Yesterday, we heard Job’s frustration that he has no way of defending his integrity before God. He thinks God has condemned him as a sinner. We know that’s not true, but Job is plunging into despair again – he can’t see any way back to being right with God. Today we’ll hear the second half of his reply to Bildad.

1 “I am weary of my life;
I will complain freely without restraint;
I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
2 I will say to God, ‘Do not condemn me;
tell me why you are contending with me.’
3 Is it good for you to oppress,
to despise the work of your hands,
while you smile
on the schemes of the wicked?

4 “Do you have eyes of flesh,
or do you see as a human being sees?
5 Are your days like the days of a mortal,
or your years like the years of a mortal,
6 that you must search out my iniquity
and inquire about my sin,
7 although you know that I am not guilty,
and that there is no one who can deliver
out of your hand?

8 “Your hands have shaped me and made me,
but now you destroy me completely.
9 Remember that you have made me as with the clay;
will you return me to dust?
10 Did you not pour me out like milk
and curdle me like cheese?
11 You clothed me with skin and flesh
and knit me together with bones and sinews.
12 You gave me life and favor,
and your intervention watched over my spirit.
13 “But these things you have concealed in your heart;
I know that this is with you:
14 If I sinned, then you would watch me,
and you would not acquit me of my iniquity.
15 If I am guilty, woe to me,
and if I am innocent, I cannot lift my head;
I am full of shame
and satiated with my affliction.
16 If I lift myself up,
you hunt me as a fierce lion,
and again you display your power against me.
17 You bring new witnesses against me
and increase your anger against me;
relief troops come against me.

18 “Why then did you bring me out from the womb?
I should have died,
and no eye would have seen me!
19 I should have been as though I had never existed;
I should have been carried
right from the womb to the grave!
20 Are not my days few?
Cease, then, and leave me alone
that I may find a little comfort,
21 before I depart, never to return,
to the land of darkness
and the deepest shadow,
22 to the land of utter darkness,
like the deepest darkness,
and the deepest shadow and disorder,
where even the light is like darkness.”

REFLECTIONS

I find verses 8-12 especially heartbreaking. Job reminds God of how carefully and tenderly he formed Job when he made him in the womb and caused him to grow and develop. Now Job feels betrayed, because it seems to him like that was all a pretense – that God was secretly planning to torment him all along, like someone making a beautiful figurine, only to throw it on the floor and watch it shatter. That’s what he means when he says, “But these things you have concealed in your heart” (v. 13).

The thing that makes it doubly heartbreaking is that God was concealing things in his heart. But it was a heart of love. He was waiting until just the right time to reveal his unguessable plan: to send his Son to take the sin and suffering of the whole world on his shoulders, so that all our guilt and shame could be wiped away and so that we can stand innocent and right with God when Jesus returns. Spend time thanking God that, because of Jesus, we can be sure of his heart of love towards us.