Scroll to the bottom for thoughts/discussion questions!
One-sentence summary: Job rebukes his friends for not showing any mercy, defends himself before God, hates his life, and admits that he has come to be afraid of God because of the calamity that has befallen him.
Job answers back his friend and says that his sorrows are heavier than all the sand of the sea. (Have you ever felt that heavy?) He loses his appetite completely, and we can imagine why! Again, he just wants to die.
Job is angry with his friend and says that he has dealt deceitfully with him and does not fear God. He says kindness should be shown by a friend to one who is afflicted.
Job defends himself and says that he will vent his grief. He can't even find solace in sleep because he is plagued with nightmares. He hates his life. He asks God what he did to deserve all this. Job says all this in a much more poetic way. (It really is quite poetic!)
A second friend steps in and asks Job how long he is going to keep going on and on talking like the wind. "Does God pervert justice?" He says maybe Job's sons sinned in order to deserve what happened to them (nice.) He tells Job if he would repent, God would prosper him (this may fall under the category of the worst encouragement ever!)
I love Job's response. He says that no one is really righteous before God. He praises God and shows that His faith in God is still strong.
Here is where it gets even more heartbreaking. We hear Job before he learns what God wants to teach him... and us... through all this. Although he praises God, he comes to the (wrong) conclusion that God destroys the wicked and the blameless alike and even "laughs at the plight of the innocent." He can't see the point of even trying to purify himself before God, because he could never be considered righteous by God's standards anyway. He wishes there were a mediator between him and God and that God's "rod" would be taken away so that he would not have to fear Him. The most interesting part for me is when he questions that if God didn't do this to him, then who did? He clearly does not know his enemy or the role he has played. He is also doubting (justifiably so or not) God as a kind father (I say justifiably because this whole story was unprecedented.) So many deep, existential issues are brought up here. Job comes to the conclusion that God is just in doing whatever He wants, but he does appear to judge God.
Thoughts/Questions:
Ultimately, although Job does not understand, he acknowledges that the problem is not with God. He says, like Paul, "I believe I am blameless, yet I don't know myself." This is a good attitude to have.
(See the last paragraph of this blog!) Sadly, Job comes to the conclusion that God gets some kind of pleasure out making men suffer. Maybe this is just his pain "talking." (It can make you "go crazy!") I have heard it said that our problem comes when we try to judge our story before it is finished. Job does that, and ends up unintentionally judging God.