Injustice in the Punishment of Job
Job is a servant of God in whom God was proud. He is a wealthy man who is blameless and upright and thus God chooses to use him to prove to Satan that there are righteous men who cannot fall by the snares set by Satan. God trusts him, and that is why he chooses to let the fight between good and evil go on in his life. God is keen on wanting to prove the fact that there are strong believers of his word out there. But the problem is that Job does not see any justice in his punishment. Job maintains his innocence and even when his friends push him hard in order to acknowledge his sins; he holds on to the fact that he is sinless and blameless. He goes on to say that he does not deserve that punishment and goes ahead to accuse God of injustice. God happens to be the cause of his suffering because he wants to show Satan that there are men who have complete trust in him. All these happens at the expense of Job, and it is for his reason that he feels that God is unjust and that he did not deserve all that happened to him.
First and foremost, Job and his friends are believers in justice. He believes that in a just world, every human being gets what they deserve. Whether a person is evil or good, each one of them is supposed to get a reward that best suits their actions. The righteous are supposed to be rewarded, and the wicked are supposed to be punished. Job and his friends wonder why it is possible for him to get the opposite of what he has done all his life. According to the beliefs that he holds and the teachings of God, Job knew his reward and when he got the opposite of it, he had every reason to think that his punishment lacked objectivity and reason. It is against this background that his friends pressure him to blame God but then Job knows, it is not in order for him to do that and hence, waits for divine justice to be done. For instance, Eliphaz says that if he were in the place of Job, “I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause” (Job 5: 8).
There is no reason that is given for the suffering of Job. Instead, it comes out clear that God is in charge of the universe, and he can do as he pleases with the lives of human beings. The God of Job is the highest law and has reasons for doing the things he does. But again when the truth is hidden from man, he gets reasons to doubt God just like Job’s friends did. Instead, they are keen on finding every reason to blame Job and push him to acknowledge that he had sinned yet he did not. But Job ends up acknowledging that he is willing to wait upon God to bring him justice and restore his health. He has not sinned to deserve that level of punishment, and he prays to God to help him and save him from his woes, because he does not deserve them. He has questioned his past and has found that there is no sin he is guilty of and therefore, he does not deserve his punishment.
Also, Job believes that he had any wrong doing that justified the punishment he got. He is one man who has lost all his properties including his children and yet he does not understand the reason for his suffering. But in the end God appears in a whirlwind and answers his questions. In the end Job comes to learn that suffering cannot be explained by retributive justice. Sometimes God permits things to happen as he pleases. He rules the affairs of all human beings and is in full control of them. Whatever happens in Job’s life is his will and cannot be questioned. God proves to him that his wisdom and knowledge of God cannot be compared to the ignorance of man. In fact, this comes out clearly when God asks Job, “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? 4: Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.” (Job 38:2, 4). God insinuates that Job does not understand his ways.
The bottom line is that Job needs to understand that God has good reasons why things happen the way they do. Children of God can suffer, and if they do, they should not take the suffering as a punishment from God. In the long run, Job finds out that the suffering is meant to refine his faith to the glory of God. As a matter of fact, God permitted his suffering as a matter of agreement between Satan and himself. Some things just happen for the good of man, it is just man who does not know, but God knows. God used Job to his benefit and at the end of the day Job did benefit too. It is for this reason that Job finds himself rebuking his actions and repents for all the negative thoughts he had about God during his lowest moments of suffering.
Work Cited
The King James Version. Web. Retrieved on 28th October 2014. http://web.archive.org/web/20080920041830/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/mo eng/public/KjvBJob.html
