Bildad the Shuhite’s Second Speech and Job’s Answer

READING THE BOOK OF JOB

PART VII

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Job 18:1-19:29

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As I have already written, I have no interest in analyzing the Book of Job line by line.  One can read books in which others have done that.  I own some volumes of that sort.  No, I choose to focus on the proverbial forest and to examine a few trees along the way.

My lens as I write this series of posts is intensely personal.  I know the feeling when the bottom falls out of one’s life.  I report two such periods.  I know the feeling of wishing that I were dead, for that would be easier than continuing to live.  Fortunately, I also know the presence of consoling people at such times.

So, I recoil in disgust at air bags such as Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar.  They are also full of something else, which I leave to your imagination, O reader.  This is a family-rated weblog, after all.  Such pneumatic individuals should not only be slow to speak, but silent.  If they cannot say anything helpful, they ought to say nothing.

Instead, such wind bags–in this case, Bildad the Shuhite–torment Job.  They gloat.  They insult him.  They are rude to a suffering, innocent man.  They blame the victim.  And they do so in the name of God.

Job has a relationship with God, whom he correctly blames for the plight.  This complex relationship leads Job to rely on God as his Kinsman-Redeemer/Avenger/Vindicator (19:25).  This is not a prediction of the resurrection of Jesus, despite the Christian tradition of reading Job 19:25 at and near Easter.  No, this is an expectation that God will defend Job’s rights.  God is Job’s only candidate to fulfill this role because the other relatives are dead, and the alleged friends are gas bags.  And, on that day, the alleged friends will, ironically, suffer the judgment they have predicted will befall Job.

False certainty is dangerous.  It harms the falsely certain person, inflicts damage on that person’s victims, and drives people away from God.  In my culture, many people–especially young people–are rejecting organized religion.  They perceive it as an instrument of intolerance and oppression, as well as a mechanism of control.  They are partially correct; antisemitism, racism, homophobia, sexism, nativism, xenophobia and other sins find theological cover in many sectors of organized religion.  These properly morally outraged critics ought not to reject organized religion entirely.  No, they should reject only the segments of organized religion that practice these sins.

An Episcopal priest I know has a wonderful way of speaking to people who claim not to believe in God.  Father Dann asks them to describe the God in whom they do not believe.  Invariably, they describe a version of God in which he does not believe either.

That priest also says that if being a Christian were not an option, he would be a Jobite:  God is.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

NOVEMBER 28, 2022 COMMON ERA

THE SECOND DAY OF ADVENT, YEAR A

THE FEAST OF SAINT STEPHEN THE YOUNGER, DEFENDER OF ICONS

THE FEAST OF ALBERT GEORGE BUTZER, SR., U.S. PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER AND EDUCATOR

THE FEAST OF KAMEHAMEHA IV AND EMMA ROOKE, KING AND QUEEN OF HAWAI’I

THE FEAST OF JAMES MILLS THOBURN, ISABELLA THOBURN, AND CLARA SWAIN, U.S. METHODIST MISSIONARIES TO INDIA

THE FEAST OF JOSEPH HOFER AND MICHAEL HOFER, U.S. HUTTERITE CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS AND MARTYRS, 1918

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