Sticky grey clay squelches between your fingers. Grasping at the walls, desperately clawing at the hope that one of the grabs will be firm and result in the start of a hopeful climb to freedom. A light and soft rain keeps hydrating the whole landscape, including the large hole. Water has been ankle-deep for days now, and you just cannot rest deeply enough without dipping your face into the water. Sitting is the only position that gives some relief to your strained eyes. Three figures towering on the brim of the hole keep insinuating that you fell in because you did not watch your step. After a long discourse, they start to aggressively accuse you of negligence, and you start to plead beyond them. You call out to the very one you say placed you into the hole.
From such a clay pit, any struggle to propel yourself out causes more filth to cling to you. It seems hopeless. The pure emotional frustration can be felt all around. The three figures above present their model: if you are in a pit, you caused it by not being careful. If you take care, you will not fall. One of them throws rocks from above, as if trying to cause injury as proof of a point. Another’s silhouette moves with words as the righteousness of God is proclaimed. The third stands in fierce silence, staring down without reply. This is the reaction of people who have reached an end to reasoning. The one in the pit, heavy with frustration, receives even more harshness from above. A cry rises, a plea to God to consider the case. Sarcasm snaps at the feet of those on the rim. The same frustrations echo in the voice, pointing out how evil people live in ease whilst others suffer. The claim is made: the evil must be punished, and God is just.
These three figures represent Job’s friends—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. They approached the one stuck in the pit. They presented an explanation followed by advice. Then the one in the pit started to deny that this situation fits into that way of thinking. The three people on the outside were presented with either accepting they are wrong or digging in their heels and standing on their claim. This led them to make up false testimony against the one inside. They even committed the fallacy of appealing to authority, implying that the claims of innocence cannot be true. Then silence—a non-responsive stance that expresses no reasonable reply. Silence is not always indicative of having no more reasoning, but together with the other two friends’ responses and the previous chapters, we can see that it is applicable here.
Let us take a look at another situation that had a similar sequence of events. Consider the night Jesus was dragged before Caiaphas and the council. In Matthew 26:57-68 we see how they sought to find false witness against Jesus, but it failed. Then Caiaphas called on the authority of God (verse 63). After Jesus replied, the crowd stopped talking and started to strike Jesus. That has an echo of similarity with Job—a model of thought that was forced to work by attempting to impose it. The Jewish leaders had a similar model to that of the friends of Job: do righteous deeds and receive blessing, do wicked deeds and suffer.
An uneasy feeling might hang in the air at this stage. We have just witnessed four adults argue and reach an impasse. This would be the point at which a conversation breaks apart. This is where people usually either walk away or start to fight. What will the friends of Job do now? What will the person in the pit experience next from those staring down?
Tension hangs as the friends falsely blame, call on a higher authority, and are left speechless. Job, on the other hand, is left wanting to continue his case with God. This is where we will continue next time as we delve into a final appeal from a man who suffered greatly.