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CYPRESSWOOD CHURCH OF CHRIST January
30, 2005 KEEP PRAYING FOR: Our congregation Our
college students Our nation, military and
leaders David and Leon in the military Various friends, relatives
and co-workers ANOTHER
LOOK AT JOB'S WIFE "His
wife said to him, 'Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse
god and die!'" (Job 2:9). These are
the only words of Job's wife. Based on them and what Job said to
this, we have a picture of a callous woman who wants her husband
dead. Job responded by saying, "You are talking like a foolish
woman. Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?" (vs. 10).
The story is about Job and his goodness. We tend then to be critical
of his wife by one comment made. But there is more to this I think
we are missing. We are
introduced to Job in chapter one. He has been richly blessed by God
in material ways and he is very religious in the sight of God. He
has much property, wealth and ten children. He showed his concerned
for them in that he would offer sacrifices in case they had sinned.
One could learn that with blessings comes responsibility. The in one
brief period of one day, Job lost everything. He lost his herds of
donkeys, sheep and camels and he lost all his children at the same
time. In mourning he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb,
and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
may the name of the Lord be praised" (1:21). One can
hardly imagine losing one child let alone ten. There was a situation
similar to this during World War II which was made into a movie
called "The Fighting Sullivans." It was about five brothers
who did everything together. They enlisted in the Navy together and
were sent to the South Pacific. Their ship was in battle, hit by a
torpedo, and while attempting to rescue one of the brothers, the
ship blew up. All five died together. When the officer and chaplain
came to the house, the father asked "Which one?" After a pause, he
was told it was all five. How does one deal with such news? The story
of Job continues. In chapter two, we find Job struck with a serious
illness. It was so bad that he was sitting in ashes, a symbol of
mourning, scraping sores that were all over his body. In 19:17, Job
says "My breath is offensive to my wife." Now that could mean
that anything Job said bothered his wife. He also could mean that
not only could she not touch him, she could not even get close to
him. Here is a
women who in a short period of time has lost her children, her means
of support, and in essence, her husband. She is in m mourning.
Mourning takes on various stages; denial, anger, acceptance. The
words she spoke in my mind are words of angry mourning in the midst
of her loss. Rather than being a callous women, she is an angry,
mourning, suffering woman. And I think that Job is also in mourning
struggling with his immediate situation. Grief is tough and those
who grieve struggle. They will say things out of that grief that
they do not necessarily mean or believe. This is something we need
to understand. Of course,
we know that background to their suffering. The Accuser comes
accusing and God is moved to act. God, speaking to Satan, says in
part in speaking of Job, "…he still maintains his integrity,
though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason"
(2:3). God knows job is good and uses that to defeat the evil of
the Accuser. But while we know what was happening, Job and his wife
didn't. they did not understand, even though understanding would not
have made it any easier. The one who grieves wants to know "why" and
understand, so that in some way his pain would be relieved. But the
pain isn't going to go away with understanding. After all is said
and done, Job finds comfort in his ashes (42:6). At the end
of the book, we see that Job's health is restored and so are his
fortunes. He is comforted by family and friends and he is blessed
with twice as much as before, as well as having ten more children.
Not mentioned in this is his wife. Has she left him? Or did she
stand by her man and shared in the new blessings? I think that she
is part of the new blessings and she too finds comfort in her new
family. Let's not forget that if God can have Sarah bear a child at
ninety, He can have Job's wife bear ten in her later years. Mourning,
grief, suffering; they are all a part of life. We do not like it and
we will say things out of that situation. Yet God is with us in our
suffering. While it was Job's goodness that became the focus of the
book, his wife was an innocent bystander in the Accuser's attack.
That too is something to think about. I think in all of this, Job's
wife struggled but stood by supporting her husband in his struggle. George B.
Mearns |