Job 10:8-22, Dealing with Bitterness

We have been considering how to be better “comforters” for those in affliction, better than what we have been, better than Job’s “friends.”  We need to be good listeners, listening for the realities behind people’s words.  We need to stand on a solid source of authority, the Word of the Living God!  We need to identify and reject false hopes and present a true hope, centered in Christ.  Let us now consider two additional topics from Job: dealing properly with bitterness and grief. 

Bitterness

Who caused Job’s pain?  You might want to say Satan did.  But Job never feared that he might curse Satan; what concerned Job was that he might curse God.  He feared this for his kids (1:5); his wife told him he should do this (2:9); and he desired death so as to make sure he never did this (6:8-10). 

Why was Job concerned about this?  Because he knew that God was responsible for the whole scenario.  God did not commit a sin. He did not treat Job “unjustly.”  Satan was the one God used to afflict Job.  But Job never blames or calls Satan out about this.  Job’s concerns are with God.  Note how strongly God appears in Job.

·       1:16: It was the fire of God that that destroyed Job’s sheep and servants.

·       1:21: Job said, “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away.”

·       2:3: God says, “you (Satan) incited Me against him (Job).”

·       2:10: Job reproves his wife: “Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?”

·       9:21-24: Job asks, “If it is not He (God), who else could it be?”

·       10:8-12: This chapter deals with bitterness based on the belief that God did this.

·       16:7-14: Each verse makes a clear statement.  “He has worn me out … You have shriveled me up … He tears me in His wrath … God has delivered me to the ungodly … I was at ease, but He has shattered me.”  (Note, in v10, that Job also calls out men for what they are doing to him, perhaps referring to his friends.)

·       17:6: “He has made me a byword of the people.”

·       19:5-6,8-13,21-22: The basic theme is, “God has wronged me” (v6).  (Again, he also places blame on his friends and family in v14-20).

·       23:13-17: Here the theme is that God does what “His soul desires” (v13).

·       24:22-25: Here Job says that God has done what has happened to him, having been secure and exalted for a little while, but then brought low.

·       27:2-4: In this passage Job shows some resolution of the bitterness, but there is still no denial of the fact that God brought this upon him.

One more thing we should note is that in Ch. 38-41, when God speaks, He does nothing to deny what Job has said.  In essence God says, “I am sovereign; I do as I please; who are you to question Me, my wisdom or power?”  How does Job come to terms with this?