Interpreting Job, Pt. 4: the Testimony of Job’s Friends
Job Rebuked by His Friends, by William Blake (1757–1827). from the Butts set. Public Domain.
In part three of this “interpreting Job” series, we introduced the idea of conflicting testimony through the sibling dilemma that Peter and Susan Pevensie faced in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Do they believe Lucy’s tale of a magical place called “Narnia,” even if her brother, Edmund, contradicted it? Do they accept the testimony of a credible witness, even if it challenges their worldview? Or do they believe the testimony of a less reliable person, whose version of events aligns with their existing worldview?
We found some degree of overlap in the conundrum found in the Book of Job. The man, Job, found himself in the midst of terrible suffering and, no matter what anyone else said, he insisted on his innocence. Even when it seemed that the circumstances were stacking up against him, he never strayed from this opinion of himself: “I am innocent!”
But where is the conflicting testimony? And speaking quite frankly, how did he end up on trial in the first place? What in the world happened?
Well, we know it wasn’t his wife. As readers may recall, she wasn’t offended because she thought her husband was somehow guilty—no. Rather, she was provoked because Job insisted on living and speaking with integrity, even in the face of his great suffering: “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!” (2:9)
No—sadly, the conflicting testimony came from a rather unexpected place, from the men who had come with the expressed purpose of comforting him: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. Instead, Job’s closest friends injured him deeply. They spoke, acted, and responded in such a way that Job somehow found himself on trial, defending his life, his character, and his innocence.
A Great Start. It didn’t begin that way. By all accounts, Job’s three friends actually began well. Or they at least began in a way that was culturally appropriate—a bit more on that shortly. Here’s how their interactions started:
“[T]hey made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and comfort him. When they lifted up their eyes at a distance and did not recognize him, they raised their voices and wept. And each of them tore his robe and they threw dust over their heads toward the sky. Then they sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.” (2:11-13)
Let’s give Job’s friends the benefit of the doubt and assume that they had the best of intentions. They sincerely wanted “to sympathize with him and comfort him” and so they paid the price (in some form) to make the trip and see their friend—a truly great start! Even when they eventually saw their friend, their grief response was right.
That is, they didn’t see their friend and say, “What’s the big deal?” or “Aren’t you over it, yet?” No! They grieved and wept with him, which communicates, “It makes sense that you feel this way after all that you lost. I would feel that way, and do for your sake, too!” Add to this the actions of each tearing his robe and throwing dust over their heads (2:12), and Job was likely to feel very validated in his grief.
It is also worth noting that they did this in culturally-appropriate ways. Their outward overtures of grief—personal presence, loud wailing, open weeping, and tearing clothes—these all would have closely matched the widely-accepted expectations of deep lament with a sufferer. It almost certainly would have communicated friendship to Job through the understood cultural norms and conventions of the day. So good, so far.
And finally, it is our opinion that Job’s friends continued their excellent start with what would probably be considered a universally-appropriate and wise response: presence and silence. Maybe put another way, sometimes there are just no words for the kind of grief that others are experiencing. So why try to insert words where they don’t belong?
But we all know that a good start doesn’t guarantee a good finish.
Their silence was the last good thing they did. And while we could debate that point ad nauseam, and while we could give every benefit of the doubt to Job’s friends, one need only appeal to the final chapter of the story and God’s response to the three men to prove a point. Beyond their great start—and it was truly great—the failure of Job’s friends was enormously injurious to him, not to mention infuriating to the Lord God. Their failure was so bad, God basically told them: “I am so angry with you, I will kill you where you stand, unless you go and ask the help and prayers of your friend.”
Since that’s the case, it seems we should ask ourselves: Where did Job’s friends go wrong?
4. REMEMBER THE TESTIMONY OF JOB’S THREE FRIENDS.
From the moment Job started talking (in chapter three), things started going wrong in the relationship with his friends. If Job’s pain was indeed very great (2:13)—and I’m pretty sure we would all agree that it was—then his ensuing words are certainly consistent with that pain: “Afterward Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.” (3:1)
Honestly, there is a lot of content available to us readers through the words of Job and the responses of his friends, so we will have to tackle that over time. For now, we will simply and very, very briefly summarize the highlights below:
Job speaks (3), and Eliphaz rebukes and accuses him, and defends God (4-5)
Job speaks (6-7), and Bildad rebukes and accuses him, and defends God (8)
Job speaks (9-10), and Zophar rebukes and accuses him, and defends God (11)
Job speaks (12-14), and Eliphaz rebukes and accuses him, and defends God (15)
Job speaks (16-17), and Bildad rebukes and accuses him, and defends God (18)
Job speaks (19), and Zophar rebukes and accuses him, and defends God (20)
Job speaks (21), and Eliphaz rebukes and accuses him, and defends God (22)
Job speaks (23-24), and Bildad rebukes and accuses him, and defends God (25)
Job speaks (26-31), and Elihu rebukes and accuses him, and defends God (33-37)
Note: Elihu will get another post.
There is not one single instance in the entire narrative where Job’s words and laments are not met with either criticism, correction, or outright accusation against his character. It is a failure of friendship on a colossal level. The man who has literally lost everything, finds himself in an unexpected fight over the narrative of his own life. But why? Why does Job’s grief, lament, and defense of his innocence provoke such a response in his friends?
The “Problem” of Job’s Innocence, Pt. 2. There are perhaps several reasons. But one we regard as highly likely is that dismissing Job helps people (us) to more easily make sense of his disquieting situation and suffering. For if we can make some sense of his suffering, then it follows that we can understand our own. Think of it as a “shortcut” we use in an attempt to bring clarity to the very complex world and situations around us.
Though we cannot prove it, we believe the words and actions of Job’s friends exposed their hearts. The “problem” of a suffering friend provoked a cognitive collision with their most deeply- and firmly-held beliefs about God, about the world around them, and even about themselves. It simply didn’t make sense. And how do we tend to respond when things don’t make sense? We get really uncomfortable—I mean really. And we tend to be very much opposed to anything that provokes our discomfort, that rocks the boat.
Suffering and Categories. On a cognitive level, our brains require and work with boxes and categories for the external information and input we receive. Most of the time, this seems to work out okay. But then there are those times when it doesn’t, and our brains can’t figure out what to do with what we’re seeing, hearing, feeling, and experiencing. If we’re being honest, this tends to overwhelm us in one way or another.
Rumination is an example of this occuring. When our brains can’t figure out what to do with a certain traumatic event, for example, they search over-and-over-and-over again for a mental “bucket” or “hook” in/on which to place the information so that we don’t have to keep holding onto it. But when we can’t find the right bucket, it’s overwhelming. And the result is a repeated re-living and re-playing the event or conversation in our minds—our brains are trying to make sense of something that doesn’t make any sense.
Another example relates to stereotyping and judging. It’s easier to place people, ideas, and situations into our pre-existing categories of understanding than to do the (at times extraordinarily) difficult work of seeking to understand and, if necessary, forming new categories and boxes for information—a process akin to developing nuance.
The story and experience of Job is simply unbelievable for many of us, just as it was for his friends. We can view it as too much suffering for any one man. The addition of Job’s impeccable character heightens the complexity. And then the inclusion of God’s active presence and sovereign workings and—well, we find ourselves at a loss.
In a way, it is a similar dilemma to when the older two Pevensie children faced not just conflicting testimonies, but also when the more reliable sibling told a more unbelievable version of the events. It challenged the worldview that helped them to make sense of the world around them—the same world that was at war with itself (World War 1).
When our brains don’t have a box, bucket, hook, or category, then our worldview can’t handle it and the system collapses. “This isn’t how world works, how God works. This isn’t how suffering works. This doesn’t make any sense!” So what do we do?
A Critical Crossroads. Reading Job now in our 40’s feels different than when we read it in our 20’s and 30’s. We just might understand a bit more of why it is in the Bible. It is our opinion that the conundrum of Job brings us to a crossroads, one where the real lessons of wisdom begin. No doubt, at that crossroads we make interpretive decisions about Job, both the book and the man, as well as about what the story may represent. But it is also where we make interpretive decisions about ourselves.
It is often at the place of being overwhelmed by our lack of understanding where we are also confronted with our limitations. We are confronted with the possibility that our existing categories are wildly insufficient, that we lack the wisdom to think, speak, and act wisely in a situation like Job’s. And if that’s true, then this crossroads is both a revelation and an opportunity. The questions we ask are not just: How would I respond? What would I do? How would I treat my friend? The questions are also: What is my response to Job’s story revealing to me about myself? Are my categories enough? Do I need new ones?
We move from scrutinizing the story, into the story scrutinizing us.
Human Limitations. At the time of writing this, I am reading 1 Kings and the account of Solomon’s earliest days as king of a united Israel. This young ruler had a life-altering and career-defining encounter with God through a dream. (For the sake of space, we will not post the text here, but simply refer readers to 1 Kings 3:5-10.)
After the death of his father, King David, this Solomon was confronted with the truth and the great responsibility of being king of God’s people. He had a staggering realization of his own limitations: “I am but a little child” (3:7). He knew such limitations were ill-fitting for the enormous stewardship given him. So what did he do? He asked for help: “an understanding heart to judge Your people to discern between good and evil” (3:9). In doing so, Solomon won his first great victory as a king—in the battle of humility.
A “Friend of Job” Is Humble. Godly wisdom and discernment cannot exist without humility. For humility is able to confesses: “My understanding is limited. Just as my understanding is not the same as it was 10 years ago, so it won’t be the same 10 years from now. I will always lack understanding; I will always have room to grow. Though I still have to think or speak or consider or act here and now—how might I do so humbly?”
Interestingly, the issue of wisdom comes up nearly 40 times in the conversations between Job, his friends, and Elihu—the words used: wisdom (18x); wise (10x); and discernment (1x). Everyone involved seems to think that they are wise, while the other(s) isn’t. We can argue that Job’s lack of wisdom is addressed in the confrontation with God, but it is very targeted and not at all what Job’s friends are accusing him of. By the end, the fools of the story appear to be Job’s friends and, we would argue, Elihu as well.
A “Friend of Job” Is Repentant. If wisdom is difficult because it requires humility, then humility is difficult because it has at least one underlying and deeply-uncomfortable assumption: I have to change. While it insists that my view of the world around me and even of God is incomplete, that may not be the hardest part. No—the hardest part is likely the hit to our egos, that is, our often-inflated view of ourselves. Humility demands that I am always open to the possibility that I need to change, to grow, to be transformed.
Humility encounters a sufferer, and hears and sits with his or her story of suffering. And when inevitably confronted with the internal discomfort that comes with “this doesn’t fit my categories,” humility then says something profound: perhaps a right response in this situation requires change in me. Being a good “friend of Job” does not require right circumstances but, rather, a right heart. Or put another way, for the sufferer to receive the care they need, I may (or will) need to engage in the difficult and offensive process of personal repentance and transformation.
God, the Friend of Job. Apparently, a dilemma for men and women is not in the least a dilemma for God. This means that the human dilemma of an innocent man suffering terribly is not a categorical problem for God—the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the truly righteous and innocent, and yet unjustly suffering, is proof enough. God is not like us, not limited as we are. His “categories” (if we can call them that) are sufficient.
Recall the words of the Apostle Paul: “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!” (Romans 11:33) What if this were among the things that allows for God to be such a good friend? For if wisdom requires nuance, then God has it in spades. Consider again the compassion of Jesus Christ in the gospels of the New Testament.
The stories of Jesus are dripping with insight and nuance, with speech and teaching that torpedoes our categories. And it infuriated his opponents, leading them to call Him a “friend of sinners” (Matthew 11:19a). And the Lord’s reply to such accusations tells us that Jesus knew what He was doing: “Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” (11:19b)
Perhaps all that Peter and Susan Pevensie needed was to possess and/or obtain more “categories” and “boxes” for the information they encountered. If that were they case, it would have required of them to engage in uncomfortable self-reflection. And eventually they did, and had to own-up to it. Hear Peter’s words to Lucy:
“I apologize for not believing you. I'm sorry. Will you shake hands?"
When our worldviews are confronted by the suffering of others, we do well to see it as both a revelation and an opportunity. It is a revelation of our own limitations and also an opportunity to grow. And if we engage with this process honestly, allowing it to push us and grow us, then the result might be a broader and more complete understanding of life and the world and how deeply complex it all is.
And then maybe—just maybe—we might be another step closer to being and becoming a “friend of Job” like our Lord.
Notes:
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