lest ye be judged …

Greetings to our beloved sisters in the mighty name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. May the name of the risen Lord be glorified. May the Holy Spirit continue to cherish our hearts with more and more revelations on the word of God. He alone is the Judge. He is Jehovah Tsidkenu (The God of my righteousness).   

Woman was created as the Lord saw that it is not good for a man to be alone. And Adam said, This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of her husband. .. (Genesis 2 : 23). The word of God continues in verse 24 :           “ Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh”. Right from her childhood the woman dons and continues to play multiple roles all through her life : daughter, sister, wife, mother in the family circle and plays extended role(s) in the society as she deems fit and evolve in her professional career and as a woman of God.

It is said that ones own real personality and character attributes come out only in times of stress or  adversities of life. We see a band of legendary women of God in the Bible, a few of them found  place in the Hall of fame of faith in  Hebrew Chapter 11. But as the adage goes, we have something to learn even from the life of an obscure thing like that of a snail which is known for albeit slow motion !

As I was reading my favourite book of Job in the Bible again, I was reminded of  one important actor in the story who appears only once but has stole the show and became the (wo)man of the match ! . In a certain way she sets the story moving forward  when Job breaks his silence finally and almost curses his birth. The rest is history ! English language happily added the phrase “Job’s comforter” to mean someone who appears to be comforting but actually worsens the stress of the other. Finally God speaks to Job and the story ends with double blessing in Job’s life.

Job’s wife appears in the second chapter of the Book of Job. By this time only Job and his wife are left and all their family and belongings wiped out. Job is stinking with skin lesions and  in sack cloth sitting on the road. But remember it is written that Job never sinned with his lips. Then his wife appears and says these famous words :

“Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!”  (Job 2:9).

Before we meditate on this let us remember that the virtue of integrity of Job was quoted by God himself to satan. ( Read  2:3 : “ Then the Lord said to satan………And he still he holds fast to his integrity , although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without a cause”.

As we all know the story of Job simultaneously happens in two realms : The spirit realm where God challenges satan. And the physical world, where Job encounters the tribulations. It should be perfectly kept in our mind that Job never knew from the beginning to end , the happenings in the spirit realm. Nor his family. Then it surprised me as to how Job’s wife could verbatim quote what the Lord has said to satan. In book of Job, satan is mentioned as “The satan” (The accuser) some what a legal position in the court like an attorney of law.

As I continued to mediate on this, I came across the Hebrew version :

“ Barak Elokkim, ve mos”

Which literally translated says: “ Bless God and die” . However in most of the translations, it is given as “Curse God and die”. I have read that in old tradition it is customary to bless God before one’s death. Probably, unable to see the suffering Job was undergoing, she would have thought that only death would ameliorate his suffering. But to take away one’s own life is suicide, forbidden by God and known even during those patriarchal days when this story unfolded.

Job’s wife was also in great distress as was Job. Probably her feelings were more for the children, all ten of them died tragically in one go. As the book of job progresses, we can see that Job became unstable in delirium and had the “mood swings” which resulted him in saying one time that he will see the Lord in flesh and the other time that I have lost my Lord as I could not talk to him any longer….. We have to take the words of Job’s wife as a sudden outburst out of agony, frustration and a lost feeling as they believed strongly that misery comes out of only sin. All she wanted say may be “Bless God and die” to end his misery.  But this moment enters satan and puts in  her heart,  the exact statement God has uttered  “still holds on to his integrity” and make her convince  him  rebuke the Lord and end his life. A straight win for accuser, The satan.  So she went on to say “Curse God and die”. Even though the word ”barak” has been used in Hebrew bible many times to mean “bless” it also has meaning of “curse”. Going by the full sentence of what she said, it appears to be the satanic influence to force Job to curse God, which he almost did by cursing his birth later.

During the times of adversity, the strongest support or opposition can only from within (the family). Wife is same flesh as husband and vice versa. We read in the Bible that Job kept his cool and admonished her by saying that as they have enjoyed good things from God so also bound to receive otherwise. But later on we see at the end of the silence period, Job’s patience almost left him as he calls God for mediation to prove his innocence. His outburst only made his comforters to strongly defend God and accuse him of secret sins, even though they were wrong in the later part as they  were not aware of happenings in the spirit realm.

There is an apocryphal testament of Job in which the name of Job’s wife is mentioned as “ sitis” having same roots as satan. She was a princess and she married Job who was a wealthy tribal leader. It goes on to say that after they lost everything, she went out to work to earn the bread for both of them and finally died in the cattle shed out of frustration and shock of her misery. The apocrypha goes on to say that after the Lord restored everything in double measure, Job married “dinah” daughter of patriarch Jacob to whom was born ten children as before.

Whatever may be the case, we see that Jobs wife is not named in the story. She remained unnamed and unmentioned till the end, even after the Lord restored everything in Job’s life.

Prayer :

Dear Lord, give us the strength and courage to stand upright in times of trials and tribulations of this world. We pray for the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to lead us to speak wisely and speak only in Your righteousness. Bless us to endure any kind of adversity with joy.

In Jesus name we pray.

Amen.