Job Laments Terror, Bodily Pain, and Unanswered Cry

Terrors turn his welfare into a cloud

Terrors are turned on Job. They pursue his soul as the wind. His welfare passes as a cloud. His soul is poured out upon him. Days of affliction have taken hold. At night his bones are pierced. His sinews take no rest. By great force his garment is changed. God has bound him as the collar of his coat. God has cast him into the mire, and he is become like dust and ashes.

He cries, and the answer he wants does not come

He cries to God, and God does not hear him. He stands up, and God regards him not. God is become cruel to him, in his interpretation, and opposes him with a strong hand. He is carried on the wind, dissolved, and knows that God will bring him to death, the house appointed for all living.

Yet in a falling heap a person stretches out a hand, and in destruction a person cries. Did not Job weep for the one in trouble? Was not his soul grieved for the poor? When he looked for good, evil came. When he waited for light, darkness came. His bowels boil. Days of affliction prevent him. He goes mourning without the sun. He stands up in the congregation and cries. He is a brother to jackals, a companion to owls. His skin is black and peels. His bones are burned with heat. Harp is turned to mourning, organ to the voice of them that weep.

The bodily poetry is testimony, not a diagnosis, not a chart, not a reason to withhold treatment. Unanswered cry is not a command to stop asking for medical help, mental-health care, food, shelter, or a friend who will sit. Job's own grief for the poor remains the moral contrast: he expected the God he had imitated to meet him in the same way.