September 2, 2018: Day 22 – Job 22

Once again Job’s friend addresses him and this time it very much is directed at specific actions which his friends says he must have done, or else God would not have punished him this way.  Again, the premise is that God is punishing Job, at least that is the premise of Job’s friends.  Job, on the other hand, merely states that no, it is not in God’s nature to punish those only who disobey, but rather it is the nature of God to allow the rain to fall on the good and the bad and then work in the midst of those situations.  Job contends that he is not being punished, but rather that God is acting according to His nature, which is completely unpredictable.

The detailed accusations of Eliphaz are that Job has: exacted pledges from his family without reason, stripped the naked of their clothing, given no water to the weary, withheld bread from the hungry, sent the widows away empty-handed, crushed the arms of the orphans.  Because of all of this the snares of the Lord are around him.  

Well, these are pretty powerful accusations.  That certainly is not the way that Job is described in chapter 1.  He is called blameless and upright, he feared God and turned away from evil.  This is repeated a few times in describing him.  God calls him these following terms and so I’m guessing someone is not telling the truth.  Either Eliphaz is correct and Job is evil because of what he has done, and if he has done any one of those things then he would be evil, much less all of them.  But I’m going to take God’s side on this one and say that Job is not any of those things.  Bad things are happening to Job who is a good person.

On that note, remember what Jesus says about the term good…Look at Mark 10:18 where we find Jesus saying: “Why do you call me good?  No one is good but God alone.”