By Jeffery M. Leonard, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Biblical & Religious Studies, Samford University
WHY DO WE SUFFER?
Job 30:26–31; 42:1–6
There are times when life just “works,” times when life is marked by order and blessing. The authors of Scripture would tell us that life works because there is a God who makes life work. God is a God of order, and He has built his orderliness into creation itself. When we follow the rhythms of God’s created order, He blesses us. When we follow the dictates of His Word, He blesses us.
This is the message of vast swaths of the Bible, including Deuteronomy 28, Psalm 1 and Proverbs 10. One could almost derive a formula from those passages: Obey and you’ll be blessed; disobey and you’ll be cursed. It makes perfect sense really, and it fits so many biblical texts. But then there is Job.
Job was the very model of obedience. Both the narrator of the book and God Himself attest that Job was “blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.”
And yet, despite Job’s great obedience, one afternoon saw all his blessings turn to cursings. For Job, at least, the “formula” of obedience and disobedience didn’t seem to work at all.
We all experience suffering, even those who seek after good. (30:26–31)
Job’s three friends insist that the “formula” never fails. If Job is suffering, it can only be because he and his children have sinned; the formula is never wrong.
Job, however, will have none of this formula talk. He insists repeatedly — in keeping with what God Himself had also said — that he has not done anything to deserve this great suffering, and yet suffer he does. He laments, “When I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, then came darkness” (30:27).
We may not understand why we are suffering, but we can trust God in His sovereignty. (42:1–3)
In the end, Job’s laments grow so forceful that God responds directly to him, speaking to him “out of the whirlwind” (38:1).
The Lord’s speech to Job is a tour de force of divine knowledge, wisdom and sovereignty, showing Job that he cannot hope to comprehend all of God’s ways. Of course, a careful reader will note that God’s speech doesn’t actually address the issues Job has been wrestling with.
Job never questioned God’s power; he just couldn’t understand why that power had been unjustly aimed at him. And so Job falls silent.
At the end of the Lord’s speech, Job gives up and says he won’t speak any more.
We can experience the presence of God even in the midst of suffering. (42:4–6)
Importantly, this was not what God wanted. When Job fell silent at the end of His first speech, God uses a variety of images to tell Job that silence is not what He wants.
What God wants from Job when he is faced with injustice is for him to keep speaking, to keep crying out, to keep lamenting. This is just what Job does here in the last chapter of the dialogues.
Importantly, the Hebrew of verse 6 does not suggest Job repented of any wrongdoing on his part. The text actually says, not “I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes,” but “I reject and repent concerning my dust and ashes.”
“Dust and ashes” is biblical shorthand for silence.
After the Lord’s second speech, Job now agrees to forego silence, to keep on speaking, to keep on crying out to God.
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