Job
had become so vexed by his friends’ speeches. His disappointment with them was
obvious. They seemed to ignore his plea to accept his innocence. He was not
only hurt by feeling that God was against him but also the three friends that
had turned against him. Job felt that he could not rely on anyone except
himself to argue his own defence.
In
Job 16:1-5, he totally dismissed his friends’ speeches and told them off. He
felt that what was said by Eliphaz was not only dull and droning but also empty.
His conclusion: all of them were miserable comforters. They were miserable comforters
because their counsel was based on false assumptions. Their guilty verdict of
him was unfounded because they insisted that he had some unconfessed sin when
he was clearly aware of his own innocence. Job concluded that their words of
comfort did not bring consolation but increased his bewilderment and misery. So,
he was puzzled that they could go on in their purposeless and haranguing words,
and wondered aloud what led them to go on and on endlessly.
Job then assured them that if they traded
places, he could also be speaking like them if not more vehemently. He could be
as heartless and even more cruel. He also knew how to mock them with cutting words.
But if the situation had reversed, he knew he would do a better job at strengthening
them than what they had done to him. He knew he would not do to them what they
were doing to him.
In ministering to the afflicted, we must be sensitive to their situation.
Let us be careful not to become miserable comforters. We must seek to bring
relief and not annoyance, healing and not affliction, strengthen and not
weaken. To be a good counselor, we must cultivate approaches that prove to be
sincere, sympathetic and sagacious. This we must do with the help of God.
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