Lenten Reflection - March 23, 2011

Hearken unto this, O Job: stand still and consider the wondrous works of God. (KJV)
Job 37:1–18

These are the angry words of young Elihu, son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, dismissing the argument of Job’s other friends (that Job’s miseries were a result of sinning against God), as well as that of Job himself (that he was righteous, and not deserving of his punishment). With some pomposity Elihu justifies a powerful God who punishes the wicked and ‘opens the ear” of the righteous by adversity. His rather lengthy argument is immediately followed by the Lord answering Job out of the whirlwind (Job 38:1-3):

1. Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
2. Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
3. Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.
4. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.

When I was a sophomore in college I read the Book of Job in a literature class and in my critical essay I, like Elihu, was inclined to explicate God's actions in terms of man's understanding of justice and motivation. Now, like Job, "I know that therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not," and I hope, like Job,to be able to say "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee."

Judy Huntington