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When my son was two years old, I bought him a light-blue tee shirt with the words "HERE COMES TROUBLE" emblazoned on the front. I thought it was only appropriate to warn the world. In fact, Will has been a delightful son, mild mannered, thoughtful and considerate.

That tee shirt came to mind when I mulled over Job's last words in his first cry of pain: "I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest; but trouble comes (Job 3:26)." The Hebrew is even more vivid. The verse is 8 words. The "nots" are "lo" in Hebrew, the "comes" is "bo" and the three verbs all have three syllable verbs ending in "tee." Thus the rhythm is "Lo....tee, lo.....tee, lo....tee, bo....ROGEZ." "Rogez" is the Hebrew word for trouble or turmoil. The rhythmic structure of Hebrew makes trouble stand out in all its painful glory. There are at least three ways in which trouble now will come.

Trouble for Job

Trouble comes for Job in two ways. First, his bodily and mental pain return to him. In the second half of Job 3 he took a mental trip to Sheol, where he would be at rest, freed from the pain he feels. After that journey, however, he returns to the full blazing reality of his anguish. The pain returns; trouble comes. Second, he probably sees the friends fidgeting, waiting to speak. They had been quiet for at least a week while they witnessed his suffering (2:11-13). Now they feel they must respond to Job's provocative words. He knows this will bring added trouble to him.

Trouble for the Friends

Job's pain will lead him on an unmatched exploration of the toll loss exacts on a human life. Without question Job has all the "best lines" in the drama, even though the friends are more than just talking heads. But Job will subject their beloved theology of retributive justice to a most searching scrutiny. In biblical terms, it will be weighed in the balance and found wanting. The more Job probes, the more vehement are the friends' defenses of the tradition. The tradition takes on the shape of a caricature, and the careful reader realizes that there is little to be said for it.

Trouble for the Reader

So it comes to us, the readers of Job. An insistent question confronts us. How has pain changed our lives? What are the lessons that loss has brought us? What lessons have we learned, or, even more painfully, refused to learn? How has pain brought us face to face with things about ourselves we would rather not see at all? If we say that pain has not changed our lives, are we deceiving ourselves? Job would certainly have had that opinion in Job 1-2, but by the time he got to Job 3, his former life was a dream. How, finally, in the midst of all the grief of life, can we affirm with integrity that life is a gift--that it is very, very good?