Bibliotheca Sacra
97 (385) (Jan.-Mar. 1940) 27-33
Copyright © 1940 by
Job and the Nation
JOB AND THE NATION
Second Study: At the Mercy of
the Critics
By
CHARLES LEE FEINBERG, TH.D.
(Continued
from the October-December Number, 1939)
Most of the Book of Job is taken up with the addresses
of
Job's friends and his answers to them. They are not inci-
dental to
the book but are of primary importance. To view
them
otherwise is to lose sight of the great movement of the
book.
These friends attempt as best they can to probe Job's
predicament. He
does not understand the reason for his
unusual
sufferings nor do they. It is no small problem with
which
these men are wrestling. There is no book in the
Bible that does not have some reference to trial. The Book
of
Psalms has one hundred and fifty psalms and over ninety
have some
reference to suffering. There is no believer in
the
Scriptures whose history we have in any fullness at
all, but
what was called upon to endure trouble and suffer-
ing in some form. Many times the most godly were the most
tried. Let
your mind review for the moment the lives of
such men
as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David,
Daniel,
Paul, Peter, the early disciples and apostles. Did not
each one
find out experientially the truth of the words: "But
man is
born unto trouble, As the sparks fly upward" (Job
5:7). Those who were greatly used of God were trained in
the
school of affliction and hardship.
JOB UNDER THE CRITICS'
SCRUTINY
The friends of Job in trying to explain his afflictions
really
misrepresent God as well as Job, and so are Satan's
tool to
cause Job to renounce God. Job's heart feels it cannot
accept
their opinions as to the dealings of God with him.
These
friends, mark you, were prominent, wise, and pious
men, men
of age and experience. Their arguments were good
and
forceful, but they were based on wrong premises. Job
refuses to
admit the cogency of their arguments because he
28 Bibliotheca Sacra
knows of
his own innocence of their charges against him.
The
arguments of Job's friends go from veiled insinuations
to open
denunciations. As the argument progresses the
friends
realize that they are unable to convince him, and
they
become more and more harsh and severe. They begin
mildly but
are astonished that Job tries to refute some of
their
primary arguments, and finally they lose confidence in
his
uprightness and sincerity. Instead of applying a balm,
wine, and
oil to his wounds, they cauterize them, pouring in
vitriol. It
is always like vinegar on soda to come to a broken
soul and
dejected spirit prattling about platitudes without
sympathy.
The main contention of Job's friends was that suffering is
for sin.
This is true in general but far from true in all
cases. As
a matter of fact, Job's sufferings were not the
result of
sin so much as they were the trial of his righteous-
ness, the
trial of his faith. His friends reasoned that some-
thing grievous
must be the matter with Job and because
they
could not see it, they concluded he was a hypocrite hid-
ing his sin and his real self. Job's friends
made him writhe
more than
Satan. They did him more harm than the devil.
When Job
knew his friends were wrong in their contentions,
he was
stirred to resentment against them. Throughout the
words of
the friends there is special pleading--they do not
state the
whole case at all. His friends were merely speaking
truths they
had learned from memory; he spoke his words
from a
tortured and anguished and agonizing heart. Though
his
comforters, miserable as they were, pelted him with in-
considerate
words he had more faith than anyone of them
(Job
Let us note the trend of reasoning of each adviser.
Eliphaz the Temanite held that all men are sinners and sin
is
connected with suffering. He does not at first doubt the
sincerity of
Job nor his integrity. He says: "Remember,
pray
thee, who ever perished, being innocent? Or where
were the
upright cut off ?" (4:7). His principle is true in
general, but
does not explain special suffering. What of the
Job and the Nation
case of
Abel? Was he not upright and righteous and did he
not
perish, being cut off by the hand of his murderous
brother? The
other friends seem to get their point of depar-
ture from Eliphaz,
and follow his reasoning, but more and
more cast
doubts on the piety of Job. He appeals again and
again to
his own observation and experience. Notice ''as I
have
seen" in 4:8 and "I have seen" in 5:3 together with the
recital of
his vision in his dream recorded in
also
15:17. When he speaks in his second address he charges
Job with guilt. He sets forth his indictment thus: "Yea,
thou
doest away with fear, And hinderest devotion before
God. For thine iniquity teacheth thy
mouth, And thou
choosest the tongue of the crafty. Thine own mouth con-
demneth thee, and not I; Yea, thine
own lips testify against
thee"
(15:4-6). In his third and last address he administers
a
scathing rebuke to Job accusing him of downright wicked-
ness.
Hear the severity of his words: "Is not thy wickedness
great?
Neither is there any end to thine iniquities"
(22:5 ff).
He goes on
to charge Job with stripping the naked of their
clothing,
with withholding water from the weary and bread
from the
hungry, with turning away widows with emptiness,
and with
robbing the fatherless of their maintenance and
stay.
Think of it! Contrast this, if you will, with the state-
ment God made concerning Job at the outset of
the book and
with
Job's own recital of his former days in 29:11-13;
31:16-23.
Carrying Eliphaz's argument to its logical con-
clusion, we should :find that the most sinful men
were the
most
afflicted.
Bildad the Shuhite
appeals to tradition. He orders his
argument after
this manner: "For inquire, I pray thee, of
the
former age, And apply thyself to that which their fathers
have
searched out (For we are but of yesterday, and know
nothing,
Because our days upon earth are a shadow): Shall
not they
teach thee, and tell thee, And utter words out of
their
heart?" (8:8-10). Tradition is just the observation
of a
number of men, and many times is no more correct than
individual
observation. He should have appealed to an ob-
30 Bibliotheca Sacra
jective norm and standard, God's own revelation
to man, in
that
measure in which God had already made Himself known
in that
day. In his second address Bildad prefaces his words
with the
statement: "Yea, the light of the wicked shall be
put out,
And the spark of his fire shall not shine" and goes
on to
enumerate the multiplied calamities and adversities
that
assuredly befall the wicked. His last answer to Job
is
quite brief and he contents himself with admonishing Job
that man
can by no means be pure and .just before God
when even
the stars are not pure in His sight (Chapters
18; 25).
Zophar the Naamathite
is the third friend and he feels
he must
speak forth his word of consolation and comfort also.
He appeals
to the law principle (not the law of Moses for
it was
not yet given). He states his position thus: "Know
therefore that
God exacteth of thee less than thine
iniquity
deserveth" (11:6). If God were an exacting God, where
would
sinful man be? The Psalmist asks this same question:
"If
thou, Jehovah, shouldest mark iniquities, 0 Lord, who
could
stand?" (Psa. 103:3). In his second and last
address
Zophar
points out that the triumphing of the wicked is
short and
that he perishes forever like his own dung (20:5-7).
He closes
summarily with the words: "This is the portion of a
wicked man
from God, And the heritage appointed unto him
by
God" (
his
charges as one would expect of a legalist. Boiling down
the
words of a legalist to the basic residuum, we shall always
find him
saying, "It's good for you that you are in such a
plight. You
are getting just what you deserve and even less.
You have no
cause to complain."
All these men based God's infliction of suffering, or per-
mission of
it, on a basis of justice (for sin) rather than on
a
basis of love. They were miserable comforters (16:2) and
physicians of
no value (13:4); they did give the impression
that they
were the people and wisdom would die with them
(12:2). How
like so many critics of our day are these critics!
Their
criticisms too often are the opposite of the truth.
Job and the Nation
Satan's
afflictions were sore, but the criticisms of Job's
friends were
far worse.
Since
lacked for
critics, self-appointed, self-sustained, and assur-
edly self-opinionated, to tell her the reason
for her trials.
Zechariah
gives a timely word here. In the first chapter
of his
prophecy, after noting the lessons for post-captivity
punishment, he
declares God's love and jealousy for
God says
through the prophet: "And I am very sore dis-
pleased with
the nations that are at ease; for I was but a
little
displeased, and they helped forward the affliction"
(
ing his own child with a stick or with a word
of rebuke
or
restraint and a stranger came to chasten with a rod of
iron. God
scattered
them how]
(Isa. 52:5). Isaiah tells
with my
people, I profaned mine inheritance, and gave them
into thy
hand: thou didst show them no mercy; upon the
aged hast
thou very heavily laid thy yoke" (47:6). The con-
trast that the prophet draws between God's
treatment of
is
marked. The critics of
of the
Jews been minutely predicted by Moses and the
prophets ?" This question goes on the false assumption that
God sanctions
all that he predicts. By the same token God
must
approve of all wars for Christ said there would be
wars and
rumors of wars. Too, the sufferings of Christ
were
detailed]y foretold, but still the Holy Spirit notes that
it was
with "wicked hands" (implying responsibility) He
was
crucified and slain. Some say: "It is too bad the poor
Jews have to
suffer, but they have it coming to them." On
the same
ground, which one of us, apart from grace, does
not have
infinitely more "coming to us?" Then, again, what
of the
saved Jews in the present suffering in
32 Bibliotheca Sacra
understand that
with saved Gentiles they form the body
of
Christ, but to the persecuting unsaved world all Jews
are
alike.) Will not the remnant of the tribulation time
suffer
though they be righteous? (Cf. the imprecatory
psalms).
Would the critics say that these godly ones have
it
coming to them also? Many are satisfied in their thinking,
that the
Jews are suffering because they have objectionable
traits,
personal and otherwise. Is not this the same method
that
Job's friends used? Because these critics do not under-
stand the
real reason they feel they must find any petty
reason to
offer as cause for
their
sufferings to the crucifixion of Christ feel they have
solved the
problem satisfactorily. Let it be understood that
no
words of man can in the least mitigate the guilt that
attaches to
the
gospel narratives. But are there not features worth
noting in
this regard? Do not the words of Christ, "Father,
forgive
them; for they know not what they do" have some
bearing on
the question? The list of culprits in Acts 4 :27
is also
illuminating. Still others say that the very plight
of
them as
His people. If God did not choose them when He
said the
words of Isaiah 44:1, 2, then He never chose any,
believer
today when He says, "he chose us in him before:
the
foundation of the world." We are aware that the choice
of
believer is
individual to heavenly privilege, but we are speak-
ing now only of the surety and certainty of
the divine, sov-
ereign choice. How unfair and cruel and inhumane
and
unfeeling and
harsh, yea, almost savage and barbarous, have
been many
of the criticisms against
well how
Job felt when pelted with unfeeling words from
self-styled
physicians.
to
Almighty God about a neighbor, saying, "0 Lord, take
away this
wicked person !" And God said, "Which?" How
foolhardy to
judge without the mind of God! He shall bring
Job and the Nation
to
light the hidden things, so we can afford to refrain from
the act
of judging the suffering and the tried. May God
grant that
we shall not be found in the role of critic or judge
of His
suffering people
(To be
continued in the April-June Number, 1940)
JOB'S VICTORY
Job's hour
of victory came. The sorrow which endured
through the
long night was followed by the morning of light
and
triumph, and up from that ash heap of pain rose the
loftiest note
of the Old Testament: "For I know that my
redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon
the
earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body,
yet in
my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself,
and mine
eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins
be
consumed within me" (
nothing
else, that sentence alone would lift him among the
stars.
--Cox. Lives That Remind Us,
p. 49.
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