August 31, 2018: Day 20 – Job 20

Job goes from a strong declaration that he knows that his redeemer lives to once again getting ganged up on by his friends.  This time it is the turn of Zophar who answers Job’s statements in chapter 19.  His answer is more of the same as he states in the final verse that all the calamities which he describes in the previous 28 verses: possession of their house carried away, they will perish forever like their own dung (that is my personal favorite), are a result of Job’s wickedness.

But it does seem that the rhetoric is being ratcheted up higher and higher each time Job speaks and then there is an answer from his  friend.  Zophar is the one who seems to take special insult to the words that Job uses which in his eyes are words which exculpate Job from wrong and lay it at the feet of God.  For him this is wickedness.  

There is a sense that this is a sort of rap-off or a dance-off where one statement after another is supposed to be better than the last.