Job 10: More direct challenging and questions toward God. He specifically questions God, asking why he is being punished. He asks God why sinners are ok, but he isn’t. Job seems to remind God that he is fully aware of his current predicament and that God knows Job isn’t guilty. He continues to want to know why God won’t put an end to his suffering. More challenging by Job using different metaphors. No matter what, Job directly questions God and why this is happening. Job actually asks God why he ever let him live in the first place considering what he is currently experiencing.
Job 11: Time for Job’s third friend, Zophar, to respond. The notes from the CEB study bible say this: “Zophar claims that God’s ways are beyond questions and hence Job is wrong to challenge God about the created world” (p. 794 OT; not for 11:1-20). So Zophar sticks to the prevailing thought of the day that people weren’t supposed to question and challenge God. Then Zophar pretty much tells Job that he actually hopes God will answer him (I’m guessing he just wants him to shut it). This is immediately followed by Zophar asking Job who is he to think that he could understand God or be as wise as God. This chapter ends with Zophar telling Job that if he just would turn away from his sins and ask for God’s forgiveness, his suffering would end.
Job 12: Job responds to Zophar. His initial response was sarcastic. Kinda funny actually. Job argues that life is unfair, saying “Raiders’ tents are prosperous and God’s provokers secure” (12.6; p. 795 OT). He questions out loud why it is this way. He then tells his friends that they could ask anyone or any animal and all of them can answer that his current predicament is because God did this to him, not because he sinned.
The note for verses 6-9 is actually pretty interesting and something that I would to explore further:
The world of nature is an important source of knowledge about God and world. The natural world is imagined as a teacher of human beings. But in this context nature is a teacher with respect to God’s abuse of the suffering Job. (p. 795 OT)
Job then goes into a little bit of a rant, highlighting several negative things that happen and arguing that God is responsible for all of them. Job directly blames God for all of the bad things that happen. One verse is interesting to me: “…takes away the power to think from earth’s leaders, making them wander in untraveled wastelands” (12:24). It’s the statement about taking away people’s ability to think that intrigues me. I believe that God would want us to use our brains and think. If not, then why are they there in the first place (this is of course if you hold to the view that God created us). But my point is still the same which is the emphasis on thinking here. Pretty interesting.
One last thing from this chapter. There is a sidebar on this page (796 OT) that I want to include below. It’s about the last part of chapter 12 and Job’s argument that we live in a cruel world.
1 Timothy 6: Paul ends this letter with the same overall message he started it with: beware of false teachers. He emphasizes the importance of NOT getting reliant on money and wealth, saying “the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil” (6:10). He tells the believers to run away from these people and these things, instead telling them to “pursue righteousness, holy living, faithfulness, love, endurance, and gentleness” (6:11). He then urges the believers to tell those who are rich “not to become egotistical and not to place their hope on their finances” (6:17). If only our current leadership would listen to this, especially those who present themselves are Christians.
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