March 2 / Job 30

Job 30

Yesterday, Job looked back at his glory days. Today he laments his current miserable condition:

• Job 30:1-15 — Job’s utter reversal of social standing
  • Younger men, whose fathers Job would have disdained, laugh at him (vv. 1-8)
  • The rabble, the lowest of society, abhor him and spit at him (vv. 9-14)
  • His honor and prosperity are gone (v. 15)
• Job 30:16-23 — Job’s physical suffering at God’s hand
  • He is constantly in pain (vv. 16-18)
  • God has cast him into the mire and he is filthy (v. 19)
  • God ignores his cries for help (v. 20)
  • God has turned cruel and will bring him to death (vv. 21-23)
• Job 30:24-31 — Job’s lack of help
  • Despite having given help previously, he receives no help from others (vv. 24-25)
  • He hopes for good, but receives evil, for light, but gets darkness (v. 26)
  • He is in constant affliction and cries for help, but no one answers (vv. 27-28)
  • He is an outcast and left to suffer alone (vv. 29-31)

What a contrast between Job’s former glory (Job 29) and his current plight! He is now utterly insecure. He is bereft of his children. He feels that God has abandoned him and afflicted him. He is an outcast from the community, mocked and derided. He is at the bottom of the heap, utterly alone and humiliated.

This contrast between Job’s former glory and his present humiliation reminds me of Christ, how He gave up His position of glory in heaven alongside the Father to take on human flesh:

[T]hough He was in the form of God, [He] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Philippians 2:6-8

In his humiliation Job stands as a type of Christ, a foreshadowing of what Jesus would do. Clearly, the scale of Christ’s humiliation dwarfs that of Job. And Job’s suffering is entirely involuntary in marked contrast with that of Christ’s willing self-sacrifice. Nevertheless, Job’s treatment hints at what Christ endured for us in obedience to the Father. Neither Job nor Christ deserve their suffering, yet it is the will of the Father. Both Job and Christ ask God for a different path — Let this cup pass from Me. (Mt. 26:39) Both Job and Christ feel abandoned — My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me? (Mt. 27:46) But where Job defiantly resists his suffering, Christ humbly submits — …not as I will, but as You will. (Mt. 26:39)

The verses immediately preceding the above passage from Philippians read thus:

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus…

Philippians 2:3-5

That is to say that we need to follow Christ’s example, to have His mindset of humility. In His suffering Christ identifies with us. In our suffering and in humility we have an opportunity to identify with Christ. Let’s not miss that opportunity.