Today’s passage: Job 13
Helpful thoughts:
- Job continues his response to Zophar, confirming he preferred the first seven days of silence to all the talking that has been going on since.
- In verses 6-12, Job argues that if God was allowing this suffering because of Job’s sin, his friends would all be in the same situation.
- After acknowledging the risk he is taking (Verses 13-16), Job makes an appeal to God in his own defense (Verses 17-28).
Questions to consider:
- In what way should verse 11 give us pause to speak definitively on God’s behalf? How might an awareness of God’s power, justice, and goodness have tempered the conversations from Job and all his friends in this book? In our lives as well?
- Verse 15 could also be translated as, “He will slay me, I have no hope.” How does either translation fit here? What does Job acknowledge could happen at any time? How does he view the quality of his life and why is he willing to put it all in God’s hands, taking the risk of speaking to God directly?
- How is Job’s willingness to take his lament and appeal to God better than proclaiming bitterness against God to others around him? Even though he doesn’t understand what’s happening, how is Job still hoping in God? How can this help us in our own times of suffering?