Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Job 18

2 comments:

Berry Girl said...

This sounds pretty harsh, Bildad's speech. And yet, I see a little of myself in it. It can be exasperating to be with someone who is in so much pain - at some point you really want to tell them to just snap out of it already and get on with life. Obviously not the right response, and obviously not helpful, but I can kind of see where Job's friends are coming from. They aren't right, but I can kind of get it.

Unknown said...

yeah. it's next to impossible to be "sensible" (that's what my translation says for verse 2; "be sensible and then we can talk") when one is suffering and/or in depression.

I didn't take it to mean that Bildad was classifying Job as the kind of person that he was identifying here. I took it as a sort of comfort, of him saying "in the end the wicked will be punished and the righteous will be vindicated (even though he didn't go so far as to verbalize that part). But looking ahead, maybe I am wrong, because Job does take offense at Bildad's speech.

The real lesson I guess in all of this for me is to be slow to speak and rich in love and compassion.