The Bible in a Year – 9 August

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

9 August. Job chapters 14-16

Job continues his rant against God, though now it becomes more of a grumble. Unlike trees that can sprout new growth after being cut down, he says, humans will not live again on this earth after they die. So he asks God not to look on us in our imperfections, but instead allow us to enjoy this life in peace (14:6), and for himself to be sent to Sheol (in other words, to be allowed to die) so that he will not feel God’s gaze on him.  That is the position of the agnostic, who believes in the possibility of God’s existence but prefers to ignore it and get on with life, while recognising death as the finality it is, bodily speaking.

Eliphaz then speaks again, and his charge is one to be taken seriously: “But you are doing away with the fear of God, and hindering meditation before God” (15:4).  For those of us who do believe in an actively loving God, it is sad to see people turning away from him, letting the circumstances of life draw them away from the same God who also wants them to enjoy his love and compassion even in bad times.  But unfairly, Eliphaz then goes on to compare Job with those who do not believe in God at all, who “trust in emptiness, deceiving themselves; for emptiness will be their recompense” (15:31). Emptiness – maybe a similar concept to the “vanity” of Ecclesiastes –  is the faith of the atheist, the very opposite of the idea of a world created by a loving God and filled with meaning.

Eliphaz calls Job’s speeches “windy” and Job returns the jibe.  How can he and his friends understand Job’s position when they are not sharing his experience?  He feels to have been “set up as a target” by God – an accurate assessment of the spiritual battle that was revealed in chapter 1 – yet he still does not lose faith in the God whom he can still describe as his witness in heaven, who will vouch for him (16:14).  That is the difference between the atheist or agnostic and the true believer – one who will never cease to trust in God’s essential goodness, even when it seems one is on the receiving end of God’s anger.