If chapter 29 described life under the smile of God, Job 30 throbs with the terrible pain of life under His wrath. In the previous chapter, we considered the supreme joy of fellowship with God and the dignity rightly given to one who reflects His love. In this chapter, we see the opposite: Job perceives that God is hostile toward Him as he is entirely stripped of all honor and dignity. No longer longing for a wonderful past, Job is trapped in a miserable present. The indignity of Job focuses on mockery. In a culture which typically honored their elders, Job is scorned by those younger than him. And he is an outcast even among the outcasts, laughed at by thieves and robbers. They come from terrible families. These men are useless and unemployable, rightly driven out from human society because of their despicable character. Yet Job, this great, noble, righteous man is counted as lower even than them (v 1-8). He has become one of their jokes and cruel songs are sung about him. To “become a Job” is now an idiom or “byword” to refer to someone who is utterly cursed and worthless. People keep their distance from him, but spit in his face when they do see him. All this happens because God has “loosed” Job’s “cord” and brought him low, as when a tent collapses. Under attack and terrorized by the indignities inflicted upon him, Job is experiencing something of what Jesus will later suffer as He too is mocked and scorned (v 9-15). Job’s affliction is relentless, with gnawing pain that “takes no rest.” On and on it goes, until his whole being is “poured out.” He feels strangled by his own shirt and discarded by God to die in the mud (v 16-19). He cries out to the LORD in his desperation, but he is not answered. Every prayer is met with silence from Heaven. In some deeply mysterious way, God has become a cruel persecutor who seems intent on killing His servant. Job’s undeserved suffering must not end until God’s purposes are fully achieved (v 20-23). How is it that God would not treat Job as Job had treated others? Job wept for those who suffered, but God seems to feel no compassion for him. Instead, God sends him yet more evil and deeper darkness (v 24-26). Each morning, Job wakes up to another day of affliction. He is outwardly decaying, and inwardly he is filled with loneliness and grief (v 27-31). This is a deep and moving anticipation of the cross of Christ, where the Righteous One was plunged into the deepest darkness of all—stripped of His dignity, unfairly condemned, and left to die the disgraceful death of sinners. For further meditation: