Suffering

Eliphaz S

The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language Chapter 4

1–6  4 Then Eliphaz from Teman spoke up:

“Would you mind if I said something to you?

Under the circumstances it’s hard to keep quiet.

You yourself have done this plenty of times, spoken words

that clarify, encouraged those who were about to quit.

Your words have put stumbling people on their feet,

put fresh hope in people about to collapse.

But now you’re the one in trouble—you’re hurting!

You’ve been hit hard and you’re reeling from the blow.

But shouldn’t your devout life give you confidence now?

Shouldn’t your exemplary life give you hope?

7–11  “Think! Has a truly innocent person ever ended up on the scrap heap?

Do genuinely upright people ever lose out in the end?

It’s my observation that those who plow evil

and sow trouble reap evil and trouble.

One breath from God and they fall apart,

one blast of his anger and there’s nothing left of them.

The mighty lion, king of the beasts, roars mightily,

but when he’s toothless he’s useless—

No teeth, no prey—and the cubs

wander off to fend for themselves.

Job Intro

In our compassion, we don’t like to see people suffer. And so our instincts are aimed at preventing and alleviating suffering. No doubt that is a good impulse. But if we really want to reach out to others who are suffering, we should be careful not to be like Job’s friends, not to do our “helping” with the presumption that we can fix things, get rid of them, or make them “better.”