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| Job's Restoration by Laurent de La Hyre, 1648 |
This post is a chapter from the book, Hope in the Loss of a Baby: A Deeper Dive into what the Bible says about Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Death, which is the culmination of much study, counseling, and sermons shared over twenty years. Since this book was meant to bless the church I am also making it available on this blog.
He
who took them was the one who gave them. He has not made a mistake. He does all
things well. ~ Hudson Taylor
Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, buried
four children and one wife. In his lament above, he alluded to Job 1:21,
The Lord
gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be
the name of the Lord.
Job comes early in this book because his experience speaks
volumes about the death of a baby, and it also speaks to parents who have lost
children. While whole books could be written on this topic from Job alone, I am
going to condense it into one chapter.
If you don’t know the story of Job, I would encourage you to
read Job 1 and 2 before continuing. The synopsis is that Job lost his entire
kingdom in a day because God offered him up as an example of faithfulness to
Satan. Within minutes Job learned that all of his livestock had been stolen,
almost all of his servants were murdered, and worst of all, that his ten
children had been killed in a natural disaster. Sometime later Job’s health was
also taken from him.
He was left only with a body covered in diseased sores, a
couple of servants, a lot of unanswered questions, and his wife.
Job’s Wife
Keep in mind that Job’s wife lost seven sons and three
daughters and her whole financial future, just like Job. We don’t see much of
her response—and none one her grieving, pain, or despair—but we do see some,
and we understand in a very small way how hurt and distraught she was.
Many preachers and teachers have pointed out that what Job
really needed in his tribulation was a supportive and loving wife, and
what he got was “Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9). She very well may have been
captured by Satan to do his will (2 Timothy 2:26), helping to multiply the pain
of Job, or she may just have been speaking out of her broken heart. God had not
limited Satan’s interaction in her life like he had Job’s (Job 1:12). But even
though Job was the target, it wasn’t just his tribulation; it was their
tribulation. Hurt people hurt people, and Job’s wife was seriously hurt.
I’m trying to avoid a whole word study, but bear with me for
a moment for an important point on word usage. To fully understand Job’s story,
we have to recognize that the Hebrew word “Barak” appears often in the
book of Job, but is used in radically different ways. God uses it as material
blessing, Satan uses it once to describe a material blessing, but then he turns
it to a curse, Job uses it to describe who God is, and his wife uses it as a
curse turned into an accusation.[1] Here’s
why the broadness of this term is important: the same event can have a vastly
different impact on different people. If you’re grieving, chances are someone
else who is experiencing the same event is going to be grieving differently.
Pat Schwiebert and Chuck DeKlyen in their book Tear Soup:
A Recipe for Healing After Loss explore how different people grieve in
drastically different ways. In the time of tragedy, it’s always important to
remember that the way you grieve is not the way everyone grieves.
Remember, love bears all things, believes all things, hopes
all things, endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:7). Grief will strain all of
those to the breaking point. A spouse that lashes out at you or someone who
seems to have moved past the grief way too quickly is almost certainly grieving
in their own way. Ask them what they’re feeling and what they need, and ask if
they want to talk. If you want to talk and they don’t, then make sure they know
that when they’re ready, you need them to be a listening ear. Until then, pray
for them and seek a godly counselor who will listen without replacing your
spouse.
If they lash out, listen to their anger as an expression of
what is in their heart. The definition of worry is believing that God won’t do
what’s right. The definition of bitterness is believing that what God did
wasn’t right. While worry often expresses itself in silence, bitterness often
expresses itself in outburst. Both worry and bitterness are a sin, and we’ll
see that Job was not blameless later, but right now we’re talking about Job’s
wife, and she is mad at Job. But she is more mad at God.
When Job responded to her—despite it being a rebuke—it seems
like he was being loving. Job 2:10 tells us there was no sin when he said, “You
speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God,
and shall we not receive evil?” Notice, Job doesn’t call her a foolish woman,
he says what she’s saying is foolish. He doesn’t accuse or label her, he
addresses what she said, and he points her to God’s provision, and he asks her
an introspective question. It truly is a marvelous exchange. His goal is to set
her hope on God, not to figure out who is to blame, nor to tear her down, and
especially not to hurt her further than she’s already hurting.
We don’t know the rest of her story, but I’m sure she had a
lot of wrestling to do with God. I want to believe that she worked through this
season of suffering with Job and was restored. She is mentioned a few times
throughout Job’s defense of himself, but never in a way we can discern her end.
She is not mentioned when Job is restored, but there is also no evidence that
Job had to find a new wife.
She’s also not included in God’s rebuke against Job and his
counselors, making it seem that God had already forgiven her outburst and
bitterness. In one sense it would be nice to know if she was restored, but I
believe what the Holy Spirit is doing by not answering that question is encouraging
us to look inward at our own bitterness and consider how we have responded and
how we should live in the future. There are enough hints to know what she was
thinking and feeling, and these are given so that we can have compassion on her
and learn from her suffering.
When she lashed out at Job, it shows she had been
considering the potential cause and effect of their misfortune. She asked Job,
“Do you still hold fast to your integrity!?” (Job 2:9, emphasis mine,
compare Job 2:3 for Job’s intact integrity).
Let’s try to discern her thought process. She likely believed
like Job and his friends that if you do good, good things will happen to you
(Job 4:7, 8:20, etc., compare Deuteronomy 28:1–14), and if bad things have happened
to you, it’s because you’ve done bad things (Job 4:8, 11:20, 18:5–21, etc.,
compare Deuteronomy 27:9–26, 28:15–68). In one sense the world might call it
Karmic, but in a more realistic sense, it was the language of the Old Covenant,
that what a person sows, they will reap (Hosea 8:7, 10:13, Proverbs 22:8,
Galatians 6:7). We would call it the “Old Covenant” which was between men and
God and required constant and perfect obedience and is meant to lead us to the
“New Covenant” which is between Jesus and the Father (Consider Hebrews 8:6–13,
especially verse 12). The Bible tells us to look into the law like it’s a
mirror (James 1:23), so that it will show us that we are accountable to God
(Romans 3:19), so that we can be redeemed by Christ who redeemed us from the
curse of the law (Galatians 3:13).
Job’s wife was still living in the place where God’s
blessing seemed to depend on her obedience, and if there was cursing, it seemed
sure that someone must have sinned. She likely lived before Moses and the law,
but her conscience would have told her that there is a God and he rewards those
who seek him (compare Hebrews 11:6).
Job’s wife could look inward and know that she had not
sinned—that the calamity facing them was not her fault—and that there was only
one other option: Job must have sinned. She didn’t have access to the behind-the-scenes
commentary where the Holy Spirit confirms that Job was blameless, upright,
feared God, and turned away from evil (Job 1:1). She did not know that Job’s
righteousness was reiterated with, “Job did not sin or charge God with wrong”
(Job 1:22). She could not know that God affirmed to Satan that Job was still
walking in his integrity (Job 2:3). And she could not tell that Job did not sin
with his lips (Job 2:10). She could not have known that, because the book of
Job hadn’t been written yet, so I don’t fault her for considering that Job must
have sinned and caused their calamity.
Whatever she accused him of is not recorded, but he must
have denied having any culpability, holding fast to his integrity.
Unfortunately, she didn’t respond gently.
In every tragedy we are going to respond in love or in
bitterness, there are not many other options. If I were counseling Job and his
wife, I would point them towards Grieving: Your Path Back to Peace by
James White which would encourage them towards peace and away from acrimony.
In the counseling room, as we searched for God’s will, I
would say there were four options: 1) Job sinned, 2) Job’s wife sinned, 3) they
both sinned, or 4) nobody sinned and God is doing a mighty work that we don’t
currently understand.
I might take each of them aside individually and ask candidly,
“Did you sin?” There is no benefit in pretending a sin didn’t occur if it
clearly did, but if they were both adamant that they had kept a short list of
sins and confession with God, then I would move on towards what the future
holds.
It's tempting to draw a straight line from sin to calamity,
but it’s rarely that clear. Especially in Job’s situation, since we know the behind-the-scenes
events, if we assign blame to him we would be clearly in the wrong, just as his
three friends were erroneous in their accusations and counsel. We do well to
remember the saying,
Presence of calamity is not proof of sin.
Presence of comfort is not proof of virtue.
In Job’s case, while his calamity was not predicated by sin,
we’ll see later that his future did hold bitterness and accusations against God.
Because of his suffering and his interaction with God, Job was moved to a place
of humility and blessed with a deeper relationship with God.
We can’t say for sure what happened to Job’s wife or her
relationship with God, but I hope that you’ve understood that her response and
her interaction with her husband were realistic responses to the trouble they
were facing. May she bring you comfort as you consider your response when God
gives and takes away.
I do want to emphasize that accusations are never right. If
you’re hurt, ask questions and lend a listening ear. Don’t respond in a hurtful
way; seek to bless the Lord in your heart and bless those
around you with your words and deeds. Especially those who are hurting with
you.
Job’s Lament
After his interaction with his wife, Job sat for at least
seven days in his despair, potentially several months (Job 29:2). He was not
rash to speak, but that didn’t temper his anger by much.
Job’s friends came and sat with him, both day and night. These
were wonderful friends; their desire was pure to love their friend as they sought
to commiserate with and comfort him. In chaplaincy we call this a ministry of
presence, just being there. It’s tempting to speak quickly, but in a time of
tragedy like this, it’s usually more beneficial to just be present. This is especially
important—like in Job’s case—when the suffering is “very great.” I teach young
ministers that in the hospital they only need to do three things: 1) Be there,
2) Pray for comfort 3) Keep your words brief. I’ve heard from many families
that “I don’t remember what the chaplain said, but them being there was a
comfort.”
God speaks to every topic and pain, so when the time is
right, we speak. But in the midst of such tragedy, we must take James’ wisdom
seriously, “Beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak…”
(James 1:19). The right time for counseling and conversation will come, but
it’s not immediately.
Job’s processing took time. Hurt people will not quickly be
ready to talk, much less ready to move past their grief. There is a real and
healthy expectation that you will carry your grief with you for the rest of
your life. Understand this: bitterness is a sin, grief is not a sin. In
counseling those who have lost children, I’ve heard everything from, “It’s his
one-month birthday today,” to “He would have been twenty-nine (years old)
today.” And everything in the middle. My grandmother lost an infant son to
Meningitis in about 1962 and she spoke often of him until she died in 2012.
Others process the death quickly. Usually this is predicated
by a desire to care for people who are grieving and need someone to be stronger
than them. King David moved past his mourning quicker than anyone expected (2
Samuel 12:19–23), partly because he needed to comfort his wife, the baby’s
mother (2 Samuel 12:24). Job on the other hand took at least seven days just to
be ready to talk. Others may not be ready to talk for years, but I recommend
finding a godly friend, family member, or counselor who you can share your
grief with within the first few weeks. I’m generally ready to talk immediately
after a tragedy, but I’m not you and you’re not me. Don’t be angry if someone
moves faster or slower than you, you’re not them and they’re not you. Move at
your own pace in the wisdom of God.
Most of Job’s initial lament is based around the fact that he
wished he’d never been born…he is not alone in this, we’ll see that Jeremiah
and Judas Iscariot were in similar positions. Where Job is unique is that he
doesn’t wish he’d never existed, he points at stillbirth as rest and hope.
Why did I not die at birth?...I
would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept; then I would have been
at rest, with kings and counselors of the earth who rebuilt ruins for
themselves, or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver…there
the weary are at rest, there the prisoners are at ease together; they hear not
the voice of the taskmaster. The small and the great are there, and the slave
is free from his master. ~ Job 3:11, 13–19
He goes on to say that death is a release, “[they] are glad
when they find the grave…” (Job 3:22).
Later Job would consider that he would have hope even if God
took his life, “Though he slay me, I will hope in him…” (Job 13:15) and he
looked forward to the renewal after his death (Job 14:13, 14, the New Testament
calls this renewal a resurrection, see John 11:24). Matthew Henry says of the rest
that is death, “it is a bed out of which they shall rise refreshed in the
morning of the resurrection.”
The phrase “Rest in Peace” on tombstones has only become
popular in the last seventeen-hundred years or so, but the idea of a person who
knew God resting in peace until the resurrection has been around much longer.
Lazarus is referenced as being in comfort after his death (Luke 16:25), the
author of Hebrews references death as “For we who believed entered that rest”
(Hebrews 4:3), and Stephen isn’t said to have died when he was murdered,
rather, he fell asleep (Acts 7:60).
Don’t miss this in Job’s lament: the quiet of stillbirth was
anticipated by him to be better than a life “born to trouble as the sparks fly
upward” (Job 5:7), since “man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of
trouble” (Job 14:1, compare James 4:14). The Holy Spirit would not have
recorded this in the book if it weren’t true, and we’re able to compare these
claims to other accounts to verify it wasn’t just Job’s wishful thinking. We’ll
examine those in later chapters.
Based on Job’s lamentation, we are able to see that babies
who die are instantly at rest. Some might say that “rest” just means that the
ends of all mankind are the same (and they would use Ecclesiastes 2:19–21 to
say it), which could reasonably be argued if we just stayed in Job 3, but the conclusion
to the book of Job shows something interesting about his deceased children.
Job’s Restoration
At the end of Job’s ordeal he received double the sheep
(14,000 instead of the 7,000 that he lost), double the camels (6,000 instead of
the 3,000 he had lost), double the oxen (1,000 yoke instead of the 500 he had
lost), and double the donkeys (1,000 instead of the 500 he had lost). But—and
pay attention carefully—he did not receive double the number of children on
earth. He lost ten children and he received ten children. He didn’t have twenty
new children, only ten more.
This is an important fact not to be missed. Animals don’t
have souls, so while they can be incredibly useful, loving, and loved, they
cease to exist when they die. Job didn’t have 6,000 camels on earth and 3,000
in heaven.
Human beings—on the other hand—have a soul and to be absent
from the body is to be present with the Lord. When it came to his restoration,
Job did receive double the children, the only difference in this restoration
was that ten were in eternity and ten were on earth.
While the animals are double the
number of Job 1:3, why are not the children? It is obvious that Job still had
seven sons and three daughters waiting for him in the presence of God. ~ John
MacArthur
If you’ve lost a child, I believe Augustine said it best, “we
have not lost our dear ones who have departed from this life but have merely
sent them ahead of us…” and Spurgeon agreed,
They are not lost, but gone
before. They are gone to the great Father’s house, where the many mansions are.
They are in the upper room of the house, in the nursery of the Great King.
Samuel Rutherford would add,
He has only plucked the rose
before the tempest broke. You have lost a child? Nay, she is not lost to you
who is found to Christ; she is not sent away, but only sent before; like unto a
star, which going out of sight doth not die and vanish, but shineth in another
hemisphere.
Truly we haven’t lost something if we know where it is. In
the case of a loved one who trusted God for salvation, we may have lost their
fellowship temporarily, but we know just where they are and how to be reunited
with them.
Job’s restoration is difficult to understand at first,
because it seems to imply that his future blessing made up for his past
suffering. But I would say that his material blessing is just a symptom of the
true blessing in his story.
Job gained a deeper relationship with God as he was able to
repent of his bitterness that had fomented in his heart. And he became the
intercessor for his friends to know God and be saved from the wrath to come.
It’s easy to gloss over the fact that Eliphaz, Bildad, and
Zophar are likely in heaven today because Job’s suffering revealed what was in
their heart so that blood could be shed for their sins and Job could act as
mediator for their souls (Job 42:8–10). Without Job’s suffering they very well would
be in anguish right now, but because of his suffering they gained a mediator
between God and men. Mediators like Job point forward to a time when God’s own
Son would mediate for his saints (1 Timothy 2:5) after shedding his own blood
for their redemption (Hebrews 9:12).
Was their salvation worth all the pain and suffering that
Job endured? Was it worth the death of Job’s sons and daughters? I can’t say
that for sure, but God definitely used that tragedy for the good of Job and his
friends.
I can say this confidently, the death of God’s own Son was
definitely used for my salvation, theirs, and yours, if you’ll trust him.
Job’s Backward Looking
We have one more lesson to learn from Job. Not long before
God rebukes him, Job has a nice reminiscent vision of his life before the
tragedy. I say it’s nice, because there is not initially anything wrong with it,
Oh, that I were as in the months
of old, as in the days when God watched over me… ~ Job 29:2 (see also verses 3–25)
It doesn’t feel bad to look backwards. Sometimes there might
be a lot of comfort in remembering how much God did in your life before the
tragedy (compare Psalm 143:5). But we have to remember that God rebukes Job sternly
starting in chapter 38. Living in the past can definitely be a sin, if we
refuse to look forward.
Philippians 3:13–14 tells us that Paul didn’t live in the
past, but pressed towards the future,
One thing I do: forgetting what
lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the
goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
No matter how great your past was, one thing is certain:
things can never go back to the way they were. You’ll either grow in grace or
grow in bitterness, but you can’t stay the same and you can never go back to
the way you were. Neither could Job.
A number of movies have romanticized the idea of heroes
being rewarded by getting to relive life without tragedy, such as Jumanji
(1995) where the parents died in a car accident, or Masters of the Universe
(1987) where the parents died in a plane crash. In both of those movies, the
end of the saga shows the parents alive and the heroes begging them not to take
their trips. In Live Die Repeat (2014) the main character gets to try
again every time he is killed in his effort to win a battle. And in Groundhog
Day (1993), the main character relives the same day every day, sometimes
making the world nicer and sometimes making it worse, but with no lasting
consequences for any of his actions. Getting a second chance, or multiple
redoes, is a nice thought, but it misses the providence of God who is working in
all circumstances to bring about his purposes. I would love a second chance to
avoid serious pitfalls and pain, but then I would negate the grace of God that
has been shown through those trials.
David Livingstone, who buried his six-week-old daughter in
Botswana and later opened the heart of Africa to the gospel, is famous for
saying, “I am prepared to go anywhere, provided it be forward.”
Forgetting what lies behind doesn’t mean that we don’t
remember and rejoice, but that we look forward to see what God would have us to
do. This includes not reminiscing too long even on the good things. Imagine a
couple who have been happily married for forty-nine years; on their wedding
anniversary they both announce that they have loved each other enough and have
agreed to take a one-year hiatus from further love, and that they will survive
and thrive on the past forty-nine years’ worth of love. This arrangement will
free up time to do things that don’t involve loving each other! Doesn’t that
sound ridiculous? Paul said, “Love never ends” (1 Corinthians 13:8)! The big
fancy linguistic term is “present perfect” which means it happens and happens
and continues happening as a pattern.
Past love does not carry us through the future. This is why
we’re called to persevere, continue loving, and finish the race. This is why
God not only loved (past tense) the world and sent his Son (John 3:16,
Revelation 1:5), but why he continues to love (present tense) the Christian (John
14:23, 16:27, Hebrews 12:6, Revelation 1:5) and call us to love (present tense)
God and our neighbor (1 John 4:7). We look back at the love that Christ showed
on the cross and consider that he is actively loving us today. Both his past
and present love encourage us to continue loving towards the future, knowing
that he will never leave us nor forsake us.
Refusing to live in the past sounds harsh until you realize
what you’re pressing towards. In Job’s case it was, “And the Lord
restored the fortunes of Job…the Lord gave Job twice as much as he
had before…and the Lord blessed the latter days of
Job more than his beginning…and Job died, an old man, and full of days” (Job
42:10, 12, 17).
What are you pressing towards? Romans 8:28–29 says that God
is using all things to transform you into the image of Christ. I do hope that
God blesses you on earth, but much more I hope that he blesses you in eternity.
The call is to look forward to the future glory of Christ which is nothing in
comparison to the present suffering, nor the things you’ve lost. Those things
include even the exceedingly precious people that will forever hold a place in your
heart.
Conclusion to Job
We like to think that God wants us to be safe, comfortable,
and building a strong family with a long progeny. Job’s story turns all of that
upside down, especially when we realize that none of it was Satan’s idea, but the
will of God to put Job through such a trial for his sake and ours.
God cares about his glory, our holiness, and our eternal life
much more than our temporary happiness or comfort. Death, tragedy, and
suffering are God’s extreme tools to shake up our lives to seek him. Neither
Job, his wife, his children, nor his servants did anything to cause what they
went through. Nor did they have any idea what God was doing behind the scenes.
His suffering led to us seeing what was in the hearts of
Job, his wife, and his friends, so that it could be purged from them so that their
relationship with God would flourish. What they gained in knowing God was
infinitely better than what they lost.
The next time you hear of someone suffering, go and spend
some time first just sitting with them, and consider that there may not be an
easy answer to why they are suffering. Remember that they don’t need
accusations or immediate answers, and the person they need to hear from more
than you is God.
Last, remember that Jesus, though a son, learned obedience
through what he suffered (Hebrews 5:8). If you’re suffering now, or suffered in
the past, consider whether your suffering moved you closer towards God or
farther from him. If you moved away from God, it’s not too late to redeem your
suffering by running back to the one who loves you most and is seeking your
highest and best usefulness.
He is ready and willing to give you all things that pertain
to life and godliness through his Son. He who did not spare his own Son but
gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all
things. He will continue to work in your life until Christ returns or calls you
home.
Through many dangers,
toils, and snares,
I have already come.
‘Twas grace that brought me safe thus far,
and grace will lead me home. ~ John
Newton
[1]Barak
(blessing/cursing) is similar in sound to the word Baraq (lightning) but
there does not seem to be an etymological link between the two; the author of
Job seems to seek to avoid this confusion by using Owr for lightning
rather than Baraq.
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