The End of Conversation
And these three men left off answering Job because he was right in his own eyes. Job 32:1 Robert Alter
Right in his own eyes – The book of Job is a disturbing story. It’s hard to imagine that God would allow such terrible suffering for a man who served Him with all his heart. Where is the justice in that? And recompense? No, I don’t think so. Even if Job’s fortunes are restored, he must still visit the graveyard of his children. Job is a truly divine tragic figure, a man we hope will never darken our door. The fact that he confesses (to what crime I’m not sure) seems irrelevant because it is ultimately God who allows the heartache and tragedy, all in order to play some dreadful game with the accuser. That kind of god scares me.
Of course, we try to find spiritual answers among the lines of the catastrophe. So did Job’s friends. We hope to discover some deeper justification for God’s action, but they looked in a different direction. They wanted to discover Job’s sin. After all, in their world terrible things like this don’t happen to righteous people. God protects them. And since Job is clearly suffering at the hand of the Lord, he must have committed a truly horrific sin. But it’s not too late. If only Job will openly confess his disobedience, God can fix things. That Job stubbornly refuses to admit his guilt only compounds his punishment. How else can one explain these conditions?
By the time we reach chapter 32, his friends have exhausted all their arguments to help Job confess. The verse tells us that they stopped answering. Why did they stop talking with Job? The reason offered is instructive: “because he was right in his own eyes.” They realized that continued debate was useless. Job believed he was correct and no amount of evidence would change his mind. The Hebrew is actually stronger than our translation. Job didn’t just believe he was right. He believed he was ṣaddîq, righteous, innocent, blameless. In fact, Job later becomes the model of a righteous man, a man who “tries to preserve the peace and prosperity of the community by fulfilling the commands of God in regard to others. In the supreme sense the righteous man (ṣaddîq) is one who serves God (Mal 3:18). Specifically, he, like Job, delivers the poor and orphan, helps the blind along the way, supports the weak and is a father (provider) to the poor (Job 29:12–15). This was the righteous ‘clothing’ of Job’s life.”[1]
Because we know God’s final vindication of Job’s innocence, we blame his friends for their callous insistence that Job’s circumstances demand confession. Perhaps we should be a bit kinder. A man who is right in his own eyes is not a man open to conversation. He is a man whose willingness to exam the evidence from any other point to view is blocked. He is a man who believes what he believes because he believes it, and don’t tell him otherwise. Perhaps you haven’t encountered the tragic Job, but you might have encountered the insistent Job. No point in continuing, is there? “I’m comfortable with what I believe” is the end of dialogue. I’ve met quite a few insistent Jobs in my life. It’s hard to resist the temptation to offer just one more argument, but it’s pointless to do so. That kind of Job only listens when God interrupts.
Topical Index: right in his own eyes, ṣaddîq, righteous, debate, Job 32:1
[1] Stigers, H. G. (1999). 1879 צָדֵק. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 753). Chicago: Moody Press.
