Circumstance One: Large Losses
The losses that Job suffered are incomparable among the children of men. A blameless and upright man, one who feared God and shunned evil—the greatest, wealthiest man in the East, lost everything but his life. He lost all of his resources, his seven sons, and his three daughters. Then to add to his misery, he lost the support of his wife after Satan struck him with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. But that is not all. Then he lost the respect that he had enjoyed from those he’d protected, helped, and made happy. He went from being a kind of king who comforted mourners (Job 29.25) to a man mocked by younger men (30.1.) He became a man to be made fun of (30.9), and an outcast (30.29.) He was shunned and ostracized, except to be jeered at when it was convenient to do so. Job the great was now Job the estranged and rejected: “He hath put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me. My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me” (19.13, 14.)
If it is not seemly for a servant to be above a prince (Proverbs 19.10), how unseemly was it for a blameless prince like Job to be reduced to nothing but his life and to be found sitting on the ground ‘among the ashes,’ shamefully engaged in scraping the boils on his skin with a broken piece of pottery? (Job 2.8.) The unseemliness of it is highlighted by the fact that his three friends who came to sit with him didn’t dare speak a word to him for a full ‘seven days and seven nights’ (2.13.) Incidentally, it would be unfair to emphasize the exceptional character of Job without noticing the patience of his three critics. What person on the face of the earth, even among our billions of people, would be as deferential and discreet as any one of these three friends of Job? We have had friends, maybe, who, when visiting us upon hearing of our misfortune, sat down and waited for us to open the conversation. But what friend would bear with us in silence for a whole week? What friend would grieve quietly with us for that long? Job’s losses were so great that his friends were rendered speechless for seven days and nights. Large losses draw respect from close friends. Large losses elicit a shocking response. Large losses cause close friends to be humiliated for our sake. From what is brought to light by Alfred Edersheim, it seems probable, at least to me, that the custom of observing silence until the mourner himself broke it stretched back in time from the days of our Lord even to Job’s day and that this custom was generally practiced in the East in ancient times. “There was a custom, which deserves general imitation, that mourners were not to be tormented by talk, but that all should observe silence till addressed by them…Deep mourning was to last for seven days” (Alfred Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life in the Days of Christ, pp. 130, 131.) Whether this custom extended back from the days of our Lord in Palestine to the days of Job in the land of Uz or not, the mutual association is at least curiously coincidental; and, custom or not, suffering by being silent with a mourner for seven days must involve rigorous patience and control. During this full week of silence, no doubt, the characters in the drama composed, in their minds, the dialogue that was to follow. Their remarks are more than offhand rants.
Speaking of customs, it is remarkable that the surviving servants of Job did not rally to assist him in his plight. It is especially remarkable for this sin of omission to occur in the East in the ancient time, for back then over there the servant was at the entire disposal of his master. A servant, in that day, was what we would now call a slave. “Instil from his earliest infancy into man the idea that he belongs to another, is the property of another, let everything around proceed upon this idea, let there be nothing to interfere with it or rouse his suspicions in his mind to the contrary, and he will yield entirely to that idea. He will take his own deprivation of right, the necessity of his own subservience to another as a matter of course. And that idea of himself will keep him in order” (J. B. Mozley, Ruling Ideas in Early Ages, pp. 42, 43.) This idea is why Isaac bared his neck to his father’s knife without complaint. This idea is why Jephthah’s daughter submitted so composedly to her father’s precipitate vow, to be given over by him, though sinfully, to the LORD for a burnt offering (Judges 11.30-40.) This idea is why Muslim women, even four thousand years after the early ages in the book of Job, walk around fully covered in black cloth in the torrid heat of Arabia. But these servants of Job did not adhere to this idea after his kingdom came to naught. There are two reasons why this might have occurred. One, Satan, whose business it is to roam ‘to and fro in the earth,’ knew which servants to kill and which ones to leave alive. Only the least faithful were left. Two, it is plausible that Job was a worshipper of the one true God among sun worshippers, and that therefore when he came to trouble, he was left to sort himself out as best he could. So Job, after making it possible for his servants to subsist on the earth, had to defend his past conduct toward them. His remaining servants now reckoned him a stranger: “They that dwell in mine house, and my maids, count me for a stranger: I am an alien in their sight. I called my servant, and he gave me no answer; I intreated him with my mouth” (Job 19.15, 16.) The servants blessed by Job in his prosperity, rejected him in his adversity. Fearing God, Job had been fair and humble toward his servants: “If I did despise the cause of my manservant or of my maidservant, when they contended with me; what then shall I do when God riseth up? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer him?” (31.13, 14.) He had considered his servants equal to himself: “Did not he that made me in the womb make him? and did not one fashion us in the womb?” (31.15.) Now they considered themselves superior to Job. By the laws that men governed themselves by in that semi-rude age, it is not dubious to suppose that disdainful conduct on the part of servants warranted flogging and maybe death.
This loss of respect from the people that Job had blessed left him a tormented man. Melancholy weighs heaviest on the man who has lost the most. Job’s pensive sadness for the way things used to be makes for a heart-wrenching account. He longed for the past comforts and pleasures of wealth, the joy of being with his children, and the health to be able to relish the experience. But that was all gone: “Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me; when his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness; as I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle; when the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were about me; when I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil” (Job 29.2-6.) The rest of this chapter is filled with similar reflections. Despite the good reputation that he deserved, the community refused to honor Job during his trial. His sentimental yearning for the recognition that he deserved and once enjoyed is particularly sorrowful: “Men gave ear, and waited, and kept silence at my counsel. After my words they spake not again; and my speech dropped upon them. And they waited for me as for the rain; and they opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain” (29.21-23.) Had they listened to Job’s wisdom, then, only because of his wealth? We do not have to wonder how these fair weather friends reacted when Job was restored. They respected men who possessed resources. To find out that you were loved only for what you had and what you provided is a devastating discovery. In a documentary about the famous boxer, Roberto Duran, the story is told about his returning to Panama after his victories. His habit was to walk along the streets to share his winnings with poverty-stricken countrymen. Upon his return after a huge loss, however, without any money or with a paltry sum, his fellows were not there to greet him. The poor man, more than the rich man, knows who his friends are. Another avenue to the same discovery is the loss of loved ones. The excuse that is commonly given for avoiding a man after a death in his family is that the would-be comforter knows not what to say. But is the mourner not avoided, rather, because he has lately closed with unapproachable death? And how much more is that person avoided who comes close to death himself? Or, how does it go with the man who, for no good reason, is unanimously defamed? Who wants to be that man’s friend? Large losses occasion the loss of everything else. Large losses may occasion the loss of everything but a man’s faith.
George Brummell is now an unknown man. But once upon a time he was on many a mind. Succeeding to a large inheritance at the age of twenty-one, he devoted his life to fashionable dress, and holds the distinction of inventing and popularizing the ‘starched neckcloth.’ In 19th century Britain, high culture regulated its fashions according to his yea or nay. “For years he gave the law to the highest fashionable circles…a duchess would tremble at his decision, as what would stamp her unfashionable or otherwise” (William Haig Miller, The Mirage of Life, p. 26.) We don’t pity an empty-headed dandy whose folly brings him to destitution, jail, and finally, the madhouse. But we do feel deeply for a pious, upright, self-made man like Job who, through no fault of his own, loses literally everything but his faith in God. We are instinctively affected upon hearing of the misfortunes of a man of character. Job was the most upright and generous man of his time and the most unworthy of deprivation. And he not only lost the most, he had it all taken away suddenly by a train of violent events. The wealthiest man in the East, the most blessed by God, and the most worthy of respect among men, lost it all, including his children, his health, and the moral support of his wife. Even a man whose empire is wiped out in a tsunami would be hard pressed to equal Job for losses, for Job lost, not only his empire, but his seven kids, his comeliness, his health, and the backing of his beloved. And no mere mortal could be found to have lost as much deserved respect as Job lost. It would be an impossible task to find a man who suffered heavier losses than Job did. This circumstance is beyond us.
