Job 1:8

God-fearing Job

Job has been considered remarkable for his patience, in part because he did not burst out in anger to curse God for his circumstances, but mainly for his persistence in not cursing God through the entire length of the ordeal. God Himself tells us why Job could act in this way in the early verses of the history. (James 5:11)

The book introduces Job to us with a character reference, and God says mostly the same thing in conversation with Satan. Job knew God and His ways, and his confidence in this knowledge made him a God-fearing man. (Job 1:8)

He understood God’s rightful place as our Creator and the repugnance of evil, the dire consequences for rebels, and our nonoptional duty to be worshipers of God alone. Job’s firm grasp on reality empowered his persistence. In all of Job’s anguish while wrestling to understand and cope with his loss, he constantly kept his face turned toward God seeking answers and relief.

Job knew God, though it is true through enduring this adversity that he came to know God better and to trust Him with even greater firmness.

The first blows fell, and Job acknowledged that all was lost because God removed it. Yet he bowed his heart in worship and blessed the name of the Lord. He did not throw at God any accusation of wrongdoing. The second blows fell, and his wife urged him to end the suffering by cursing God. He rebuked her with the reminder that it is God’s prerogative to send either bounty or calamity, for His own wise reasons. (Job 1:21,22; 2:9)

But none of this reporting suggests that Job was in any way stoic. On the contrary, the bulk of the remaining poetry contains strong expressions of grief and deep anguish. He certainly didn’t curse God, but he did curse the day of his birth. The loss was so overwhelming that it felt that it would have been better to have never seen life, than to have seen it and experienced such tragedy. (Job 3:1)

Job’s friends had a flatter, transactional view of God in which they could see God sending blessing on obedience and judgment upon rebellion, but nothing else. In contrast, Job understood his own need of forgiveness but also that there was no evil in his life of comparable magnitude to his calamity. This challenged his faith and called him to trust when he couldn’t understand.

Job makes the assessment that God has pursued him with troubles. Though he doesn’t understand why, he knows that resurrection and redemption are in his future.

He has stripped my honor from me
And removed the crown from my head.
He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone;
And He has uprooted my hope like a tree.

Yet as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,
And at the last, He will take His stand on the earth.
Even after my skin is destroyed,
Yet from my flesh I will see God,
(Job 19:9-10,25-26)

As the account draws to a close, God Himself speaks to Job of His might and wisdom, of His sovereignty over human history. Job’s conclusion is a submissive retraction. God can answer if He wishes, but Job (and we) are in no place to demand it.

The Lord’s call upon us through this life is to trust Him through whatever comes and to learn only later the answer to some questions we might have.

Job stayed on this righteous path throughout his ordeal, and in doing so he grew in his faith, he received a bounty of restored well-being, and he stands in history as an inspired and inspiring example of faith in God.

Pursuit of wisdom for today from the Ancient of Days

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