Thursday 3 October 2024
[God] does great things and unsearchable, marvellous things without number. (v. 9)
Background
Job had three friends and today's verses are part of a speech by Eliphaz, the first of these. Eliphaz offers an interpretation of Job’s sufferings: it revolves around Eliphaz's convictions about God – whom he urges Job to seek. Eliphaz believes in a powerful God whose actions are beyond human comprehension (5:9). Certainly God manages nature (5:9-10). From time to time God intervenes with a particular agenda in human society. The illustrations of God’s actions in 5:11-16 focus entirely on the needs of the poor, the vulnerable, the exploited and the victims of injustice.
In verse 15 the meaning of the phrase ‘from the sword of their mouth’ is opaque. Perhaps it refers to the abuse and humiliation uttered against the needy by their strong oppressors, in whose clutches they are held.
In addition (5:17-18), according to Eliphaz, God routinely intervenes in the life of individuals whose actions are displeasing to God, to reprove and discipline them. God is acting like a father in a patriarchal society who assaults his recalcitrant child (wounds and strikes them), only to assure the child that, beyond the deserved punishment, the father’s love is secure – for he will bind up and heal the wounds inflicted.
Eliphaz is urging Job to commit to such a God. Here is God’s good news, which will make Job happy. He thinks Job must have sinned and his awful sufferings are God’s punishment. But Job may be assured that on the further side of this crisis there will be healing and love, in a more just and equitable society.
Eliphaz’s theology is a long way from Christian theology. To be sure, Christians believe that God’s Spirit (the Spirit of Jesus) encourages believers to work with partners in and beyond the Church to assist the poor and needy to achieve change to their benefit. But Jesus refused to explain injury and illness as God’s punishment for sin (eg John 9:1-3). Through people (believers and others) God heals; God forgives; God suffers with the suffering; God makes God’s very life vulnerable to the onslaught of the hateful and violent, to release new life and peace.
To Ponder:
- Today we are thinking about illness and affliction. How does the pastoral work of your congregation relate to and differ from the work of medical practitioners, pharmacists and social workers?
- What do you ask for when you pray for the sick and grieving? Do you use the same words for someone diagnosed with cancer as for someone who is ill because of obesity or addiction to alcohol or drugs?
Bible notes author: The Revd David Deeks
David is a Methodist supernumerary presbyter, living in Bristol.