Day Twelve – Chapter 12

“Then Job responded, ‘truly then you are the people, and with you wisdom will die! But I have intelligence as well as you; I am not inferior to you. And who does not know such things as these? I am a joke to my friends, the one who called on God and He answered him; the just and blameless man is a joke’” (vs. 1-4 – NAS95).

I don’t know about you, but I have grown weary with the verbiage of Job’s so-called friends and was beginning to wonder how much more of their ill-gotten wisdom he was going to take. It is bad enough to go through something and already be beating yourself up over it without having those who are supposed to know you best bringing accusation against you. Many of us will sit in relative silence listening to the accusations when we should be telling these prognosticators where to ‘step off.’ I know, I know, that did not sound very godly, but that is exactly my point. We think that our relationship with the Lord requires that we put up with foolishness and it does not. Job, a godly man, a blameless man, “a man upright, fearing God and turning away from evil,” finally took about as much as he could and we finally hear his response.

Now the NAS95 translation is good, but look at the beginning of what Job says as Eugene Peterson translates it in The Message:

“Job answered: ‘I’m sure you speak for all the experts, and when you die there’ll be no one left to tell us how to live. But don’t forget that I also have a brain—I don’t intend to play second fiddle to you. It doesn’t take an expert to know these things. I’m ridiculed by my friends: ‘So that’s the man who had conversations with God!’ Ridiculed without mercy: ‘Look at the man who never did wrong’” (vs. 1-4 – The Message)!

Their accusations are ludicrous and Job is bold enough to tell them so. They are not helping, and are in fact adding to his agony because now they are joining in the ridicule coming from the community. People seem to love seeing the fall and apparent failure of those who seemed to have it all, and perhaps they are simply revealing the jealousy that has always lain dormant inside of them. Whatever their motivation, Job tells us that he is not going to take it, and by extension neither should we. But note this one thing, he does not respond to them in the same spirit and voice they use. He responds but does not lose who he is in the process. Whatever you do today, do not let people pull you out of whom and whose you are regardless of the depth of pain you are suffering.

Dear Lord, we know how Job feels. We, too, have endured the accusations of those who are closest and should know us best. It is difficult to get past their accusations without responding in like kind or being tempted to believe them. We sometimes feel guilty thinking about the responses we would like to make. Forgive us for not walking in love and also for not expressing ourselves in the manner we should. Protect us today from the virulent nature of baseless accusations. Help us, instead, to focus on Your Word and Your way so that we may come out of this trial like gold, in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.