the NIV APPLICATION COMMENTARY<\/p>\n
Purpose of the Book<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIt was a dark and stormy night.\u2026\u201d So begins the novel perpetually being attempted by Snoopy in the Peanuts comic strip. The humor is in the clich\u00e9. The clich\u00e9 has its roots, I imagine, in the fact that novels want to draw the reader in by posing an intriguing scenario filled with danger and mystery. But when our lives are reading like that novel, the idle curiosity of a casual reader is replaced with the sorrow or abject fear of a person in crisis. No one is immune to \u201cdark and stormy nights,\u201d and reading about Job\u2019s is designed to help us know how to think about our own.<\/p>\n The title character of the book of Job is caught in the ultimate \u201cdark and stormy night\u201d of a life gone tragically wrong. We should not mistakenly think that this book is just about Job, however; it is about all of us. Though the book does engage in extremes, it is not trying to minimize anyone else\u2019s suffering in comparison, for suffering cannot be measured objectively. Regardless of where anyone\u2019s experiences fit on the spectrum of pain and suffering, we are all prone to ask the same questions. These questions direct us to the central subject of the book, God himself, for he is the one to whom we direct our confused questions and perplexed musings. Archibald MacLeish, in his Pulitzer Prize winning play J.B.,<\/em> frames it this way:<\/p>\n Millions and millions of mankind<\/p>\n Burned, crushed, broken, mutilated,<\/p>\n Slaughtered, and for what? For thinking!<\/p>\n For walking round the world in the wrong<\/p>\n Skin, the wrong-shaped noses, eyelids:<\/p>\n Sleeping the wrong night wrong city\u2014<\/p>\n London, Dresden, Hiroshima.<\/p>\n There never could have been so many<\/p>\n Suffered more for less. But where do<\/p>\n I come in?2<\/a><\/p>\n MacLeish had the same questions that we all direct heavenward, but as an existentialist, he had no answers. Like Job and like MacLeish, we are long on questions but short on answers. Does the book of Job offer any satisfaction? Many have thought not\u2014that like MacLeish, the book simply restates the perennial and ubiquitous questions that plague humankind in a world full of pain and suffering.<\/p>\n I disagree. Perhaps we have not recognized the answers the book offers because we have asked the wrong questions\u2014or, more accurately, the less important questions. When in Acts 3<\/a> the crippled beggar asks for money, Peter instead gives him healing. The beggar had not thought to ask for that. Sometimes what we ask for is too limited to do us any real good. We must learn to ask better questions so that we might find the more significant answers. To this end, the book of Job repeatedly shows us that what we thought were the most poignant questions are not significant enough, and it dismisses them. At long last it leads us to the most momentous questions by introducing a whole series of answers, answers that at first seem oblique. In fact, many have been willing to dismiss the answers as a mere smokescreen and turn away from the book disillusioned and disappointed. But if we allow the answers to prompt us to the right questions, we will discover the wealth that the book has to offer.<\/p>\n The book is not about Job, his friends, or the Challenger.3<\/a> I have suggested it is about all of us, and ultimately about God.4<\/a> Our questions about suffering inevitably lead to God, for when we go through difficult times in life, there is no one else to question\u2014he is the one whose ways we seek to understand. When we ask \u201cWhy me?\u201d we are in effect asking \u201cHow does God work?\u201d We may start out asking why we deserved this, but ultimately the question we arrived at is, \u201cWhat kind of God are you?\u201d In all our difficult experiences, eventually we arrive at the place where it is no longer us, but God who is on trial.<\/p>\n As we examine the book in detail, it becomes clear that Job is not on trial. In fact, he is declared innocent from beginning to end by all parties. When the Challenger suggests that Job\u2019s motives may be self-interested, he has no evidence, only suspicions\u2014possible explanations for Job\u2019s pristine conduct. Job is thereby tacitly exonerated because there is no concrete evidence against him. When Job\u2019s friends go hunting for offenses, they likewise have no hard evidence to offer and can only suggest possible misdemeanors. Though Job and his friends may believe he is on trial, the prologue shows that this is a misunderstanding. Rather, it is God\u2019s policies that have been called into question, and he therefore takes the role of defendant.5<\/a> Job becomes deeply enmeshed in this trial and is central to it, but he is not on trial.<\/p>\n This concept will be explored in greater depth in the commentary, but a summary here is apropos. The Challenger\u2019s question, \u201cDoes Job fear God for nothing?\u201d (1:9<\/a>) centers on Job\u2019s motivation for serving God and suggests that God\u2019s treatment of the righteous is the incentive for righteous conduct. The policy under scrutiny is known today as the Retribution Principle (RP): the righteous prosper and the wicked suffer. If this is a truism, then the motives of righteous-acting people may be corrupted by the lure of prosperity, because if such material gain is the inevitable result of righteousness, true righteousness becomes illusionary and elusive. The Challenger\u2019s claim is therefore that God\u2019s policy of rewarding the righteous actually undermines, if not subverts, the very righteousness that he seeks to foster.6<\/a> In warfare, there is no true faithfulness in mercenaries. The RP<\/a> has the potential of turning would-be righteous people into \u201cbenefit mercenaries\u201d as it trains them to ask, \u201cWhat\u2019s in it for me?\u201d We might see the issue more clearly if we compare the criticism that some politicians have of entitlement programs: They claim that welfare, food stamps, and the like are bad policy because they make people lazy and dependent.<\/p>\n My son is an artist, and I noticed when he was grade school, still drawing dogs or dinosaurs, he used to either draw them upside down or draw the feet before he drew the rest of the figure. When I asked why, he replied that everything could be put in better proportion if he approached the drawing in this way. We find this same principle at work as we reflect on the literary artistry of the book of Job. The Challenger puts God\u2019s policies to the test by suggesting that it is counterproductive for God to bless righteous people, for it makes them less righteous (in motive, if not in action). Such an accusation gives the book an interesting twist, for while we might be inclined (along with Job and his friends) to spend time thinking about why righteous people suffer, the Challenger turns the question upside down and asks why they should prosper. It is drawing the picture upside down to put everything in better perspective. In this way the book gives us the answers we need rather than the answers we thought we wanted.<\/p>\n After God accepts the proposal of the Challenger, Job\u2019s suffering begins, which provides the other side of the dilemma. Even as the Challenger suggests it is bad policy for righteousness to result in prosperity (ethically counterproductive), Job presses his point that it is bad policy for God\u2019s most faithful people to suffer (theologically counterintuitive).7<\/a> Caught on the horns of this dilemma, what is a God to do? This is what the book is going to sort out. Because the book is about God, the teaching that it offers is valuable to all of us. It does not tell us why Job or any of us suffer, but it does tell us a bit about how we should think about God when we are suffering. This is what we really needed to know anyway.<\/p>\n In summary, then, the purpose of this book is to explore God\u2019s policies with regard to suffering in the world, especially by the righteous or the innocent. In the process it seeks to revolutionize our thinking about God and the way that he runs the world. Most importantly, the book shifts our attention from the idea that God\u2019s justice<\/em> (represented in the RP<\/a>) is foundational to the operation of the world to the alternative that God\u2019s wisdom<\/em> is the more appropriate foundation.8<\/a> It does not offer a reason for suffering and does not try to defend God\u2019s justice. It does not answer the \u201cwhy\u201d question that we are so prone to ask when things go wrong. Instead, we are to trust God\u2019s wisdom and, in the process, to conclude by faith that he is also just.<\/p>\n In truth, we will never be in a position to evaluate God\u2019s justice. In order to appraise the justice of a decision, we must have all the facts, for justice can be derailed if we do not have all the information. Because we never have all the information about our lives, we cannot judge God when he brings experiences to us or make claims and demands. We cannot reach an affirmation about God\u2019s justice through our own limited insight or experiences. We affirm his justice by faith directed toward his wisdom. As we will see, God\u2019s speech at the end does not offer a defense of his justice,<\/em> but of his wisdom<\/em> and power<\/em>.<\/p>\n The book, therefore, wants to transform how we think about God\u2019s work in the world and about our responses in times of suffering. Most people look at the book, thinking that it deals with the question of why righteous people suffer. Instead, the book sets out the question as, \u201cIs there such a thing as disinterested righteousness?\u201d9<\/a> In this sense the book is about the nature of righteousness,<\/em> not the nature of suffering<\/em>. As the book unfolds, we are going to discover that Job\u2019s motives are indeed pure (he values righteousness over benefits), but his concept of God and his understanding of God\u2019s policies are going to need modification.<\/p>\n Author and Date<\/strong><\/p>\n The short answer is that while we do not know the author or the date, this lack of information does not affect our interpretation of the book. Literary works in the ancient world were <\/span>largely anonymous, and it was not unusual for them to go through development as they were transmitted from generation to generation. Scholars have traditionally placed the events of this book in the patriarchal period, citing the absence of any reference to covenant or law. Two facts join to support the conclusion that the book is set before the time of Moses: Jo<\/span>b\u2019s service as the family priest and the lack of reference to a sanctuary. Against such an inference, we need only note that Job is not an Israelite (he is from the land of Uz, <\/span>1:1<\/a>). We would therefore not expect any reference to coven<\/span>ant or law, priest, or temple.<\/p>\n We could explore some of the potential historical references in the book, such as to the Sabeans (1:15<\/a>) and Chaldeans (1:17<\/a>), but such studies do not yield consistent re<\/span>sults. Many have also focused on the specialized language of the book, such as the arcane term qesitah<\/span> (42:11<\/a>), a unit of money found elsewhere only in early literature (Gen. 33:19<\/a>; Josh. 24:32<\/a>). But <\/span>these give little to go on. Scholars do not contest that the book contains arcane features, but there is not sufficient information to date either the setting of the story or the composition of the bo<\/span>ok with any confidence. Even if we could provide such dates, it would make no difference in the book\u2019s interpretation.<\/p>\n We should also note that the language of the book has been the subject of much di<\/span>scussion. The book is uncontested for the complexity of its Hebrew. Scholars have attempted to identify it as a dialect or even as a translation, but no such suggestions have been substantiated or widely accepted.<\/span>10<\/a> All of this is to say that until we have more to go on, we cannot use the language of the book to determine its date.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Literature and History: The Genre of the Book of Job<\/strong><\/p>\n We might next reasonably ask about the nature of the events. In the end this is a genre question. Is the author presenting the events of the book as actual occurrences? Was there such a man as Job? Did he suffer in these ways? Were there friends who came and discussed his plight with him? Is the book suggesting that there was such a scenario in heaven? Was there a divine appearance from the whirlwind?<\/p>\n All of these questions get at the same issue: How much of the book is literary artifice and how much is a journalistic reporting of real events?11<\/a> Either option could be legitimate genres for canonical texts and could provide the authority for sacred writ. How important is this question and how should it be approached? Often we are guided by the claims we presume that the book makes for itself. We also are inclined to check any of these supposed claims by other authoritative, canonical sources. Along with all of this evidence, we are often also driven by our own presuppositions and traditions.<\/p>\n We might deduce from the fact that the book gives the names of Job\u2019s daughters at the end of the book (42:14<\/a>) that the reader is expected to link them to known history, but any such connections are lost to us. Little else in the book suggests that the author is urging us toward a historical reading of the book. References to Job in the Old Testament (Ezek. 14:14<\/a>, 20<\/a>) and in the New Testament (James 5:11<\/a>) have been used to argue that Job is an historical figure, but such reference could just as easily be made to a literary figure. Job\u2019s perseverance and righteousness could be drawn on effectively in either case, so these references prove nothing.<\/p>\n Before we move on too hastily, however, we might also inquire whether there are<\/em> literary figures in the ancient world. We know that there are legendary figures, but there is no reason to believe that the legends are not built around historical persons (e.g., Gilgamesh, Adapa, Etana, Kirtu). How then would we establish that a character was simply a literary figure rather than an historical person? Perhaps the better question is whether this distinction really matters, for the argument of the book does not depend on the historicity of the main characters. This is different from the story of, say, Abraham. There the integrity of the text depends on whether there actually was a man named Abraham to whom God made certain promises. If there were no such man, there was no covenant. The situation in Job, however, is not the same.<\/p>\n Though there may be purely literary characters in the literature of the ancient world, ancient authors were more likely to construct their literature around epic figures of the distant past than to fabricate \u201cfiction\u201d as we understand it today.12<\/a> This practice is illustrated in the Mesopotamian wisdom work known as Ludlul bel nemeqi<\/span>,<\/em> a first-person narration of someone who suffered greatly and did not know why. His name can be deduced from the work, and analysts do not hesitate to consider him a real person.13<\/a> Weiss builds the case that the introduction of Job\u2019s name indicates syntactically that Job\u2019s character and reputation are familiar to all.14<\/a> For these reasons, we may rightly assume that Job was a historical figure\u2014a man who was righteous and suffered greatly.15<\/a> We lose nothing by accepting Job\u2019s story as historical, and we gain nothing by concluding that he is a fabricated, fictional character.<\/p>\n Yet questions concerning the nature and genre of the book are far more complex than simply determining whether Job really existed and underwent such suffering. For example, even the most conservative and traditional of recent interpreters grant that the speeches of Job and his friends are literary artifice rather than journalistic transcripts. No stenographer would have been present; furthermore, people do not talk extemporaneously in such elevated prose. If we agree that the speeches are literary artifice, we must then ask which other parts of the book are in the same category; in fact, is every part of the book in the same category? If the speeches are literary constructions, are the friends themselves literary constructions? That is, are they designed to represent certain approaches to the question of suffering?<\/p>\n These questions are the same as those that surround other philosophical literature from the world of antiquity. For example, Socrates is a character in Plato\u2019s dialogues, in whose mouth Plato places his philosophy. The historical Socrates (and it is debated whether there was such a person) may not have said the things Plato has him say (the same goes for his [historical] interlocutors), may not have gone to trial in the same way, and may not have died the same way that Plato depicts. Ultimately, this makes no difference to Plato\u2019s philosophy; a discovery that there was no historical Socrates would not cast doubt on Platonism.<\/p>\n In approaching this question, we must keep foremost in our mind that this book is manifestly and unarguably in the genre category of wisdom literature, not historical literature.16<\/a> As wisdom literature it makes no claims about the nature of the events. In that sense the discussion about whether the events are real events is misplaced. A second understanding that is important is that as wisdom literature, this book would fit easily into the classification \u201cthought experiment.\u201d17<\/a> In such a case the author is using the various parts of the book to pose a philosophical scenario that will be used to address the wisdom themes as we have articulated them above.18<\/a> If the book of Job is a thought experiment, the reader is supposed to draw conclusions about God from the final point, not from every detail along the way. Consequently, for example, the opening scene in heaven is not intended to be used as a source of information about God\u2019s activities and nature. We would not rule out the possibility that such a scenario could happen, but we would be mistaken to think that author seeks to unfold a series of historical events. It is wisdom literature.19<\/a><\/p>\n The scene in heaven is not trying to explain why Job or any of us suffer. Job is never told about that scene, nor would he have derived any comfort from it. As I have taught Job to students over the years, the question frequently arises, \u201cWhat sort of God is this who uses his faithful ones as pawns in bets with the devil?\u201d I would suggest that we need not concern ourselves with this question. The scene in heaven, like the speeches of Job\u2019s friends, is part of the literary design of a thought experiment to generate discussion about how God runs the cosmos; it is not about trying to explain how Job got into such a difficult situation. The message of the book is offered at the end, in the speeches of God, not in the opening scenario, which only sets up the thought experiment.<\/p>\n As wisdom literature the book of Job seeks to give us appropriate foundations for understanding how the world works and how God works in the world. The book reveals how things work in the world, not how things work in heaven. If we are seeking to satisfy our curiosity about whether the Challenger has such access to heaven or whether there are such conversations concerning particular individuals, we cannot rule it out, but we should not think that the answers are provided here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Shape and Structure<\/strong><\/p>\n We might think about the composition of the book of Job by using an analogy to some issues in the natural sciences. \u201cIntelligent Design\u201d has introduced the concept of \u201cirreducible <\/span>complexity\u201d as one way to criticize Neo-Darwinism\u2019s adequacy as an explanation of origins. Irreducible complexity describes an organism in which all of the parts are essential to its operation such that the parts could not have developed independently or sequentially, for the organism could not survive if it were lacking any of them in their fully developed <\/span>form.<\/p>\n A similar claim of irreducible com<\/span>plexity could be made for the book of Job. The book includes dialogues, discourses, narratives, hymns, and laments (to name a few of the major sections), and each one has a significant role to play. If any of them were absent, the boo<\/span>k would not accomplish its purpose. Many recent commentators have proposed a history of composition of the book; some suggest, for example, that the Elihu speeches ar<\/span>e later additions, or the speeches of Yahweh don\u2019t fit very well.20<\/a> Some opine that an original narrative (the frame) was later embellished by the poetic speeches, while others propose that the speech<\/span>es came first and the narrative frame was added later. Such discussions may have academic value, but in the end they can only result in speculation that has little impact on our reading of the book. Elihu\u2019s speeches cannot be discarded as redundant\u2014they make a significant contribution as they take the argument into new territory. G<\/span>od\u2019s speeches are not superfluous, obtuse, or irrelevant. None of the pieces can be discarded from this carefully and artfully constructed book. The following table offers the structure of the book that I find most persuasive.<\/span><\/p>\n