For the first post in this series see here.
Job The Persecuted
"Job" is a Hebrew name meaning "persecuted" or "object of scorn." Is that not interesting and pregnant in meaning? Situational irony? The persecution of Job is a figure of the persecution that Messiah experienced.
Notice these passages from the dialogues of Job.
“Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends, For the hand of God has struck me! Why do you persecute me as God does, And are not satisfied with my flesh?" (Job 19: 21-22)
“I am one mocked by his friends,
Who called on God, and He answered him,
The just and blameless who is ridiculed." (12: 4)
"But you forgers of lies,
You are all worthless physicians. Oh, that you would be silent,
And it would be your wisdom!" (13: 4-5)
“Suffer me that I may speak; and after that I have spoken, mock on.” (21: 3)
“My spirit is broken, My days are extinguished, The grave is ready for me. Are not mockers with me? And does not my eye dwell on their provocation?" (17: 1-2)
"Then Job answered and said: “I have heard many such things;
Miserable comforters are you all! Shall words of wind have an end?
Or what provokes you that you answer? I also could speak as you do,
If your soul were in my soul’s place.
I could heap up words against you,
And shake my head at you." (16: 1-4)
"He tears me in His wrath, and hates me;
He gnashes at me with His teeth;
My adversary sharpens His gaze on me. They gape at me with their mouth,
They strike me reproachfully on the cheek,
They gather together against me. God has delivered me to the ungodly,
And turned me over to the hands of the wicked." (16: 9-11)
“But He has made me a byword of the people,
And I have become one in whose face men spit." (17: 6)
“My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me. They that dwell in mine house count me for a stranger.” (Job 19:14–15)
"My friends scorn me: but mine eye pours out tears unto God." (Job 16: 20)
Jesus too, like Job, was persecuted. (John 5: 16) Both Job and Christ, like some of the righteous men and women of faith, had "trial of cruel mockings and scourgings." (Heb. 11: 36; Matt. 20: 19)
Both Job and Christ were hated men. Both were mocked, scoffed, ridiculed, persecuted, scorned, falsely accused, reviled, provoked, and had all manner of evil said against them.
Notice the word "trial" in regard to such cruel mocking and scourging. Job's trials, like those of Christ, consisted, to a large degree, in such abuses. In the previous post we showed how Christ was the "tried stone," the tested one (and for this reason can be fully trusted and relied upon). Job too was a "tried stone" and was therefore a type of Christ (as we observed in the previous posting - "when he has tried me I shall come forth as gold").
The writer of Hebrews calls upon all to “Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” (Heb. 12: 3)
The opposition that Job faced from his wife, neighbors, extended family, and his senior friends were a type of that opposition that Christ would face. Focus is upon the fact of Christ endurance, patience, fortitude, perseverance, in the face of such great trials and sufferings. So too is Job known for his patient endurance in suffering and adversity and is therefore a type of Christ.
Many people even "laughed him (Christ) to scorn." (Matt. 9: 24; Mark 5: 40; Luke 8: 53) What insolence against God and the Son of God. Rather than scorning and deriding the Lord they should have "kissed the Son." (Psa. 2: 12) In the well known Messianic Psalm, the Psalmist says: "All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads." (Psa. 22: 7) This happened to Job and to Christ.
As previously stated, Job suffered opposition and alienation from his kin and his friends. So too did Christ. Notice this text:
"And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, “He is beside himself”. And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Be-el′zebul, and by the prince of demons he casts out the demons”. (Mark 3:21–22)
Both Job and Christ suffered scorn and ridicule by friends, neighbors, and family. Jesus too was a stranger among his own people, of the Jewish nation, and of his own immediate family. So it is written in the gospel of John - “neither did his brethren believe in him.” (John 7:5) John also records: "He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him." (John 1: 11)
Judas fulfilled the prophetic words of the Psalmist who wrote: "Even my own familiar friend in whom I trusted, Who ate my bread, Has lifted up his heel against me." (Psa. 41: 9) So too could Job say this about his friends. Wrote Zechariah these words applicable to Christ:
“And one will say to him, ‘What are these wounds between your arms?’ Then he will answer, ‘Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.’" (Zech. 13: 6)
Job, as we have seen, was spit in the face by his friends. So too Christ. "Then they spit in his face and struck him with their fists. Others slapped him." (Matt. 26: 67)
Jesus was hated by the world and loved by only a few. He said to his disciples: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you." (John 15: 18) He also said: "it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil." (John 7: 7)
Job was in great pain as a result of his varied trials (Job 2: 13). So too was Christ. The bodily sufferings of Christ suffered during his trials (before the Sanhedrin and Pilate) were immense. His death by crucifixion was "excruciating." He was bruised and beaten and bleeding like a lamb in slaughter. In the next posting we will conclude this series dealing with how Job and Christ are both innocent men, falsely accused and condemned, and both suffering servants of Yahweh.
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