Job 22:21
Agree with God, and be at peace; thereby good will come to you.
Today’s bit of advice is true as far as it goes. As Dante says, in God’s will is our peace. But at the same time, it is worth recognizing that the person who speaks these words in Scripture is Eliphaz the Temanite, better known to us as one of “Job’s Comforters”. Job’s Comforters were men who came to Job after the calamities he suffered and spent forty-some chapters telling a man who had done nothing wrong that he needed to repent, scolding a suffering man with baseless accusations, and pressing down on his anguished brow a thorny crown of rectitude, tidy advice and judgmentalism as only theorists unacquainted with reality can do. Their logic is simple: Job is suffering, therefore he must have sinned. Their task, therefore, was to harangue him into admitting the sin. This verse is part of that harangue. Their problem was that they had never, in their wildest dreams, encountered an innocent Christ crucified. But they eventually encountered his Father, for at the end of the book of Job God condemns, not Job, but them and bids Job offer sacrifice on their behalf so they can be forgiven their sins (of cocksureness, among others, no doubt). Good came to Job’s Comforters at last. But it came through God’s suffering servant, not through their easy platitudes. The same is true for us, and our task, like Eliphaz’s, is to agree to the cross of the Suffering God. That’s not easy. But it is eternal life, hope, joy and love—-all very good things indeed.
