Job is one of those books of the Bible that I still feel I don’t really know what to do with. I’m not happy with treatments of it that read it as if the bulk of the book were a paranthesis. But I can’t do better. So I keep reading it, to see what I can learn.
One thing that is striking me on my present read-through is the times when Job describes his suffering in ways that echo the suffering of the Lord Jesus. Remembering that the whole Bible is one book as much as it is 66, that observation should be treated as one piece of data, rather than ignored. Even if the author of Job had not read Isaiah 53 or Psalm 22, the Holy Spirit has!
I’m reading chapters 15-19 at the moment. I was noticing examples earlier in the book as well, but here are some from these chapters:
Men have gaped at me with their mouth;
they have struck me insolently on the cheek;
they mass themselves together against me. (Job 16:9)
He has made me a byword of the peoples,
and I am one before whom men spit. (Job 17.6)
All my intimate friends abhor me,
and those whom I loved have turned against me. (Job 19:18)
I don’t know what to conclude from that observation, but observed nonetheless. Suggestions welcome.
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