As I stated in my last post, I am attempting to read the Bible in one year. I started in the middle of Job. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, it goes like this: Satan and several other angels appeared before God. It is not clear why they did so, but God boasts about how faithful Job is. Satan thinks that Job’s faith will fall away if he loses everything. So God agrees to allow Satan to test Job’s faith. Job, a wealthy man with a large family, loses family to raiders and his posessions to various mishaps and disasters all engineered by Satan. He has several friends who remain by his side after the aquaintences no longer want anything to do with him and his now miserable existence. These friends come to the only conclusion they can and advise Job to repent of his sins so God will bless him again. Job insists he is blameless and cries out to God for answers. Eventually God speaks up and restores Job’s wealth and blesses him with a new family.
My thoughts? Number one, the book is too long. It seemed to drag and the friends arguments were repetitive. I got it the first time. And I didn’t even read the whole book! I suppose part of my issue here is cultural.
Number two – Job was pretty sarcastic. I liked that. I never picked up on that before.
Number three – I realized that when a friend is hurting, he or she doesn’t always need advice. He/she doesn’t need me to overanalyze the situation. He/she probably would prefer it if I quietly sat beside him or her and provided companionship. Job’s sarcasm showed up because as well meaning as his friends were, they weren’t really helping.
Number four – I was reminded that there are forces at work in this world that I am unaware of that affect me directly. They may be people doing things behind my back or spiritual forces doing things behind my back. Either way, all I can do is remain faithful to God.
Thank you for reading. I welcome your thoughts on this.
Meghan Tells It 
Excellent! I agree 100% that Job, like much of the Hebrew Bible, is too long. With the schedule I am following for reading the Bible in a year, Job seems never-ending. Job sarcastic? I like that because what I mostly get from Job is that he whined — a lot. Definitely NOT my favorite story. I LOVE your point #3 — how true, how true. We — especially girls — talk too much. I am reminded of the song from when I was a child, “Silence is Golden”.
Silence IS golden. I also meant to point out that Job left an inheritance for his daughters. That was very unusual. I suppose that losing his first two daughters to death made him see them as more than chattel to be sold to the highest bidding man? Or am I being too cynical? Haha!
Hi Meghan! I liked this! I actually have a post, which hails from my days in ACOA (adult children of alcoholics) group therapy in the hopper about your third point. I wrote it about a week ago, but didn’t post it because I needed to switch over to wordpress and then I got distracted (imagine that!). I’ll post it soon. It’s actually born of my “twelve ironies for better living” post and it would’ve been the 13th irony. I didn’t include it because I didn’t want the post to be too long, nor did I want it to detract from the simplicity of the list.
I tried to do the Daily Walk bible in a year thing and I gave up at Numbers. But I dig that Noah was something like 932 years old when he built the ark.
I may have had more thoughts if I hadn’t written so late at night. haha! I can imagine a lot of people get stuck at Numbers. I have skimmed through it, focusing on the few actual stories in there. I think that it’s good I started after that point and will come back around to it next year. I am having difficulty keeping up with the readings. I am too easily distracted by the internet.
BTW – I am glad you switched to wordpress. My main internet connection is my phone and it opens wordpress better than your former host. I love your blog and anyone reading this comment should click on the link by your name. 🙂
Someone pointed out to me once (a friend? a pastor? a stranger? an enemy? who knows – I have no way to cite this source… probably not an enemy, though…) that Job’s friends really get it right at first: they sit with him in mourning for seven days and seven nights before they go on to open their big mouths. That’s impressive!
I confess (I feel like this is a confession because I was once almost an English teacher more than anything else) have a hard time getting through the poetic books of the Old Testament…