“…who can keep from speaking?” Job 4:2b
/Job had three friends who sat by him silently for seven days and nights. Job rose from his posture of grief and spoke a long lament over his life situation. His friend, Eliphaz, was the first to respond. God designed within every man and woman certain traits. For example, most women have a strong sense of care-giving, while most men are wired as protectors and defenders. This is not to say men cannot be care-givers or women cannot be protectors, only that men and women have different perspectives and inclinations. As the old saying goes: women are from Venus and men are from Mars.
That being said, men are ‘fixers’, feeling helpless at times of distress without providing a solution or fix to a dilemma. Eliphaz was the first to “break”. He could stand it no longer… his world view was clearly expressed through his diatribe, seeing the human experience as weighed by good and evil deeds. It seems that he asked permission to speak, stating:
“If someone ventures a word with you, will you be impatient?” (v.2a)
However, Eliphaz bullied his position with today’s five understandable words. He began to provide unsolicited instruction on how to deal with his grief. He chastised Job by reminding him how others had been comforted by Job’s encouraging words and care (vv. 3 – 4), only for Job to now be discouraged and dismayed over his continuing state of hardship (v.5). Eliphaz pressed further by asking the following:
“Should not your piety be your confidence and your blameless ways your hope?”
To us, Eliphaz’s instruction sounds perfectly suited to the occasion. However, there were two things wrong with it: first, Job never asked for a patent solution to his pain; secondly, Eliphaz ‘just-world’ view simply isn’t true. Bad things do happen to good people. Good people stand for good causes and often die for those causes. Countless souls have died on battlefields that were sopped in their blood – many who had lived good, holy lives.
How should this passage speak to us today? Believers should:
be just as quick to come to the side of one in distress;
sacrifice just as much as Job’s friends did in getting to the one in need;
remain faithful in providing essential care and comfort;
avoid trying to explain the circumstances.
Though Eliphaz had good intentions, and perhaps provided an accurate assessment of Job’s situation, his world-view was somewhat distorted (which we will see further proof of tomorrow).
Have a blessed day…