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7 August. Job chapters 6-9
In chapters 6 and 7, Job replies first to Eliphaz, criticising him for not understanding the depths of Job’s depression. It is not for those whose life is going well to criticize those who are suffering, unless they can truly empathise from their own experience. But few people have suffered like Job. Then Job turns his anger to God himself, still stopping short of the sin of “cursing” God, but nevertheless very angry with him. “If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of humanity? Why have you made me your target? Why have I become a burden to you?” (7:20)
In chapter 8 the second friend, Bildad, tries to persuade Job that if things have gone wrong for him then he cannot be a “pure and upright” person. Job’s reply starts with “Indeed I know that this is so; but how can a mortal be just before God?” (9:2). In other words, no-one can be pure and upright, before a God who (as Job goes on to explain) is all-powerful and can therefore not be argued with, even by one who is (as Job is still sure) “blameless and innocent”(9:20).
It is important to note that being angry with God is not counted here as a sin. It is a natural reaction to suffering. If Job could have seen the goings-on in heaven he would have known that it was Satan, not God, who was testing him. Throughout history people of all faiths have asked “where is God in suffering?” and those without faith have taken the existence of suffering to be either proof that there is no God, or that any god that might exist is not worth knowing. But the story of Job shows us that it is possible to live a good life, believe in God, and yet still suffer; and to react to that suffering with anger, yet still not sin.