Humor in connection with job

HUMOR I JOB MY STUDY
HUMOR I CO ECTIO WITH JOB
If someone asked you what book of the Bible is among the most famous
and the most funny, what would you say? The reason the answer is funny
is because it is so unexpected, for that book would be the book considered
to be so serious as to be without humor, and that book would be Job. You
may
never have heard of it, but it is considered by many to be the longest
comedy in all the Bible. It is filled with irony, sarcasm and insults
much like many a sitcom on television. It is not full of jokes, and it
is not that you are going to laugh your way through it, for it is dealing
with tragedy as bad as they come, and ongoing suffering that is being
endured by a completely innocent man, who has to put up with friends
who
are constantly trying to blame him for it all. It is full of pain, but
it is also a case where tragedy and comedy exist side by side.
William Whedbee of Pomona College wrote a study on Job and this is
part
of what his thesis said, "The Book of Job continues to evoke radically
diverse interpretations. In particular, the problem of the dominant
genre of the book has perennially challenged and frustrated interpreters.
My own thesis is that when the poem of Job is set in its full and final
literary context, replete with Prologue and Epilogue as well as the Elihu
speeches, the most apt generic designation of the book is comedy."
1 In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was
blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.
If you're looking for the latest buzz
Check out Job from the land of Uz.
You'll have to search the whole wide globe
To find a man greater than Job.
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He was a man blameless and upright
And he chose against all evil to fight.
As through this world of woe he trod,
He lived his life in the fear of God.
This is Israel's first book of poetry and wisdom. We have here not,
the wizard of Oz, but the wisdom of Uz. Uz was in Arabia near the mouth
of the Euphrates river, or in what we today call Iraq. It is amazing
how much of the Bible revolves around this country we now call Iraq,
which is so much in the news.
1. The garden of Eden was in Iraq.
2. Mesopotamia which is now Iraq was the cradle of civilization.
3. oah built the ark in Iraq.
4. The Tower of Babel was in Iraq.
5. Abraham was from Ur, which is in Southern Iraq.
6. Isaac's wife Rebekah is from ahor which is in Iraq.
7. Jacob met Rachel in Iraq.
8. Jonah preached in ineveh - which is in Iraq.
9. Assyria which is in Iraq conquered the ten tribes of Israel.
10. Amos cried out in Iraq.
11. Babylon which is in Iraq destroyed Jerusalem.
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12. Daniel was in the lion's den in Iraq.
13. The 3 Hebrew children were in the fire in Iraq.
14. Belshazzar, the King of Babylon saw the "writing on the wall" in
Iraq.
15. ebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, carried the Jews captive into
Iraq.
16. Ezekiel preached in Iraq.
17. The wise men were from Iraq.
18. Peter preached in Iraq.
19. The "Empire of Man" described in Revelation is called Babylon,
which was a city in Iraq.
Israel is the nation most often mentioned in the Bible. But do you know
which nation
is second? It is Iraq! However, that is not the name that is used in the
Bible. The
names used in the Bible are Babylon, Land of Shinar, and Mesopotamia.
The word Mesopotamia means between the two rivers, more exactly
between
the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The name Iraq, means country with
deep
roots. Indeed, Iraq is a country with deep roots and is a very
significant country in the Bible.
o other nation, except Israel, has more history and prophecy
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associated in it than Iraq
Job was one of the famous Gentiles of the Bible. Some Jews want to claim
him as one of their own,
but the vast majority of commentators, even Jewish ones, agree that he
was likely an Arabian gentile.
There is humor in this even in that many of the greatest people in the
Jewish Bible are gentiles.
Judaism started with a Gentile by the name of Abraham, and here we
have the description of the
most righteous man in the Old Testament, and he is a Gentile.
His suffering is not chastisement to get him back on the right track, for he
never left the right track. His experience does not represent the
typical man, but rather, the suffering of the very righteous. Ezek. 14:14,
20 make clear he was one of the best. The description of Job, that
God agrees with a little later, proves that his suffering has nothing to do
with punishment, for he did nothing worthy of punishment. It also had
nothing to do with discipline and chastisement, for he was blameless and
did not deserve any such thing. His character is such that it destroys
the arguments of his friends that he is suffering because of some secret sin
in his life. It also destroys most other theories as to why the
innocent suffer. The book of Job does not give many answers as to why
the innocent suffer, but it does eliminate most all guesses and theories
that men have come up with. Job ranks next to Jesus in his sinlessness
and in his suffering. Job is the most innocent sufferer that was totally
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man. Only two other men in all of the Bible are on his level of perfection.
In Ezekiel 14 we read these words from the mouth of God himself:
12 The word of the LORD came to me: 13 "Son of man, if a country sins
against me by being unfaithful and I stretch out my hand against it
to cut off its food supply and send famine upon it and kill its men and
their animals, 14 even if these three men— oah, Daniel [a] and Job—
were in it, they could save only themselves by their righteousness,
declares the Sovereign LORD. 17 "Or if I bring a sword against that
country and say, 'Let the sword pass throughout the land,' and I kill its
men and their animals, 18 as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign
LORD, even if these three men were in it, they could not save their own
sons or daughters. They alone would be saved.
ote that 2 of the 3 are Gentiles, and the third became a leader in a
Gentile nation, and spent his life among the Gentiles. One of the most
interesting things about the Jewish Bible, or what we call the Old
Testament, is the role that Gentiles play in God's plan and revelation.
One
of the most common misconceptions is that God chose the Jews because
he loved them more than all other people. The fact is, God chose the
Jews because he needed a particular people to be a tool by which he could
reach all people with the good news of salvation. God has always
been one who so loved the world, that is all people. The purpose of the
Jews was to become a godly nation who could be a blessing to all
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nations because they would bring to all nations the good news of the one
true God.
Job 1:6 One view of Satan is that he was created to do a job that other
angels would not do. His task was to investigate and report back to
God all signs of sin in God's creation due to man's free willed decisions.
The occupational hazard of this kind of job is that in dealing only with
the negative you tend to become negative. Satan got so carried away with
his job of finding bad things that he started to promote the bad
things he was looking for. Power corrupts and we see it in Satan. He
became cruel like the secret police who have the power to abuse. I
Chron. 21:1. Power even in the hands of good people has danger-I Tim.
3:6.
One aspect of humor is being on the inside of what is going on, and
having the privilege of knowing why the person who is going through
something is doing so. We have inside information and so we know the
reason, but Job knows nothing about this meeting in heaven. We
already know that God considers him righteous and not in any way
worthy of judgment. The friends do not know this scene either and so
they
come up with their own theories that condemn Job. But we already know
Job is what he says, innocent and not worthy of such judgement,
and so it is funny to see the friends coming up with their nonsense. We
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can laugh at them for we know where God stands from the beginning.
They look foolish in the light of what we know.
CHAPTER THREE
Swift used to go into his closet every year on his birthday and read this
chapter, and sob as he applied it to himself."
Cursing has been an age old tradition, and even today yet there are curses
that deal with contemporary situations. People call down upon
others bad things. Why do bad things happen to good people? That is the
question of the ages, and one of the answers is that people have
cursed them. Some modern curses are not quite as severe as the old time
witches curses, but they are still bad enough to spoil your day. Some
examples are:
May ketchup always find your shirt
May all the windows you jump through be closed
May all your friends eat beans constantly
May all the water you dive into be a mirage
May all your sandwiches have mold on them
May you have a close encounter with an insane dentist
May a rabbit mistake your nose for a carrot
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May you be the recipient of the south end of a north-facing camel
As ridiculous as these sound they do not compare with the curse of Job on
the day of his birth. This is probably the most radical curse on a
particular day that exists in all of human literature. It is funny because it
is so extreme that it is overkill. o matter how you curse that day you
were born it does not change anything, and so it is meaningless. It does
reveal the depth of Job’s despair and how he hates being alive with all
he has suffered, but it is a strange way of dealing with his pain. If it could
actually be eliminated as he desires then all others born on that day
would not exist, and he would be destroying the lives of how many
thousands who are happy for that day of their birth? There is no humor
in
what Job had suffered, and yet there is because of it being so extreme that
it is ridiculous. Concider this record-Job began the day as a
millionaire but in a series of unfortunate circumstances he would lose all
his wealth.
If that wasn’t enough, a tornado hit the house where his ten children were
and they all died. Then the Bible tells us that Job’s health broke.
Chuck Swindoll gives a summary of Job’s physical pain. He suffered:
• Inflamed ulcerous sores (Job 2:7)
• Persistent itching (Job 2:8)
• Facial disfiguration (Job 2:12)
• Loss of appetite (Job 3:24)
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• Fears and depression (Job 3:25)
• Sores that burst open, scab over, crack and
ooze with pus (Job 7:5)
• Worms that form in the sores themselves
(Job 7:5)
• Difficulty in breathing (Job 9:18)
• A darkening of the eyelid (Job 16:16)
• Loss of weight (Job 19:20)
• Continual pain (Job 30:27)
• High fever with chills and diarrhea
(Job 30:30)
On top of that Job says, “my breath is offensive to my wife” (19:17). After
reading that list it is funny that he would add his bad breath as
part of his terrible suffering.
Job was so disfigured and disgusting that nearly everyone including his
servants rejected him. He was so poor and despised that eventually he
had to go live in the city garbage dump. Warren Wiersbe describes what
living there was like. “In this place the city garbage was deposited
and burned and the city’s rejects lived, begging money from whomever
passed by. Dogs fought over something to eat and city’s dung was
brought and burned. Job, who was once the greatest of all men in the
East was now living in abject poverty and shame.”
[1] 1:5 The Hebrew word bless is used euphemistically for curse in 1:5,
11; 2:5, 9
Page 9

HUMOR A D TRAGEDY
Worst Day Of 'My' Life
There was a guy in a bar, just looking at his drink. He stayed like that for
half an hour. Then, this big trouble-making truck driver stepped up
next to him, took the drink from the guy, and drank it all down. The poor
man started crying. The truck driver said, “Come on man, I was just
joking. Here, I'll buy you another drink. I just can't see a man crying.”
“ o, it's not that. This day is the worst of my life. First, I was late
getting to my office. My boss was outrageous, and fired me. When I left
the building to go to my car, I found out it was stolen. The police say
they can do nothing. I got a cab to return home, and when I left it, I
remembered I left my wallet and credit cards there. The cab driver just
drove away. When I got home, I found my wife in bed with the gardener.
I left home and came to this bar. And just when I was thinking about
putting an end to my life, you show up and drink my poison.”
3:1
You might think things can't get worse,
But you'd be wrong, just hear this curse.
May that day on which I was born
Be forever treated with scorn.
May there never be any joy
On that day they said,"It's a boy."
May God in heaven to my voice give hark
And keep that day forever in dark.
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May it never see again the dawn of light,
But remain overshadowed in endless night.
May it be cut from the calender of time
And be totally barren of laughter and rhyme.
May it ever be as dark as the tomb
Because it did not shut the door of the womb.
Let the curse of it be more than double
Because it let me be born to this trouble.
Why oh why did I not die?
Why did my mother have to hear my first cry?
Why did she nurse me and give me my life?
I could have been aborted and escaped all this strife.
Had I been born dead at my birth
I could be lying in peace in the earth.
This thing called living is a vicious pest,
I would rather be in the grave and at rest.
This would have been my choices goal
And thus escape this bitterness of soul.
I long for death like a hidden treasure,
And to be in the grave would be my pleasure.
My tears flow out like streams of water,
For all my hopes have met with slaughter.
There is nothing left and so I cry,
Take my life and let me die.
We have in this chapter the humor of excessive pessimism and cursing.
Anything that is done to such an excess that it becomes ridiculous is a
form of humor. We know because of future chapters that Job had a sense
of humor, but he has completely lost it at this point. He has gone
bonkers over his fate and demonstrates excessive pessimism like no one
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else in history.
After 7 days of sitting in silence and feeling the pain of all he had lost and
all his body was suffering, he opens up and the first thing that comes
out is a curse on the day of his birth. He has had 7 days to brood over all
he had suffered and now he is ready to explode with eloquent anger
that he is alive. It is safe to assume that Job did not want his friends to
sing happy birthday to him anytime soon. He would have cherished a
happy death day, however, but there are few to no tunes for that
occasion. It is understandable why Job is miserable, but why he takes it
out
on the day he was born is hard to understand. The day of his birth is
innocent, and yet he curses it to the greatest extent of language for
cursing. Thank heavens the actual date of his birth is not revealed, for
that would be a very negative date for people to be born. Even though
this curse did not have any effect on the day, it would not be a good omen
to have your day of birth labeled with such a famous curse. So the
good new is, nobody knows the day which Job cursed. Those who fear the
number 13 are no doubt persuaded it was Friday the 13th, but this
is pure speculation.
Job was not alone in cursing the day of his birth, for Jeremiah does the
same thing. Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me!Jer.
15:10. Cursed be the day wherein I was born, Jer. 20:13. Both of these
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men had many years in which they gave thanks to God for being born,
and like everyone else they celebrated the day of their birth. It is a form
of folly to be cursing the day of your birth after you have already
celebrated it many times. That is why we have to assume that this sort of
thing is just a way of expressing how miserable life has become.
Solomon also had his bad days when he thought dying was better than
being born. He was not happy with his birthday. "A good name is
better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s
birth." Eccl, 7:1 So we have in the Bible three stooges who get so
caught up in the negatives of life that they foolishly deny the value of
being born and having life.
Another great man of God, Elijah, had the same pessimistic attitude, but
he did not curse his day of birth, but just said, "kill me."
"I have had enough, Lord," Elijah prayed, "Take my life…" (1 Kings
19:4).
Matthew Henry writes, “It was Job's folly and weakness to curse his day.
We must say of it, This was his infirmity; but good men have
sometimes failed in the exercise of those graces which they have been
most eminent for, that we may understand that when they are said to
be perfect it is meant that they were upright, not that they were sinless.”
Others have felt they wish they could die and be done with this life,
but they never dreamed of cursing the day of their birth. Stedman said, “I
do not know if you have ever felt that way, but I think there have
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been times when I wished I could have dropped out of the scene entirely
and gone home to heaven.”
Martin Luther was typical of the great men of God who found
themselves in the dumps. Chapter 3 of Job could well have been one of his
own songs of the blues. He sounded so much like Job when he wrote, "I
am sick of life, if this life can be called life. Implacable hatred and
strife amongst the great-no hopes of any improvement-the age is Satan's
own; gladly would I see myself and all my people quickly snatched
from it." He could not see the future and how his writing would influence
millions all over the world. Tim LaHaye has written some of the
finest books, and one is, How To Win Over Depression. He wrote this
book because back in 1969 it hit him, and for two and a half years he
went through five periods of depression. The awfulness of it motivated
him to seek answers, and to help others to gain victory. Vance
Havner went through great depression when his wife died, and he wrote,
Though I Walk Through The Valley, to help others who go that same
way.
History is filled with words of pessimism about life and the wish that they
were dead, but as we read them we will notice that Job's is different
in that he was not content to wish he was dead, but he wished that the day
of his birth was dead, and that it never existed. Some just want to
Page 14

be dead because they are too lazy to live. Such is the idea behind this little
verse:
Things get so much harder
When we have to leave our bed
Wouldn't life be easier
If we were just dead?
From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:
Some folk like music, some folk like tea, Some folk like women, they're
not for me. Here is my motto, simple and terse: Everything;s lousy,
and going to get worse! Oh, I wish Oh, I wish Man had never evolved
from a fish. Oh, I wish I were dead, Wish I'd been dropped on my head,
Broken my neck, lost the toss with a bull, Parachute jumped and
forgotten to pull, Oh, I long to be dead, Wrapped in a casket of lead, Wish
I'd been drowned in a barrel of trout, Dived off the pier when the tide
was still out.
The grave, the grave,
Is a fine and private place,
The grave, the grave,
And who the devil wants to embrace?
I wish, I wish I were dead,
Laid out with a lilly in bed,
Wish that I'd drunk some carbolic for fun,
Tested the trigger while cleaning my gun,
Or just shrivelled up in the heat of the sun,
Oh, I wish I were dead, dead, dead,
Oh, I wish I were,
Oh, I wish I were,
Page 15

Oh, I wish I were,
I wish I was dead.
The fact is, millions really feel this way, but they do not curse the day of
their birth. It is strange to do such a thing, and strange is funny. It is
funny to think that one whole chapter of the Bible is about cursing of
one's birthday. Is God joking with us, to give us a whole chapter of his
revelation dealing with cursing the day of birth? We need to see the
psychology of this to understand its value. Satan said Job would curse
God to his face if he lost all. Job had to have feelings of unbelievable
anger at God and the mystery of why he was suffering all this tragedy.
He was ready to explode, but he found an outlet for his anger and
depression. Instead of cursing God, he cursed the day of his birth, and he
went on and on to excess because he was so filled with negative emotions
and he needed to release them or Satan would win the battle, for he
would curse God. This chapter is about releasing pent up emotions that
can lead to damaging sin by finding an object to hurl them at that
does not hurt man or God. It is really quite clever of Job, for it is wisdom
in action. It is like taking out your frustration by hitting a pillow
rather than the neighbor that is driving you batty. Couples in conflict are
encouraged to have pillow fights to release their anger. As they
batter one another they will end up laughing and release all the emotions
that makes them want to strangle each other. Anytime an inanimate
Page 16

object can be the focus for releasing your anger you have won a major
battle, and that is what we see Job doing in this chapter. Job goes the
final step and chooses to release his anger at what is not even an object,
but a day, and not a soul in all the world will be injured or even
affected by this curse. It is the most violent curse of a day ever, and yet it
is less hurtful to anyone than striking the side of a steel building with
a feather. It is horrible in its expression, but harmless in it effect.
"Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases
to be serious when people laugh."- George Bernard Shaw
VERSE 3
Job, why don't you tell us how you really feel. This is sarcasm that I have
heard when expressing emotions.
C.S. Lewis once said, “We must lay before God what is in us, not what is
not in us.” If you are upset with God, don’t fake it. IT IS OT
ILLEGAL TO EXPRESS YOUR HO EST EMOTIO S A D
FEELI GS TO GOD.
VERSE 4
Here we have a good example of unanswered prayer, for he wanted God
to not care about this day, and to make sure the sun would never
shine on it. Such a weird request with no value is not taken seriously by
God. He ignores all such curses just as he does all of those who every
day are asking him to damn somebody. People are always wanting God to
do some stupid thing or other, and thank God he does not pay
Page 17

attention to such nonsense. Job’s parents and family members are still
happy about that day a son was born. They are not happy about what
that son is now going through, but they certainly do not regret having this
son brought into the world and their lives. This is just very personal
bitterness being expressed, and nobody would expect God to honor such a
neurotic request.
VERSE 7
Come on Job, there are babies born on that very day every year, and the
families want to shout for joy. You cannot rob the rest of mankind
of the joy at the birth of children just because your life is in misery. This
is really a picture of ultimate selfishness where Job wants the whole
universe to revolve around his feelings. The fact is, when people are
suffering deeply they do become self-centered, for it is hard to be
concerned with anyone or anything but yourself when pain demands your
full attention.
CHAPTER 6:14-23
Job is now responding to the lack of encouragement he is receiving from
his friends. He does not feel they have helped him at all. In fact, he is
worse off with their presence because they add one more pain to his
misery. He thought it could not get worse, and then his friends start to
speak and he realizes he was wrong. It is not right that they should add to
his pain and he lets them know in not so subtle language.
Page 18

The Message puts this verse this way: ""When desperate people give up
on God Almighty, their friends, at least, should stick with them." He
was not getting any good vibes from God, but he expected that his friends
would at least support him."
The humor is in Job's criticism of their worthless comfort.
CHAPTER 12
1-12 in verse:
One thing is for sure, there is no doubt,
When you die, the lights of wisdom will go out.
You guys need to face it, I too have a mind,
And you do not leave me behind.
In pride you make it big show,
But everything you say I also know.
My friends now just laugh at me,
Though once, only my good they did see.
When all goes well men hate to see
The pain of those in agony.
Even foolish men with homemade gods
Are able to beat the suffering odds.
They live a life that is secure
And have no tragedy to endure.
All of nature can show and tell
The very things on which you dwell.
They all know God's hand did this,
For by his hand come pain and bliss.
By his hand all things have breath.
He is the Lord of life and death.
The ear can taste if words are good
Just as the tongue can taste of food.
Is not wisdom among the aged found,
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For long life makes them quite profound.
Today we would use sarcasm like this by saying, okey Einstein, I guess
you know all and the rest of us are mere dunces who must bow to your
every word or live like ignorant idiots. Oh wise ones, what fools we are to
not see you have grasped all the wisdom of the world. Job is saying
you are full of it, with all your conceited arrogance that pretends to have
a monopoly on the truth. This is severe sarcasm and it shows Job's
contempt for their commonplace platitudes they are using to scold him.
CHAPTER 13
1 "My eyes have seen all this,
my ears have heard and understood it.
2 What you know, I also know;
I am not inferior to you.
3 But I desire to speak to the Almighty
and to argue my case with God.
4 You, however, smear me with lies;
you are worthless physicians, all of you!
5 If only you would be altogether silent!
For you, that would be wisdom.
CHAPTER 15 ELIPHAS CRITICISM
CHAPTER 16
Job is saying I have had an ample supply of this kind of advice. You have
been saying the same things over and over and I am sufficiently
filled with your miserable so-called wisdom. I am sick of you acting so
Page 20

self-righteous and wise. You are making me sicker instead of soothing
my misery. I did not think it possible to be more miserable than I already
was, but you clever friends found a way to push me to a new low.
Congradulations on being successful in adding another oxymoron to
human language- miserable comforters.
You repeat and repeat over and over the same old cliches that have no
relevance to the issue of my suffering. You are spouting the same old
boring proverbs of the ancients that everyone has heard a million times,
and they carry no weight in giving comfort. In fact, they add to the
misery rather than detract from it. You are multiplying misery with your
meaningless mouthings of speeches without compassion.
16:4
You think that you are something special because you can throw out
advice and counsel to a suffering man that makes you look so superior
to him. Let me assure you that it does not take great talent and wisdom,
for I could make you just as miserable as you are making me if you
were going through the tragic circumstances that I am going through. I
could easily come up with a mean speech like your, and then shake
my head at you for being so pathetic. ote that I said it would be a
speech, not to comfort you, but against you. That is the kind of speeches
you are making, for they are not for me, but against me. You are my
critics and not my comforters.
Job is trying to make it clear that they are not helping the situation. He is
Page 21

going to be as mean as they are in hopes they will see how foolish it
is to try and comfort someone with criticism and arguing. I could put
together some long winded boring speeches that insult your intelligence
if our positions were reversed, and I could shake my head at you, which is
an expression of scorn, but lets face it, that is not the way of
friendship.
There is more comedy to come, but this is as far as I get for now.
Page 22

Humor in connection with job

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