Gideon and his three hundred men, exhausted yet keeping up the pursuit, came to the Jordan and crossed it. He said to the men of Sukkoth, ‘Give my troops some bread; they are worn out, and I am still pursuing Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian.’ But the officials of Sukkoth said, ‘Do you already have the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna in your possession? Why should we give bread to your troops?’ Then Gideon replied, ‘Just for that, when the Lord has given Zebah and Zalmunna into my hand, I will tear your flesh with desert thorns and briers.’ From there he went up to Peniel and made the same request of them, but they answered as the men of Sukkoth had. So he said to the men of Peniel, ‘When I return in triumph, I will tear down this tower.’

-Judges 8:4-9

Where is the Gideon who said, “If you are with us, where are all those miracles our forefathers told us about when you parted the Red Sea and fell the walls of Jericho” (Judges 6:13)?

Midian was subdued before the Israelites and did not raise its head again. During Gideon’s lifetime, the land had peace for forty years.

-Judges 8:28

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. He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.

-Job 1:1-3

When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would send and have them purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, 'Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.' This was Job's regular custom.

-Job 1:5

May the name of the Lord be praised!

-Job 1:21d

Shall we accept good and not bad from the Lord?

-Job 2:10b

When Job's three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.

-Job 2:11

  

Eliphaz: Oldest and the kindest

  

A spirit glided past my face and the hair on my body stood on end. It stopped, but I could not tell what it was. A form stood before my eyes, and I heard a hushed voice: Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can a man be more pure than his maker?

-Job 4:15-17

If only my anguish could be weighed and all my misery be placed on the scales! It would surely outweigh the sand of the seas… The arrows of the Almighty are in me, my spirit drinks in their poison; God’s terrors are marshaled against me… A despairing man should have the devotion of his friends.

-Job 6:1-4,14

Teach me and I will hold my peace and cause me to understand.

-Job 6:24

  

Bildad.

  

Your words are a blustering wind. Ask the former generations and find out what their fathers learned, for we were born only yesterday and know nothing. Will they not bring forth words from their understanding?

-Job 8: 2, 8-10

If only there were someone to arbitrate between God and Me!

-Job 9:33a

  

Zophar: Youngest and the rudest!

  

It is more likely that a donkey will give birth to a human being than for you to listen to wisdom!

-Job 11:12

If you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent, then, free of fault, you will lift up your face; you will stand firm and without fear.

-Job 11:14-15

Doubtless you are the only people who matter, and wisdom will die with you! But I have a mind as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Who does not know all these things?

-Job 12:2-3

When Job's three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.

-Job 2:11

“Sympathize with him”: Hebrew nud: Rocking and nodding of the head.

When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads.

-Job 2:12

Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.

-Job 2:13

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to be silent and a time to speak.

-Ecclesiastes 3:1-2b, 4, 7b

I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

-Ecclesiastes 3: 10,11

  

Suffering is more than philosophical, it is personal.

  

If only there were someone to arbitrate between God and Me!

-Job 9:33

  

There is one who is cheering him on from the ultimate balcony!

  

I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!

-Job 19:25-27

All suffering has to be dealt with personally but also with a real understanding that there us life beyond the grave. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God.

-Job 19:26

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep.

-1 Thessalonians 4:13-14

Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.

-John 11:38

We are not meant to die; we were meant to last. We were meant to get more and more beautiful as time goes on, not more and more enfeebled. We were meant to get stronger, not to weaken and die. Paul explains in Romans 8:18-23 that when we turned from God to be our own Lords and Saviors, everything broke. Our bodies, the natural order, our hearts, our relationships—nothing works the way it was originally designed. It is all marred, distorted, broken, and death is a part of that. So, Jesus weeps and is angry at the monstrosity of death. It is a deep distortion of the creation He loves.

-Tim Keller, “On Death”

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore, encourage each other with these words.

-1 Thessalonians 4:16-18

That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know who I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.

-2 Timothy 1:12

  

  

  

  

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