Scripture Daily

Context No. 1568 of 4322 · Job

Context · Reflection

Job 13:1-16: in context

1“Behold, my eye has seen all this. My ear has heard and understood it. 2What you know, I know also. I am not inferior to you. 3“Surely I would speak to the Almighty. I desire to reason with God. 4But you are forgers of lies. You are all physicians of no value. 5Oh that you would be completely silent! Then you would be wise. 6Hear now my reasoning. Listen to the pleadings of my lips. 7Will you speak unrighteously for God, and talk deceitfully for him? 8Will you show partiality to him? Will you contend for God? 9Is it good that he should search you out? Or as one deceives a man, will you deceive him? 10He will surely reprove you if you secretly show partiality. 11Won’t his majesty make you afraid and his dread fall on you? 12Your memorable sayings are proverbs of ashes. Your defenses are defenses of clay. 13“Be silent! Leave me alone, that I may speak. Let come on me what will. 14Why should I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hand? 15Behold, he will kill me. I have no hope. Nevertheless, I will maintain my ways before him. 16This also will be my salvation, that a godless man will not come before him.

Job answers his friends sharply. What you know, I know too; I am not inferior to you. But you are worthless physicians, patching me with lies; I wish you would be silent, and that would be your wisdom. And then he turns their theology back on them: will you speak falsely for God, and talk deceitfully for him? Will you show him partiality? God will surely rebuke you if you secretly show partiality. Job would rather bring his case directly to God: though he slay me, I will maintain my ways before him.

The pointed question Job puts to his friends is worth hearing: will you speak falsely for God? His friends had been defending God, in a sense, insisting that Job's suffering must be deserved because God is just, offering neat theological explanations for a suffering they did not understand. And Job accuses them of speaking lies on God's behalf, of defending God with untruths, of being physicians of no value who patch a wound with falsehood. It is a striking charge, and a needed one. His friends thought they were serving God by explaining his ways, but they were speaking falsely for him, forcing Job's inexplicable suffering into a formula that was not true, and doing him harm with their false comfort. There is a warning in this against a common failure, the impulse to defend God with easy answers and clichés that are not true. When someone suffers, we are tempted to explain it, to offer confident theological reasons, to protect God's reputation with tidy formulas about why this happened; and often, like Job's friends, we speak falsely for God, saying things that are not true, adding to the sufferer's pain with our false comfort. God does not need our lies. He is not served by our patching real anguish with untrue platitudes spoken in his name. Job would rather have honest silence, or honest wrestling with God directly, than his friends' false defense of God. It is better to sit with a sufferer in honest, humble not-knowing than to speak confident falsehoods on God's behalf. Will you speak falsely for God? is a question worth asking ourselves before we offer someone our tidy explanations for their pain.

When someone suffers, am I tempted to defend God with easy answers and clichés that are not true, speaking falsely for him and adding to their pain with false comfort, and would it be better to sit in honest humility than to patch real anguish with untrue platitudes spoken in God's name?

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