Empathy Needed While Suffering

Job 16:1-22

1 Then Job answered and said:

2 "I have heard many such things;
Miserable comforters are you all!

3 Shall words of wind have an end?
Or what provokes you that you answer?

4 I also could speak as you do,
If your soul were in my soul's place.

I could heap up words against you,
And shake my head at you;

5 But I would strengthen you with my mouth,
And the comfort of my lips would relieve your grief.

6 "Though I speak, my grief is not relieved;
And if I remain silent, how am I eased?

7 But now He has worn me out;
You have made desolate all my company.

8 You have shriveled me up,
And it is a witness against me;
My leanness rises up against me
And bears witness to my face.

9 He tears me in His wrath, and hates me;
He gnashes at me with His teeth;
My adversary sharpens His gaze on me.

10 They gape at me with their mouth,
They strike me reproachfully on the cheek,
They gather together against me.

11 God has delivered me to the ungodly,
And turned me over to the hands of the wicked.

12 I was at ease, but He has shattered me;
He also has taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces;
He has set me up for His target,

13 His archers surround me.
He pierces my heart and does not pity;
He pours out my gall on the ground.

14 He breaks me with wound upon wound;
He runs at me like a warrior.

15 "I have sewn sackcloth over my skin,
And laid my head in the dust.

16 My face is flushed from weeping,
And on my eyelids is the shadow of death;
17 Although no violence is in my hands,
And my prayer is pure.

18 "O earth, do not cover my blood,
And let my cry have no resting place!

19 Surely even now my witness is in heaven,
And my evidence is on high.

20 My friends scorn me;
My eyes pour out tears to God.

21 Oh, that one might plead for a man with God,
As a man pleads for his neighbor!

22 For when a few years are finished,
shall go the way of no return.

Job had been handed over to the ungodly and to the adversary to use the ungodly to mock him and to strike him with hate on the face, just as they did at Golgotha many years later to the righteous Christ of God who suffered ridicule and judgment by sinful men as well (Psalm 22:13, Matthew 26:67).  Job had miserable counselors who sided agains him because they sided against God; they attacked His righteous and upright servant when they should have been encouraging and comforting as they pointed his faith back to God and His sovereign hand of grace and mercy to come.  Instead, it appeared as if the adversary who began these trials of Job from heaven and grasped these three friends and used them as his weapons to assault Job until he broke and cursed God (Job 1:11, 2:5-6).  They attacked Job’s faith as ridicule of God and His servant, as it were, as if satan’s tools.  Job tried to let them put themselves in his place before harshly judging and offering such mocking advice, reminding that he would strengthen and comfort them if their places were reversed.  He would who them compassion and empathy in their suffering.  Job spoke of his adversary gnashing his teeth at Job, hateful and enraged, and gather together to strike him as similarly prophesied about Christ in Psalm 22:13 we saw earlier.  Though not a type of Christ, Job suffered similar attacks of people following the adversary instead of God as seen in verses 9-11 here.  He was handed over to suffer at their hands by God’s permission, not by His desire or design, and this will be his vindication in the end.  Job was as if pierced so gall came out, somewhat similar to the spear thrust in our Savior on the cross also.  Then we see Job continuing to lament his mourning in suffering with the sackcloth and tears driving his prayer to God for relief, but needing an intercessor to plead with God for him, which we now have in Christ Himself!  Our witness is in heaven, not to our own righteousness as Job’s prayer offered up, but in Christ’s alone.  He pleads our case before the throne of the Father as God did for Job.  We will also go to the grave as Job pointed out, never to return to life here, but we have an eternal hope in life with Him by His advocacy and grace forevermore (Romans 8:34, Hebrews 7:25, 1 John 2:1).  We therefore need empathy from each other while suffering on earth because of our advocate in heaven who delivers us from eternal suffering to come on the world (1 John 4:18), not judgment or unbiblical advice based on our assumptions based on our own rash assessments.  Amen!