Job 2:11-13: Great Suffering
Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Written on June 14 and posted today as a Favorite . . .
At first glance, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar seem to be Job’s intimate friends. When they arrive and see that Job is greatly changed and greatly affected by his new circumstances, they do not accuse Job or offer him platitudes; rather, they join him in grief and abide with him in his great suffering. Once we begin to read the speeches these three offer, we change our thinking. They urge Job to confess the hidden sin which they believe is the root cause of his pain, even though Job has nothing to confess. This is when we realize that these three acquaintances are not able to think much beyond their immediate world and code. They cannot really accompany Job in his great pain.
This week, the first Mass readings have been taken from Second Corinthians and Paul has been reminding his sisters and brothers in Christ that for your sake [Christ] became poor although he was rich, so that by his poverty you might become rich (8:9) We are rich enough, according to this thinking, that we can afford to love even our enemies, and it is our willingness to enter into suffering with Christ that brings us this wealth.
In the Gospels this week, we have been reading a similar message from Matthew 5: Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn you back on one who wants to borrow . . . You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father. These are difficult reversals to understand, thorny inversions to believe, these are hard lessons to model and to live. Yet they are the fabric of Christian life.
Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar do their best to comprehend and even help Job but they cannot really abide with him because they do not understand the underpinning creed that suffering through and with and in Christ brings about true and lasting serenity. They do not realize that suffering is not always a curse and that great suffering may even be a blessing from God.
A re-post from October 3, 2011.
Image from: https://www.stonegableblog.com/hidden-in-your-heart/
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