If only Job’s friends had stayed silent after those seven days! Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for sympathy to turn to hostility and comfort to turn to condemnation! In these three chapters, Job crafted a sort of defense, starting with his bona fides.

One of my favorite Christmas movies is It’s a Wonderful Life. In the movie, George Bailey is in such dire straits that, while standing on a bridge, he contemplates jumping into the water below. After being rescued by his guardian angel, George says, “I suppose it would have been better if I’d never been born at all.” Job knew that feeling! Things were so bad that Job came to the point of cursing the day he was born. 

WHAT IN THE WORLD!! Imagine this: Your whole world has fallen apart! Everything that is important to you and everything that has sustained you is completely gone!

My how the tables have turned! This phrase actually came from a sermon by Robert Sanderson in 1634, “Whoever thou art that does another wrong, do but turn the tables’ imagine thy neighbour were now playing thy game, and thou his.” It was in reference to the table games that people played (backgammon, chess) and the idea of switching sides in the middle, so you were stuck with the set-up you had designed now working against you.

As Haman left the first banquet, he was flying high. That is until he passed Mordecai who, you guessed it, would not stand up and greet him. In response to this, Haman went from confident to enraged.  It is amazing as humans how fickle we can be. When Haman got home, he and his wife, along with a couple of friends, discussed this slight from Mordecai and devised a plan. Haman decided to build gallows to impale Mordecai on! After all, he was Haman, the king’s buddy, as well as the guy Queen Esther had invited to not one, but two private banquets! Haman felt he could do whatever he wanted. Yet while Haman and his friends were scheming, God was working.