Yesterday we heard Eliphaz begin the second round of the debate. Today we will read the first half of Job’s reply.

1 Then Job replied:
2 “I have heard many things like these before.
What miserable comforters are you all!
3 Will there be an end to your windy words?
Or what provokes you that you answer?
4 I also could speak like you,
if you were in my place;
I could pile up words against you,
and I could shake my head at you.
5 But I would strengthen you with my words;
comfort from my lips would bring you relief.

6 “But if I speak, my pain is not relieved,
and if I refrain from speaking,
how much of it goes away?
7 Surely now he has worn me out;
you have devastated my entire household.
8 You have seized me,
and it has become a witness;
my leanness has risen up against me
and testifies against me.
9 His anger has torn me and persecuted me;
he has gnashed at me with his teeth;
my adversary locks his eyes on me.
10 People have opened their mouths against me;
they have struck my cheek in scorn;
they unite together against me.
11 God abandons me to evil men,
and throws me into the hands of wicked men.
12 I was in peace, and he has shattered me.
He has seized me by the neck and crushed me.
He has made me his target;
13 his archers surround me.
Without pity he pierces my kidneys
and pours out my gall on the ground.
14 He breaks through against me, time and time again;
he rushes against me like a warrior.
15 I have sewed sackcloth on my skin
and buried my horn in the dust;
16 my face is reddened because of weeping,
and on my eyelids there is a deep darkness,
17 although there is no violence in my hands
and my prayer is pure.

18 “O earth, do not cover my blood,
nor let there be a secret place for my cry.
19 Even now my witness is in heaven;
my advocate is on high.
20 My intercessor is my friend
as my eyes pour out tears to God;
21 and he contends with God on behalf of man
as a man pleads for his friend.
22 For the years that lie ahead are few,
and then I will go on the way of no return.

REFLECTIONS

Several times we have thought about how Job is a preview of Jesus, the righteous sufferer. Today, so many things Job says find their echo and fulfilment in the sufferings of Jesus. For example, Job knows that he is suffering by God’s sovereign will (he is right about that, even though he has misinterpreted God’s attitude to him). God has thrown him “into the hands of wicked men” (v. 11) – wicked men who “have struck my cheek in scorn; they unite together against me” (v. 10). That felt like I was reading a description of Jesus’ sham trial in the Gospels: “Then they spit in his face and struck him with their fists; others slapped him” (Matthew 26:67). Or when the believers pray in Acts 4: “Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.” (Acts 4:27-28).

But the line that most stood out to me was Job’s cry in verse 18: “Oh earth, do not cover my blood.” Job is convinced that he will die without being vindicated. But Job hopes that after he dies, his blood will cry out and bring him vindication (like Abel’s blood in Genesis 4:10). In fact, he even dares to hope that God will become his witness in heaven, his advocate and his intercessor, the one who vindicates him (vv. 19-20).

All these threads come together in Jesus … with the most glorious plot-twist. Jesus suffered all these things to the maximum, and then God vindicated him by raising him from the dead. But ultimately, Jesus suffered and died so that his blood would cry out on our behalf, so that his resurrection would be not just his own vindication, but ours as well. As Paul says: “He was delivered over to death for our sins and raised to life for our justification” (Romans 4:25).