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My God and My Neighbor is a “Bible talk show” that looks at religious issues, Christian living and world events in light of the Word of God to give hope. This podcast is a ministry of Tennessee Bible College. TBC offers a bachelor's in Bible studies, a master of theology, and a doctorate of theology in apologetics and Christian evidences. TBC also provides Christian books, audio recordings on the Bible, and free Bible courses in English and Spanish. Tune in to My God and My Neighbor to experience the educational content that TBC has been delivering for nearly five decades!
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Kerry Duke: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Kerry Duke, host of My God in My Neighbor podcast from Tennessee Bible College, where we see the Bible as not just another book, but the Book. Join us in a study of the inspired Word to strengthen your faith and to share what you've learned with others.
Job lost everything. He lost his workers. He lost his livestock. He lost his 10 children. Then he lost his health due to a terrible disease. Then his three friends came, the Bible says, to mourn with him and to comfort him. And yet when Job began to complain in Job chapter three and wish that he were dead, the Bible says that his friends began to criticize him. They began to judge him, and in Job chapter four, the first one to speak was Eliphaz.
Eliphaz said in Job chapter four, verse eight, “They that plow iniquity and sow wickedness, reap the same. He is implying here: [00:01:00] Job, you are a sinner and you are reaping what you have sown. So all the way through the Book of Job, you find that there is a serious argument between Job and his three friends. His three friends try to convince him that he ought to admit that he's a sinner and then God will forgive him and God will restore his health.
Job said I can't plead guilty to something that I'm innocent of. Now Job knew that he was not a perfect man in the sense of being sinless. He knew that he had made mistakes in his life, but Job said I cannot agree with you that God is punishing me because I have been such a hypocrite and such an evil man.
So in Job chapter six, Job responds to what Eliphaz has said. And in Job chapter six, he begins to talk about his grief. Job chapter six, verse two: “Oh, that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together. For now it would be heavier than the sand of the [00:02:00] sea. Therefore my words are swallowed up, for the arrows of the Almighty are within me. The poison whereof drinks up my spirit. The terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.”
Now notice here that Job again thinks that God is doing this to him. He does not consider that Satan might be involved in this. You and I know that Satan was behind all this, but Job doesn't know that. So the first thing he thinks of is: Why is God doing this?
And I believe that many times that's our tendency. We are prone to think when something bad happens that God is doing it. So why is God doing this to me? Sometimes we don't even entertain the possibility that the devil might be behind it. Job said in Job chapter six, verse eight, “Oh, that I might have my request, and that God would grant me the thing that I long for.”
What is your request Job? What is it that you're longing [00:03:00] for? He tells us in verse nine: “Even that it would please God to destroy me, that he would loose his hand and cut me off.” Job wants to die. He is asking God for his death. Now again, he's not the first one or the only one that we read in the Bible who did that. Moses asked God if he could die. Elijah wanted to die and he prayed to God for that. Job is in such pain, he is in such misery, that the only kind of relief that he thinks he can get is to die. In Job chapter seven, here's how he describes his suffering. He said in Job chapter seven, verse three: “So I am made to possess months of vanity and wearisome nights are appointed to me.”
I can't get any rest. I can't sleep at night. This is going on continually. And the Bible says in Job chapter seven, verse 11 that he said these words, “Therefore, I will not refrain my mouth. I will speak in the anguish of my [00:04:00] spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.” You see, what his friends were trying to get him to do was to be quiet. They were telling him to shut up. They were telling him to humble himself before God and to say I'm guilty and to repent, and then God would forgive him.
But he goes on to say that God is after him here in verse 12 of chapter seven. He says, “Am I a sea, or a whale, that you set a watch over me?” Are you hunting me? In other words, like men hunt whales. That's what Job is saying to God. Now after Job gives his defense in chapter seven, Bildad is the second one to speak, and the Bible says in Job chapter eight, verses one and two: “Then answered Bildad the Shuhite and said, How long will you speak these things, and how long shall the words of your mouth be like a strong wind?”
What he's saying is: you're just full of wind. You're just full of hot air job. Quit talking and do what [00:05:00] we tell you to do. You just need to admit that you're wrong and you need to repent. And notice again how cold and calloused these men who are supposed to be his friends are. Remember that Job has lost his 10 children. Look at what Bildad says to his friend here who is suffering more than Bildad had ever, or probably would ever, suffer. In Job chapter eight, verse three: “Does God pervert judgment? Or does the Almighty pervert justice? If your children have sinned against him, and he have cast them away for their transgressions, if you would seek unto God be times and make your supplication to the Almighty,” he says, and goes on to explain, then God would restore you.
Notice that he says in verse four: Look, if your children have done something wrong and God has punished them for that, you just need to admit you're wrong. You need to admit that you are out of place and then God will restore you.
In chapter nine, Job responds to him, and when he responds, [00:06:00] he cannot figure out why God will not answer him. You see, Job has been pleading with God: answer me, help me. But God won't say anything and Job is getting frustrated here. Now any of us would. Any of us in his situation probably would've done worse than what Job did because Job was a man that God said there was none like him in the earth. And so Job chapter nine shows us that Job is getting frustrated, and in Job chapter nine, verse 32, he says, “For he is not a man,” that is, God is not a man “as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment.”
In other words, he's saying I can't just go to God, walk up to him and say I need to sit down and talk with you. It doesn't work that way with the Almighty. And not only that, he says, “But,” in verse 33, “neither is there any days man betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both.” By a “days man” he means a mediator. He means what we would call an [00:07:00] umpire—somebody that would be a go-between between himself and God. So Job is saying I'm trying to find God. I'm trying to find out why He's doing this to me, but I just can't walk up to him like I would a man. Not only that, I can't find anybody on earth that would represent me to God and let me talk to him.
So in Job chapter 10 he says again [Job chapter 10, verse one], “My soul is weary of my life.” He's tired of living. “I will leave my complaint upon myself. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.” And then he begins to talk about what he thinks God has done to him, and he uses all these figures. He says in Job chapter 10, verse 10 [he's talking to God]: “Have you not poured me out as milk and curdled me like cheese?” In verse 16, he says, “You hunt me as a fierce lion.” And you'll notice that this book is full of images and illustrations and figures of speech.
Remember, this [00:08:00] is in a section that many people call Hebrew poetry. It doesn't mean that it rhymes as far as sound is concerned. It means that it has a special way of expressing itself. So think about what Job has said about God and what he thinks God is doing to him so far. Just in this lesson, he said that God was shooting arrows at him like a man would have a bow and arrows shooting them at a target. He says that God is hunting me like a whale at sea. He says that God has poured me out like milk. He says that God is hunting me like a lion, and he again asks the question, “Why, God?” Why? [verse 18] “Why then have you brought me forth out of the womb? Oh, that I had given up the ghost and no eye had seen me.” I wish that I had died before I was born.
So he says in verse 20, “Are not my days few?” And that's how he felt. Job felt that he didn't have very long to live and he didn't want to live much longer. And so he says, “Let me [00:09:00] alone.” Sometimes people get to the point to where that's the very feeling that they have. Just leave me alone and let me die. Leave me alone “that I may take a little comfort before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death, a land of darkness as darkness itself.” And no sooner does he make his case than Zophar steps up to the plate. Now remember, it goes in this order. Eliphaz speaks. Job responds, Bildad speaks. Job responds. Zophar speaks. And what does Zophar far have to say?
Really, not anything different from what Eliphaz and Bildad said. The Bible says in chapter 11, verse one, “Then answered Zophar the Naamathite and said, “Should not the multitude of words be answered. And should a man full of talk be justified? Should your lies make men hold their peace?” So he says, you're just full of talk. You're full of hot air, and not only that, you're a liar. You're lying about [00:10:00] this. And to really make his point about reaping what you have sown, he goes beyond what Eliphaz and Bildad said. Now, Eliphaz said Job you're getting what you deserve. You brought this on yourself. But Zophar in verse six says this. He says he wished that God would show him “the secrets of wisdom, that they are double to that which is. Know therefore that God exacts of you less than your iniquity deserves.” In other words, God is not giving you as much as you deserve. You deserve more than this. If God really punished you, you would be suffering worse than you are. And it's hard to see how he could be suffering any worse than what he was, but that's what Zophar is saying here.
You see, the longer the argument goes, the worse it gets. The more they argue, the more intense it gets, and the more exaggerated they are in what they say, the madder they get at each other, and it just gets more and more serious. It just continues to go downhill. [00:11:00] And we're just getting the start of that here.
Verse 14 of chapter 11—Zophar said to Job, “If iniquity be in your hand, put it far away.” In other words, you just need to repent. And then he says in verse 15, “Then you shall lift up your face without spot.” Then you're going to be restored and things will be well with you.
Job again answers in Job chapter 12. And here's what he says in Job chapter 12 verse two. “No doubt but you are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.” He's saying: you think you're the only wise people on the earth. You think that when you die there won't be any wisdom left because you have it all. You've got the market cornered on wisdom, so no doubt but you're the people, you're the wise ones, and you're supposed to be instructing me.
So they've criticized Job. They have cut him with words. And now job is cutting back. He's using sarcasm, and that's oftentimes the way that a disagreement goes when two people don't listen to each other. Instead of using plain talk, [00:12:00] they start cutting each other. They start using sarcasm, and that's what happens here in Job chapter 12.
But Job reminds them in verse three, “I have understanding as well as you. I am not inferior to you.” Job is saying I know all this that you're talking about, that a man reaps what he sows, but that does not apply to me. And then in chapter 13, verse two, he says, “What you know the same do I know also, I am not inferior to you.”
Then in verse four he says, “But you are forgers of lies.” You three are lying about this. You're lying about me. And then he says, “You are all physicians of no value.” You're here to fix me. You're here to help me. You're here to straighten me out, and you're making it worse. You're like doctors who are worthless. You are worthless physicians.
In verse 13, he says to these three friends, “Hold your peace. Let me alone that I may speak and let come on me what will.” Verse 15: He [00:13:00] says, “Though he slay me,” [he's talking about God] even if God kills me, “Yet will I trust in him; but I will maintain my own ways before him.” In verse 21, he pleads with God, “Withdraw your hand far from me.”
And in verse 23, he somewhat challenges God here. That is, if I'm wrong, show me. In verse 23: “How many are mine iniquities? Make me to know my transgression and my sin.” Tell me and show me why You're doing this to me. If I have done something wrong to deserve this, then show it to me. And the implication is if I haven't done anything wrong to that level, then why are You doing this to me?
In verse 24 not only is he pleading with God to show him why he's doing this, but he wants to know why God will not answer him. Verse 24: “Wherefore do you hide your face and hold me for your enemy?” You keep me at arm's length, you won't let me talk to you and [00:14:00] you won't answer me. And he says in verse 26 “For you, write bitter things against me.” And what that means is you are just holding something against me here. It can't be because I'm such a bad man. Now, it must be that, he says, “you make me to possess the iniquities of my youth.” Maybe that's it. He's saying I know I haven't done anything. Now I know I'm not perfect, but I know I'm not an evil hypocrite. So maybe You're getting back at me for something that I did when I was young. He's looking for anything to make sense of his suffering here.
And in chapter 14, he says about life in general something that is very true in Job chapter 14, verse one. “Man that is born of a woman is a few days and full of trouble. He comes forth like a flower and is cut down. He flees also as a shadow and continues not.” In chapter 14, he begins to talk about the fact that as long as a man lives, he has hope on this earth, but when he dies, he's not coming back to the earth.
And that is the chapter where you [00:15:00] find these words that are familiar to many people. Job chapter 14, verse 14: “If a man die, shall he live again?” Now, the thing to remember about this is the context. Job has been talking about the fact that once you die, you're not coming back to the earth. You're not going to get a second chance on the earth to live and to prosper and to correct things, and to have a good life.
Now, there were people that were raised from the dead, but Job is stating a general truth here that when you die, you don't come back. You see, in Job chapter 14 verse 14, Job is not asking this question to get an answer. He is not asking this question because he doesn't know. He's not saying, “Well, I wonder if a man will live after he dies.”
That is not what he's talking about. He's already given the answer. This is what we would call a rhetorical question. It is a question that answers itself. It is a question that actually makes a statement. What he's saying is, if a man dies, he will not live again, and that applied to his situation.
So he's longing for death. [00:16:00] He doesn't have a time that he's going to come back and live on this earth. That's how he's looking at this. So chapter 14 ends with Job holding his ground, and that is the end of the first round or the first cycle in this argument.
So when we get to chapter 15, we find the second round begins with Eliphaz again the first speaker. Notice how similar they are in the way that they describe Job. In Job chapter 15, verse one, “Then answered Eliphaz the Temanite and said, Should a wise man utter vain knowledge and fill his belly with the east wind?” You’re a windbag Job. You're full of hot air. Instead of talking, you need to listen.
He says in verse three, “Should he reason with unprofitable talk?” He says in verse five, “For your mouth utters your iniquity, and you choose the tongue of the crafty.” As a matter of fact, he says in verse six, Job, your own mouth condemns you. And he says beginning in verse seven, “Are you the first man that was born or were you made [00:17:00] before the hills? Have you heard the secret of God? Do you restrain wisdom to yourself? What do you know that we don't know? What do you understand, which is not in us? With us are both the gray headed and very aged men, much older than your father.”
He tells Job again you're reaping what you sown because this is what happens to bad people.
In Job chapter 15, verse 20, Eliphaz said the wicked man travails with pain all his days. He's talking to a man who's in misery. He's talking to a man who is in all kinds of pain. In verse 24, Eliphaz says to him, “Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid. They shall prevail against him as a king ready to the battle. For He stretches out his hand against God and strengthens himself against the Almighty.” Eliphaz is accusing Job of stretching out his hand against God, of rebelling against God, of fighting against God, and he says he's going to suffer because of it.
“He shall not be rich, neither shall his substance [00:18:00] continue.” This is exactly what happened to Job. He lost all that he had. In Job chapter 15, verse 34, Eliphaz uses the word hypocrite. He says, “For the congregation of hypocrites shall be desolate, and fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery.” So he's saying by implication here, Job, you are a hypocrite.
And then Job responds to him in chapter 16 and chapter 17, and the argument continues in Job chapter 16 verse one. Job answered and said, “I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are you all.” Do you remember why these three men came to see Job? The Bible says in Job chapter two, verse 11 they made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him. So Job is saying if you're here to comfort me, you're doing a miserable job. You are miserable comforters. He's cutting them. He is tired. He's getting very frustrated. He knows he is right, [00:19:00] but they won't listen. And on top of that, God will not answer him.
So here are some things that he says about God in Job chapter 16, beginning in verse nine. “He tears me in his wrath who hates me. He gnashes upon me with his teeth. My enemy sharpens his eyes upon me.” In verse 11: “God has delivered me to the ungodly and turned me over into the hands of the wicked. I was at ease, but he has broken me asunder. He has also taken me by my neck and shaken me to pieces and set me up for his mark. His archers compass me round about, and he cleaves my reins asunder and does not spare. He pours out my gall upon the ground. He breaks me with a breach upon breach. He runs upon me like a giant,” and again, he emphasizes in verse 17 that it was not because he was at fault. In verse 17, he says all this is not for “any injustice in my hands.” I didn't do anything to deserve this. Then in verse 20, he says, “My [00:20:00] friends scorn me, but my eye pours out tears unto God. Oh, that one might plead for a man with God as a man pleads for his neighbor. When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return.”
In chapter 17, he talks about what God has done to him in his thinking. This is what God was doing. Verse six: “He has made me also a byword of the people and aforetime I was as a tabret. Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow.” In verse 10: “But as for you all, do you return and come now, for I cannot find one wise man among you”. I can't find a reasonable person among you friends of mine.” “My days are past, my purposes are broken off. Even the thoughts of my heart, they change the night into day, the light is short because of darkness. If I wait, the grave is my house. I have made my bed in the darkness. I have said to corruption, you're my father. To the worm, you are my mother and my sister. [00:21:00] And where is now my hope? As for my hope, who shall see it? They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust.” Now that is what Job said to Eliphaz about his accusation.
That brings us to chapter 18, and now Bildad speaks. He says in verse two, “How long will it be ere you make an end of words? mark, and afterwards we will speak.” He begins to try Job. He begins to accuse him and warn him that his suffering is what happens to people who are evil. In verse five, he says yes, “the light of the wicked shall be put out.” Verse seven: “The steps of his strength shall be straightened and his own counsel shall cast him down, for he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he walks upon a snare.” In verse 15, he gets even rougher. “It shall be in his tabernacle, because it is none of his: brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation.”
Then he says in verse 19, “He shall have neither son nor nephew [00:22:00] among his people, nor any remaining in his dwelling”. In verse 21, he warns Job, “Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him that does not know God.” That ends Bildad's case in chapter 18.
Now in chapter 19, Job responds again and he will not agree with what they're saying. He defends himself. Chapter 19 is a sad story because here job is expressing his grief. He's crying out to these people in a sense. He's asking them for mercy, and one of the things that you'll find here in chapter 19 is that he's beginning to feel all alone. He's felt that before, but he comes right out and talks about it here.
In Job chapter 19 verse one: “Then Job answered and said, How long will you vex my soul and break me in pieces with words? These ten times have you reproached me.” And then he says in verse six, “Now know that God has overthrown me and has compassed me” or [00:23:00] surrounded me, that is, with His net. So here he definitely says God is doing this. God has cast me down. God is punishing me, and of course in the background of his mind is that he can't figure out why. In verse seven he says, “Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard. I cry aloud, but there is no judgment. He has fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness in my paths. He has stripped me of my glory and taken the crown from my head. He has destroyed me on every side.”
Now this is what he says about God in verse 11: “He has also kindled his wrath against me.” Then he begins to talk about the fact that nobody wants anything to do with him. Even his relatives and his servants and his friends have forsaken him. He feels isolated. He feels all alone. Look at verse 13. “He has put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me. “My kinsfolk,” he says in verse 14, “have failed, and my [00:24:00] familiar friends have forgotten me.” Verse 15: “They that dwell in my house and my maids count me for a stranger. I am an alien in their sight.”
“I called my servant and he gave me no answer. I entreated him with my mouth.” Verse 17: “My breath is strange to my wife, though I entreated for the children's sake of my own body.” In verse 18 he said yes, “Young children despise me. I arose and they spoke against me.” Verse 19: “All my inward friends abhorred me. They whom I loved are turned against me. Any one of the sufferings that Job went through would be overwhelming for any of us. But think about what he endured: financial loss, the loss of his children to death, a chronic, devastating illness. So he had financial stress, he had the grief to go with it, he had physical pain and emotional trauma, and now he talks about the fact that no one helped him.
Evidently, [00:25:00] nobody said a comforting word to this man. In fact, they criticized him. They disrespected him. And we're talking about, as he says here in chapter 19, his kinfolk, his friends, his servants that he paid. By the way, children were all ashamed of him, and there's not one supportive thing his wife said to him, at least in this book.
So he's suffering financially, he's suffering physically, he's suffering emotionally, and now he's suffering socially. In verse 21, you read these heartbreaking words, “Have pity upon me, have pity upon me. O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me. Why do you persecute me as God and are not satisfied with my flesh? Oh, that my words were now written, O, that they were printed in a book, that they were graved with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever.” But even though he is very angry, he is very depressed, he still says that he believes in God and he still puts his faith in the Lord. In verses 25 and [00:26:00] 26, you have one of the greatest faith statements anywhere in the Bible.
And remember the kind of shape this man is in. He's not in good condition at this point in any way whatsoever, and yet he's pledging his faith in God. This is Job 19:25 and 26, and you'll recognize some of these words from a song that we sometimes sing at church in verse 25. He said, “For I know that my redeemer lives, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I shall see God.” So job held on to his faith. He would not turn his back on God. He would not turn against God. He does say some things here in this book that were wrong, that crossed the line, because of his anger. But as far as his overall faith is concerned, he holds onto that faith.
How many people would give up on God and maybe even become atheists if they went through just one of the things that Job did? [00:27:00] How many Christians would turn their back on God if they went through what Job has experienced here? This man is a great example of suffering and patience and suffering. That's why the Bible says in James chapter five, verse 11: “You have heard of the patience of Job.” Many times we think that patience means that you never lose your cool about anything. And that's an element of it. That's an aspect of it. But if you really want to see what patience is all about, just look at the life of Job. Sometimes he lost his cool. Sometimes he said some things that were sarcastic. But overall, he never quit. He endured.
That's what patience is in the Bible. It means to endure, and Christians need this kind of example. Do you remember that Jesus warned about falling away in times of trial? In Matthew chapter 13, verse 21, he talks about the seed that fell on the stony ground, and he described people like this in the following way. In Matthew 13 verse 21, he said, “Yet he has no root in himself, but [00:28:00] endures for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he is offended.” Sometimes Christians do well in the Christian life for a while, but when hard times strike, then they fall away. We need to be like Job. He would not give up his faith. He said, “I know that my Redeemer lives,” and those words need to be on the lips of Christian people to this day.
Zophar does not like what Job has said. And he says these words in verse two. “Therefore do my thoughts cause me to answer, and for this I make taste.” In other words, I'm upset. I feel very strongly about this, and I'm in a hurry. I'm anxious to say what's on my mind. And beginning in verse four, he says the same old thing. In other words. This is what happens, Job, to evil people. You've been bad, you've been wicked. He says that wicked people have this kind of trouble in their life [verse 19] “because he has oppressed and forsaken the poor.”
Now Job didn't do [00:29:00] that, but they're beginning to make accusations that have no foundation whatsoever. The Bible says in verse 23 that Zophar described a wicked man's life like this. “When he is about to fill his belly, God shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him.” And in verse 29, he ends by saying “this is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the heritage appointed unto him by God.”
When he ends, Job responds. He says in chapter 21, verse two, “Suffer me that I may speak. And after that I have spoken, mock on.” In other words, let me say some things about this and if you want to make fun of me after that, go ahead and do it. So what Job does here is to talk about the fact that sometimes in this life, wicked people prosper. But he also adds that they pay for their sins. So Job is saying in effect: Yes, it is true that wicked people suffer in this lifetime. It is true that bad things happen to bad people, but that doesn't apply to me. So this ends round two of this great argument in the Book of Job, and when we get to round three, we're going to see [00:30:00] that it gets even more intense. This is the problem of evil that these men are talking about.
Thank you for listening to My God and My Neighbor. Stay connected with our podcast on our website, and on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever fine podcasts are distributed. Tennessee Bible College, providing Christian education since 1975 in Cookeville, Tennessee, offers undergraduate and graduate programs. Study at your level. Aim higher and get in touch with us today.