Even young children despise me; when I rise they talk against me.
Job has traced his ruin to God's own hand, and now he counts the cost among people — his brothers, his servants, his wife, and last of all the children who once looked up to him. Why did the smallest people deal the deepest wound?
The last of the desertions
Job's losses come in order, from his own brothers down to the children. One writer lists the whole fall in a single breath:
William KellyIt was He who embittered his social circle and the privacy of home. He removed his brothers and estranged his acquaintances; his relatives failed him, his close friends forgot him. The guests in his house and his maid counted him a stranger, a foreigner. He called his servant in vain, though he begged him humbly. His wife found him disgusting, even while he longed for those nearest to him. The very youngsters despised him. If he stood up, they spoke at him instead of showing respect. All his close friends loathed him, and those he loved turned against him.
Children who once showed respect
So who were these children, and why did their scorn cut so deep?
Leslie M. GrantHe says, "Even young children despise me." Of course he was not speaking of his sons and daughters, who had already died, so he is likely speaking of his grandchildren. We can understand how children would feel at seeing him sitting in an ash heap covered with sore boils. Yet Job felt them pulling away from him, in contrast to their former respect for him. But if he stood up, he said, they would speak against him. At least, however they felt, even young children should not be so callous as to speak against a sufferer.
When he stood up, respect should have followed. Instead the children spoke at him.
Job lays it at God's door
Job does not blame his neighbours for the contempt. He says God did it, and commentators read that differently. One hears faith in how bluntly he says it:
William KellyHow boldly he speaks out. As far as it goes, that could not have been without real faith. Did they say that God was against Job? "God has overthrown me," he acknowledges. If it was any comfort for them to know, he confesses that his trouble came from His hand... He himself points, not they, to his universal desertion — the desertion of his wife, of his brothers, of his servants, of his household: in short, even youngsters acting contemptuously towards him. Those who once revered him had all now deserted him.
Another hears a man charging God with injustice, with no comfort left anywhere:
Samuel RidoutPassing to man, Job sees the same injustice, which by implication comes from God... Boys mock him, friends detest him... It is a dreadful picture of a horrible disease, sad beyond words when we remember that he could not turn to God for comfort.
Why every prop had to go
The stripping had a purpose. One writer says Job was left with nothing to lean on so that he could learn one thing:
Samuel RidoutEvery prop must go, and every joy on earth be taken away. Still Job will cling to the God he has trusted, even though dimly. And on the other hand, Job must pass through these very trials. Through them he will learn the lesson of all lessons, for all eternity — that God is all in all. As a step towards that knowledge, he will see that he is nothing.
From total desolation to a living Redeemer
The speech that lists these humiliations does not end in them. A few lines later Job says he knows his Redeemer lives — and the place it is spoken from is what makes it remarkable:
William KellyIt was beautiful too, coming at such a time. He was in the deepest desolation and distress. He had not one single friend among men, and God Himself was smiting him. How like Christ he was in his circumstances, up to a certain point! How little like Him in the steady acknowledgment of God's holiness, free from hardness and free from complaining. Still, here we have a wonderful confession, all the more so because of the gloom, pain, and desertion he spoke it in.
Summary
- Stripped downward. The verse is the bottom of a long fall: brothers, then relatives, then servants, then his wife, then children who once respected him.
- Stripped of respect. These are likely his grandchildren, pulling away from a man covered in sores. The sting was the change, since they had respected him before.
- Stripped by God's hand. Job traces the contempt to God, not to men. Commentators differ: some hear bold faith, others a man charging God with injustice.
- Stripped of every prop. Every prop had to go, so that Job could learn the lesson of all lessons: God is everything, and he himself is nothing.
- Stripped, then lifted. In that same speech, with not one friend left, Job says he knows his Redeemer lives. The darkness is what makes that confession shine.