Other comments on this day's readings can be found here.
Reading 1 - Job 5
"It must have been one of the sorest trials that Job had to
suffer, when his closest friends condemned him for wickedness, and refusal to
acknowledge the righteousness of God. Job knew that he was not guilty of such
terrible crimes against the great One he worshipped. His friends acted without
knowledge of the true facts to which we are privy through the Inspired Record.
Eliphaz claimed to have received a visitation, and this colored his comments. He
asserts:
That suffering stems from personal folly: vv 1-7.
That as suffering is
divine judgment on sin, Job should seek God's forgiveness: vv 8-16.
If Job
places himself in the hands of God, He may deliver him: vv 17-27.
"But Eliphaz's basic mistake is applying what ultimately will
be to present circumstances, and so observing all things from that biased
viewpoint. He presses the teaching of the vision by the evidence of personal
experience, and in so doing adds to the sufferings of Job -- as the
misunderstanding of the apostles (and ourselves!) added to the distress of the
Lord Jesus" (GE Mansfield).
Reading 2 - Mic 1:10-16
In Mic 1:10-16, the prophet used several clever wordplays in
this poem to describe the desolation that God would bring on Judah. He selected
towns and villages near his own hometown in Judah's Shephelah whose names were
similar to the coming devastations or to other conditions that he described.
"There follows a series of lamentations for villages in the
Shephelah, or coastal plain, along which Sennacherib was to sweep in his
triumphal invasion. The section is to be compared with the remarkable passage
Isa 10:28-32 -- where the prophet describes the panic spreading from one town to
another as the Assyrians invaded from the northeast, whereas Micah describes the
effect of the invasion from the southwest, even as far as Lachish" (Fred Pearce,
"From Hosea to Zephaniah" 132).
"This section begins with words that recall David's lament at
the death of Saul and ends with the name of the cave where David hid from Saul
[Adullam: v 15]. These dark moments in David's life form a gloomy backdrop to
the description of the fall of the towns Micah spoke of. Though he is never
directly mentioned, the figure of David appears hauntingly in the tapestry of
destruction -- not a David standing tall in triumph, but a David bowed down by
humiliation. It is as if Micah saw in the fall of each town and the eventual
captivity of the two kingdoms the final dissolution of the Davidic monarchy.
Like David, the glory of Israel would come to Adullam" (Expositor's Bible
Commentary).
Reading 3 - Heb 11:13
"And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on
earth" (Heb 11:13).
The story is told about some Christians who were traveling in
the Middle East. They heard about a wise, devout, beloved old believer, so they
went out of their way to visit him. When they finally found him, they discovered
that he was living in a simple hut. All he had inside was a rough cot, a chair,
a table, and a battered stove for heating and cooking. The visitors were shocked
to see how few possessions the man had, and one of them blurted out, "Well,
where is your furniture?" The aged saint replied by gently asking, "Where is
yours?" The visitor, sputtering a little, responded, "Why, at home, of course. I
don't carry it with me; I'm traveling." "So am I," the godly Christian replied.
"So am I."