Zophar and Job, Round 2
Job 20-21
When Zophar speaks this time (in chapter 20), there actually seems to be a little connection to the previous thought. This is the closest we’ve come to an actual dialogue between humans in the whole book so far. Hallelujah!
After a short, indignant accusation of insult, Zophar moves along to tell Job what the lives of the wicked are like, furthering Bildad’s previous point. Zophar isn’t focused on whether the downfall is of God or of their own doing. He is concerned with the fact that the lives of the wicked are hard, barren, unfulfilling, and painful. They may appear to have a life of ease for a bit, but their ill-gotten ease and fortune are short-lived and replaced by a just scarcity that leaves them and their children literally begging for change.
Job 20: 27-29: The heavens will reveal their iniquity, and the earth will rise up against them. The possessions of their house will be carried away, dragged off in the day of God’s wrath. This is the portion of the wicked from God, the heritage decreed for them by God. (NRSV)
Job 20: 27-29: God will strip them of their sin-soaked clothes and hang their dirty laundry out for all to see. Life is a complete wipeout for them, nothing surviving God’s wrath. There! That’s God’s blueprint for the wicked—what they have to look forward to. (The Message)
I’m not sure what Zophar was going for here. Was his point that Job must be evil because his life is a wreck? Or was he reminding Job to play the long game, to wait it out and give God time to come back around and make things right? I don’t know, but I do know that, either way, Job wasn’t having it. Of course.
In his response in Chapter 21, Job takes the opposite point of view. He points out that the lives of the wicked are actually pretty darn good, with little consequence for their love of evil. In Job’s opinion, the people who don’t love God actually fare really well in the world. No one calls them to task for their wicked ways. They get off scot-free. They live long, easy lives; they get fancy funerals with everyone saying good things about them. It’s likely that folks know that those good things are lies, but they’re still saying them, and what people say seems to matter a lot to Job.
I’m not sure what Job is going for here, either. He had a pretty perfect life before all of this, and it was clear that no one thought he was evil. How do we tell the difference between a person who seems to have a good life and a good heart and the person who seems to have a good life and a bad heart?
Again, Job seems so very concerned with what other people think. He would have had a really tough time with social media.
There is one verse that especially caught my attention in Job’s response:
Job 21: 27 Oh, I know your thoughts, and your schemes to wrong me. (NRSV)
Job 21: 27 I’m not deceived. I know what you’re up to, the plans you’re cooking up to bring me down. (The Message)
It seems that he’s addressing this to Zophar and company. Is there more going on here? Are the friends really out to get him? Is Job just paranoid? How are they going to bring him down? Isn’t the whole issue that he’s already been brought down? I’m not sure Job is thinking straight.