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Job declares that his suffering is from God’s hands yet he pleads with God to have mercy on him and end his suffering. His suffering is so great he wants to die.

Job then turns on his friends and rebukes them for finding fault in him insisting he has done no wrong

\(^{14}\)He who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty.

Job says a number of things throughout the book that are deeply challenging to me. I don’t think I can honestly claim that I never withhold kindness from a friend. In fact maybe it is quite typical of me to do so. Do I really notice the needs and struggles of the people around me? We find out a lot about the kind of man Job is throughout the book and I don’t measure up well, but even Job is an imperfect man. The real sting in the verse is the statement about “forsaking the fear of the Almighty”. Job says it of someone who withholds kindness but he could well have said it for all kinds of other things we know in our hearts to be wrong. It’s notable that what he chooses is a sin of omission, not something we’ve actively done wrong, but something we’ve failed to do. When I listen to a podcast or read something instead of playing with my little ones, isn’t this just the sort of thing Job is talking about? When I fail to respond to my wife’s messages am I forsaking the fear of the Almighty?