By His Word
“The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.” (Job 1:21 NIV)
There are days when the news comes faster than we can take it in. Before we have found words for one loss, another arrives. That is how the first chapter of Job reads. One messenger is still speaking when the next appears. Job loses livestock and servants, and then he learns that his sons and daughters have died when the house where they were gathered collapsed. Earlier in the chapter, we see him offering sacrifices on behalf of those same children. His care for them was part of the ordinary rhythm of his life. Now, when the last messenger has finished speaking, Job gets up, tears his robe, shaves his head, and falls to the ground. I linger over that sequence because it tells me something about the kind of worship God receives. Job comes before God wearing the very garment he has torn in grief.
The NET Bible notes explain that tearing an outer garment was a customary act of mourning. The Hebrew verb at the end of verse 20, vayyishtaḥu (וַיִּשְׁתָּחוּ), describes bowing low to the ground. Job’s words in the next verse show that his bow is an act of worship. He blesses the Lord while the signs of his anguish are still visible. Job brings his grief into worship in the same breath that he blesses God. That matters on a morning when the best we can do is sit at the kitchen table with an open Bible and pray one sentence. The Lord hears that sentence. A prayer can be brief because the sorrow is heavy, and it can be a genuine act of trust.
The narrator lets us see something Job himself cannot see. The adversary has questioned whether Job fears God for God’s own sake or because his life has been blessed. God sets a limit on what the adversary can do, and Job hears only the reports of what has happened. That difference between what the reader knows and what Job knows is worth remembering when someone asks us why a tragedy happened. We can speak about God’s providence, His wise care and rule over creation, with humility about what He has left hidden. Job himself will go on to lament the day of his birth and plead to be heard. Centuries later, James calls his response hypomonē (ὑπομονή), or perseverance, and reminds us of the Lord’s compassion and mercy (James 5:11). Job’s endurance has room for all those hard conversations with God. Sometimes perseverance is returning to God with the same question because He is still the One you want to hear you.
Alistair Begg’s reflection on this passage takes us to the suffering of Christ. I think of Jesus at Lazarus’s tomb, where He wept in the company of grieving friends (John 11:33–36). He knew what He was about to do, and He still stopped to share their sorrow. That scene helps me when I wonder what to say to someone whose life has just changed. I can let them speak the name of the person they miss. I can sit through a silence without reaching for a reason. I can put a reminder on my calendar to call again in a few weeks, when others have returned to their routines and the quiet has settled in. Such ordinary kindness is one way we can bear witness to the care of Christ.
Job 1:20–22 gives us a biblical picture of worship in grief. Job mourns openly, acknowledges that his life rests in God’s hands, and blesses the Lord while the loss is still fresh. If this Scripture meets you in sorrow today, try reading it aloud slowly. Pause where Job falls to the ground. Give yourself time to name what hurts before you say anything else. Then, if you have words for it, borrow this short prayer from Psalm 31:15. “My times are in your hands.” The times you would gladly live again and the hours you can barely get through belong in that prayer. You can bring both before the Lord today.
Pastor Hogg
FEEL FREE TO COMMENT, SUBSCRIBE OR POST SO OTHERS MAY KNOW