David Bahn – Reflections

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These reflections grow out of the Follow the Word Bible reading program at St. John Lutheran Church in Cypress, Texas. This year we are reading through the Scriptures together, listening for how God speaks through his Word day by day. I hope you will join me on this journey.

Today’s readings are Job 20-22; Psalm 20.

Psalm 20

May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble!
    May the name of the God of Jacob protect you!
² May he send you help from the sanctuary
    and give you support from Zion!
³ May he remember all your offerings
    and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices! Selah

⁴ May he grant you your heart’s desire
    and fulfill all your plans!
⁵ May we shout for joy over your salvation,
    and in the name of our God set up our banners!
May the Lord fulfill all your petitions!

⁶ Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed;
    he will answer him from his holy heaven
    with the saving might of his right hand.
⁷ Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
    but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
⁸ They collapse and fall,
    but we rise and stand upright.

⁹ O Lord, save the king!
    May he answer us when we call.

In Job 20–22 we see these convictions collide. Zophar insists that the prosperity of the wicked is always temporary and that suffering inevitably exposes hidden sin. Job counters that lived experience contradicts this claim: many wicked people flourish and die in peace, showing that suffering cannot be explained by simple moral formulas. Eliphaz responds by moving from implication to accusation, defending God’s transcendence while turning repentance into a means of restoring material blessing. The conversations are combative and ultimately self-defeating.

Psalm 20 then offers a striking counterpoint. While it affirms that the wicked collapse and fall and that the righteous stand firm (v. 8), it does not defend God’s predictability in the way Job’s friends do. Instead, the psalm points to God’s justice. It calls us to trust that justice even when outcomes are unclear and suffering seems undeserved.

This is the tension Job lives in. Whether or not he fully trusts God’s justice, he never disengages from God himself. His anger and accusations presume that God is there and that God is just – otherwise his protest would make no sense. Job’s struggle is not unbelief, but faith under strain.

There is only One who entrusts himself perfectly to God’s justice in the face of profound injustice. Jesus knew how to lament and how to expose empty piety. And at the moment of his deepest suffering, he placed himself wholly in his Father’s care: “Into your hands I commit my spirit.”

It is easy to fall into the pattern of Job’s friends – accusing, correcting, and pontificating. It is also easy to become defensive and self-righteous like Job, even charging God with injustice. But Jesus is not merely an example to imitate. He is God’s Son and our savior, the one who bears injustice for us and entrusts us, even in suffering, into the hands of a just and faithful God.

Job was honest with God. He remained engaged with God. He will be vindicated, but not by his own righteousness, but by God’s grace.