Job had just lost everything: his cattle and servants, his sheep and the shepherds, his camels and the servants who took care of them, his children: gone in a day.
Job 1:20, 21
Then Job stood up, tore his robe, and shaved his head. He fell to the ground and worshiped, saying: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.”
Job himself is struck with boils from the top of his head to the soles of his feet (Job 2:7).
But does he deny God? No, even yet, Job worships God and testifies to his wife of God's wisdom.
Job 2:10
“You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept from God only good and not adversity?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.
Job had three friends who came to grieve with him in his time of loss. They sat quietly, not speaking, for seven days on the ground beside him. Until Job spoke. In their efforts to comfort him, they ended up speaking against him.
Job 4 & 5: Eliphaz rebuked him for his lack of faith.
Job 8: Bildad accuses Job of being less than perfect before God and that God was asleep while these calamitous events occurred.
Job 11: Zophar accuses Job of hypocrisy and having hidden sins; he wants God to speak against Job.
Job reiterates his trust in God.
Job 13:15
Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him: but I will maintain my own ways before Him (defend myself, plead my cause).
Job's response to his accusers is classic: Job 16:2 "I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are you all." (italics mine)
I would think that with friends like those I'd much rather grieve alone. Wouldn't you?
But they didn't get up and leave; they stayed with Job the entire time. In verse 7 he tells his friends that they have made him feel 'desolate'. In verse 8 he tells them their words 'have given him wrinkles' (aged him). In verse 9 he is even more graphic in how their 'comfort' has made him feel: tearing at him, gnashing upon him with their teeth, focusing their gaze upon him. The scorn they feel for him in his hour of grief is so evident that it feels to Job as if they were wild beasts and enemy archers coming against him to tear him to pieces. (v. 10-13).
In verse 30 he hoped for a true friend, for a friend who would intercede for him before God, but he did not have one.
Job begins to believe that there is no wrong in his heart, that his righteousness is great and that he does not deserve what is happening to him. (Job 19-31) But then Elihu speaks up. Who is this fourth man who is not introduced in the beginning of our saga?
He is the grandson of Nahor (Genesis 22:20, 21), Abraham's brother, making him Abraham's great-nephew. But who is he to Job? One of Job's young friends, who also thought Job needed to repent for some wickedness in his life which he believed was the reason Job had lost everything and was stricken with this illness (the boils). But Elihu, too, was mistaken.
For we know, having read in the beginning that God had challenged Satan, that Job had done nothing wrong, that sin was not why he was being tested. We know that Job's faith and trust in God was at stake. And we see that Job came through these spiritual waters and fires with his faith intact.
Job 38-41 The LORD speaks to Job regarding Job's ignorance of God's ways; God blesses him and Job repents. The LORD also speaks to Job's friends regarding their wicked words against his servant Job and has Job intercede for them.
This, too, is intentional worship. Job not only heard the LORD, but saw Him (Job 42:5). After Job prayed for his friends, the LORD reversed the tragedies against him and increased his losses doubly, except for his children. He didn't give him twice as many children, but He did give him another brood (v. 15) to raise. He did right by his daughters and gave them an equal share of the inheritance.
Job 42:16, 17
"After this lived Job 140 years, and saw his sons, and his sons' sons, even four generations. And Job died, being old and full of days."
A generation is 40 years. After the LORD gave him children, he lived to see his sons mature and have children of their own, and he saw their children and their children's children. That's a long time to live. And in all those days I believe Job shared what the LORD had done for him with all of his family.
Intentional worship is to worship God with all of our hearts, our minds, our souls (Mark 12:30; Deuteronomy 6:5). It is loving the LORD God with everything within us even when we don't understand the why of what is happening to us at the time it happens. As Job said, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him."
