The Audacity of Job’s Opponents

2024-11-02

Imagine telling a man who lost ten children in a horrific accident the following: “If thy children have sinned against him, and he have cast them away for their transgression” (Job 8:4). Another one of Job’s “friends” said this: “Know therefore that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth” (Job 11:6).

Eliphaz alleges specific sins that Job committed: “Is not thy wickedness great? and thine iniquities infinite? For thou hast taken a pledge from thy brother for nought, and stripped the naked of their clothing. Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry” (Job 22:5-7). And Elihu said, “What man is like Job, who drinketh up scorning like water? Which goeth in company with the workers of iniquity, and walketh with wicked men” (Job 34:7-8). And again, “My desire is that Job may be tried unto the end because of his answers for wicked men” (Job 34:36).

Surely these men have some sort of proof of the allegations? But the Lord had said, “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil” (Job 1:1). Surely Job said a lot of things in his pain he would not have said otherwise. But for men to purposefully malign a man and tell him his children’s death was their fault when this was wrong is a special kind of evil.