Job 19:1-3

1 Then Job ['Iyowb] answered [`anah] and said ['amar],

2 How long will ye vex [yagah] my soul [nephesh], and break [daka'] me in pieces with words [millah]?

3 These ten [`eser] times [pa`am] have ye reproached [kalam] me: ye are not ashamed [buwsh] that ye make yourselves strange [hakar] to me. KJV-Interlinear

1 Then Job responded, 2 'How long will you torment me, And crush me with words? 3 'These ten times you have insulted me, You are not ashamed to wrong me. NASB

You could look at the number of times that Job's friends have criticized him, that number which is five times, and double it since they have come at him with a great deal of vigor, but here Job did not count their speeches, he is simply using a figure of speech to indicate that they have come at him many times.

We could say, 'Once, twice, or a dozen,' to indicate several occurrences of some activity. We do not need to be count specific, when all we are doing is generalizing the nagging activity.

And nagging is exactly what his friends are doing. Nagging is typically characterized as a feminine trait. Something that old women do repeatedly in order to command some semblance of authority when they have no authority.

And if you are either old or female, do not take offense. We are studying a spiritual principle using worldly stereotype concepts. And whether they are true or not, is irrelevant.

Job has been speaking truth, from a position of truth. His friends have been reciting true parables or sayings from a position of ignorance.

Ignorance speaks stubbornly from lack of wisdom, and in so doing does not listen to truth.

His friends have heard Job speak, but they reject his words because they are entrenched in their own opinions. They lack legitimate authority, yet they desire recognition. So they have to improvise and in so doing they repeat and repeat their opinions with greater and greater vigor in order to establish their authority by forcing random statements as wisdom. In other words, they are nagging.

A nagger has to repeat and repeat, and speak louder and louder in order to impose their control, or win their argument. With them winning is everything, regardless of the truth of a matter. So they become more and more intimidating, louder, critical, and judgmental and as Job states here, they try to crush their victim with their repetitious words.

Ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times, makes no difference. The nagger is a control freak, and to them nearly everything in life becomes a competition. They do not have the position or authority, which they want, or feel they deserve, but they will stop at nothing to get it any way they can.

And, they are not ashamed at the tactics they use in getting their way. Their victim may be a friend, a family member, a work associate, or just a stranger, yet they will pursue with vigor, their destruction of anyone who gets in the way of their self-appointed command of the situation.

Jobs friends have heard Jobs words, but Job is in no 'respectful' position to instruct them. After all who is suffering here, and who is not? So why should they listen to him?

A nagger will remind you of 'your' failures, just to keep you in your place.

But then, we already know that his friends originally came to help Job, but instead have turned their compassion into criticism, judgment, and condemnation, and thus are guilty of the very charges of hypocrisy, of closed mindedness, and of pretended innocence, that they have charged against Job.

And one more thing. Job says that they 'make themselves strange to me.' This can be looked as one who is ashamed, but this shame is a phony front, and a convenient criticism. Jobs friends act as though they are ashamed of Job, but Jobs meaning here is that they are stiff necked or rigid to the point of wonderment. In other words, he is calling them stubborn and stupid.

And that is exactly what nagging people who profess wisdom, but lack it, are.

Wisdom stands on its own and needs no support.

People who lack wisdom have to resort to causing harm to others in order to promote themselves. They have to boast or brag, or in some way imply that they have or will have or do have, something greater. And so they feel that they have to destroy or put their opponents into their lower place through nagging or through intimidation, or through gossip, or through whatever means to destroy their victims reputation and status before family, friends, or whomever it is they are trying to impress.

These tactics are obvious in social circles, in politics, is divorces where children or friends are concerned, and so forth.

Stubborn and stupid, is a good description of someone who tries to gain something which they are not entitled to, of someone who desires promotion when they lack ability, of someone who demands love but lack honor, of someone who demands loyalty but lack virtue, of someone who lusts for success but lack integrity, of someone who expects approbation or recognition but lack achievement.

Now is the time to post a prayer.