Thoughts for the Day

After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. Job said: ‘Let the day perish on which I was born,
and the night that said, “A man-child is conceived.”....

‘Why did I not die at birth,
come forth from the womb and expire?
Why were there knees to receive me,
or breasts for me to suck?
Now I would be lying down and quiet;
I would be asleep; then I would be at rest
with kings and counsellors of the earth
who rebuild ruins for themselves,
or with princes who have gold,
who fill their houses with silver.
Or why was I not buried like a stillborn child,
like an infant that never sees the light?
There the wicked cease from troubling,
and there the weary are at rest....

‘Why is light given to one in misery,
and life to the bitter in soul,
who long for death, but it does not come,
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 one who cannot see the way,
whom God has fenced in?'

(Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

In the intervening chapter Satan goaded God to inflict Job with "loathsome sores". When he is inflicted with a dreadful skin disease his wife exhorts him to curse God. But he answers her saying: 'Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?’ His friends Eliphaz, Temanite, and Bildad, come to console him and after mourning their companion's situation we are told they 'sat with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great'. Finally Job breaks the silence with an anguished lament. He cannot understand why God has caused him to suffer, but he does not blame Him. What concerns him more is that he seems to have lost the close relationship he had with God.

His words introduce two themes which we will see again, that is the references to 'light' and 'dark' and to 'life' and 'death'. He wishes to have been left in the dark and unborn because he would have been at peace and not suffering. But still there is no condemnation of God. Instead he curses the day he was born. This kind of lamentation is also found in other parts of the Hebrew scriptures, for instance in the books of Jeremiah (20.14-18) and in Lamentations (3.1-18).

This section of the Book of Job starts a long period of discussion between Job and his friends, and we should note the difference between their extended arguments. Under all Job's pain lies the fact that he feels he has lost the one he has always turned to, that is, God. In the ensuing chapters, he will put his speech directly to God. While his friends, though their initial behaviour of sitting alongside Job in silence and listening to him is helpful, in the end they only talk about God.

Heavenly Father,
sometimes we do not know what to say to friends
and family members who are sick or dying,
or to those who have suffered some kind of catastrophe.
Help us to understand that sometimes we just need to listen,
and to be alongside those who are suffering.
May we never forget though to offer prayers
to You on their behalf for as long as may be needed.
Amen.