Today's Meditation - Monday, August 24, 2020

 Today's Meditation

Read Job 4, 5 various passages

Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered: ²“If one ventures a word with you, will you be offended? But who can keep from speaking? ³See, you have instructed many; you have strengthened the weak hands. ⁴Your words have supported those who were stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees. ⁵But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed. ⁶Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?

¹²“Now a word came stealing to me, my ear received the whisper of it. ¹³Amid thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on mortals, ¹⁴dread came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake. ¹⁵A spirit glided past my face; the hair of my flesh bristled. ¹⁶It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes; there was silence, then I heard a voice: ¹⁷‘Can mortals be righteous before God? Can human beings be pure before their Maker? ¹⁸Even in his servants he puts no trust, and his angels he charges with error; ¹⁹how much more those who live in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed like a moth. ²⁰Between morning and evening they are destroyed; they perish forever without any regarding it. ²¹Their tent-cord is plucked up within them, and they die devoid of wisdom.’

5“Call now; is there anyone who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn? ²Surely vexation kills the fool, and jealousy slays the simple. ³I have seen fools taking root, but suddenly I cursed their dwelling. ⁴Their children are far from safety, they are crushed in the gate, and there is no one to deliver them. ⁵The hungry eat their harvest, and they take it even out of the thorns; and the thirsty pant after their wealth.

⁶For misery does not come from the earth, nor does trouble sprout from the ground; ⁷but human beings are born to trouble just as sparks fly upward. ⁸“As for me, I would seek God, and to God I would commit my cause. ⁹He does great things and unsearchable, marvelous things without number. ¹⁰He gives rain on the earth and sends waters on the fields; ¹¹he sets on high those who are lowly, and those who mourn are lifted to safety.

¹⁷“How happy is the one whom God reproves; therefore do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. ¹⁸For he wounds, but he binds up; he strikes, but his hands heal. ¹⁹He will deliver you from six troubles; in seven no harm shall touch you. ²⁰In famine he will redeem you from death, and in war from the power of the sword. ²¹You shall be hidden from the scourge of the tongue, and shall not fear destruction when it comes. ²⁶You shall come to your grave in ripe old age, as a shock of grain comes up to the threshing floor in its season. ²⁷See, we have searched this out; it is true. Hear, and know it for yourself.”

The Daily Lectionary picks and chooses among the passages in these two chapters.  

    After seven full days of morning, one of Job's friends breaks the silence.  Perhaps he senses that Job is ready to listen; when he decides for Job that the internal struggle has lasted long enough.  But the problem with him breaking the silence is that he says stupid things that we should try to refrain from when comforting those who grieve.  His friends, although initially supportive, have now grown weary of Job's mourning.  However, what they fail to grasp is that grief has no time frame.  

    Eliphaz, in essence, says to Job, "Look, you've been a support to all those around you who were weak in their times of trouble, but now that trouble has come to you, you're surprised?  Tragedy hits all of us, why did you think you'd be spared?  You aren't any better than the rest of us."

    But even as Eliphaz speaks harshly to Job, God's voice speaks to Job through him, saying to Job in chapter 5, "No one else but God will hear you.  Therefore, seek the Lord, submit your anger, frustration, and grief to God.  God does great things and unsearchable, marvelous things without number.  He gives rain on the earth and sends waters on the fields, he sets on high those that are lowly, and those who mourn are lifted to safety.  Therefore, do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.  For he wounds, but he binds up; he strikes, but his hands heal.  Hear, and know it for yourself."

    Sometimes in the midst of turmoil, we stop hearing and listening.  We get so filled up with our own problems that we fail to put them in perspective.  What Eliphaz initially said to Job may have been stupid, but it was also correct.  Tragedy doesn't escape any of us.  We all are touched by such things in life.  He said it badly and perhaps not in the proper time frame for Job to hear.  However, God then reframed it and said it in a time and a way that Job could hear.

You Are My All in All