Job 4:1-11, Job’s Hope! Get it right!

Today’s reading is part of the first words of Eliphaz, one of Job’s friends.  By the end of the story those friends will need to repent because, the Lord says, you have no spoken of Me what is right (Job 42:7).  As I read this today I was blessed by the fact that God recorded their “not right” messages, which helps us see the wrong so that we trust and obey the right.  I am just wanting today to consider one of several words for “hope” or “expectation” or “waiting” in the Hebrew.  The root verb is qava (5x in Job) and the noun tiqva (12x in Job).  The first use of the noun is translated “chord” and describes the scarlet chord Rahab dropped down the walls of Jericho so as to be saved out of the destruction of the city (Josh. 2:18,21).  The next is used in Ruth 1:12 by Naomi who says she has no “hope” of getting a husband for her daughters-in-law.  In other words, this term has tremendous salvation/redemption significance.  Here are some references to “hope” in Job.

·       3:9 (v): May the day of Job’s birth look for light but find none.  Do you see the “hope” there?  When in darkness we look for the dawning, the light.  In 30:26 (v) Job expresses hopelessness, saying when I waited for light, then came darkness.

·       4:6: Eliphaz says Job’s hope is in his reverence and integrity.  But that is not right.  It should be in his God whom he fears and before whom he walks in integrity.  This is the problem in religion: it counts on the works of the adherents rather than solely in God.  I ought not tell people to have hope because I am praying for them, but to have hope because of the God and the word of the God to whom I pray.

·       5:16: Thus, when Job says the poor have hope it is bec. of the Lord he just described and Whom he seeks and to Whom he commits his cause (5:8-9-15).

·       6:8: What you “long for” is what you hope for.  What are my “yearnings” today?

·       7:2 (v): Job “hopes” like a hired man who eagerly looks for his wages.

·       7:6: Yet, the days go by quickly without hope (without seeing an answer).

·       8:13: Bildad warns Job the hope of the hypocrite shall perish.  He is barking up the wrong tree: Job’s suffering is not for hypocrisy. God called him blameless.  Job, in 27:8, recognizes the hypocrite has no hope.  

·       11:18,20: Zophar tells Job he would be secure because of hope if he would prepare his heart and reach out toward God (11:13), whereas the only hope for the wicked is loss of life.  Again, that is not Job’s problem.

·       14:7,19: Job says there is hope for a tree that is cut down because it can sprout again. Job feels hopeless because God has destroyed his hope.  Also, not true.  In 19:10 Job says, My hope He has uprooted like a tree. 

·       17:13,15: Job feels his only hope it so wait for the grave.  Where then is my hope? As for my hope, who can see it?

We cannot live our lives without persevering hope.  It’s a big deal in Job, as it is in everyone’s life.  We do need to think accurately, Biblically, about our hope.