The Bible is full of hidden treasures. Rich insights await those who seek God's word “between the lines.”
Job 2:11–13 Job’s friends demonstrate that the most profound way
of comforting those who suffer is by being with them in compassionate silence.
No words necessary
There are times in life when words just will not do. Sometimes an experience is simply too wonderful to describe. Such was the profound joy I experienced each time I witnessed the birth of one of my children. Sometimes beauty robs us of words, as was the case for me on a recent trip to Prague, in the Czech Republic. All the photos I took couldn’t even come close to capturing one of the most stunningly beautiful cities in the world.
An experience of calamity can leave us speechless. I remember sitting in a classroom full of students and faculty watching the World Trade Center under attack five years ago on September 11. The gasps, moans, and tears that filled the room testified to our utter disbelief at the sights and sounds on the screen. No words. Not even one.
I was similarly speechless during a moving visit to Auschwitz, Poland, where the immensity of the concentration camps and the depth of horror defy adequate description. Sometimes silence is the only appropriate response.
In the book of Job there is a marvelous moment of silence when the three friends of Job come to console him. Job 2:11–13 offers us a model of Christian compassion, which should be on the reading list of all who want to learn about Christian charity or pastoral care.
Verse 11 says that when Job’s friends heard about the thorough devastation Job and his family suffered, each of the friends “set out from his home.” Here is the first lesson of consolation: we must move when moved by the suffering of others. God initiated the Exodus from Egypt in response to his people’s sufferings (Exodus 3:7–8). Similarly, the Gospels show Jesus as one who demonstrated compassion to others’ suffering through some visible act.
Job’s plight elicits from his friends a response appropriate to his pain and to their friendship. The friends meet together “to go and console and comfort” (Job 2:11). “When they saw him from a distance ... they raised their voices and wept aloud; they tore their robes and threw dust in the air upon their heads” (2:12).
Seven days of silence
What may catch us off guard is the last detail in verse 13: “They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.”
How many of us would sit “on the ground” with anyone for even one day and night? Whatever we may conclude about the literalness of the seven days and nights, the point is that Job’s friends’ compassion was authentic; they understood how great Job’s suffering was. The word compassion literally means “to suffer with or together,” very much like the meaning of the Greek-derived word sympathy. Compassion, “suffering with,” is precisely what Job’s friends do so impressively in verse 13.
So great was Job’s sorrow that all he could do was sit “among the ashes” (2:8). With this image the text expresses the fact that Job’s life was destroyed beyond any verbal articulation. It was clear to Job’s friends that no amount of eloquence could lift Job up from the ashes. Total devastation begat total silence.
Then things go downhill
Later in the book of Job, however, when the friends take turns speaking, things go downhill. As soon as the friends open their mouths to reason with Job, they cease being compassionate sympathizers, i.e., co-sufferers. Instead they become theo-logicians who talk the God-talk—which is what theology means—to try and figure out Job’s suffering. Silence and being there with Job are supplanted by verbal reasoning. Compassion and solidarity in suffering give way to explanations. “Sighs too deep for words” are replaced by words too shallow for truth (Romans 8:26).
This text from Job offers us a way to understand the story of the compassion, the passion and the crucifixion of Jesus—as one who suffers alongside humanity. It also suggests that the most profound way of comforting those around us who suffer or grieve is by being there with them in compassionate silence.
No wonder we are reminded in Psalm 46:10–11: “‘Be still, and know that I am God!’ ... The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.” |
