Job vs. Friends

Job Vs. Friends

Analysis of the Arguments

a.) Job vs Friends (Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar)

Issue: Questioning God’s divine right in sanctioning a man’s deeds

Background: After having studied people of the earth, Satan comes before God. God points out the righteousness of Job (a man in the land of Uz), but Satan argues that human righteousness wouldn't exist if God did not reward the righteous with his protection. Satan presumes that the only reason any humans love God is to get something in return. Satan predicts Job would actually curse God if God allowed him to lose all he had worked for. God gives Satan the power to test that theory. All on the same day, Satan wipes out Job’s children, servants, and livestock. Debaters/ Arguers: Job and God

Friends

Eliphaz’s Arguments:

I. Job is inconsistent.

Evidence: Eliphaz accused Job of being inconsistent since suffering results from sin and no one is pure before God; thus he urged Job to ask God to help him and affirmed that God would deliver him after He had disciplined him. 4:1--5:27

II. Job is guilty of being a wicked.

Evidence:

a.) Righteous will be restored by God and the ungodly will be perished.8:1-22

III. Job is wicked and will not be blessed.

a.)God shows true wisdom and blesses those who turn to him. 11:1-20

b.)Job’s words are meaningless. He is like the wicked because he is in distress. 15:1-35

c.) The wicked, like him, is weakened, ensnared, diseased, insecure, forgotten, hated, and alone. 18:1-21

d.)Wicked may be blessed but they will then lose their riches. 20:1-29

IV. Job is hopeless because he’s just a man.

Evidence:

a.) Proclaiming God’s disinterest in Job for his social deviations and spiritual defiance, Eliphaz urges him to repent for God is great 22:1-20

b.) God is great and man is small and impure, there was no hope for Job to be just and clean 25:1-6

Job

Arguments:

I. His suffering was causing his rash desire to die.

Evidence:

a.) Desire Not to Have...