OT 2:4 – Job’s First Defense

Week 2  – Lessons From Job

Day 4: Job’s First Defense: Job 29: 11,12

Job’s answer to Eliphaz’s accusation all but silences Job’s friends. Bildad makes a pitiful attempt at a protest in chapter twenty-five (which is all of six verses long!), but from there on, they have little to say. Three chapters into his response Job gives his first description of his actual actions towards the fatherless and their counterpart groups.

“When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me: because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him.” (Job 29:11,12)

When people heard or saw Job coming they stopped, took notice of him, and blessed him. Why? Because he had “delivered” the poor, the fatherless and those that had no defense. From whom? From the wicked and their oppression. Perhaps even from their own poverty and condition of helplessness as we will see later.

The word translated “delivered” is causative. It has the idea of rescuing or causing escape. In other words, Job had to take the action – he had to initiate it. The only initiation on the part of those delivered was that the poor “cried”. This is the first thing we must learn from his actions: We must learn to recognize their cry.

What response do the poor have when they see us coming? Are they glad? Do they bless us because we have assisted them in the past? Do they see us as one who will by God’s grace do all that we can to aid them, or do they run and hide? Are we there to help those that have no help, or do we cause them to need more help?

It is not my desire to be a purveyor of guilt, but rather to raise the questions that these passages beg. Our actions should not be motivated by guilt, nor even by the suffering of those in need (although if we see them in need and do not feel compassion, we need to do some self-examining). But, above all else, we should be motivated by the fact that God has commanded us to do this. We are to obey Him! We are to remember the place out of which He has brought us and seek to draw others out of that place, out of the bondage of sin and into Salvation which is not by our works, by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

Any thoughts? Share in the comments below.

Up Next: Day 5: Where the Rubber Meets the Road – Making it Personal

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