Thursday in the 26th Week of Ordinary Time, October 3, 2024

Job 19, 21-27

Job said: Pity me, pity me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has struck me! Why do you hound me as though you were divine, and insatiably prey upon me?  Oh, would that my words were written down! Would that they were inscribed in a record: That with an iron chisel and with lead they were cut in the rock forever! But as for me, I know that my Vindicator lives, and that he will at last stand forth upon the dust; Whom I myself shall see: my own eyes, not another’s, shall behold him, And from my flesh I shall see God; my inmost being is consumed with longing.

The righteous man Job has lost his health, his family, and his property, seemingly at one blow.  He has not neglected his health nor abused his family members nor mismanaged his property, and still it is all gone.  Three men, whom Job had counted as friends before his losses, come to him and accuse him of having committed some sin for which God is punishing him.  But Job’s conscious is clean.  In his struggle to understand what has happened and why, he defends his innocence and calls upon God to explain it all to him.  The person of Job signifies the human being afflicted with a damaged human nature who energetically endeavors to do what is right and yet cannot attain perfection.  “Pity me, pity me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has struck me!”  That is, The consequences of Original Sin hold me back as I strain for sanctity and heaven!  The situation seems grossly unfair, that a man should be deprived of salvation because of the sin of our First Parents thousands of years before.  But this is the way we the human race was created: all were present in Adam from the beginning.  We might just as well say that it would be unfair if Adam and Eve had not sinned and we, as their heirs, would have inherited eternal life without having done anything to gain it.  “Oh, would that my words were written down! Would that they were inscribed in a record: That with an iron chisel and with lead they were cut in the rock forever!”  Job realizes the horrendous predicament not only he but all of humanity in in.  No matter what we do, no matter how hard we try, we cannot gain heaven and avoid hell by our own efforts. 

“But as for me, I know that my Vindicator lives, and that he will at last stand forth upon the dust.”  Divine inspiration comes upon Job in the depths of his misery and he sees a day in which there shall come a Savior who will do for humanity what it cannot do for itself.  The Hebrew word  גאל [ga-al] here translated as “vindicator” really means “redeemer”.  We see the root of the word used as a verb in Exodus 6, 6, when Almighty God speaks to Moses out of the burning bush: “I am the Lord who will bring you out from the work-prison of the Egyptians, and will deliver you from bondage: and redeem you with a high arm, and great judgments.”  God does not say that he will “avenge” the people of Israel, he says that he will free them.  

Additionally, the word means to act “as a kinsman” in an act of redemption, as we see in a law promulgated in Leviticus 25, 25: “If your brother becomes poor, and sells part of his property, then his next of kin shall come and redeem what his brother has sold.”  So the act of redemption signified by ga-al is one accomplished by a kinsman.  “Whom I myself shall see: my own eyes, not another’s, shall behold him”: this Redeemer will be visible and tangible.  “And from my flesh I shall see God.”  This Redeemer is both our kinsman, through assuming human flesh, and the Almighty God, and he will come upon the earth to save us.  Only One who is both God and man could save us from sin, and he came down from heaven to do so.

We feel the intensity of the human race before the time of grace:  “My inmost being is consumed with longing.”  This is also the condition of all the unbaptized and all who have walked away from God.  They try to save themselves by their own efforts and are ever frustrated by their failures.  God does not walk away from them, however, and desires their salvation even more then they do.  He sends us “to all the nations” — to all those who do not know God — that we may preach the Gospel to them through our good example and words.  Most of all, we should pray earnestly for them, as their kinsmen, sharing in the work of our Redeemer.