Job's Challenge

Much has been said about the patience of Job. The book is often understood as an exploration of the question of theodicy -- that is, how God can be declared just in the light of innocent suffering. In the absence of answers, Job has been held up as a model of quiet faithfulness.

But as you will hear in the video lecture, this book serves a much larger narrative role. Because this is the last exchange in the Hebrew Bible between human and divine, it closes a chapter in the relationship between the God and the people of Israel ... and opens a new one. It would be good to explore the story.

The book opens with a declaration that Job "was blameless and upright, one who feared God, and turned away from evil" (RSV). This description is never applied to any other biblical character. Just in case we wonder how accurate it really is, YHWH himself repeats it in v. 8: "There is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil." Perhaps that should be surprise enough, but more surprising is the one to whom YHWH is speaking: the Satan.¹ As the narrative opens, the action is in the throne room of God. All the angels² have arrived "to present themselves before God," and the Satan is in their midst. YHWH draws attention to Job, and the Satan's response is, in essence, that Job's faithfulness may have been be bought -- he is faithful because he has been blessed. YHWH turns over to the satan the power to change all that, as long as he does not hurt Job himself.

In the next 7 verses Job loses it all -- his children, his servants, his animals, his crops. But "in all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrong" (1:22).

The scene in heaven is repeated in chapter 2, as YHWH expresses pride in Job, and the Satan dismisses it: "Skin for skin!" -- cause a little hurt on the man, and he will curse you to your face. YHWH again hands power over, with one restriction: Job must not die.

It is notable that in 2:3, YHWH seems to be arguing that he is not ultimately responsible for Job's loss: "... although you moved me against him, to destroy him without cause." This is a very strange line, since the Satan was not reported as doing anything but state an opinion about the shallowness of human loyalty. Indeed, the Satan never suggested destroying Job, and YHWH himself never allowed such a drastic move. What is YHWH doing here? Is it possible that he is wrestling with his own demons, a bit guilt-ridden? And if he has this feeling, why does he again hand over power without being asked to do so?

This time Job is beset with sores, head to toe. Without a house, he only has an ash pit to sit in, and he scratches his sores with broken pottery. Again we are told, "In all of this Job did not sin with his lips" (2:10). But is this exactly the same as the declarations in 1:1 and 1:22? It is possible that the line is meant to indicate that Job did not cave in to the curse that the Satan predicted -- and so exonerates Job. But it is also possible to think that Job was thinking a few things that might have been less than positive toward God.

Chapter 2 closes with the arrival of three of Job's friends, who came when news of Job's situation reached them.³ They speak nothing to Job -- they simply sit beside him for seven days and seven nights. But they have an agenda. The story says they "made an appointment together to come to condole with him and comfort him" (2:11). The word "to comfort" has two meanings -- and the primary one would mean here "to change his mind." In other words, they believe that he has brought the suffering upon himself.

For the next 35 chapters, Job's friends insist that God does not act unjustly. Suffering MUST have a cause, and the cause must be human sin. But Job protests throughout that -- while he insists on the just nature of God as well -- he has done nothing to warrant the suffering. Because we, the readers, have access to the narrator's words and to the conversation in heaven, we know that Job is right. Then, at last, YHWH arrives on the scene in chapter 38.

In 38:1 we are told that "YHWH answered Job out of the whirlwind." The metaphor is critical. A whirlwind (tornado) is a deafening experience. If the whirlwind itself is the voice of YHWH, he is in essence screaming. If the whirlwind is NOT YHWH, he must scream to be heard above the noise. Either way, YHWH is screaming at Job. What he screams is troubling. Instead of addressing the issue that Job and his friends have been arguing (What is the reason for Job's suffering?), YHWH launches into a four-chapter litany of all the things he created.

Job's response

Job's response is the critical moment of the book. Traditionally, Job has been understood as something akin to surrender -- a confession that he has indeed sinned by raising the question at all. In the New International Version (one of the three most read translations), Job's words are:

I know that you can do all things;
no plan of yours can be thwarted.
You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?'
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know.

You said, 'Listen now, and I will speak;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.'
My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes (42:2-6).

But the Hebrew text does not actually support this reading. First, the opening words "I know" are actually "You know" in Hebrew. The rabbis who maintained the text in the 800s and 900s C.E. felt uncomfortable with these words, and in the margins wrote instructions that the words should be read as "I know," a practice adopted by the Christian tradition. Why?

Second, both instances of "You said" are not in the Hebrew text at all. They have been supplied by the translators of the NIV (neither the NRSV nor the KJV have the words).

Third, the word "despise" in the next to the last line is more literally "reject" -- and there is no "myself" in the Hebrew text.

Finally, the preposition used in the last line (in) is actually "upon" or "on account of" or "for the sake of."

With all these in mind, a more accurate reading would be:

You know that you can do all things;
no plan of yours can be thwarted.
Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know.
Listen now, and I will speak;

I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore I reject
and have changed my mind about 'dust and ashes.'

Now, what do we do with this? First, we need to recognize that there is a reason that translators have been playing fast and loose with the text. As the text reads in Hebrew, Job is NOT surrendering. The opening "You know" seems to drip with attitude -- put a heavy emphasis on the "You" to get the feeling for that. There really seems to be no reason to say this, unless Job's implication is that YHWH is very full of himself -- but not dealing with the issue at hand. The next sentence ("Who is this...?") are the very same words that YHWH spoke to Job in chapter 38. Job is clearly throwing YHWH's words back at him. If YHWH was demanding Job do the answering, Job now is demanding that YHWH do a little answering himself.

But Job closes with the recognition that YHWH did not come through with a just explanation. "Now that I see you with my own eyes, I reject" -- what? What is there for Job to reject? The "explanation" YHWH has given? Or YHWH himself? The final sentence is much clearer if we remember that "dust and ashes" is the biblical metaphor for human life. Job has just stated that being human is a pretty sorry experience in the light of a divine who has no just reason for inflicting suffering.

The Bible's Climax

Standing by itself, this book presents a negative picture of YHWH -- a picture that both Jewish and Christian traditions have tried to "correct" through alternate readings and agreeable translations. But standing where it does in the biblical canon, it is more than that. The people who established the canon⁴ may or may not have imagined that they were creating a plot -- and if they did, they may or may not have imagined this plot. But whether intentioned or not, the plot can be seen. In the canon, this exchange between YHWH and Job is the last between human and divine, and in that last exchange, the final declaration of the human is that YHWH has failed and the result is a pretty sorry outlook for humanity.

The divine has one more line, however. In 42:8, he turns to Job's friends and says,

You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.⁵

Where does that leave the biblical storyline? For that, click here or for an audio-visual presentation on the Bible as One Plot.

 
Footnotes

¹ The "the" is there in the Hebrew text. This is not the proper name for the devil, but a noun: "the adversary" or "the accuser". It is, however, from here that we take the name we have given to the devil.

² The phrase actually used (and literally rendered in the KJV, RSV and NASB) is "sons of God." Whichever way it is rendered, it is the same phrase as that used in Genesis 6:4 when "the sons of God came into the daughters of men." If they are present here in Job, it would seem to imply that they are not "fallen" angels, banished from heaven -- unless there is something of a review of such angels in heaven from time to time.

³ Job himself is from Uz, the location of which is uncertain. But given that his animals were attacked by Sabeans (of northern Arabia), and that his friends come from cities south of Judah, it is a reasonable conclusion that Job himself was from Edom, the country south of Judah. Thus, Job is not a Jew.

⁴ See Philip Davies, Scribes and Schools: The Canonization of the Hebrew Scriptures for an exploration of that process.

⁵ Interestingly, the Contemporary English Version leaves the last five words completely out of their translation. This extends YHWH's indictment to the friends, without removing it from Job.