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Job 21:1-34 (OT p.470)

Today’s scripture passage is rather long, so we’re going to take it in chunks, incorporated into the sermon itself.

The Book of Job: Innocent, Part IV

A distraught man once sought the advice of his wise pastor. “I was born blind,” the man exclaimed, “But some people tell me that if I had more faith I would be healed.” The pastor paused a moment before speaking. “I see you carry a cane,” he said. “Whenever people say that, hit them over the head with the cane. Then tell them if they had more faith it wouldn’t hurt!”

I have said before that the Book of Job is, in many ways, a thorough and heartfelt response to simplistic and shallow theologies like “If you had more faith, you would be healed,” or ”If you just pray more, give more, buy this book, or follow these three simple spiritual rules, all your problems will be solved.”

The scriptures, like life itself, are a lot more complicated than that. There are indeed scripture passages that teach us that if we do good things, we will get good results, and that if we do bad things, we will get bad results. And there is some (limited) truth to those teachings. But if you isolate those passages, build your theological beliefs around them, and ignore the rest of the Bible, you will eventually be profoundly disappointed.

Sometimes in this life, innocent people suffer while those who are less-than-innocent thrive. This has been the subject of our Lenten sermon series on the Book of Job, which today I’ll attempt to wrap up. In today’s scripture passage (chapter 21) Job wraps up his argument (or at least round one of the argument) with his three friends, who have been offering words of consolation, but not really listening to what Job is actually saying about his situation.

1 Then Job answered:
2 “Listen carefully to my words, and let this be your consolation.
3 Bear with me, and I will speak; then after I have spoken, mock on.
4 As for me, is my complaint addressed to mortals? Why should I not be impatient?
5 Look at me and be appalled, and lay your hand upon your mouth.
6 When I think of it I am dismayed, and shuddering seizes my flesh.

Job is reminding his friends that his problem isn’t with them, it’s with God. For what it’s worth, Job admits here to being impatient. If you’ve ever heard someone talk about the “patience of Job” it probably comes from someone who hasn’t read the entire book. Job is very impatient. He wants answers and he wants them now…but he doesn’t want answers from his friends—he wants answers from his God. He wants his friends to be appalled (like he is), to put their hands over their mouths, and show silent solidarity with him, seeking an answer with him to the question he asks in verse 7:

7 Why do the wicked live on, reach old age, and grow mighty in power?
8 Their children are established in their presence and their offspring before their eyes.
9 Their houses are safe from fear, and no rod of God is upon them.
10 Their bull breeds without fail; their cow calves and never miscarries.
11 They send out their little ones like a flock, and their children dance around.
12 They sing to the tambourine and the lyre and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.
13 They spend their days in prosperity, and in peace they go down to Sheol.

In previous chapters, Job has maintained his own innocence, which is supported by the narrator and by God himself, who both describe Job as “blameless and upright” in all things. But now Job turns his focus to those who appear to have the same blessed and prosperous life that he once enjoyed, but without his upright moral character. What exactly is it that makes them “wicked?” Verse 14:

14 They say to God, ‘Leave us alone! We do not desire to know your ways.
15 What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit do we get if we pray to him?’

“Wicked” may be a little bit too strong of a translation here—the Hebrew word is רְשָׁעִ֣ים (re-sha-I’m) which is specifically those who oppose or ignore God’s laws. Sometimes in the Bible, the רְשָׁעִ֣ים are truly wicked, and sometimes they are just foreigners who worship other Gods. Either way, the implied question is valid: Why should we worship God if there’s no benefit to us—if we can be prosperous and happy without God?

16 Is not their prosperity indeed their own achievement? The plans of the wicked are repugnant to me.
17 How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? How often does calamity come upon them?
   How often does God distribute pains in his anger?
18 How often are they like straw before the wind and like chaff that the storm carries away?

Note that Job doesn’t say that Godless people “always” prosper… just that they often do. Also note that Job has launched into a series of questions here—in this chapter, he asks 16 questions in all, which means that this chapter is almost 50% questions. Then in the next verse, Job answers something that his friends had previously brought up—that perhaps wicked people may die with no punishment, but surely their children and their descendants will suffer for their misdeeds, so that justice will eventually prevail. Spoiler alert: Job doesn’t like this idea.

19 You say, ‘God stores up their iniquity for their children.’ Let it be paid back to them, so that they may know it.
20 Let their own eyes see their destruction, and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
21 For what do they care for their household after them, when the number of their months is cut off?

In other words, when you’re dead, you don’t care about what happens anymore, so that’s not really a valid punishment. That’s not really justice. Then he turns his argument back to God:

22 Will any teach God knowledge, seeing that he judges those who are on high?
23 One dies in full prosperity, being wholly at ease and secure,
24 his loins full of milk and the marrow of his bones moist.
25 Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted of good.
26 They lie down alike in the dust, and the worms cover them.

So basically, good people and bad people alike both die in the end—what’s the difference between them? Interestingly, Jesus makes a very similar comparison in the gospels when he says that God makes the sun shine and the rain fall on both the just and on the unjust. But Jesus uses this comparison to argue that you should love a wicked person just as much as you love a righteous person, because God loves both of them, and because good and bad things happen to them both.

27 Oh, I know your thoughts and your schemes to wrong me.
28 For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’
29 Have you not asked those who travel the roads, and do you not accept their testimony,
30 that the wicked are spared in the day of calamity and are rescued in the day of wrath?
31 Who declares their way to their face, and who repays them for what they have done?
32 When they are carried to the grave, a watch is kept over their tomb.
33 The clods of the valley are sweet to them; everyone will follow after, 
       and those who went before are innumerable.

34 How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood.” 

• 16 questions, no answers
• don’t judge the poor or the rich
• proverbs, job and Ecclesiastes
• prosperity gospel