Bible in 90 Days
8 Then the second of Job’s three friends, Bildad the Shuhite, addressed Job.
2 Bildad: How long will you say these things,
your words whipping through air like a powerful wind?
3 Does God corrupt justice,
or does the Highest One[a] corrupt the good?
4 If your children sinned against Him,
He merely administered the punishment due them for those sins.
5 But if you search for God
and make your appeal to the Highest One,
6 If you are pure and righteous,
I have no doubt He will arise for you and restore you to your righteous place.
7 From your modest beginnings,
the future will be bright before you.
8 Ask those who have come and gone!
Explore what their fathers learned and taught them.
9 For we are not of ages past, nor even of years gone by.
We are ignorant creatures of yesterday,
and our time on earth is only a shadow.
10 But the ancients are not similarly bound, are they?
Won’t they speak to and instruct you?
Won’t they draw up words from deep within?
11 Can papyrus grow tall without a marsh?
Can reeds flourish without water?
12 Even if they are hardy and unbroken,
without water they will dry up before any other plant.
13 So it goes with any who forget God.
The hope of the godless soon withers and dies.
14 His confidence breaks,
for he trusts in the tenuous threads of a spider’s web.[b]
15 When he leans into his house of silken threads for support,
it won’t hold;
Though his arms grab to steady him,
it will break—he will fall and never get back up.
16 Still the godless appears to be a hardy plant,
thriving in full sun, sending his shoots across the garden.
17 The roots twine and grip the stone heap
and search for a home among the rocks.
18 If he is pulled up, the place will disown him saying,
“I have never seen you.”
19 See, his sole joy consists of this:[c]
knowing that others will spring from the earth to take his place.
20 Do you see it? God will not reject the innocent;
He will not reject you or support agents of evil.
21 He will fill your mouth with laughter;
your lips will spill over into cries of delight.
22 Those who hate you will don the garment of shame,
and the home of the wicked will disappear.
Much like Eliphaz, Bildad believes people suffer as a result of their own sins. But his justification of that suffering is different. Bildad reasons that God is just; as God, He is justice personified. Because He is so perfectly just, God will not punish someone who is also just. Bildad’s logical but flawed conclusion is that Job must have sinned to deserve his current pain. Surprisingly, he manages to be even less effective than Eliphaz had been, alienating Job by reasoning that Job’s children must have sinned to deserve their deaths and implying that Job’s regular sacrifices on their behalf were not enough to save them.
9 Then Job spoke to them.
2 Job: Sure, I know all of this is correct,
but tell me this: how can a person set things straight with God?
3 If one wanted to argue with Him,
even in a thousand questions he would not be able to answer Him once.
4 His wise heart is vast; His strength immeasurable.
Who has ever challenged Him and remained safe and at peace?
5 He uproots mountains,
and they are unaware when He overturns them in His rage.
6 He shakes the earth out of its place
so that its foundation pillars shudder.
7 He commands the sun to go down and not rise,
and He sequesters the stars so they do not shine.
8 He single-handedly stretched out the heavens overhead
and walks on the back of the raging sea.
9 He fashioned the stars into constellations we know by name—
Bear, Orion, the Pleiades—
and the lights of the southern sky.
10 He does wonderful things, even confounding things,
and performs an infinite number of miracles.
11 Still, if He passes right by me, I don’t see Him;
if He brushes past, I don’t notice Him.
12 Ah, but if He were to steal like a thief in the market,
who could stop Him? No one has authority over Him.
Who could dare say to Him, “What are You doing?”
13 God does not restrain Himself in His anger.
Even the minions of Rahab—that monster of the sea and purveyor of chaos—
cower at His feet in subservience.
14 So then how do I argue with Him?
How can I find the right words to state my case to Him?
15 After all, I am the innocent one here, and I still can’t find an answer.
So I must continually appeal to the mercy of my judge.
16 But even if I were to call Him and He were to answer,
I still could not believe that He would listen to my complaint.
17 For He flattens me with a tornado
and multiplies my wounds for no reason.
18 He won’t even give me time to catch my breath;
instead He force-feeds me more bitterness.
19 If it is an issue of power, there is no question
He is the mighty one;
and if it is an issue of justice, who would ever appoint me?
20 Even though I am right in all of this, my own mouth sentences me.
Though I am blameless, my own lips cheat me.
21 I am blameless, but I don’t know myself.
I hate my life.
22 Well, then this is what I say: it’s all the same.
In the end, He kills off both the innocent and the depraved.
23 If a flood of disaster rushes in and kills,
He ridicules the anguish of its innocent victims.
24 The earth has been given over
and is under the dominion of some wicked hand.
God conceals these things from its judges, covering their faces, blinding their eyes.
If not He, then who is it?
25 As for me, my days are sprinting by like a runner.
Seeing nothing good, they seek escape.
26 They glide past in swift silence like reed boats on the river.
Now a blur, they dive like an eagle toward its prey.
27 If I tell myself, “I will forget all about my grievance against God,
I will simply abandon my long face and cheer up,”
28 Then I fear the suffering to come
because I know there’s no chance that You, Lord, will find me innocent.
29 So if the verdict is already in, if I have already been found guilty,
why should I bother to clear my name?
Why struggle in vain?
30 Though I wash my body in the pure melted snow
and scrub my hands thoroughly with the strongest soap,
31 You would toss me into a putrid pit,
and when I emerged, even my own clothes would hate me.
32 The Lord . . . He is no man, like me, whom I could answer,
no human being whom I could face in court.
33 There is no judge to stand between us
who can lay his hands on us both,
34 Who can remove God’s rod from my back
and stave off the terror of Him that haunts me.
35 I long to speak and defend myself without fear of Him and His reprisals;
but as things stand now and as I am within myself, that’s not possible.
10 Job: I hate my life, so I will unload the full weight of my grievance against God.
Let me speak and reveal the bitterness I am harboring.
2 I will say to God: Don’t find me guilty;
just explain the charges You have against me.
3 Does it please You to oppress,
and is this why You spurn me, the work of Your hands,
and yet Your smile shines down upon the plots of the wicked?
4 Do You have human eyes so that Your outlook is short?
Do You see as through human frailties?
5 Are Your days like mortals’ limited days?
Are Your years like mortals’ limited years?
6 Is this why You seek out my faults
or You go in search of all my error?
7 You know well that I am not guilty,
yet nothing can free me from Your overwhelming power.
8 Your hands formed and made me whole,
yet now You turn to crush.
9 Recall how You molded me like clay.
Will You now render me back to dust?
10 Didn’t You pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese?
11 Didn’t You clothe me in skin and flesh, weave my bone and sinew together?
12 Your care has saved my spirit,
and You have given me life and loyalty;
13 Yet I know what is in You,
what Your heart has always hidden.
14 If I sin, You see it, watching ever so closely,
and You do not acquit me of my guilt.
15 If I am wicked, woe is me;
even if I am innocent, I cannot take a chance and lift my head
Because I’m gorged with disgrace.
Gaze on my misery!
16 If I do raise my head,
then like a lion, You hunt me;
Like a night sky turned threatening,
You unfold Your power against me so that others marvel;
17 Like a prosecutor, You drag in witnesses against me;
You escalate Your fury against me, coming in waves to pound on me.
18 So then, why did You bother to drag me out of the womb at all?
I should have just died before any eye could see me.
19 It should have been as though I had never been:
plucked from the womb, carried to the tomb.
20 Aren’t my days almost finished anyway?
Stand back, leave me alone, and let me have a scrap of comfort
21 Before I go to the place from which I won’t return,
to the land of utter darkness and still shadows,
22 The land of deep, unending night,
of blackness and shadowy chaos
where the only illumination is more darkness.
11 Finally, Job’s third friend, Zophar the Naamathite, spoke to Job.
2 Zophar: Shall such a great volume of words remain unanswered
and a long-winded man be so easily acquitted?
3 Shall your empty prattle silence people,
and when you mock, shall no one shame you?
4 You’ve told us, “I have a clear understanding of things,
and I am innocent in Your eyes, O Lord.”
5 Ah, but I wish God would speak,
that He would address you openly, so I will argue for Him.
6 I wish He would show you the secrets of great wisdom—
for the two sides of sound wisdom are both found in His mercy and justice.
Know this: God forgets some of your guilt.
7 Can you see to the unseen side of God,
or explore the limits of the Highest One’s[d] knowledge?
8 Higher than the heavens—what can you do to reach it?
Deeper than the realm of the dead—what can you know of it?
9 Its farthest reaches exceed the ends of the earth;
its breadth spans far beyond the sea.
10 If He passes by, as is His routine, and throws you into prison,
and calls you to testify about what you’ve done, who can challenge Him?
11 He recognizes worthless people without integrity,
so do you really think when He sees wrongdoing He doesn’t examine it?
12 As they say, “The empty-headed will become clever
in the day the colt of a wild donkey is born human!”
13 If you will focus your intentions in His direction
and open your hands and reach for Him,
14 Where you have guilt on your hands,
if you will send it far away and not tolerate sin in your tents,
15 Then you will lift up a face clean of all stains;
you will hold your head high, secure, and free of fear.
16 You will forget all of these troubles of yours;
they will pass beneath your memory like a drop of water that has just flowed away.
17 Life will become brighter than high noon;
darkness will give way to morning.
18 Once again, you’ll trust in the presence of hope;
you’ll scan the horizon and sleep safely.
19 You will lie down, and no one will terrorize you,
and many will long to be in your good graces.
20 But the eyes of the wicked will grow dark as they lose hope;
they’ll find no escape, and in despair,
they’ll long only to breathe their last dying breath.
Throughout the book, Job has very little to cling to besides a hope for the end of his current suffering. Each of his three friends expounds on hope, drawing three similar but increasingly brutal conclusions. Eliphaz realizes Job is basically a righteous man, so he encourages Job to take hope in the person he already is; somehow his own righteousness will manage to save him. Bildad adds to Eliphaz’s conclusion, claiming that wicked men cannot hope; they are left with only despair. Zophar, the most unabashedly honest of the three men, believes hope exists only for the righteous; and since Job is obviously a sinful man, he is hopeless until he changes. Fortunately, all three “wise” men are ultimately wrong. Hope is a product of trusting God and is not based on anyone’s actions, wicked or otherwise.
12 In responding to his friends’ collective accusation of his guilt, Job finally spoke.
2 Job (sarcastically to his friends): Surely, surely, my discerning friends, you are the ones!
And when you pass away, the sum total of all wisdom will perish from the earth.
3 I have a mind as good as yours.
Don’t think I am so far beneath you!
After all, who doesn’t know all about these things?
Who isn’t acquainted with the pedestrian platitudes you’ve trotted out?
4 As for me—the one who called upon God and whom God answered—
now, I am pitiful, laughable, a just and upright joke.
5 Those who have it easy may easily scorn the unfortunate;
they have their contempt already prepared for those whose feet slip.
6 Ironically, there is peace inside the tents of the raiders,
and those who upset God seem to live safe and secure;
They carry their gods around in their hands.
7 However, call on the animals to teach you;
the birds that sail through the air are not afraid to tell you the truth.
8 Engage the earth in conversation; it’s happy to share what it knows.
Even the fish of the sea are wise enough to explain it to you.
9 In fact, which part of creation isn’t aware,
which doesn’t know the Eternal’s hand has done this?
10 His hand cradles the life of every creature on the face of the earth;
His breath fills the nostrils of humans everywhere.
11 Listen! Aren’t we made to be discriminating:
our ears testing wisdom, our mouths tasting food?
Shouldn’t wisdom come with old age? Not necessarily. Only God has wisdom; we merely fool ourselves into thinking we are wise.
12 But you tell me, “With age comes wisdom,
and a long life grants understanding.”
13 With God is the sum total of all wisdom and of all power;
His is the greatest of plans and the deepest of comprehensions.
14 So, then, what God tears down cannot be built back up;
the man He shuts up cannot be released.
15 If God withholds the rains and stops the streams from flowing, the earth suffers drought;
if He unleashes too much, the lands are ravaged by flood.
16 He is strong, and sound wisdom belongs to Him:
whether one deceives or is deceived, he is under God’s control.
17 He leads the counselors off as captives, barefoot and stripped;
He makes a mockery of judges.
18 He strips off the royal sashes of kings
and ties them at the waist, making them slaves as well.
19 He leads the priests away barefoot
and defeats the long-incumbent men of power.
20 He robs trusted advisors of speech;
He steals discretion from elders.
21 He heaps contempt on rulers,
and loosens the bind of alliances among world powers.
22 Aspects of His deep wisdom that were hidden away,
He shows in plain sight;
darkness is brought into the light.
23 He builds the strength of nations, only to crush them—
increases their population across the earth, only to scatter them again.
24 He divests each nation’s leaders of understanding,
and causes them to wander aimlessly with nowhere to go,
25 Until finally they grope in the dark, the light having departed,
and He lets them stumble and stagger like drunks.
13 Job: Look. I’ve seen it all with my eyes,
heard and understood it with my ears.
2 What you know, I know, too;
don’t think I am so far beneath you!
3 Let our differences be clear; I am ready to speak to the Highest One,[e]
eagerly wanting to argue my case with God.
4 But you! You smear me with lies as if to help,
but as healers you are worthless.
5 Would that you were totally silent.
At least that would make you seem wise.
6 Please, just listen while I reason this out;
lean in to hear how my lips will plead.
7 Will you try to defend God’s cause by telling lies?
Be deceitful on His behalf?
8 Will you show partiality for Him?
Argue on His behalf?
9 How would you fare
if He searched your soul?
Do you think you might deceive Him
as you would any other person?
10 No. He would bring charges against you
even if you secretly show partiality.
11 Aren’t you horrified at the weight of His majesty?
Isn’t the dread of Him enough to drop you where you stand?
12 All your quoted proverbs turn to ash;
your clever comebacks crumble like brittle towers of clay.
Job will take his chances before God. He still trusts Him, even if God chooses to take his life.
13 So keep your mouths shut around me, and let me speak to God.
And whatever may come, let it come.
14 Why should I lay my body at the mercy of the words of my own mouth
or risk my life with only my own hands to defend me?
15 Look, He may well kill me,
but I will hope in Him.
Still I will be ready to argue my case before His very face.
16 In fact, this will become my salvation,
for the godless wouldn’t even dare to approach Him.
17 So then here is my account. Listen carefully!
Give me a chance to share my side of the story with you.
18 My case is prepared, and I am confident
I will be found righteous.
19 And yet who will meet me in court to argue the other side?
If I am out-argued, then I will stay mute until I die.
20 Lord, I ask only two concessions in this case;
if You grant them, I will not hide from Your face.
21 First, remove Your damaging hand from me;
second don’t intimidate me anymore with your terrifying presence.
22 Then send me Your summons, and I will reply,
or better yet, I will speak first and then You answer me.
23 How many counts do You have against me?
How many sins must I account for?
Spell out the nature of Your indictment against my rebellious ways.
24 Why do You hide Your face from me;
why is my name now “nemesis”[f] to You?
25 Would You waste Your energy to terrify a windblown leaf,
or chase down the dry chaff as it tumbles in the breeze?
26 For I see bitter accusations against me written in Your own hand;
You call me to account for the guilt of my youth.
27 You fasten shackles at my ankles but still keep close watch on where I walk,
marking the places where my feet may plant themselves.
28 This is how a person wastes away to nothing,
like something rotten, like moth-eaten clothing.
14 Job: Humankind, born of woman,
has a few brief years with much suffering.
2 Like a short-lived bloom,
he springs up only to wither;
like the brief shade gained by a fast-moving cloud,
he passes swiftly.
3 Lord, is this why You turn Your gaze on such a creature:
to bring me,[g] a mere human being, alongside You for judgment?
4 Who can take what is impure and defiled
to fashion something pure and pristine?
No one! We are, after all, so different in nature.
5 Since a person’s life is fixed,
and You are the One who determines the number of his months,
And You set a limit on the length of her life,
and since they are incapable of exceeding Your decree,
6 The least You can do is turn Your gaze away from him until they pass,
so that he can enjoy his day like a hired worker.
7 You know, at least there is a kind of hope for a tree:
if it gets cut down, it may yet sprout again out of the roots.
And very likely then, its tender shoots will not die.
8 Its roots may age deep under the ground,
and the stump appear dead in the dry earth,
9 But even then it needs only the merest whiff of water
to bud again and put forth shoots like a newly planted sapling.
10 But not so with humankind.
The noblest of human beings dies and lies flat.
Humans die, and where do they go?
11 Just as water evaporates from the sea,
And riverbeds go parched and dry,
12 so humankind lies down and does not rise again.
Until the day when the skies are done away with,
humankind will neither awaken nor rouse from slumber.
13 O that You would merely hide me in the land of the dead
and keep me in secret till Your wrath is gone,
until a time You decide when You might think upon me.
14 If one dies, can he live again?
Through these days of toil and struggle,
I will patiently wait until my situation changes.
15 You will call out, and I will answer You then;
and You will long for me,
the work of Your hands, again.
16 For then You would still count each of my steps
but not focus on my faults.
17 My sins would be sealed up as in a bag,
and my crimes You would carefully cover up.
18 And yet while every crack in me is closely watched,
the mountain will slide and erode as the avalanche steals its cliffs away.
19 The water grinds at the surface of stones,
and the floodwater[h] steals the soil away.
This is how You wreck the hope of humankind.
20 You continually overwhelm him, and he dies;
You alter his appearance and send him away.
21 If his children rise to honor, he does not know of it;
if they sink to humiliation, he is unaware of it.
22 He knows only this:
His body feels agony and his soul grieves.
15 Eliphaz reiterated his points.
2 Eliphaz: Does a wise man reply with windy knowledge
and fill up his belly with the hot east wind?
3 Does a wise man reason with impotent chatter,
with bankrupt words of no account?
4 Indeed, Job, you have ignored your responsibility to revere God
and depreciated your own thoughts toward God;
5 For your faults inform your speech,
and your language is tricky.
6 Your own mouth condemns you, not I;
your own lips volunteer as witnesses against you.
7 Were you the firstborn among men?
Were you introduced to the earth before the hills were conceived?
8 Were you allowed to listen in on the deliberations in God’s assembly?
Do you imagine all knowledge to be confined to you and you only?
9 What do you know that we don’t know?
Do you have an understanding that has somehow eluded us?
10 We have gray hairs and elders among us
weighed down with years,
heavier than your father.
11 Do you find God’s many comforts too meager
and His gentle speech to you too mild?
12 What has stripped you of your reason, carried away your heart?
Why do your eyes flash with anger—
13 So much so that you unleash your spirit
and spray out such speeches against God?
14 What is humankind, that people would be considered pure?
And among those born of women,
who could possibly be innocent?
15 Look, if God refuses to trust even His holy attendants,
if even the heavens above are impure in His eyes,
16 Then how much less regard must He show for humankind, who is base and corrupt,
or for Adam’s children who drink sin like water.
Genesis 6:1–4 tells the strange story of God’s own heavenly messengers procreating with beautiful human women. Such a union was obviously forbidden, possibly because it endowed the children with eternal life, based on God’s response to the situation—limiting the lifespan of humans to 120 years. As Job has revealed, these heavenly messengers are with God all the time. They do His bidding. No one could possibly know His rules better than they do or have more motivation to follow them, yet they still chose to disobey God. Eliphaz’s point is clear: no human could possibly claim to be above the temptation to sin when God’s heavenly envoys are not.
17 Eliphaz: I will tell it like it is, so listen.
I’ll recount what I have seen:
18 The very things that knowledgeable men have declared
and which they do not hide that they heard from their fathers
19 To whom the land was granted long ago
when no foreigners were among them.
20 The wicked man endures misery his whole life long;
and many years of sorrow are stored up for the ruthless.
21 His ears are assailed by the sounds of terror;
but when he is finally at peace, the destroyer seizes him.
22 Unsure that he will ever escape darkness,
he lives ever-conscious of the sword.
23 He wanders aimlessly in search of food.
“Where is it?” he asks.[i]
He knows all the while that the great day of darkness is imminent.
24 He is addled by strain and anxiety, terrified;
he will be overwhelmed as if by a king about to descend upon his enemy in war.
25 For he raises his fist to God
and acts arrogantly like a hero against the Highest One.[j]
26 He runs at Him, headlong, headstrong,
and leads his charge behind the thick protection of a massive shield.
27 Strong and healthy, he has nourished himself well and prospered
until his face and his thighs are pleasantly fat.
28 He lodges in evacuated towns in empty houses unfit for habitation,
in buildings condemned to rubble and ruin.
29 He will never be rich; his wealth will not last,
nor will he have possessions enough for any to put down roots.
30 He will not manage to escape from darkness,
as it scorches like tender branches that wilt in the flame;
He will blow away like the breath of his mouth.
31 Don’t let him fool himself;
if he trusts in the emptiness of his vanity,
emptiness will be his reward.
32 Before his time is up, it will all be finished
and the branches of his trees will never leaf out.
33 He will be like the vine that drops its immature grapes,
the olive tree that sheds its own blossoms.
34 O the gathering of the godless is unfruitful,
and fire consumes the tents of those who pervert justice by giving bribes.
35 Their intercourse yields only the conception of misconduct,
the birth of sinfulness,
and their wombs carry only lies to term.
16 Then Job reiterated his innocence.
2 Job: All the things from you sound the same.
You are all terrible as comforters!
3 Have we reached the end of your windy words,
or are you sick with something that compels you to argue with me?
4 If we were to trade places,
I could rattle on as you do.
I could compose eloquent speeches as you do
and shake my head smugly at you and your problems.
5 But I believe I would use my words to encourage you;
my lips would move only to offer you relief.
6 And yet, I am not you, you are not me,
and my words are of no real use:
When I speak, my pain is not relieved;
if I remain silent, it does not go away.
7 God has drained me utterly;
He has made those near to me desolate—killed my family and my servants.
8 You have shriveled me up;
my withered form stands as a witness against me;
my body, haggard and thin, testifies to my face.
9 In anger He hunts me down and tears at me;
in rancor His teeth grind on my flesh;
His eyes are locked on me as a foe,
eager to destroy still more of me.
10 My foes taunt me, their mouths gape in derision,
they slap my cheek in disgust, and they conspire against me.
11 God has forsaken me to young thugs
and flung me into the hands of evildoers who lie in wait for me.
12 I was living a good life—a quiet, peaceful life—
when He began to beat on me;
He throttled my neck, tore me apart,
and then propped me up
at the far end of the field, making me a target.
13 His archers have now gathered around me.
In cold blood He splits my belly open and spills my bile on the earth.
14 He charged like a soldier storming a stronghold
until my walls were breached, broken down, one after another.
Job in his despair and frustration responds as he and his friends have been taught by previous generations to display grief: by donning sackcloth and covering the head with dust to show devastation, as if everything has been lost even to the point of death.
15 Job: Well, I have sewed the sackcloth to my very skin
and buried my mighty forehead in the dirt.
16 My face, red and hot, boils over in tears;
the shadow of darkness lies heavy on my eyelids,
17 No matter that my hands are free of violence,
and my prayer is pure.
18 O earth, do not conceal my blood!
And when they seek to silence my cry, refuse a place for its burial.
19 Look! Even at this very moment, my witness is there, in heaven;
my advocate is seated on high.
20 My only friends scoff at me; they persist in mocking me;
even now my eyes well up in tears to God,
21 Appealing to God as a mere man,
as a human being might for the sake of his friend.
22 Only a few years left now,
and I will go down the path from which I cannot return.
17 Job: My spirit has collapsed; my days have been blotted out;
the grave is prepared for me.
2 There are mockers all around me;
my eyes are fixed on their unwarranted opposition of me.
3 Show me a sign! Vouch for me, God!
Who is there to give me his hand, guaranteeing his pledge?
4 I think no one is there because You have closed up their minds,
made them unable to see or understand;
so You will honor none of them.
5 You have heard, “Whoever denounces his friends for land
will watch his children go blind.”
6 But God has turned me into a swear word for everyone;
I have become a symbol of human darkness;
I am the face on whom one spits.
7 All my afflictions cloud my vision;
the members of my body are wasting away;
I am a mere shadow of what it once was.
8 Those of moral fiber are appalled at this;
innocent men grow indignant at the wicked.
9 Even still, the righteous embrace their way of life;
those with clean hands go from strong to stronger.
10 By contrast, I look to you, my friends, and I say,
“Come ahead, all of you; try your words once more.”
I still won’t expect to find a wise man among you.
11 Even now my days have passed me by;
My plans lie broken at my feet;
the secret wishes of my heart grow cold.
12 And yet my friends say, this loss of hope is for good,
turning my dark night into what appears to them as day.
In the pitch darkness, these broken plans and secret wishes speak to me.
They say, “There is light nearby.”
13 If I hope only to live in the land of the dead,
if I prepare for myself a bed in the darkness,
14 If I speak to my burial pit, calling it “Father,”
and to the worms in the earth, calling them “Mother” and “Sister,”
15 Then where will I find my hope?
And who will see it?
16 Will hope go with me to the place of death?
Will hope accompany me into the ground?
18 Bildad the Shuhite encouraged Job to righteousness.
2 Bildad: How long will you keep up the hunt for words?
Show some sense, and then we can actually converse.
3 Why is it we are like cattle to you,
dumb animals in your eyes?
4 You speak of how God “tears at you,” you!
You tear at yourself in your rage.
Oh, how self-centered you are!
Ought the earth be emptied of its inhabitants for your sake?
Ought the rocks roll away for your convenience?
5 Remember, the flame of the wicked is extinguished.
His fire no longer lends light to anything.
6 His tent-lamp goes dark;
his bedside lamp flickers and dies.
7 His long strides falter, as his own plans take him down.
8 His then-weakened feet lead him to a net,
And wander into its waiting mesh.
9 A snare clamps around his heel;
he feels it dig into him.
10 This trap was set for him beforehand:
a snare is hidden on the ground;
a net is overhead along the path.
11 Terrors press in on every side
and badger his every step.
12 His deepest fears stalk him as he staggers, craving him,
and awaiting his imminent collapse.
13 Bit by bit, disease eats at his skin;
bit by bit, the firstborn of death gnashes at his limbs.
14 He is torn violently from the safety of his tent
and forced to march before the king of terrors.
Bildad sees the realm of death not just as a place of rest and waiting, but as a growing society ruled by a king. Sheol always has room for more citizens and always wants more. Like an infant, this place—this firstborn of death—has a voracious appetite for the wicked. And the infant’s father, the king of terrors, has many ways to provide for his child. His terrors are not nightmares or phobias or any other psychological device. Instead, he rules over disaster, disease, and famine—anything that brings death. Through his vibrant imagery, Bildad explains that death is the ultimate fate of the wicked; he implies that Job cannot be evil because the terrors he has faced have not yet killed him.
15 Bildad: Nothing of his remains in his tent,
and burning sulfur has been scattered on it so no one will dwell there again.
16 Death comes from both directions:
from below, his roots dry out;
from above, his branches wither.
17 On the earth, he disappears from memory;
on the outside, no one recalls his name.
18 He is pushed out of the light into darkness
and chased from the inhabited world altogether.
19 He has no children, no descendants among his people;
no one survives him or escapes from his homeland.
20 His fate is unanimously viewed:
with dismay in the West,
with horror in the East.
21 Surely this is the way it goes with all evil people;
surely this is the lot in life for those who do not know God.
19 Job answered his friends in frustration.
2 Job: O how long! How long will you torture me and pound me with your chatter?
3 What is it now? Eight times? Nine times?
No, surely it’s ten times you have insulted me.
Ten times you’ve shamelessly acted to harm me.
4 Even if I have erred, my faults lie with me alone.
5 However, if you must exalt yourselves at my expense,
if you must proffer my own disgrace as evidence against me,
6 Then you ought at least to know that I have been wronged by God.
Yes, His net is closed about me.
7 Look! I cry out, “Violence!” but no response comes.
I shout for help, but justice eludes me.
8 He is a roadblock. He will not let me pass;
He has covered my roads in darkness.
9 He has stripped me of my honor,
torn the crown off my head.
10 He comes at me from all sides, but I attempt to leave;
He rips out my hope as if it were a tree in dry ground.
11 His anger burns white-hot against me,
and He considers me His enemy.
12 His militia arrives to raise a siege ramp against me
and to surround my dwelling.
13 He has driven my relatives far from me;
I am cut off from my friends.
14 My entire family has failed me;
my best friends have forgotten me.
15 Everyone in my house, including my maidservants,
treats me like an outsider;
I am a stranger to them now.
16 When I send for my servant, he does not come.
I even plead with him with my own voice.
17 My breath is strange; even my wife avoids me;
I’m loathsome to my relatives; they can’t stand to be around me.
18 Even young children taunt me,
and when I seek to rise, they mock me.
19 My closest friends can no longer bear me,
and anyone I have ever loved has turned against me.
20 I am reduced to skin and bones;
I have barely escaped by the skin of my teeth.
21 Show me your pity, my friends, show me your pity!
For truly, I have been struck by the hand of God.
22 Why do you pursue me as God has done?
Is my emaciated body not satisfying enough for you?
23 What I would give to have my words taken down,
to have them inscribed for posterity on a scroll.
24 No! More than that!
To have them chiseled with iron filled with lead—
carved in stone for all eternity.
25 Besides, I know my Redeemer lives,
and in the end He will rise and take His stand on the earth.
26 And though my skin has been stripped off,
still, in my flesh, I will see God.
27 I, myself, will see Him:
not some stranger, but actually me, with these eyes.
Toward this end, my deepest longings pine away within my chest.
Literally, a redeemer “buys back” something that was taken away. In the Old Testament, kinsmen-redeemers are men who buy their relatives out of slavery, buy family property back from creditors, or marry their brothers’ widows to save the women from destitution. What is it that Job needs returned to him? Acknowledgment of his innocence and a renewed life. Because all of his family and friends have abandoned him, Job is trusting in his plea to God. As he did in chapter 16, Job is personifying his words and hoping in the redemptive power of his own argument.
Many millennia later, Christians do not have to trust in their own actions or persuasive reasoning to save their lives. Jesus redeemed all when He died on the cross—trading Himself to buy back our lives. He is the ultimate Redeemer.
28 Job: If you ask, “How will we pursue him
since the root cause of his suffering lies in him?”
29 You ought to fear the sword yourselves;
for the sword bears fury’s punishment
in order that you might realize there is, in fact, a judgment.
20 Zophar the Naamathite reiterated his concern for Job.
2 Zophar: My anguished thoughts force me to respond
because I feel an urgency within myself.
3 I caught wind of your words that dishonor me,
but I am prompted to answer based on my own spirit and understanding.
4 Don’t you know how it has always been?
Since humankind was first put here on the earth,
5 The celebrations of the wicked have been brief,
and the joy of the profane lasts only a moment.
6 Even if he were tall enough to reach into the heavens
and his head were to reach to the clouds,
7 He would still perish forever, like his own excrement;
those who once looked upon him would wonder,
“Where has he gone?”
8 Like a dream, he flies off where no one can find him;
he is chased away only to vanish into the air like a vision of the night.
9 The eyes that saw him before see him no more;
his home doesn’t ever welcome him again.
10 His children beg at the door of the poor;
his hands render his wealth back to them.
11 The vigor of youth had a home, a residence in his bones,
but it lies down in the dust with him.
12 Though his wrongdoing is sweet in his mouth,
though he hides it under his tongue,
13 Though he holds it close and will not let it go
(but must keep it in his mouth),
14 His food will be transformed within him
into the bitter venom of the asp.
15 The wealth he has swallowed will be poison.
He will vomit it up—God will cast it out.
16 It is as they say, “He sucks the venom of asps
and is slain by the tongue of the viper.”
17 Never again will he gaze at the brook’s edge
or see streams that flow with milk and honey—
18 The food for which he worked he vomits up or cannot swallow,
and the gains of his trading, he can never enjoy.
19 After all, he’s an oppressor;
he’s crushed and forsaken the poor;
he made his home in a house he stole from another,
a house he did not build himself.
20 Because he’s never known inner peace,
he has seized everything he’s ever craved.
21 Because he consumed all he could see, nothing is left;
his prosperity cannot last.
22 When he is fat with satisfaction,
the belt of distress will tighten around him
and the hands of the downtrodden will rise up against him.
23 When he has filled up his belly,
God will visit him with His ferocious anger;
it will rain down on him while he is eating.
24 Let him attempt to escape the iron weapon.
Instead, a bow of bronze will send death to tear into him.
25 When the arrow is drawn it comes out of his back,
and the shining arrowhead comes out of his organ,
bringing terror upon him.
26 A great darkness waits for and stalks everything he values.
A mysterious fire—unstoked yet burning hot—will consume him
and devour everything and everyone left behind in his tent.
27 The skies will tell on him, exposing his wrongdoing;
the earth will rebel against him.
28 All that he labored to build will be carried off,
washed away in the day of God’s furious anger.
29 This is how it will be for the wicked of humanity before God;
this is the inheritance God bequeaths them.
21 Then Job answered Zophar.
2 Job: Listen carefully to what I’m about to say,
and let your listening be the consolation you give me.
3 Suffer me to speak to you,
and after I’ve said what I need to say,
you may commence mocking.
4 Is my complaint addressed to humanity, or has it ever been?
Why shouldn’t I, by this point, be impatient with all of this?
5 Stay with me, and be stunned at what has happened to such a righteous person;
cover your gaping mouth with your hand.
6 When I think back upon everything that has gone before, I’m terrified;
my body is overtaken with trembling.
7 Why do the wicked live
on an ever-upward path to long life and riches?
8 Their children become well-established in front of them;
their offspring are guaranteed to grow up before their very eyes.
9 Their houses are immune to approaching terrors;
the rod of God is not on their backs punishing them.
10 Their bulls are consistent breeders;
their cows deliver healthy calves without miscarrying.
11 They produce flocks of children and send them all out into the world;
their young ones dance around free of care.
12 They still participate in celebration,
raising their voices to the song of the tambourine and the harp;
delighting in the sound of the flute.
13 They pass their time in the lap of abundance,
and they are even permitted to pass quickly to the land of the dead,
instead of lingering with chronic pain.
14 They tell God, “Leave us be.
We have no interest in You or Your ways.
15 Who is the Highest One[k] anyway,
and why should we serve Him?
What can we possibly gain by asking favors of Him?
Isn’t He generous enough already?”
16 Look, don’t you see?
The wicked do not control their own wealth, God does;
I am a long way from understanding the plan for the wicked.
17 Bildad claims the flame of the wicked is blown out.
But how often is their lamp extinguished?
How often does disaster strike them or does God give them pain
because of His anger at what they’ve done?
Throughout the Bible, God is called by many names. One of the most frequent in the Old Testament, Shaddai, was a favorite name of God for patriarchs such as Abraham and Moses. Based on the etymology of the name, many suggest Abraham brought that epithet with him from Mesopotamia, so it is logical that Job (another patriarch from outside of Israel) could often refer to Him the same way.
El Shaddai, which translates to “God of my mountain” or possibly “God of might,” aptly describes many characteristics of God. He is strong and high above everything, just like the heights of a mountain. He is a protector, just like the rocky crags in the side of a cliff. And certainly God associates Himself with mountain ranges—having Abraham bind Isaac on Mount Moriah, giving the Israelites the law from Mount Sinai, and placing His sacred temple on Mount Zion. Whether speaking to humanity from the top of a mountain or the heights of heaven, the Lord is certainly the Highest One; no one is above Him.
18 How often are they as straw in the wind
or the chaff separated from the grain by fierce winds?
19 It is said, “God stores away a man’s misdeeds
and delivers them to his children.”[l]
Let Him repay the man Himself, so the man can know it.
20 Let the wicked see his ruin with his own eyes
as he drinks down the wrath of the Highest One.
21 After all, once he’s dead and gone and his time is up,
what will he care for his household and family?
22 Now who dares impart knowledge to God
since He stands as judge over the most powerful?
23 One person dies when he is fit and strong,
completely secure and totally at peace;
24 His body[m] is vigorous and well fed;
his bones are strong and moist.
25 Another person dies with a bitter soul,
having never even tasted goodness.
26 But they lie down together in the same dust,
covered by the same blanket of worms.
27 I know how your minds work, my friends,
and how you plan to wrong me—your thoughts of retribution.
28 You will counter, “Show me!
Where is the palatial estate?
Where are the vaulted tents of the wicked?”
29 But I say, have you never consulted with those who travel this world?
They can tell you the complexions of many lands.
But you’ve never permitted their witness
in your courts of opinion, have you?
30 Well, if you had, you’d have heard
that when disaster strikes, the wicked are spared;
On the day of fury,
they are escorted safely through.
31 Who challenges them openly regarding their actions,
and who repays them on account of all they’ve done?
32 When death finally comes and they are laid in their graves,
guards stand watch over their tombs, fending off grave robbers.
33 Laid to rest beside the stream, clods of earth cover them kindly;
while countless souls have gone before, all of humanity follows after.
34 So, my friends, how can you continue trying to comfort me with these empty consolations?
So far, your answers have been only thinly veiled lies!
22 Eliphaz the Temanite made suggestions to Job.
2 Eliphaz: Can a strong person be of any use to God?
How about one who is wise? Can he help himself?
3 Is the Highest One[n] made happy if you are righteous?
Does He profit from your perfect ways?
4 Do you really think He takes you to task because you revere Him too much?
Is this why He brings allegations against you?
5 Is it not possible that you are, in fact, great with wickedness
and endless in your wrongdoing?
6 When your relatives came to you needing money,
for no good reason you took their clothes for collateral
and left them naked.
7 You have never given so much as a cup of water to the thirsty
or a crumb to the hungry.
8 You must think only the powerful and privileged possess the land
and can live in it any way they wish.
9 You have sent away widows who were wanting,
and you have obliterated the only support of orphans.
10 This is why you are surrounded by snares,
why you are overcome with dreadful fears,
11 Why you’re in the dark, without a glimmer to help you see,
sunk beneath the rush of flooding water.
12 Is not God up there at the crown of the highest arc of heaven?
And the highest stars!
See how lofty they are!
13 But you—you say, “What does God know?
Can He send His judgments through such thick darkness?
14 Those clouds are just a veil for Him so He does not have to look upon us
while He saunters, oblivious, through the chambers of the sky.”
15 Job, are you now guardian of the ancient road
where the wicked have traveled?
16 The wicked, who are captured
and taken off before their time,
their foundations washed out by a flooded river,
17 They are the ones who tell God, “Leave us be.”
They say, “What can the Highest One do to us?”
18 How are they repaid for their insolence?
You say, “He stuffs their homes with goodness,”
Then you shake your head and mutter,
“Far be it from me to understand the thoughts and plans of the wicked.”
19 The righteous would look upon their ruin and laugh for delight;
the innocent would taunt
20 By saying, “Sure enough, our enemies have gone to their annihilation,
and what they’ve left behind feeds a hungry fire.”
21 Now be of use to God;
be at peace with Him,
and goodness will return to your life.
22 Receive instruction directly from His lips,
and make His words a part of you.
23 If you return to the Highest One,
you will be restored;
if you banish the evil from your tents,
24 And consider your gold as common as earth’s dust
and Ophir’s refined gold as plentiful as stones in rock-lined streams,
25 Then your true treasure will be the Highest One—
worth more than gold and silver beyond measure.
26 For then, at last, you will find pleasure in the Highest One,
and you will finally be able to show Him your face.
27 When you approach Him, He will listen;
you will make good on your promises to Him.
28 You will pronounce something to be,
and He will make it so;
light will break out across all of your paths.
29 God will humble, but you say, “Raise them up.”
He will save the downcast.
30 He will even consent to deliver those who are not innocent
through the purity of your then-washed-clean hands.
23 Job confided to his friends.
2 Job: So once again you are telling me my complaint amounts to rebellion,
that the heavy hand I feel upon me is smothering my groans?
3 Would that I knew where to find Him.
I would appear before Him.
4 I would lay my case out before Him;
I would fill up my mouth with arguments.
5 And then I would finally learn how He would answer me,
and I would understand what He tells me.
6 Would He oppose me merely with His great power? Surely not!
Surely He would show me the respect of listening to my argument.
7 There, in that courtroom, a moral man might hope to reason with Him,
and I would escape my Judge forever.
8 Alas, wherever I go, ahead or behind,
He is not there;
I am unable to find Him.
9 When He works on either side of me, I still cannot see Him.
I catch no glimpse of Him.
10 But He knows the course I have traveled.
And I believe that were He to prove me,
I would come out purer than gold from the fire.
11 My foot has been securely set in His tracks;
I have kept to His course of life without swerving;
12 I have not departed from the commands of His lips;
I have valued everything He says more than all else.
13 He alone is one True God; who can alter Him?
Whatever He desires within Himself, He does.
14 For He will carry out exactly what He has planned for me,
and in the future there are more plans to come.
15 Therefore, I am deeply troubled before Him;
when I ponder it at any length, I am terrified of Him.
16 Yes, God has melted my courage,
and the Highest One has overwhelmed me with His terror.
17 He could have turned me aside when the darkness came,
but He did not cut me off.
Nor does He hide my face from the gloom that has now overtaken me.
24 Job: Why are there not judgment times for the wicked before the Highest One?[o]
Why do those who know Him not see His judgment days?
2 After all it’s the wicked who seize land that belongs to others,
capture flocks and let them graze for themselves,
3 Drive off orphans’ donkeys,
take as collateral widows’ oxen,
4 Drive the needy off the road,
and force the poor into hiding together.
5 Look at how the poor are forced to live!
Like wild donkeys in the desert,
They spend all their energy scrounging for food,
hoping the desert provides enough to feed their children!
6 They forage for scraps out in the open
and glean what they can from the already-harvested vineyards of the wicked.
7 They settle down night after night, naked since pawning their cloaks,
and have nothing to protect them from the cold.
8 The hard mountain rains soak them
as they press themselves against rocks in the absence of real shelter;
9 The fatherless child is torn away from the breast;
the suckling babe is seized as collateral from the poor.
10 They force the poor to wander naked, no clothing to be had,
carrying the very bundles of grain they long to eat.
11 They are stationed among the terraces[p]
pressing oil from the olive that calls to their hunger;
they trample in winepresses, extracting the juice for which they thirst.
12 At the outskirts of the city, the oppressed groan,
wounded souls crying for help,
but God fails to charge the guilty who have brought them such pain.
13 They were among those who rebel against the light.
They don’t want to know what makes it shine,
nor do they live their lives in its paths.
14 It is not the poor and the victim who rebel.
It is the murderer who rises before first light
And kills the poor and the needy.
And in the dark of night, he becomes the thief.
15 And the eye of the adulterer waits for the onset of dusk;
he thinks, “No one will see me,” because he disguises his face.
16 And others break into homes in the dark.
However, by day they shut themselves up inside
because they do not know the light.
17 For all of these criminals,
the morning arrives arm in arm with the threat of being found out.
It is as the shadow of death to them,
for they are at ease with the terrors of the night.
This passage is challenging to translate because it appears to have Job arguing against his previous convictions by claiming the wicked do suffer, which fits better with Zophar’s philosophy. But that textual difficulty offers two possible explanations of Job’s apparent dual arguments. First, it is possible to read these verses as if Job is quoting his friends; he is not adopting this theology, but mocking his friends who do. Second, Job may be cursing the wicked, wishing these evil things would happen to them. The Greek version of the text, called the Septuagint, provides the second translation of this passage. Regardless of who said it and how, this passage describes the possible pitfalls of evil actions.
18 Job: The wicked may sit lightly on the surface of the waters,
but their bit of land, the parcel on which they live, is accursed;
In fact, they don’t even turn down the road to their vineyards
because they don’t produce.
19 Just as summer’s heat and drought melt and carry off the winter snow,
the land of the dead digests and carries away sinners.
20 The very wombs whence they came forget them;
the worms will feast on them until no one remembers they existed;
the skeletons of wickedness dry up and snap like twigs.
21 They deliberately prey on women with no children to protect them
and don’t care to lend a hand to widows!
22 By His power, God drags off the high and mighty with the ropes of a hunter,
and though they may rise to the top, they have no assurance of true life.
23 God may provide for them, and they may feel secure,
but His eyes are always on their ways.
24 They may make their mark—to be sure—in a brief moment of glory,
but then just as quickly the wicked are gone, like the rest of humanity,
like heads of grain cut off and dried up.
25 Now, if this is not the truth, then call me a liar
and count all this talk for nothing.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.