is not subsided. Though I forbear, what am I eased?
Job says God has worn him out and driven away his friends and family; he feels like a target, attacked from every side. (vv. 7–14)
15I have sewed sackcloth on my skin, and have thrust my horn in the dust.
16My face is red with weeping. Deep darkness is on my eyelids,
17although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.
18“Earth, don’t cover my blood. Let my cry have no place to rest.
19Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven. He who vouches for me is on high.
20My friends scoff at me. My eyes pour out tears to God,
21that he would maintain the right of a man with God, of a son of man with his neighbor!
22For when a few years have come, I will go the way of no return.
To read more: Job 4–27 is three rounds of debate between Job and his three friends. Read it slowly on your own.
When they came, it was good. When the three friends heard of Job’s troubles, “they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and to comfort him” (Job 2:11). They sat with Job seven days and seven nights without a word (Job 2:13). The passage does not say anything was wrong with those seven days.
Once they spoke. Eliphaz speaks first: “Remember, now, who ever perished, being innocent? Or where were the upright cut off?” (Job 4:7). Bildad says, “If your children have sinned against him, he has delivered them into the hand of their disobedience” (Job 8:4). Zophar says, “Know therefore that God exacts of you less than your iniquity deserves” (Job 11:6). The three say it in different ways, but they come closer and closer to one point: ‘You are suffering, so surely you have sinned.’
Their words are not all wrong. Eliphaz once said, “He takes the wise in their own craftiness” (Job 5:13). Later, writing to the church in Corinth, Paul quoted this line: “He has taken the wise in their craftiness” (1 Cor 3:19). So this lesson is not asking us to treat every word of the three friends as wrong. Many of the principles they state are true in themselves; what goes wrong is using them to explain Job’s suffering.
Comfort that makes things worse. Job says, “You are all miserable comforters!” (v. 2), and also, “You are forgers of lies. You are all physicians of no value. Oh that you would be completely silent! Then you would be wise” (Job 13:4–5). He even says that if their places were switched, “I also could speak as you do” (v. 4). He knows how these words go, because anyone can say them.
Not every word of Job is right either. Job says of God, “He has torn me in his wrath” (v. 9), and also, “I hold fast to my righteousness, and will not let it go” (Job 27:6). The passage records these words as they are. Later God answers him out of the whirlwind, and Job admits he spoke of things he did not understand — that is for lessons 6 and 7. In this lesson, we do not endorse every word Job says, and we do not act as final judge of the three friends.
Tears toward God. Job says, “My friends scoff at me,” and the next words are, “My eyes pour out tears to God” (v. 20). He accuses God, yet he is still speaking to God. He says, “Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven. He who vouches for me is on high” (v. 19). In chapter 19 he says something that reaches further still: “I know that my Redeemer lives. In the end, he will stand upon the earth” (Job 19:25).
God’s verdict. The debate ends at chapter 27, and no one has convinced anyone. At the end of the book, God says to Eliphaz, “My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has” (Job 42:7). God does not grade them line by line, but he does say this: explaining Job’s suffering as ‘suffering always comes from sin’ was wrong.
The three friends were of one mind: good people are rewarded, and someone who suffers has surely done something wrong. Eliphaz says, “Remember, now, who ever perished, being innocent?” (Job 4:7); Bildad says, “Behold, God will not cast away a blameless man, neither will he uphold the evildoers” (Job 8:20).
The book of Job puts this idea on the table and lets it speak for more than twenty chapters. At the end, God himself says that they did not speak of him what is right, as Job did (Job 42:7).
It is easy for us to become Eliphaz. When we see someone suffering, we look for a reason: ‘Did they do something wrong? Is their faith not strong enough?’ Giving suffering an explanation seems to make us feel a little safer.
The three friends were at their best during those seven days: sitting on the ground, not saying a word (Job 2:13).
This week: Think of someone who is going through a hard time. This week, visit them or give them a call. Ask just one thing — ‘How are you doing?’ — and then listen. Don’t hurry to explain, and don’t hurry to give advice.
Scripture: World English Bible.