Whoa, Job! He really lets loose on his buddies, especially in the end of this chapter. “You should fear punishment yourselves, for your attitude deserves punishment. Then you will know that there is indeed a judgment.”
Do you ever wish something horrible would happen to someone just to knock them off their pedestal for a while? Oh, man, I have had some people in my life that I have wished some bad things on, and it’s mostly because they either treated me or someone I loved unjustly. Job is feeling the accusations from his friends, so much that he turns around and wishes for them to be punished like he is being punished. For me, this is when I think I would sit up and listen to what my friend had to say and maybe start believing him a little more. But the paragraph before, also gripped my attention and my heart. Most of us have heard these lines, most likely in a hymn or Scripture of the Day type format, but I’m going to type them again here today because they are powerful, and they allude yet again, as Job has in previous chapters, to Jesus. Read them out loud:
“But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last.”
Remember, Job didn’t have Jesus, but because of his experience and hardships, he was able to “see” Jesus, or at least see a need for Jesus. And through Jesus, even before Jesus! – he was able to keep his hope and his faith alive.
Writing prompt: before Jesus
Was there a before Jesus? Write your thoughts about Job’s revelations. Was Jesus there all along?
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