HEBREW WORD STUDY – ROCK PILE – YAGOR יגר   Yod Gimmel Resh

Job 9:28:  “I am afraid of all my sorrow, I know thou wilt not hold me innocent.”  

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains.  It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”  C.S. Lewis

Job’s friends approached him with simple human logic.  All suffering is the result of sin.  Job is suffering, therefore Job has sinned.    Job sends that bit of logic into a tail spin with a bit of his own logic in 9:28; “Suffering will not redeem one’s sins, therefore if I sinned, I’m toast.”  Ok, maybe I did paraphrase that verse a little. 

But that is pretty much the general consensus among Christian commentators as to what Job means when he says that he is afraid of his suffering. That is, that if suffering is due to sin, then not only he but his friends are in for one painful ride. If he is suffering because he sinned, and this suffering will not cleanse his sin, then he is doomed to keep suffering.  There is no hope. Of course this then gives a good opening to the Gospel message.  I still believe that is what Job is saying but I am also persuaded that he is expressing something else as well in this statement. 

I mean stop and think about it.  If God brings about suffering because of you sin as a punishment, then what good is the cross?  After all punishment is suppose to be your atonement for your sins so once you’ve suffered, the price has been paid.  Jopb even takes it a step further.  If his sorrows keep piling and his pain keeps increasing as punishment for his sins, in other words his punishment is atoning for his sins, then what does that make his sorrow?  It makes it a god or an idol to which he goes to for redemption but Job says; “No, No, my redeemer lives.” Job 19:25. That rock pile of suffering will only become an idol that will trip him up. Rather than read the message behind his suffering, he will just focus on the suffering itself and that suffering will in effect become an idol if he believes it is atoning for his sin. You see he says he is afraid of his sorrow. The word of afraid is yagor, which is a fear for your own skin or safety but its Semitic root means a rock pile, like in an idol.  So Job is actually saying he is afraid his trials, sorrow and suffering will become an idol.

In the midst of all this suffering Job could not defend himself against the accusations of his friends, he could not explain the reason for his sufferings, but one thing he did know and that was that he must keep his focus on God and not his sufferings.  He must watch carefully as the rocks of his affliction keep piling up so that he does not trip over this rock heap and let it become an idol.  He must continue to worship God, trust in God for his redemption and not his sufferings. 

Clearly Job was in the midst of a spiritual warfare.  We learn that in the first chapter.  The Apostle Paul also reminds us that we are in a spiritual warfare.  In that warfare we may suffer wounds and afflictions.  We may not understand the reasons for our battle wounds, but like Job, we need to guard against the infections of idolatry that these wounds can produce. 

Yes, I see a Gospel message here, that no amount of personal suffering will atone for our sins, only the suffering of Jesus Christ will bring that atonement.   But I also see another message here.  Even thought our sufferings are not be for redemptive purposes God is an opportunist and in our sufferings He is shouting to us.  Yet, we may become so focused on the rock heap of sorrow and pain that we do not hear God because we have been listening to the rocks crying out.  We worship and serve the rock heap rather than God.  Like Job, we must fear our sufferings and pain.  Not fear them for what they can do to us physically, but what they can do to us spiritually.