Job 14-16

Job 14

If We Die, Will We Live Again?

 ^1-17"We're all adrift in the same boat:
   too few days, too many troubles.
We spring up like wildflowers in the desert and then wilt,
   transient as the shadow of a cloud.
Do you occupy your time with such fragile wisps?
   Why even bother hauling me into court?
There's nothing much to us to start with;
   how do you expect us to amount to anything?
Mortals have a limited life span.
   You've already decided how long we'll live—
   you set the boundary and no one can cross it.
So why not give us a break? Ease up!
   Even ditchdiggers get occasional days off.
For a tree there is always hope.
   Chop it down and it still has a chance—
   its roots can put out fresh sprouts.
Even if its roots are old and gnarled,
   its stump long dormant,
At the first whiff of water it comes to life,
   buds and grows like a sapling.
But men and women? They die and stay dead.
   They breathe their last, and that's it.
Like lakes and rivers that have dried up,
   parched reminders of what once was,
So mortals lie down and never get up,
   never wake up again—never.
Why don't you just bury me alive,
   get me out of the way until your anger cools?
But don't leave me there!
   Set a date when you'll see me again.
If we humans die, will we live again? That's my question.
   All through these difficult days I keep hoping,
   waiting for the final change—for resurrection!
Homesick with longing for the creature you made,
   you'll call—and I'll answer!
You'll watch over every step I take,
   but you won't keep track of my missteps.
My sins will be stuffed in a sack
   and thrown into the sea—sunk in deep ocean.

 ^18-22 "Meanwhile, mountains wear down
   and boulders break up,
Stones wear smooth
   and soil erodes,
   as you relentlessly grind down our hope.
You're too much for us.
   As always, you get the last word.
We don't like it and our faces show it,
   but you send us off anyway.
If our children do well for themselves, we never know it;
   if they do badly, we're spared the hurt.
Body and soul, that's it for us—
   a lifetime of pain, a lifetime of sorrow."

Job 15

Eliphaz Attacks Again

You Trivialize Religion

 ^1-16 Eliphaz of Teman spoke a second time: "If you were truly wise, would you sound so much like a
   windbag, belching hot air?
Would you talk nonsense in the middle of a serious argument,
   babbling baloney?
Look at you! You trivialize religion,
   turn spiritual conversation into empty gossip.
It's your sin that taught you to talk this way.
   You chose an education in fraud.
Your own words have exposed your guilt.
   It's nothing I've said—you've incriminated yourself!
Do you think you're the first person to have to deal with
      these things?
   Have you been around as long as the hills?
Were you listening in when God planned all this?
   Do you think you're the only one who knows anything?
What do you know that we don't know?
   What insights do you have that we've missed?
Gray beards and white hair back us up—
   old folks who've been around a lot longer than you.
Are God's promises not enough for you,
   spoken so gently and tenderly?
Why do you let your emotions take over,
   lashing out and spitting fire,
Pitting your whole being against God
   by letting words like this come out of your mouth?
Do you think it's possible for any mere mortal to be sinless
      in God's sight,
   for anyone born of a human mother to get it all together?
Why, God can't even trust his holy angels.
   He sees the flaws in the very heavens themselves,
So how much less we humans, smelly and foul,
   who lap up evil like water?

Always at Odds with God

 ^17-26 "I've a thing or two to tell you, so listen up!
   I'm letting you in on my views;
It's what wise men and women have always taught,
   holding nothing back from what they were taught
By their parents, back in the days
   when they had this land all to themselves:
Those who live by their own rules, not God's, can expect
      nothing but trouble,
   and the longer they live, the worse it gets.
Every little sound terrifies them.
   Just when they think they have it made, disaster strikes.
They despair of things ever getting better—
   they're on the list of people for whom things always turn out
      for the worst.
They wander here and there,
   never knowing where the next meal is coming from—
   every day is doomsday!
They live in constant terror,
   always with their backs up against the wall
Because they insist on shaking their fists at God,
   defying God Almighty to his face,
Always and ever at odds with God,
   always on the defensive.

 ^27-35 "Even if they're the picture of health,
   trim and fit and youthful,
They'll end up living in a ghost town
   sleeping in a hovel not fit for a dog,
   a ramshackle shack.
They'll never get ahead,
   never amount to a hill of beans.
And then death—don't think they'll escape that!
   They'll end up shriveled weeds,
   brought down by a puff of God's breath.
There's a lesson here: Whoever invests in lies,
   gets lies for interest,
Paid in full before the due date.
   Some investment!
They'll be like fruit frost-killed before it ripens,
   like buds sheared off before they bloom.
The godless are fruitless—a barren crew;
   a life built on bribes goes up in smoke.
They have sex with sin and give birth to evil.
   Their lives are wombs for breeding deceit."

Job 16

Job Defends Himself

If You Were in My Shoes

 ^1-5 Then Job defended himself:

"I've had all I can take of your talk.
   What a bunch of miserable comforters!
Is there no end to your windbag speeches?
   What's your problem that you go on and on like this?
If you were in my shoes,
   I could talk just like you.
I could put together a terrific harangue
   and really let you have it.
But I'd never do that. I'd console and comfort,
   make things better, not worse!

 ^6-14 "When I speak up, I feel no better;
   if I say nothing, that doesn't help either.
I feel worn down.
   God, you have wasted me totally—me and my family!
You've shriveled me like a dried prune,
   showing the world that you're against me.
My gaunt face stares back at me from the mirror,
   a mute witness to your treatment of me.
Your anger tears at me,
   your teeth rip me to shreds,
   your eyes burn holes in me—God, my enemy!
People take one look at me and gasp.
   Contemptuous, they slap me around
   and gang up against me.
And God just stands there and lets them do it,
   lets wicked people do what they want with me.
I was contentedly minding my business when God beat me up.
   He grabbed me by the neck and threw me around.
He set me up as his target,
   then rounded up archers to shoot at me.
Merciless, they shot me full of arrows;
   bitter bile poured from my gut to the ground.
He burst in on me, onslaught after onslaught,
   charging me like a mad bull.

 ^15-17 "I sewed myself a shroud and wore it like a shirt;
   I lay facedown in the dirt.
Now my face is blotched red from weeping;
   look at the dark shadows under my eyes,
Even though I've never hurt a soul
   and my prayers are sincere!

The One Who Represents Mortals Before God

 ^18-22 "O Earth, don't cover up the wrong done to me!
   Don't muffle my cry!
There must be Someone in heaven who knows the truth about me,
   in highest heaven, some Attorney who can clear my name—
My Champion, my Friend,
   while I'm weeping my eyes out before God.
I appeal to the One who represents mortals before God
   as a neighbor stands up for a neighbor.

   "Only a few years are left
   before I set out on the road of no return."

(Job 14-16, The Message)

As I was reading this passage, 14:15 brought me up short: "'Homesick with longing for the creature you made, you'll call—and I'll answer!'" Job says that God is homesick with longing for him, the creature God has made. How differently would I live my life if I knew that truth in my heart and not only in my head? Of course God has been calling me but I have rarely heard Him. Instead of taking the time to listen for Him, I have been much more caught up in what Job describes in 16:18: "'O Earth, don't cover up the wrong done to me! Don't muffle my cry!'"

Have I had wrong done to me? Of course, as has every other person ever born. Is it wrong to lament that wrong, to proclaim that the ones who perpetrated it had no right to do so? Of course not. The wrong done to me damaged me significantly, and I developed a strategy for protecting my heart that was appropriate for a little girl, but has become destructive in its own right has I continue to employ it in adulthood.

In 16:19 Job pleads for God to clear his name with other people: "'There must be Someone in heaven who knows the truth about me, in highest heaven, some Attorney who can clear my name—'" Unlike Job, though, I don't plead for family and friends to recognize my blamelessness (I am not claiming that I haven't sinned!), but that there is a reason for my particular brand of maddening behavior and that I am working to change it. Additionally, I need God to clear my name with myself. That significant damage told lies to me about who I am and I believed them. Though I know intellectually that they are indeed lies, my heart still believes them and so I continue (for now) to live them out.

Oh, God, invade my heart a bit more each day with glimpses of You and visions of Your vast love for me that take my breath away!