Then the story relates that Job is afflicted with sores all over his body. For a time he keeps his peace, but finally with the arrival of three friends who have come to console him, "Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth." (Job 3:1)
Job's friends argue with him in an effort to persuade him to retract his curse. Each in his own way offers a justification for Job's suffering. It is suggested that Job has acted unjustly, even if he did not intend to do so, and is therefore being chastened by God. It is also asserted that, if Job is blameless, he is suffering for the sins of his forefathers, for in the law of Moses it is clearly stated that God will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children. (Job 21:19)
Since God is just and Lord of history, Job's friends conclude that the suffering of Job can only be just. All that remains unclear, they argue, is the nature of the sin that Job has either committed or inherited.
Job's answer to all these arguments is to assert that his suffering and the suffering of many others is without purpose and therefore unjust. "Why do the wicked live, reach old age, and grow mighty in power?" he asks. (Job 21:7) They clearly go unpunished even though they deny God by saying, "What is the Almighty that we should serve him? And what profit do we get if we pray to him?" (Job 21:15) Job affirms that he has lived righteously, or at least not sinned so grievously as to justify the calamity that has befallen him.
Job finds the assertion that he is suffering for the sins of his father to be unfair and therefore morally unacceptable. He argues that if life is unjust and God is in control of life, then God is unjust, and thus that there is no purpose to his suffering or to life itself. Job concludes that the Lord's blessings are as arbitrary as is their withdrawal, and so he boldly challenges God to account for the sufferings inflicted on him and for the injustice of life.
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