7:1-21
This section is the third part of Job’s speech. This one is his complaint to God.
He speaks of how man has hard service on earth. He is like the hired hand who must do what God directs him. But Job is like a slave who longs for the evening when he can rest and like the hired man who is waiting for his wages. He has been allotted months of futility and purposelessness and nights of nightmares and misery. That must have been hard for a man who led a busy, purposeful life. At night he lies down and wonders how long he must lie there in discomfort, terrified to fall asleep because of the nightmares he endures, before morning comes and he can get up. In the morning there are worms and scabs on his body. His days fly by and come to an end without hope. He asks God to remember his life is just a breath and he will never see happiness again. Job expects the only future for him is death and this is why he refused to be quiet. This is why he chooses to speak out in his anguish and complain in ‘the bitterness of his soul’. His life is so chaotic he feels he must be a sea monster (symbol of chaos) and objects to being treated like this. He believes God is sending his nightmares, pain and suffering and he finds this intolerable. He just wants the release of death.
Job’s words in verse 17 are echoed in Psalm 144:3-4. ‘What is man that you are mindful of him?’ Job is insignificant and his life is like a breath to God. He depends on God and now God is testing him. He asks God if He will look away so Job can have some peace. He begs God to tell him what he has done wrong and asks why God does not forgive him. Again, he believes his suffering is a punishment for something he has done wrong, even though he can think of nothing.
God brings about change in us and this change is more likely to happen when things are not going the way we want them to. Waiting is hard and sometimes our circumstances cause us to lose hope. If you look at the story of Jesus’ life you will notice that He purposely ministered to others and went from place to place until He was arrested. At that time He was taken places He did not choose. He was beaten horribly and He was nailed to a cross. The only thing He had control over was His choice to forgive.
Sometimes we need to surrender control of our lives and surrender to God. Not an easy thing to do, but God is there to help if we ask. He will not necessarily take our suffering away but He will encourage and strengthen us. Job was so fixed on the idea he was being punished that it did not occur to him to ask for help. In our times of suffering it is often like that. That is where our friends should be, offering a caring ear and encouraging us to ask God for help.

What did Job’s friends do next?
 

6:14-30
In this, the second part of this speech, Job has replaced his hopelessness with anger at his supposed ‘friends’ and their lack of support. He complains his friends have cheated him of empathy and comfort when that is all he wanted. He takes it further in accusing them of dishonesty and heartless cruelty and asks them to rescind their false accusations that he must have done something wrong.
Job needs spiritual help but his friends are not giving it. He calls them brothers to highlight the closeness of their friendship and the magnitude of their failure in not supporting him to keep his faith in God. It is good to stop here and think about that. God expects us to support and encourage each other. If we fail to support a friend in need and, because of that lack of support, the friend falls away from God, then we are held accountable. There is no hiding behind the ‘I didn’t feel led to help’, or ‘it wasn’t my calling’. We are all responsible for supporting each other.
Instead of their help, Job’s friends see a man they believe is being punished by God and are afraid to support him because they believe then God will judge them too. But all Job asks for is that no cost friendship and counsel. Something God expects us to do for each other. Anything our friend has done wrong is between them and God. We are still expected to support. How often we fail to just sit with something in crisis and instead try to blame them for their problems or solve them. Job did not ask to be judged and unfairly accused. All he wanted was to be heard and cared for. Likewise, those we encounter in life who are in a place of crisis, seek to be heard and cared for. Leave the judging to God. He knows what is happening. We do not. It is time we adopted God’s way, that of listening and supporting, instead of following the world’s way, that of judging and condemnation.
 

6:1-13
Having finished his speech, where he accused Job of sinning and not being willing to admit it, Eliphaz now sits back. No doubt he is very pleased with his speech. Job responds to him. This response is in three parts.
In this first part, Job speaks generally about how he sought empathy and compassion from his friends and understanding of what drove him to speak so bluntly about his suffering and desire for an end (chapter 3).
Job, like Eliphaz, believes suffering is God’s punishment. This is what he finds so puzzling. He has sought to live a righteous life. All he seeks now is for God to end his life and he will know the joy of never having rejected God. This is something satan has been trying to get Job to do and has failed.
Sadly, Job says, he has to endure, not only his suffering, but the tasteless food of his friends’ patronising and sanctimonious words.
Now he tells his friends he has no strength left. He has lost hope in having any future. He asks his friends is they think he has superhuman endurance, an ability to withstand incredible stress. He asks them is they think he can help himself when he has nothing left.
He does not answer any of Eliphaz’s statements. He listens to Eliphaz as little as Eliphaz listened to him. Each has his own things he wants to say and neither is listening to the other. In Job’s case, I suspect he stopped listening when he realised his friend was not going to offer any comfort. Who can blame him?
In our society we are just as bad at listening to each other as Job’s friends were. We are more interested in offering advice and solving the problems we imagine other people have, than actually listening to them and offering true comfort. If you want to help those who are suffering, then close your mouth, open your ears, and listen. Don’t try to problem solve. Don’t try to find a reason for their sorrow. Just listen.
Be Jesus ears to bring comfort to one He loves.
 

5:8-27
Verse eight starts with Eliphaz stating that if it were him, he would lay his cause before God. He ten proceeds to praise God and speak of how wonderful God is. So what is happening here? Is he praising God and applauding His justice? What is this leading to?
In verse 17 we see it. Here it comes. According to Eliphaz, blessed is the man whom God corrects and disciplines. Elpihaz believes discipline is short lived. Then he proceeds to make the worst, most uncaring comment of all. The good man will be protected. His tent will be secure and his stock will not be taken. His children will be many. Talk about below the belt!
Eliphaz still believed such horror as Job has suffered has been a punishment to a bad man.
As a counsellor I see many people who have been through hard times and found the worst people in their lives, the Eliphaz’s, were fellow Christians in churches. So many are hurt and bewildered by the lack of care they have received from their church family. They speak of the preaching that tells them to reach out to those in need when their desperate need is ignored by the church. What are we as Christians doing that we cannot find it within ourselves to be Jesus love, Jesus hands, Jesus arms to love those who are hurting within our midst. What about John 13:34-35 where Jesus commands us to love each other and that this is how people will know we are His disciples? How can we claim to love and follow Him if we fail to help our fellow believers when they are in need?
I don’t know about you, but I pray that I may always be Jesus not Eliphaz. How about you?