All a poor man’s brothers hate him; how much more do his friends go far from him! He pursues them with words, but does not have them.
When we read a verse in Scripture, our common instinct is to set ourselves in the righteous man’s place. In this case, that means casting ourselves as the poor man who is hated, whose friends go far from him. We set ourselves up as a Job-in-potential, and to some extent, the casting is going to be true-to-life. We’re all less something than somebody; we’ve all had other person preferred unjustly. But if we stop at that first interpretation, we rob ourselves of a salubrious warning.
Are we ever the friends who go far away? Are we ever the poor man’s vicious brothers?
The most famous example of the poor man whose friends despised him is, as mentioned already, Job. Job himself says, “I am one before whom men spit” (17:6). Job experienced all which comes to a man when he loses his power and his status. Friend fail him; men depart; women disappear. All the framework of this world fades to nothing around him, leaving him in rot and ruin. Men driven by sin do not prop up, once the other is destroyed; they go down into the muck or move on or self-destruct.
Even the righteous too often become evildoers in this respect. The church too readily finds excuses to set duties aside, as an institution and as people. We as individuals do the same. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, Job’s three friends, are seen in the narrative and by their speech and by their response to God (to repent and reconcile with both Him and Job) to be ‘righteous’ men, if far from Job’s maturity. We can see in their speech, too, that they are theologically learned, however flawed their conclusion. Yet these men, like to many of us in advantage and character, were vicious assailants to Job’s misery (16:2). In all this, we remember: since to love is to fulfill the law (Rom. 13:8-10), turning back from fulfilling the law amounts to hatred.
Moreover, while Job may be the most famous for this circumstance, he is by far less famous and important than the one who best exemplifies this verse: Christ Himself. Christ is God, and yet He came in the form of a man, setting aside the manifestation of His glory, though not its reality (Phil. 2:6-7). No greater impoverishing is possible, and man repaid that willing forfeiture most richly. Man repaid it richly with mockery, disbelief, abuse, and raillery (Matt. 27:42; Mark 15:31)., culminating in the climactic act of their hate (Matt. 12:14): the murder of the innocent Man upon the cross at Golgotha.
We, even we, have the same nature as those who mocked Christ, except He justify us with His blood (Rom. 6:1-5). Indeed, we who have faith in Him have faith that our sins were His death– our sinfulness is part and parcel of our faith, the reason for our needing salvation. We should ask, therefore, whether we are of the sheep or of the goats (Matt. 25:31-46). Having asked this, having either found faith in Him or come unto it by His grace, we should ask another question: do we live as the sheep or as the goats? Do we live like those to whom the Lord says, “I never knew you” (Matt. 7:23) or like those to whom he says, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (25:21)?
Under His law, though, not merely pity and not merely poverty must be our lodestone; these are but worldly metrics (James 2:1-9; Lev. 19:15; Ex. 23:3). The measure of our regard for our brothers and our neighbors must be His righteousness.
We must be cautious of our own impulse to assume the better position in a text. In many circumstances, taking the most pleasant position is an appropriate applicative course. Yet, in reading a story with two sides, we must never forget that we can be the villains as well as the heroes. Yes, Christ preserves His people, but it would be much better to be holy from the start (Rom. 3:8), rather than to require discipline (Heb. 12:5). Exegetical care requires not letting our self-love become a distorting lens.
God bless.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
Colson Potter writes copious fiction and nonfiction, including a weekly Proverbs post and his blog at Creational Story.
