Job Reading 2 with commentary

Job, Reading 2: Job 2:11-3:26

Job 2, con’t.

¹¹Now when Job’s three friends heard of all these troubles that had come upon him, each of them set out from his home—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite.

Dad jokes do invade the interpretation. Here is one of the shortest men in the bible, Bildad the Shoe-Height…  These three friends appear to come from the region of Edom or from Arabia. The origins of their homes is not clear, as they are not clearly defined elsewhere in the Old Testament.

The introduction of these three is going to set up the conflict of discussion as to the meaning of when disaster befalls people, represented through the person of Job.

They met together to go and console and comfort him.

Such is their declared purpose, but they have their own ideas of what that will be.

 ¹²When they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him, and they raised their voices and wept aloud; they tore their robes and threw dust in the air upon their heads.

They are expressing grief in a profound form when they come to Job.

 ¹³They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.

I have heard this verse interpreted as the friends being insensitive to Job, just sitting there for seven days. But I have also known the experience of simply being in someone’s presence during their grief, allowing them time simply to have support, until they are ready to speak. I tend to lean in that direction when interpreting this verse.

3After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.

This introduction is to clarify Job’s cursing of the day of his birth over and against what Satan was pushing, that Job curses the name of God.

 ²Job said: ³“Let the day perish in which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man-child is conceived.’

So he finally speaks. It is not to explain, but it is out of his profound grief.

 ⁴Let that day be darkness! May God above not seek it, or light shine on it. ⁵Let gloom and deep darkness claim it. Let clouds settle upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. ⁶That night—let thick darkness seize it!

I find myself thinking of Jesus as the light of the world, over and against the darkness of sin and death.

 let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months.  ⁷Yes, let that night be barren; let no joyful cry be heard in it. 

In cursing the day of his birth, Job is protesting the gift that he was to his parents. He is by indirect means cursing that God brought him into the world at all.

⁸Let those curse it who curse the Sea, those who are skilled to rouse up Leviathan.

The imagery of the Sea and of Leviathan, a monster of the deep, will come again in Job.

 ⁹Let the stars of its dawn be dark; let it hope for light, but have none; may it not see the eyelids of the morning— ¹⁰because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb, and hide trouble from my eyes.

This is the reason for his cursing the day of his birth. Had he not been born, he would not have seen the trouble that has come upon him.

¹¹“Why did I not die at birth, come forth from the womb and expire? ¹²Why were there knees to receive me, or breasts for me to suck? ¹³Now I would be lying down and quiet; I would be asleep; then I would be at rest ¹⁴with kings and counselors of the earth who rebuild ruins for themselves, ¹⁵or with princes who have gold, who fill their houses with silver.

In this extended paragraph (verses 11-18), Job compares himself here first to the rich who have died and avoided trouble.

 ¹⁶Or why was I not buried like a stillborn child, like an infant that never sees the light? ¹⁷There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest. ¹⁸There the prisoners are at ease together; they do not hear the voice of the taskmaster. 

Now he compares himself to the impoverished, those who find freedom in death.

¹⁹The small and the great are there, and the slaves are free from their masters.

In his conclusion, he draws them together, that death comes for rich and poor alike, something of Ecclesiastes echoes here. The slaves are free from their masters, as he would be free from this tragedy.

²⁰“Why is light given to one in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, ²¹who long for death, but it does not come, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures; ²²who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad when they find the grave?

Notice that in the search for death, in the rejoicing that Job hopes he will find there, but Job makes no mention of a self-destructive movement to ‘help’ himself along into the grave.

 ²³Why is light given to one who cannot see the way, whom God has fenced in?

Notice the twist in the language. Satan spoke of God fencing Job in as protection to the material blessings that were granted to Job. Now Job expresses entrapment by that same God.

 ²⁴For my sighing comes like my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water. ²⁵Truly the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. ²⁶I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest; but trouble comes.”

It is as though he is looking for the source of the trouble. In the very beginning of Job, he is described as one who turns away from evil. That is developed when Job is described as sacrificing on behalf of his children in case one of them would curse God. His avoidance of evil is an active one, ‘but trouble comes’.