The Piety of the Ash Heap Text: Job 1:20-22
Introduction: The Therapeutic Heresy
We live in a soft age, an age that has mistaken comfort for a birthright and ease for a blessing. Our entire culture is geared toward the elimination of pain, the management of grief, and the pursuit of personal happiness as the highest good. When suffering inevitably crashes through our carefully constructed bubble wrap, the modern response is therapeutic. We are told to find our truth, to process our feelings, to look inward. God, if He is mentioned at all, is brought in as a cosmic therapist, whose job is to affirm our feelings and restore our sense of well being as quickly as possible.
Into this sentimental, therapeutic mush, the book of Job lands like a meteor. And the response of Job in our text is perhaps one of the most jarring and counter-cultural displays of piety in all of Scripture. It is an offense to our modern sensibilities. Job does not "process." He does not demand answers. He does not put God in the dock. He worships. This is not the response of a stoic, bottling up his emotions. This is the response of a man who knows God. And because he knows God, he knows how to grieve. He knows how to suffer. He knows where to turn when the bottom drops out of his world.
The scene is one of absolute devastation. In a series of rapid-fire blows, Job has lost everything. His oxen, his donkeys, his sheep, his camels, his servants, and most crushingly, all ten of his children, have been wiped out. The sheer scale of the loss is breathtaking. This is not a bad day; this is the end of a world. And Satan, the great accuser, is watching from the mezzanine, confident that Job will crack, that he will finally "curse God to his face." Satan believes that piety is transactional, that men only serve God for the stuff they get out of it. Remove the stuff, he reasons, and the faith will evaporate.
What we are about to witness is the complete and utter refutation of Satan's central lie. Job's response is a master class in godly suffering. It is a lesson in the grammar of grief, a grammar that our world has completely forgotten. It teaches us that the first move in suffering is not inward to our feelings, but upward to our God.
The Text
Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, And naked I shall return there. Yahweh gave, and Yahweh has taken away. Blessed be the name of Yahweh." Through all this Job did not sin, nor did he give offense to God.
(Job 1:20-22 LSB)
Grief and Worship (v. 20)
We begin with Job's immediate, physical, and spiritual reaction.
"Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped." (Job 1:20)
Notice the sequence. First, Job arose. He did not collapse into a puddle of catatonic despair. He acted. But his actions were not a denial of his pain. He "tore his robe and shaved his head." These were common, culturally understood expressions of profound grief and mourning. This was not stoicism. This was raw, honest anguish. The Bible does not command us to be emotionless in the face of tragedy. Grief is not a sin. Jesus wept. Tearing your robe was an external sign of an internal reality: his heart was ripped apart. Shaving his head was a sign of being stripped bare, of humiliation and loss.
But what does he do next? This is the pivot upon which everything turns. He "fell to the ground and worshiped." Our therapeutic culture would say he fell to the ground and emoted, or fell to the ground and questioned, or fell to the ground and despaired. Job falls to the ground and worships. He does not pretend he isn't in agony. He brings his agony, his torn heart, his stripped life, and he lays it on the altar. This is the central lesson: worship is not the opposite of grief. Worship is the proper context for grief. To worship in the midst of pain is to declare that God is God, and you are not. It is to affirm that His throne is occupied, even when your house is empty.
This act of worship is a declaration of war against the narrative of Satan. Satan's premise is that worship is a fair-weather activity. Job demonstrates that true worship is grounded not in circumstances, but in the character of God. He brings his lament to the only one who can handle it. He does not vent into the void; he prostrates himself before the throne.
The Great Doxology (v. 21)
Having assumed the posture of worship, Job now gives voice to it. And what he says is one of the most profound statements of theological sanity in all of literature.
"And he said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, And naked I shall return there. Yahweh gave, and Yahweh has taken away. Blessed be the name of Yahweh.'" (Job 1:21)
First, Job affirms his creatureliness. "Naked I came from my mother's womb, And naked I shall return there." He is remembering the fundamental truth of his existence. He came into this world with nothing. He will leave this world with nothing. Everything he had, from his children to his camels, was a gift. It was a loan. He was a steward, not an owner. This is the bedrock of the Creator/creature distinction. We are not entitled to anything. To remember this is to be armed against the bitterness of entitlement. When you know that everything is a gift, you can receive it with gratitude and release it, if required, with submission, however painful.
Second, Job affirms God's absolute sovereignty. "Yahweh gave, and Yahweh has taken away." Notice he does not say, "Yahweh gave, and the Sabeans and Chaldeans have taken away." He does not say, "Yahweh gave, and a freak windstorm has taken away." He sees past the secondary causes straight to the first cause. He knows that behind the marauders and the storm is the sovereign hand of God. This is what our modern, deistic sensibilities cannot handle. We want a God who gives the good things, but we want to blame "fate" or "chance" or "evil men" for the bad things. Job's theology is far more robust. He knows that God is the Lord of both the giving and the taking. As he says later, "Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?" (Job 2:10). This is not fatalism; it is faith in a God who is utterly in control, who works all things, even the terrible things, according to the counsel of His will (Eph. 1:11).
And what is the conclusion of this high theology? Despair? Resignation? No. Doxology. "Blessed be the name of Yahweh." This is the pinnacle. To bless God's name is to declare His name worthy of praise, regardless of what that name has just decreed for your life. Job is saying that God is good when He gives, and God is good when He takes away. His goodness is not contingent on Job's comfort. His worthiness is not measured by Job's portfolio. God is worthy because He is God. Period. This is the faith that silences hell.
The Divine Verdict (v. 22)
The final verse of the chapter gives us Heaven's commentary on Job's response. It is the divine scorecard for this first round of testing.
"Through all this Job did not sin, nor did he give offense to God." (Job 1:22)
This is a crucial statement. It tells us that everything Job just did and said, the robe-tearing, the head-shaving, the worship, the declaration of God's sovereignty, was the right and godly response. He did not sin. But the second phrase is even more telling. "Nor did he give offense to God." The Hebrew is literally that he did not "attribute foolishness" to God. He did not charge God with wrongdoing. He did not look at the ruin of his life and conclude that God had made a mistake, that God had been unjust, or that God had lost control.
This is the essential temptation in all suffering: to judge God. It is to climb up onto a throne of our own making, look down on the Almighty, and deliver our verdict on His performance. It is to say, "If I were God, I would not have allowed this." Job refuses this temptation. He maintains his place as the creature. He understands that the potter has rights over the clay. He does not understand the "why" of his suffering, not at this point. But he knows the "Who." And because he knows the character of the Who, he can trust Him in the absence of the why.
The Greater Job
Job is a magnificent figure, a titan of faith. But as with all Old Testament saints, he is a signpost. He points forward to one greater than himself. He points to the Lord Jesus Christ, the ultimate suffering servant.
Job was stripped of his possessions and his children. Jesus, who was rich, for our sakes became poor (2 Cor. 8:9). He was stripped of his garments, and hung naked on a cross. Job sat on an ash heap among the ashes of his former life. Jesus bore the ashes of our sin and rebellion in His own body. Job was afflicted by Satan, with God's permission. Jesus was crushed by the Father Himself, bearing the full, undiluted wrath that we deserved (Isaiah 53:10).
Job blessed the name of the Lord who takes away. Jesus, in the garden, prayed, "Not my will, but yours, be done," (Luke 22:42) as the cup of God's wrath, the ultimate "taking away," was presented to Him. Job fell to the ground and worshiped. Jesus humbled Himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Phil. 2:8). Job did not sin or charge God with foolishness. Jesus was the spotless lamb, who committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth (1 Peter 2:22).
Because of the greater Job, our suffering takes on a new meaning. We are not left alone on our ash heaps. We are united to Christ in His sufferings, so that we may also be united to Him in His resurrection (Rom. 6:5). Our losses are not meaningless, because He is weaving them into a story of redemption that is far grander than we can imagine. Because He was stripped naked, we can be clothed in His righteousness. Because He was taken by God in judgment, we who are in Him will never be taken away.
Therefore, when suffering comes, and it will, we are called to this same rugged, doxological piety. We grieve, yes. We tear our robes. But we also fall and worship. We acknowledge our creatureliness. We affirm His sovereignty. And through tears, we bless His holy name. For the God who gives and takes away is the same God who gave His only Son, so that in the end, He might give us everything.