Job had been lying in unrelieved misery now for months with open sores all over his body.

During those months he had endured the grief of seven dead sons and three dead daughters.

All of his wealth had vanished in one afternoon.

It says later in the book that his wife regarded him as repulsive

and his brothers as loathsome and the little children who walked

by despise him as he sat on the ash heap outside the village.

At first, Job had borne these calamities with equilibrium

and faith. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil?

But as the misery drug out over the months, Job wavered in his confidence that God was for him and not against

him. And in defending himself against Elifaz, Bill Dad, and Zofar, he began to say things that were unwarranted and wrong about

God in order to justify himself.

He complains to God. Oh, that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come even to

his seat. I would lay my case before Him and fill my mouth with arguments. Why are not times of judgment

kept by the Almighty? Why do those who know him never see his days?

The Job, Jobe's three friends, Elifaz, Bill Daddin,

and so far had suggested to Job the reason you are suffering so severely is because you have

grievously sinned. If you could find out what the terrible sin was, repent of it, God would take away this suffering.

And Job silenced those three friends by arguing from experience, from his own character that there

is no correlation in the world between righteousness and prosperity

and between suffering and wickedness.

Many of the most wicked people, prosper most, and many of the most righteous people suffer

...