Today's Reading: Job, Chapter Eleven
It is almost comical that Zophar is listed as a Naamathite which is someone from Naamah. The Hebrew meaning of this word is pleasant!
Zophar is less than pleasant in his initial advice to Job. He's someone that needs a lot more training before we would send him around for hospital visits.
Zophar also adopts the understanding of the justice of God is being meted out in this lifetime. And so, since Job has suffered all these calamities, Zophar would be wondering what Job did to deserve all of this. It must be something pretty bad!
Verse twelve is downright insulting. We're not sure exactly how this ancient Hebrew phrase should go but the Common English Bible translates it as "A stupid person becomes intelligent when a wild ass of a person is born tame."
Job, are you feeling better yet?
Zophar then goes on to share how much better it will be once Job fesses up. This is condescending to say the least.
Today's passage is helpful for us to examine ourselves for when we have been sure that we were in the right. Have we ever adopted a style similar to Zophar's and rubbed someone's nose in it? This reminds us that humility may be more helpful in persuasion than arrogance.
Prayer for the Day:
God, give us the humility which realizes its ignorance, admits its mistakes, recognizes its need, welcomes advice, accepts rebuke. Help us always to praise rather than to criticize, to sympathize rather than to condemn, to encourage rather than to discourage, to build rather than to destroy, and to think of people at their best rather than at their worst. This we ask for your name's sake. Amen.
Prayer by William Barclay, Church of Scotland, 20th Century
Photo by studio tdes via Flickr.com. Used under the Creative Commons license.
Scripture reference Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible
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