Word In Life Study Bible
A NEW SET OF FRIENDS
Job31:13–23
Pain is a great leveler. Whether one is high and mighty or lowly and unknown, physical and emotional suffering attack without discrimination, treating the one the same as another. Job discovered that truth, and in the process found a whole new set of friends—the poor (Job 31:13–23).
Before his troubles, Job had been a champion of the poor (see 29:12–17). But his enormous wealth and position of importance in his community had probably distanced him from their pain. Not unlike many government officials and well-to-do citizens today, he was aware of their plight, but had never experienced it for himself.
Then a series of
disasters struck, and overnight Job was reduced to poverty. As a result, the
poor were no longer just a class of people that needed help, but fellow sufferers
with whom Job was in the same boat. With a new set of eyes, he began to identify
with slaves who feared unjust treatment from their masters (31:13). He now understood
what widows and orphans felt when they were forced to go without food, clothing,
and shelter while watching others live in luxury (31:16–21; compare 24:2–12).
In the end, Job discovered a new sense of equality as a result of his downfall:
“Did not He who made me in the womb make them?” he asked rhetorically
(31:15). He realized that people are basically the same. Possessions and position
have nothing to do with their fundamental humanity.
Perhaps one reason
that Job was able to come to that perspective had to do with the Near Eastern
culture in which he lived. Modern Westerners tend to interpret Job’s situation
as a case study in personal suffering. To them, the key issue to resolve would
be, “Why is this happening to me?” But in Job’s society, people
were more likely to make sense of a person’s troubles from the standpoint
of collective suffering. The idea was that one person’s pain had significance
for the entire community.
Thus Job went beyond the question of, “Why am I, of all people, facing
these trials?” His condition enabled him to embrace others who were slighted
and slandered by society. Job’s experience challenges Bible readers today
to consider what it would take for us to befriend the friendless and seek justice
for the powerless.
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