3 - Job!

Summary

Job 3:20–26 ²⁰‘Why is light given to one in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, ²¹who long for death, but it does not come, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures; ²²who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad when they find the grave? ²³Why is light given to one who cannot see the way, whom God has fenced in? ²⁴for my sighing comes like my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water. ²⁵Truly the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. ²⁶I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest; but trouble comes.’

Job cries out from the depths of the worst imaginable, the fulfilment of what he has dreaded most. He sits covered with ‘loathsome sores … from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head’ (2:7). He is bereaved of all his children; he has been deprived of all his possessions; he has lost all his social standing and dignity, and is an outcast despised and jeered at even by those who are themselves despised; his friends ‘comfort’ him in ways that rub salt into his wounds; his wife urges him: ‘Curse God, and die’ (2:9); he cannot find any meaning in his life or suffering; and he is convinced that God has turned against him and is an enemy responsible for all that has happened to him.