Friends beating him down, saying he must have done something really wrong. The old and wise reminding him that "you get what you gave."
For Job, it was kind of like someone saying to a sports team "You know, if you hadn't gone out partying all night last night, you might have been able to play hard for an hour." Job's friends, old-timers like himself were just gushing with discouragement.
Yet, for all the "down" attitudes, Job was saying "hold on, I got something to say!" Chapters twenty-six through twenty-eight were more like statements of how he remembers the God he serves.[more] Job took time to make sure his friends know that he recognized that his God was still in control.
The images in chapter twenty-nine show that Job was not just a rich man, but someone who knew how to treat others. And because of the way he had been treated, that was the treatment he passed on. He was so much a vessel for his friend, God, that people honored him for how he honored God.
Job left no stone unturned in his saga. He delivered the poor, helped the orphans. He acted righteously and with justice. People trusted him to care for them and act as an honest judge.
In the midst of all this "doing good", tragedy struck, and now a man who had done them no wrong was an outcast. All because "evil came to an evil-doer."
That is the view many took of Job. For all the good he had done was as nothing now.
Guess the question now is "How am I stacking up?"