Richard Mallory

Job 19: 23-27a

Dear Friends in Christ,

These  few verses from today’s Old Testament reading, from Job,  arrive in the midst of deep soul searching and “God-wrestling” of our protagonist. A member of the heavenly counsel , the satan (ha satan) has wagered with God that he can get Job to fold, abandon his faith and turn against God. God gives the Satan full permission to rain down merciless destruction upon him to make him cry “uncle.” Job loses his health, his children and his property. His wife counsels him to “curse God and die.” In his misery, his friends visit him. They are helpful as long as they keep silence and simply sit. They cannot resist this for long so they launch into an investigation of what secret sins Job has committed that have brought on such abject misery. They blame the victim (nowadays we would accuse such a person for not eating enough kale or not getting in enough steps each day). Job is thoroughly alone and isolated from human support.

He refuses to accept the retributive theology of his friends. He stands in his truth and conviction that he has not erred. How much easier for him to have given in to his friends’ hypothesis of wrong doing rooted in the theology of Deuteronomy. He could have sold himself out to get back in good graces with them. This belief system was simple. A person’s prosperity meant that a righteous life was being lived. A person’s hardships meant that sin had brought it on. Today’s passage reflects immense confidence that grounded Job in a counter stance to the prevailing theology of shame and blame. He wishes to “inscribe and  engrave” his story for all to read. He has nothing to hide. Then he exclaims faith, “But in my heart, I know that my vindicator lives and that he will rise last to speak in court; and I shall discern my witness standing at my side…” That witness at his side is none other than “God himself.” For all that he does not understand he does know this—that God is and will be with him.

Job has broken through an epistemological barrier of that “old time religion,” the one that either overtly or subtly fuels blame and shame. Even though he has accused God and blamed God, he continues to trust, containing contradictions in his inmost being.

In the epilogue, God accuses the friends of having falsely accused Job; however, God will enroll Job as mediator to forgive them and restore them.

—Richard