Today we are reading the second half of Job’s response to Eliphaz’s first speech. In the first half, Job criticized his friends for abandoning him in his hour of need, and challenged them to explain to him what he had done wrong. In the second half, he starts to talk less to his friends, and more to God himself.

1 “Does not humanity have hard service on earth?
Are not their days also like the days of a hired man?
2 Like a servant longing for the evening shadow,
and like a hired man looking for his wages,
3 thus I have been made to inherit
months of futility,
and nights of sorrow
have been appointed to me.
4 If I lie down, I say, ‘When will I arise?’
And the night stretches on,
and I toss and turn restlessly
until the day dawns.
5 My body is clothed with worms and dirty scabs;
my skin is broken and festering.
6 My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,
and they come to an end without hope.
7 Remember that my life is but a breath,
that my eyes will never again see happiness.
8 The eye of him who sees me now will see me no more;
your eyes will look for me, but I will be gone.
9 As a cloud is dispersed and then disappears,
so the one who goes down to the grave
does not come up again.
10 He returns no more to his house,
nor does his place of residence know him anymore.

11 “Therefore, I will not refrain my mouth;
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
12 Am I the sea, or the creature of the deep,
that you must put me under guard?
13 If I say, ‘My bed will comfort me,
my couch will ease my complaint,’
14 then you scare me with dreams
and terrify me with visions,
15 so that I would prefer strangling
and death more than life.
16 I loathe it; I do not want to live forever;
leave me alone, for my days are a vapor!

17 “What is mankind that you make so much of them,
and that you pay attention to them?
18 And that you visit them every morning,
and try them every moment?
19 Will you never look away from me,
will you not let me alone
long enough to swallow my spittle?
20 If I have sinned—what have I done to you,
O watcher of men?
Why have you set me as your target?
Have I become a burden to you?
21 And why do you not pardon my transgression
and take away my iniquity?
For now I will lie down in the dust,
and you will seek me diligently,
but I will be gone.”

REFLECTIONS

Suffering can do horrible things to our perception of reality. When Job says to God in verse 17, “What is mankind that you make so much of them, and that you pay attention to them?”, he is echoing Psalm 8:4 – except that in the Psalm, David is full of joyful wonder. David was saying, “We are such tiny creatures – and yet God chose to set his love and affection on us above all else.” Job’s circumstances seem to scream out that God’s attention hasn’t shifted, but his goodwill and love have evaporated.

It's going to be many chapters until Job discovers that God’s love for him never wavered for a moment. It would be many centuries until God’s love would be displayed so publicly, powerfully and permanently on a Roman cross that those who trust in Jesus never need doubt it again.