Job -- The Suffering Prophet (7): "Why?"

Reflections on the Book of Job (7)

Satan’s Challenge Fails–Job Does Not Curse God

His memories of wealth and joy began to fade, largely erased by Job’s current misery. The presence of Job’s friends mourning his wretched condition brings forth a torrent of heartfelt but provocative words. Job’s doxology gives way to a lament of his birth. The greatest man of the east, is now crushed.

We read in Job 3:1-3, “After this,” [the arrival of his friends and the week spent in mourning] “Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. And Job said: `Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’” Job dares to plead with the Lord to remove that day when Job was conceived from human history. Job continues in verses 4-7, pleading “let that day be darkness! May God above not seek it, nor light shine upon it. Let gloom and deep darkness claim it. Let clouds dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. That night—let thick darkness seize it! Let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months. Behold, let that night be barren; let no joyful cry enter it.” Job’s cry can be summarized, “it would have been better if I had never been born.”

The saddest part of Job’s ordeal is that his present pain has obscured the wonderful memories of all the joys he had known before. When life is viewed through the lens of pain and loss, it is easy for the sufferer to reason, “it would be better to have never existed at all than to endure my present sufferings.” Some of us have been there. Some of us are there now. Sustained pain robs us of so much–our joy often goes first, but at times pain even robs us of the assurance of our salvation.

A number of commentators take what follows in verse 8 to be indicative of the depths of Job’s despair. Job invokes magicians to blot out the day of his birth even as they seek to control the monsters of the deep.[1] “Let those curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up Leviathan.” The idea is that the powers which hold destructive forces in check (preventing the chaos signified by Leviathan–who many ancients brought about eclipses and cosmic disturbances), now be used to blot out the day of Job’s birth.[2] Job’s wish is that the night on which he was conceived be blotted out of the historical record. In verses 9-10, Job continues. “Let the stars of its dawn be dark; let it hope for light, but have none, nor see the eyelids of the morning, because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hide trouble from my eyes.” Job does not seek to take his life. Suicide is not an option. But given his current emotional state, Job wishes that he had never been born. Cursed be the day of his birth! Job’s patience has become despondency. Still, Job refuses to curse God as Satan desired

Job Asks the Question Faced by Every Sufferer: “Why?”

At this point in his lament, Job’s cursing the day of his birth gives way to a series of rhetorical questions. “Why?” Since God had not blotted out the day of his birth, why then was Job even born? Job’s despair begins to become apparent beginning in verse 11. “Why did I not die at birth, come out from the womb and expire?” But Job was born. In the confusion brought by pain and misery, he reasons, “would it not be better to just die and get it over with?” He wonders about such a fate in verses 13-16, “for then I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept; then I would have been at rest, with kings and counselors of the earth who rebuilt ruins for themselves, or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver. Or why was I not as a hidden stillborn child, as infants who never see the light?” As Meredith Kline puts it, “even confinement in the dark grave–not yet illumined by the resurrection glory of Christ–seemed a far better state of existence. There Job, outcast and a byword of base men and fools would share a common lot with kings and princes.”[3]

In the grave there is no gossip nor stares from the self-righteous. There are no haunting thoughts, no wretched existence. No pain and itching from sores. As Job puts it in verse 17, “there the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest.” Better to be dead, Job reasons, than continue on with such suffering and shame. Job does not speak of an afterlife as a place of reward or of curse, although he certainly does believe in a bodily resurrection at the end of the age (cf. Job 19:25).

Keep in mind that at this point in redemptive history, not much about the resurrection or the afterlife had been revealed. The point being made here is that for Job, death will bring an end to his sufferings. Job will not take his own life, yet he does hope that God will take it for him and bring an end to his travail. We could even paraphrase Job to be saying, “just kill me and get it over with!” But this is not God’s purpose for Job.

As Job’s lament continues, it is clear that he cannot either undo the fact of his birth, nor bring his own life to an end. He works his way to the fundamental question in verses 20-23. Job cries out, “why is light given to him who is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, who long for death, but it comes not, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures, who rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they find the grave? Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?” Why does God give such good things like life to those who now wish to die. Why does God not give death to those who want it? If God gives good gifts and death would end Job’s suffering, why does he not give Job the gift of death so that his suffering might come to an end?

It is important to notice the word play in the text. Satan saw the hedge or the limits placed around Job as a sign of God’s favor. Without awareness of Satan’s appearance before the heavenly court, Job now uses the same word to describe how he feels trapped–hemmed in by God’s goodness in light of his own suffering.[5] God’s prior blessing has become a matter of curse. His reasons for gratitude are now gone. He knows what he has lost.

In the closing verses of Job 3, what is clearly revealed are the depths of Job’s anguish. Beginning in verse 24, Job cries out, “for my sighing comes instead of my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water. For the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest, but trouble comes.” The Hebrew words translated as sighing and groaning are too weak. The former word describes the roaring of lions, while the latter can be used in reference to the crash of ocean waves.[4] This is much more than a mere sigh of resignation or a soft groan. This is a violent and defiant act, something like “bellowing.”

Job did not take his great wealth for granted. He regularly made burnt offerings to the Lord not only to give thanks for all that God gave him, but also to consecrate all of his possessions to the Lord who gave them. But the very thing Job dreads most has come to pass. The loss of his wealth means the loss of God’s favor. Job is now terrified by the thought that God no longer favors to him and Job has no idea why.[5] He has done nothing wrong. He is blameless, upright, fears God and shuns evil. Why has his life come to this? “I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.” The greatest man of the east is completely undone. And our hearts break for him.

How Do We Respond to Job’s “Why?”

First, Job is correct not to curse God or blame God for what has happened to him. By resisting the temptation to do so, Job passes the trial by ordeal and frustrates the purposes of Satan. Second, as a prophet, Job’s own obedience points us ahead to the perfect obedience of Jesus Christ, which is the ground of Job’s own justified status before God. Third, in all of this, Job is an example to us in our own suffering. It is perfectly OK to pour out our hearts before God–as though we could hide what we are thinking from God in the first place. But what Job does that we cannot do is curse the day of our birth. God has ordained the number of our days as well as whether or not we will suffer. If we accept good things from his hand, should we not, like Job, be willing to accept suffering and loss when God brings these things to pass? After all, God has ordained whatsoever comes to pass–good and evil.

The thing to keep in mind for the modern reader of Job is that we know what Job does not. We know how the story will end. We know that God is going to restore Job’s family and fortune and vindicate Job’s good name after he passes through the ordeal. Even through Job does not know nor understand the true nature of his trial, we do. Therefore, we have a perspective on Job’s ordeal that he does not have. Like Job we know that God not only promises to turn evil and suffering into good, but he has the power to do the very thing he has promised to do. Unlike Job, we have seen that the promised redeemer whom Job anticipates, has indeed come and fulfilled all righteousness. Given our better redemptive-historical perspective on things, we know that Jesus Christ suffered and died for our sins upon the cross. And like the poor sufferer Job, Jesus, too, was innocent. Like Job, Jesus, too, cried out in anguish and asked that haunting question, “why?” Thus words of Matthew 27:45-46 echo the words of Job, “now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, `Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, `My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”

Jesus’s words sanctify the question “why?” Since Jesus asked “why?” so may we. What is more, the one who hears and answers our prayers is a fellow sufferer, who was tempted and tested in all ways as we have been and yet was without sin. But we must also understand that Jesus accepted God’s answer to his question. Jesus must suffer and die so that we might be saved from our sins. The suffering and agony of the cross must come before the empty tomb. This is the pattern we find throughout redemptive-history. So while we may ask “why?” we must be willing to accept the answer. Suffering comes before glory.

That being said, we must also never forget that the victory of the resurrection did come as Christ’s death became a glorious victory over the curse and the devil. When we look at the big picture, not only do we see that God restores Job’s health, wealth and family, but he restores his relationship with Job. The same holds true for the greater Job, Jesus Christ. Even as Jesus suffered and cried out “why?” so, too, God raised him from the dead and gave him the name above every other name. As God has done for his beloved son, so too, God will turn our suffering to good. Our suffering will come to a glorious end and our suffering is never in vain. It has an ultimate purpose, even if that purpose is known only to God.

Therefore, in the midst of trial, loss and sickness, it is perfectly OK to open our hearts and cry out in anguish as did Job. But you must know before you ask “why?” that you may not get your answer until you cross over into glory. Suffering, loss and death most often precede the ultimate and final answer. But since all of God’s promises are “yes” and “amen” in Christ, even as we ask “why?” we can be sure that not only does our own suffering have a purpose, but that somehow, and in some way, God will turn it all into good.

How do we know this? We know this from the story of Job. But more importantly, we know this from Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection. Suffering comes before glory. But glory will come, just as it did for Job and for our blessed Lord Jesus. And it will come for all who even now have been called to suffer. Amen!

To read the next in the series: Job's Argument with Eliphaz About Suffering

To read the first in this series: Job: The Suffering Prophet (1)

_____________________________

[1] John E. Hartley, The Book of Job, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1988), 94.

[2] Andersen, Job, 104.

[3] Kline, Job, 465.

[4] Kline, Job, 465; and Andersen, Job, 109.

[5] Andersen, Job, 109.

[6] Andersen, Job, 110.