The Argument of Job's Friends

When the friends of Job came to speak to him after the many afflictions had befallen him, their argument as I understand it was that God blesses the righteous and punishes the sinner.  Therefore, they seemed to have reasoned, Job must have committed great sin and was being punished by the Lord.  Zophar said to Job, “Thou hast said, My doctrine is pure, and I am clean in thine eyes. But oh that God would speak, and open his lips against thee; And that he would shew thee the secrets of wisdom, that they are double to that which is! Know therefore that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth” (Job 11:4-6).  In other words, the terrible things that had happened to Job were, according to Zophar, because he was wicked.  Another friend Eliphaz said to Job: “Who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off? Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same” (Job 4:7-8).  A third friend Bildad said this: “Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will he help the evil doers” (Job 8:20).  The premise is that God blesses the righteous and punishes the wicked, and so the terrible things that had happened to Job must have been part of God’s punishment to a wicked man. 

                The argument that God blesses the righteous and punishes the wicked certainly has merit given what we read in the scriptures.  The Psalmist wrote, “For thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield” (Psalms 5:12).  Mormon told us, “If it so be that ye are righteous, then are ye blessed with your fathers who have gone before you” (Mormon 6:21).  Nephi left this testimony, “And if it so be that the children of men keep the commandments of God he doth nourish them, and strengthen them” (1 Nephi 17:3).  King Benjamin gave us perhaps the strongest language regarding the blessings that righteousness brings: “And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven” (Mosiah 2:41).   And so what was wrong with what the friends of Job said?  They seemed to have had the same myopic vision as the disciples who asked Jesus regarding the blind man, “Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?”  They could see no alternative cause for suffering other than sin.  Sin certainly leads to suffering, but all suffering is not brought on by sin.  Some comes even to the righteous “that the works of God should be made manifest” (John 9:2-3).

                I remember as a missionary we consistently told people that God would bless them for keeping the commandments, and that is absolutely true.  King Benjamin went so far as to say that if we keep the commandments God “doth immediately bless you” (Mosiah 2:24).  And yet that blessing that comes to us as we keep the commandments does not mean an absence of all trials and tribulations.  Elder Scott put it this way after inviting us to pray, read scriptures, attend the temple, and have family home evening: “I am not suggesting that all of life’s struggles will disappear as you do these things.  We came to mortal life precisely to grow from trials and testing.  Challenges help us become more like our Father in Heaven, and the Atonement of Jesus Christ makes it possible to endure those challenges.  I testify that as we actively come unto Him, we can endure every temptation, every heartache, every challenge we face.” And ultimately that’s exactly what Job did, and because of his faithfulness “the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning” (Job 42:12).