Old Testament: Job 30.27–31

To read the Bible in a year, read Job 29–30 on July 4, In the year of our Lord Christ 2021

By Don Ruhl 

I am going to assume that you have read of the horrible things that happened to Job, revealed in the two opening chapters. When you think of what that man endured and the shameful way people, including his wife and friends, treated him, you can understand why he said these words: 

“My heart is in turmoil and cannot rest;
Days of affliction confront me.
I go about mourning, but not in the sun;
I stand up in the assembly and cry out for help.
I am a brother of jackals,
And a companion of ostriches.
My skin grows black and falls from me;
My bones burn with fever.
My harp is turned to mourning,
And my flute to the voice of those who weep.”

– Job 30.27–31 

First, he spoke of the anguish of his heart, that he could not sleep. 

Second, he spoke of being alone so that jackals and ostriches were his new family. 

Third, he pictured his physical devastation, as he sat in the ashes and dirt, breaking opening the boils on his body, making him very dirty, and he was losing weight as the flesh hung from his bones. 

Fourth, he showed us his mood, which had gone from happiness to mourning. 

Questions: 

• How would you have responded if you were in Job’s place? 
• What kind of suffering have you experienced in life? 

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