Week 21: Job 11—28

Reading schedule for this week:
·      Weekend: Job 11-14
·      Monday: Job 15-17
·      Tuesday: Job 18-19
·      Wednesday: Job 20-21
·      Thursday: Job 22-24
·      Friday: Job 25-28

This week continues our reading of the book of Job.  This is one of the oldest biblical books in Scripture…and it can be a bit confusing to first-time readers.  Therefore it might help to stop and take a birds-eye view to get a feel for how the book is structured:
·      The Prolog (chapters 1-2), tracks Job’s upright character, his blessings, the divine-demonic drama that gives rise to Job’s sufferings, and an accounting of Job’s losses and state of suffering in isolation from all that he held near and dear. 
·      The section of Dialog and Dispute, encompasses the largest single section of the book (Chapters 3-31).  It starts with Job’s lamenting his state of suffering (ch. 3).  This is followed by three cycles of dialog between Job and his friends, Eliphas, Bildad, and Zophar (chs. 4-31) – all of whom were convinced (wrongly) that the reason behind Job’s suffering was some secret, unconfessed sin. 
The cycles follow the same pattern for the most part.  Each one starts with Eliphaz’s comments (chs. 4-5, 15, 22), followed by Job’s reply (chs 6-7, 16-17, and 26), followed by Bildad’s interjections (chs 8, 18, 25), then Job’s reply to Bildad (chs. 9-10, 19, and 26-31), and Zophar’s comments, which appear in only the first two cycles (apparently Job wore him out!) (chs. 11, 20), and Job’s reply to Zophar (chs 12-14 and 21).
·      The next section features, Elihu, a person who had been a silent observer to the dialog between Job and his friends to that point.  His speech encompasses chapters 32-37.
·      At that point, God shows up to speak directly to Job (chs. 38:1 – 42:6).
·      The book concludes with an Epilog (42:7-17), which gives us the final account of Job’s (restored) life.

As you read this week, you will be completing the conversations of the first cycle of dialog , all of the second cycle, and most of the third.  Bear in mind that the main mistake that Job’s friends made along the way was trying to speak for God in explaining why Job was going through his suffering. 

We too can end up making a similar mistake whenever we try to “comfort” someone by offering up the “reason why God allowed” a terrible thing to occur in one’s life.  Only God is qualified to speak for himself on such matters.  Our job as friends is to sit alongside our suffering companions, put our arm around them, and say, “I am here for you.”