1. Recall a moment when you have you experienced Job's situation either as 'Job' or as 'friend'? How will reading Job help you to respond next time?
2. Mirror Time. If reading Job calls to mind a time when you faced a similar crisis, reflect on who helped, who didn't and with what result. If it calls to mind an occasion when you found yourself in the position of the friends, reflect on what you did and what you might have done better. Excellent material for role play if you belong to a Study Group.
3. Reflect on the Two Worlds (Before and After). What other differences can you imagine? Now imagine the next next ten years in the Job household.
4. Imagine the conversation of the three friends on the way home. How might they have reacted to Elihu and what might they have learned?
5. Would Job ever have appreciated 'the other world' had it not been for sufferings and if the friends had known that how differently might they have responded to him?
Further Reading
Alter, Robert, The Art of Biblical Poetry, T & T Clark, Edinburgh, 1990.
Mursell, Gordon, Out of the Deep, Darton, Longman & Todd, London, 1989.