The Bitterest hurt In life - Chambers, Oswald
Job 18–20
Nay but much rather let me late returning
Bruised of my brethren, wounded from within.
Stoop with sad countenance and blushes burning.
Bitter with weariness and sick with sin,
Safe to the hidden house of thine abiding
Carry the weak knees and the heart that faints,
Shield from the scorn and cover from the chiding,
Give the world joy, but patience to the saints.
F. W. H.
The bitterest hurt in life is to be wounded in the house of your friends; to be wounded by an enemy is bad enough, but it does not take you unawares, you Expect it in a measure. My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me. . . . All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom i loved are turned against me ( job 19:14, 19).
1. The removal of the atmosphere of comradeship ( job 18)
there is always an intangible something which makes a friend, it is not what he does, but what he is. You feel the better for being in the presence of some men. Job is suffering because his friends have turned against him; he has lost the atmosphere of comradeship. He has no explanation for what he is going through, no line of exonerating god.
A) the dignity of withdrawal ( job 18:14)
Then answered bildad the shuhite, and said, how long will it be ere ye make an end of words? Mark, and afterwards we will speak. ( job 18:12)
In this withdrawal of comradeship there is an acuteness of suffering which is difficult to state. Job is hurt, and his friends not only tackle his belief, but they have withdrawn all support from him. The sympathy which is reverent with what it cannot understand is worth its weight in gold. The friends have stopped giving this kind of sympathy to job, instead they say, we know why it is you suffer. By sticking to his creed a man is able to withdraw with dignity simply because there is so much he does not see. Bildad is certain that job is wrong and he is right, and the puzzling thing is that bildad can prove his statements, while job has to remain silent. This is one of the biggest stings in life. When a man gets to reality he has to get there alone, there is no comrade- ship. He may have had comradeship up to a certain point, then he is told, now we have to leave you, you are outside the pale. The men who act like this have the logic of it on their side, but the man who is face to face with facts knows that logic is only an attempt to explain facts, it does not give us the facts. The man who does not believe that the basis of things is tragic may get the best of it in argument, but the man who gets the best of it in fact is the one who believes in god yet has to remain inarticulate. Bildad describes the worst man he can think of, and job says, all this has happened to me, and you say therefore i must be a bad man, but i say i am not. You have the logic of your creed, while i have the reality of my experience. The god of your creed is one who would make me an atheist. The god who will explain my experience i have not yet found, but i am confident there is such a god, and meantime i refuse to accept your counterfeit of him. There are countless experiences like jobs to-day; men are being called atheists who are not atheists at all but are simply rebelling against the presentation of god which is being thrust upon them. If to accept a presentation of god means the denial of things he knows to be facts, a man is in a better case who says with job, i will not accept an explanation of god which makes me call a fact not a fact.
(b) the discourse in the withdrawal ( job 18:521)
yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine. . . . Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him that knoweth not god. ( job 18:5, 21)
A man has to cover his retreat somehow, and bildad withdraws in a cloud of rhetoric; his description of The wicked man is a covert description of job in his present condition. He recounts what job has gone through and makes it the experience of a thorough- paced hypocritei have satisfied my mind that you are a hypocrite; you are suffering because you are bad. Bildad airs his complete knowledge of the psychology of wickedness as god must deal with it, but evidently with as complete an ignorance of god as of man. His indignation with job is petty, you can almost hear him puffing with righteous annoyance. The friends speeches prove that when providence or suffering contradicts any form of credal belief, the holder of the creed becomes vindictive in trying to justify what is threatened, and no longer discerns the truth.
2. The reaction of the affection of courage ( job 19)
(a) the appeal of discouragement ( job 19:15)
Then job answered and said, how long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words? ( job 19:12)
Discouragement is disenchanted egotism (mazzini), i. E. , the heart knocked out of self-love. Job had been in love with his creed, now belief in his creed is gone and he is completely at his wits end, and from the centre of his discouragement he makes his appeal to the men whom he had a right to expect would stand by him. You take the side of the provi- dence of god, he says, which undoubtedly seems my enemy. This chapter is not only an expression of real agony and sorrow, but also of the stout integrity which will not allow itself to tell a lie for the honour of god. God seems to be my enemy providentially, says job, and you say it is because i am bad; but i say that that is not the reason.
(b) the account of desolateness ( job 19:620)
Know now that god hath overthrown me, and hath compassed me with his net. Behold, i cry out of wrong, but i am not heard: i cry aloud, and there is no judgement. ( job 19:67)
Jobs statements are not coloured, he simply states what has happened to him everything has gone and no explanation has been given him. There is no bright side to some troubles. There is no reasonable hope for countless lives on account of this war, and it is shallow nonsense to tell them to cheer up; life to them is a hell of darkness of the most appalling order. The one who preaches at such a time is an impertinence, but the one who says i dont know why you are going through this, it is black and desperate, but i will wait with you, is an unspeakable benediction and sustaining. Job has no one to do this for him, his one-time friends simply add to his bitterness; they too have been hit along the line of their creed, and they are indignant and talk only on the religious line.
C) the agony of dereliction ( job 19:2129)
Have pity on me, have pity on me, o ye my friends; for the hand of god hath touched me. . . . For i know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. ( job 19:21, 25)
The question of immortality is not necessarily implied in jobs words; he is stating that he believes a time will come when an umpire will arise who will expound to him what he is going throughto the justifica- tion of god as well as of himself. It is heroism almost unequalled to say, as job did, though he slay me, i will stick to it that god is a god of love and justice and truth. I see no way out at all, but i will remain true to my belief that when the whole thing is known god will not be condemned. All through job refuses to take the easy way out along the line of his former creed.
3. The recession of the apprehension of communion ( job 20)
The withdrawal of your most intimate friend with the conviction that you are wrong, means the loss of the atmosphere of comradeship and all that is repre- sented by the closer intimacies of communion.
(a) the disdain of the offended ( job 20:13)
Then answered zophar the naamathite, and said, . . . I have heard the check of my reproach, and the spirit of my understanding causeth me to answer. ( job 20:1, 3)
Zophar speaks with dignity, but dignity is not an indi- cation of discernment. Zophar has listened to jobs words but not to the spirit of them; he is ashamed of the attitude his former friend has taken. A retreat from comradeship is nearly always covered by a terrific amount of utterance either in writing or speech. Bildad Withdraws with descriptions; zophar gives a disquisition as to why he turns on job with disdain. (b) the disquisition of the offensive ( job 20:429) knowest thou not this of old, since man was placed upon earth, that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment? ( job 20:45) one point of mercy is that the friends do not put the curse on job directly. Cursing with us is only profane language, an expression and no more, but in the case of the curse of an arab or a hebrew the curse lies in the words themselves: if the curse is uttered it is impossible, according to their conviction, but that it shall fall. Zophar is uttering this kind of curse, only indirectly, and it gives his words tremendous power. The power of the spoken word accounts for the prominent place given in the bible to prophesying and preaching. Jobs strong utterances are not against god, but against the statements of his former creed. The man who will stand true to god behind the expression of his creed is true to his belief in god, instead of to the presentation of him which is in dispute. If you listen to a man who has been sorely hit, he may utter what, to you who have not been hit, sounds blasphemous.
Jobs claim is that his friends ought to have known that it was not imagination made him speak as he did, but the fact that he had been desperately hard hit. The only way out for job is not on the line of reason, but on the line of implicit confidence, such as he expresses in chapter 13though he slay me, yet will i trust in him.