Job 27

This chapter almost seemed a little out of character for Job, didn’t it? Every speech his friends have made has included some awful description of what will befall the wicked—in order to convince Job that he is wicked. Job has been protesting his innocence from the beginning and even making some arguments that, in his experience, tragedy does not befall the wicked quite as often as his friends would imagine. And then, he seems to reverse his position in this chapter.

Or does he?

A lot of what Job describes in this chapter seems to apply to him: "Their children—all of them—will die violent deaths" (vs 14); "They go to bed wealthy and wake up poor" (vs 16); "Catastrophes relentlessly pursue them; they run this way and that, but there’s no place to hide" (vs 22).

Is Job finally admitting that he is among the wicked? Is he finally agreeing with his friends’ assessment of his situation? Hardly! You didn’t skip over verses 5 and 6, did you? "I will never admit you are in the right; till I die, I will not deny my integrity. I will maintain my innocence and never let go of it; my conscience will not reproach me as long as I live."

Job continued to steadfastly declare that he was innocent. So, instead of agreeing with his friends, what Job is saying is, "I am innocent, even if the circumstances make it look like I am guilty. I know that my situation may look like 'judgment' on a wicked person, yet I assure you it is not."

We don’t always see things clearly. If we learn nothing else from the book of Job, let us learn that! And what Job is saying to his friends here reminded me of something the prophet Isaiah wrote about Jesus: "Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted." (Isa 53:4)

Wow! Did you catch that? Isaiah was prophesying about the pain and suffering that Jesus would endure, and he was predicting that our immediate response would be to consider Him stricken by God. In other words, we would look at the cross and say, that looks like God is punishing His Son, but that’s not what was happening at all.

There are so many times in life when our perspective is skewed. And when it is, I am so glad we have a God who sets us straight. In the story of Job, He was setting the record straight—both on Job personally and on the question of where suffering comes from. And in Isaiah, He was setting the record straight about what was happening at the cross and how Jesus was not being punished by God for our sins.

How many more things do we need to be set straight on? Who knows—probably a lot, probably more than we can imagine. But, especially in Isaiah, God has shown that He is in the habit of setting us straight even before we know we need to be set straight. So we don’t have to worry. If our vision is skewed, God will help us get our perspective straightened out.