At Night The Monster Comes (Job 30:16-31)

Two friends from school came to visit the paralyzed teenage girl in the hospital ICU. Upon seeing their friend for the first time, they stood for a few seconds in awkward silence by her bedside and then ran out of the room. In the hallway one of the girls vomited and the other sobbed. A few days later another friend named Jackie stopped in to visit. The young patient insisted that her friend bring her a mirror. For the first time since the accident she saw what she looked like. “The person in the mirror had eyes that were bloodshot and sunken into dark cavities far back into her skull. Her skin color had faded to a dull yellow, and teeth were black from medication. Her head was still shaved, with metal clamps on either side. And her weight had shrunk from 125 to 80 pounds.” She pleaded with her friend, “Help me die. Bring some pills, or a razor blade even. I can’t live inside a grotesque body like this. Help me die, Jackie.”

Such is Philip Yancey’s description of Joni Eareckson Tada’s anguish (following her swimming accident) in his book “Where Is God When It Hurts.” (Pages 131-132)

The second half of Job chapter 30 (verses 16-31) is Job’s final “Bring me a mirror!” accounting of his horrible illness.

30:16 “And now my soul is poured out within me; Days of affliction have seized me. 17 at night it pierces my bones within me, and my gnawing pains take no rest.”

This is the bottom for Job. Francis I Anderson writes, “In a final burst of grief, Job wrestles with the sheer pain of his disease as if it were objectively a terrifying monster, chewing at his flesh day and night.” The New Living Translation puts verse 16 this way, “And now my life seeps away. Depression haunts my days.” His life is ebbing away. The gloom of Elie Wiesel’s “Night” hangs over Job’s ash heap (“Night” is an account of the horrors of a German concentration camp during WWII.). And his eyelids can’t even find a moment’s rest: “At night my bone hath been pierced in me, and mine eyelids do not lie down!” (Young’s Literal Translation).

30:18 “By a great force my garment is distorted; it binds me about as the collar of my coat. 19 He has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes.”

Verse 18 could be interpreted a few different ways: 1) Job’s illness has so disfigured his body that his garment has become distorted, or 2) because of his running, open sores his clothing has become cemented and glued to his ulcerated body, or 3) he is in so much pain it feels as if God has grabbed his collar and pulled his clothing so tight that every cell seems to cry out in agony.

And in a chameleon-like way, Job is beginning to resemble his environment: sitting on dust and ashes he has “become like dust and ashes.”

30:20 “I cry out to You for help, but You do not answer me; I stand up, and You turn Your attention against me. 21 You have become cruel to me; with the might of Your hand You persecute me.”

“I cry but You do not answer…” The word “answer” appears more often in Job than in any other Old Testament book (twice as often in fact).

“You have become cruel to me…” The word “cruel” (Hebrew “akzar”) connotes insensitivity and lack of compassion. I think in the midst of our struggles and pain and testing (our “Night”), when we say things we shouldn’t, that God understands and totally forgives. Why do I say that? Because in chapter 42 when God is reprimanding Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, He says, “You have not spoken of Me what is right, as my servant Job has.” That’s pretty cool.

And the word “persecute” is "satam" – an obvious play on the word “Satan” from chapters one and two. Job is saying to Jehovah, “You are cherishing animosity against me!” (Hartley)

30:22 “You lift me up to the wind and cause me to ride; And You dissolve me in a storm. 23 For I know that You will bring me to death and to the house of meeting for all living.”

In a sarcastic tone Job continues, “In times past You made me to ride upon the heights of blessing and intimacy with You, but now? You raise me up only to dissolve my hopes and dreams!”

Verse 23 implies that Job did not anticipate deliverance this side of death. “My home is gone, and I am heading to the gloomy home of Sheol.”

30:24 “Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand, or in his disaster therefore cry out for help? 25 Have I not wept for the one whose life is hard? Was not my soul grieved for the needy?”

Undoubtedly Mr. and Mrs. Job would often, around the breakfast table, think about those in town that they could be a blessing to that day. Job thought often about those whose lot in life was difficult (those “who were having a bad day” is a loose literal rendering). He felt for the common man (in the next chapter there is an incredible statement about his attitude toward his employees).

So Job reasons, “If I felt compassion for those in a heap of ruins, shouldn’t someone (God?) stretch out Their hand for me?”

30:26 “When I expected good, then evil came; when I waited for light, then darkness came. 27 I am seething within and cannot relax; Days of affliction confront me.”

Good and evil; light and darkness. The “before” and “after” for the Job family. Verse 27 is literally, “My bowels are boiling…” Inside and out Job was in misery.

30:28 “I go about mourning without comfort; I stand up in the assembly and cry out for help. 29 I have become a brother to jackals and a companion of ostriches.”

I like to think that Mrs. Job has not abandoned her husband. Even though forsaken by the rest of the family, by his friends and the community, Mrs. Job came each day to try to give a moment’s comfort to her husband’s fevered and blistered body.

30:30 “My skin turns black on me, and my bones burn with fever. 31 Therefore my harp is turned to mourning, and my flute to the sound of those who weep.”

His skin blackens, flakes and peels off. Fever torments him constantly. “ABANDONED!” is written over this Castaway on the ash heap. He is discarded, forsaken, and deserted.

Francis I Anderson sums up this portion of Job by stating, “Job ends his lamentation on the physical agonies of his illness, unrelieved by a kind word or friendly touch. His friends sat with him (2:13) but they did not weep with him.”

I would like to close this section of Job with a few words from Philip Yancey’s book “Where Is God When It Hurts” –

“No one can package or bottle “the appropriate response to suffering.” And words intended for everyone will almost always prove worthless for one individual person. If you go to the sufferers themselves and ask for helpful words, you may find discord. Some recall a friend who cheerily helped distract them from the illness, while others think such an approach insulting. Some want honest, straightforward confrontation; others find such discussion unbearably depressing. In short, there is no magic cure for a person in pain. Mainly, such a person needs love, for love instinctively detects what is needed…In fact, the answer to the question, “How do I help those who hurt?” is exactly the same as the answer to the question, “How do I love?” If you asked me for a Bible passage to teach you how to help suffering people, I would point to I Corinthians 13 and its eloquent depiction of love. That is what a suffering person needs: love, and not knowledge and wisdom. As is so often His pattern, God uses very ordinary people to bring about healing.” (Page 173)