{"id":141,"date":"2017-10-31T13:29:59","date_gmt":"2017-10-31T12:29:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/?p=141"},"modified":"2017-10-31T13:29:59","modified_gmt":"2017-10-31T12:29:59","slug":"when-you-want-to-yell-at-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/2017\/10\/31\/when-you-want-to-yell-at-god\/","title":{"rendered":"When You Want to Yell at God"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE BOOK OF JOB<\/strong><\/p>\n

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1<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/p>\n

A student once asked Brevard Childs how to become a better exegete of the Bible. Childs replied, \u201cBecome a deeper person!\u201d Job is one biblical book that is both about its main character<\/span> becoming a deeper person and an invitation to the reader to be formed by God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Outline for the book of Job<\/p>\n

1. Introduction: Job, God, and the Accuser (Job 1\u20132<\/a>)<\/p>\n

2. Dialogues between Job and His Friends (Job 3\u201326<\/a>)<\/p>\n

3. Monologues of Job, Elihu, and God (Job 27\u201341<\/a>)<\/p>\n

4. Conclusion (Job 42<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/span><\/span>Overview<\/p>\n

The book of Job is one of the best examples of biblical literary art. The book is primarily poetry with a narrated introduction (Job 1\u20132<\/a>) and conclusion (Job 42<\/a>). The introduction sets up the<\/span> discussion that follows in the poetry by drawing attention to Job, a \u201cblameless and upright\u201d man \u201cwho feared God and turned away from evil\u201d (1:1<\/a> nrsv<\/a>). God is pleased with Job, but \u201cthe Accuser\u201d (Heb<\/span>rew ha-satan<\/span>) insists Job\u2019s faith is superficial and would not stand up to the test if his health and wealth were taken away (1:9\u201311<\/a>; 2:4\u20135<\/a>). God permits the Accuser (that is, Satan) to bring disaster<\/span> on Job and his family, destroying everything in the world that he holds dear\u2014possessions, people, and his physical well-being. At the end of Job 2<\/a>, three friends\u2014Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar\u2014come to c<\/span>omfort Job in his time of distress. The poetry in Job 3\u201331<\/a> contains the dialogue among these three and Job as they consider the possible causes of Job\u2019s misfortune and suggest ways for Job to regain f<\/span>avor with God. In Job 32\u201337<\/a>, another man, Elihu, offers his advice to Job. Finally, Job 38\u201341<\/a> records God\u2019s response to Job, in which God emphasizes his divine sovereignty over all creation but never <\/span>explicitly explains to Job why he suffered. Job is humbled by the divine encounter, and the book concludes with God restoring Job\u2019s family and fortune (Job 42<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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When is Job\u2019s story set?<\/p>\n

It is unclear <\/span>when the book was written, but the story appears to be set during patriarchal times (contemporary with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob). Evidence for this includes Job\u2019s practice of sacrifice and the fact that his wealth<\/span> is measured in livestock, as well as certain linguistic elements.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Theological Center of Job<\/p>\n

The ethical idea of \u201cwhat goes around comes around\u201d (often called \u201ckarma\u201d or \u201cpoetic justice\u201d) has a big influence on popular culture. A modern example is the angry driver who cuts off another car and immediately has an accident (like in many viral videos). The idea is not new. Even in ancient times people believed that there was a simple cause-and-effect relationship between behavior and experience. Suffering was believed to be a punishment for bad behavior, while prosperity was the reward for good behavior. If you were a wicked person, eventually you (or your descendants) would \u201cget what\u2019s coming to you.\u201d For example, in John 9:2<\/a> Jesus\u2019 disciples see a man blind from birth and ask, \u201cWho sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?\u201d In that passage and elsewhere (e.g., Luke 13:1\u20135<\/a>), Jesus rejects the idea that sin and suffering can be so closely connected, in such a cause-and-effect relationship. However, biblical Wisdom literature is sometimes thought to encourage such thinking with statements like Psalm 7:14\u201316<\/a> or Proverbs 26:27<\/a>.1<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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See how they conceive evil, and are pregnant with mischief, and bring forth lies. They make a pit, digging <\/span>it out, and fall into the hole that they have made. Their mischief returns upon their own heads, and on their own heads their violence descends (Psa 7:14\u201316<\/a> nrsv<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Whoever digs a pit will fall into it<\/span>, and a stone will come back on the one who starts it rolling (Prov 26:27<\/a> nrsv<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Such verses remind us that sin and folly can and do lead to suffering. But the book of Job reminds us that not all suff<\/span>ering is the result of sin.<\/p>\n

Since Job\u2019s three friends continually affirm the idea that Job\u2019s suffering must somehow be connected to bad behavior (either his own or that of his family), the book of Job<\/span> has often been read as a crisis-induced response to conventional wisdom, especially the straightforward cause-and-effect theology found in many biblical proverbs. This oversimplified understanding of Job (and Proverbs too) results in a loss of the rich theological message of biblical Wisdom literature.<\/span>2<\/a> As I will argue below, Job does not represent a crisis in proverbial type wisdom, and Proverbs<\/span> itself recognizes that while wisdom does lead to blessing, the path to wisdom may be difficult.<\/p>\n

Proverbs 17:3<\/a> provides a clue to the overall purpose of biblical wisdom teaching (which includes Prover<\/span>bs and Job). The proverb reads: \u201cThe crucible for silver and the furnace for gold; but the Lord tests the heart.\u201d The metalworking imagery evokes rigorous formation; silver and gold have to be exposed<\/span> to high temperatures and smelted down before they can be transformed into jewelry. The wise writer of Proverbs is well aware that the path to wisdom might lead through the furnace! Proverbs repeatedly identifies <\/span>the heart<\/em> as the center of a person. Thus, what is in view here is spiritual and moral formation down to the deepest levels of an individual\u2019s being. Rather than offering a simplistic vie<\/span>w of wisdom as an easily acquired technique that automatically leads to blessing, Proverbs teaches that the road to wisdom may lead through intense testing, suffering, and purification.<\/p>\n

And this teach<\/span>ing is precisely what we find in Job. The book of Job teaches how godly character results from refining in the furnace of formation<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/span><\/span>Suggested Reading<\/p>\n

\u2022 Job 1\u20132<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2022 Psalm 7<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2022 Proverbs 1:1\u201319<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Reflection<\/p>\n

Do you usually read biblical proverbs as always true or just generally true?<\/p>\n

How do you think blessing and suffering are related?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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2<\/p>\n

The Portrait of Job<\/p>\n

If the person of Job feels familiar to us, we should defamiliarize ourselves with him. Job 1:1<\/a> records that he lived in Uz, apparently somewhere between Edom (southern Jordan) an<\/span>d Babylon (south-central Iraq). This, surprisingly, is a story of a non-Israelite living far away from the promised land. The biblical text also describes Job as devout, as one who \u201cfeared God and shunned evil\u201d (<\/span>1:1<\/a>). In 1:1\u20135<\/a> the name for God is the generic \u201cElohim.\u201d Thus, it is not immediately clear which god\/s Job served. But beginning in 1:6<\/a>, the common name for God switches mainly to \u201cYahweh\u201d<\/span>\u2014the distinctive name of the covenant God of Israel. So Job is clearly identified as serving and fearing Yahweh.<\/p>\n

Throughout the Bible, \u201cfearing God\u201d is the classic expression for being wise, and the b<\/span>ook begins by describing Job as an incomparably wise and righteous man who fears Israel\u2019s covenant God (Yahweh) but who lives in the East apart from Israel\u2019s known habitation. Job was also blessed with great wealth, and <\/span>1:3<\/a> describes him as \u201cthe greatest man among all the people of the East.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is how Job appeared to his fellow citizens, but how does he look to God? In chapters 1<\/a> and 2<\/a> the narr<\/span>ative moves back and forth between heaven and earth. Intriguingly in 1:8<\/a> Yahweh himself draws Job to Satan\u2019s attention and describes him in the same terms the narrator does (compare 1:1<\/a> with 1:8<\/a>). Sat<\/span>an questions this depiction of Job, arguing that Job only fears God because God protects him and blesses him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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Where was Uz?<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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Job\u2019s hometown is difficult to place. Job 1:3<\/a> notes that Uz was in \u201cthe east<\/span>,\u201d but no further geographical information is given in the book. Other biblical mentions of the word may put it near Edom to the south (Lam 4:21<\/a>) or Aram to the north (Gen 10:22\u201323<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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\"Land<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

In this way<\/span>, Job\u2019s faith is brought into question: Why exactly does he serve God? What are his motivations? In other words, the encounter between Yahweh and Satan moves the focus of the story from appearance to reality at <\/span>the deepest level\u2014the level of the heart.<\/p>\n

Indeed, there appears to be a touch of irony in the description of Job in 1:1\u20135<\/a>. The description here is that of a man who is almost too good to be<\/span>lieve, which is confirmed in Job\u2019s practices as described in 1:5<\/a>. Job allowed his sons to host regular feasts, but after each period of feasting, he had his children pass through a purification ritual<\/span>. And lest his children might \u201chave sinned and cursed God in their hearts,\u201d he would offer a burnt offering for each one of them. Job had a sense that all might not be well with his children, and he f<\/span>eared that they might have committed the really serious sin of cursing God, a sin meriting the death penalty in Israel. Perhaps all was not as well as it appeared with Job\u2019s children, but his greatest fear appears to be that their behavior would bring God\u2019s judgment rather than his ongoi<\/span>ng blessing. Therefore, part of Job\u2019s religion was motivated by an unhealthy anxiety and fear.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look more c<\/span>losely at Satan\u2019s words; there is more here than meets the eye, some\u2014albeit partial and distorted\u2014truth, just as there was in the serpent\u2019s speech in Genesis. In Genesis 3<\/a> the serpent correctly stated<\/span> that Adam and Eve would not die on the day they ate the forbidden fruit. Of course, in a greater sense they did die, but not on a physical level. And so in Job, too, Satan correctly touches on Job\u2019s mixed motivations within his <\/span>religion.<\/p>\n

God grants Satan permission to put Job to the test, though within limits (Job 1:12<\/a>; 2:6<\/a>), first through the destruction of his children and his wealth (1:13\u201319<\/a>) <\/span>and then through a painful disease (2:7<\/a>). After the destruction of his children and his wealth, Job exhibits extraordinary faith:<\/p>\n

Naked I came from my mother\u2019s womb,<\/p>\n

and naked I will depart.<\/p>\n

The Lord <\/span>gave and the Lord has taken away,<\/p>\n

may the name of the Lord be praised (1:21<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Similarly, when Job is struck down with an awful disease and his wife urges him to \u201ccurse God and die!\u201d (2:9<\/a>)\u2014probably sug<\/span>gesting a form of suicide, since to curse God would bring his ultimate judgment\u2014Job responds, \u201cShall we accept good from God, and not trouble?\u201d (2:10<\/a>).<\/p>\n

We might think the book of Job should end here\u2014w<\/span>ith faith triumphing over adversity. Instead, the book continues for another 40 chapters, as Job struggles to come to terms with what has happened to him. At the end of Job 2<\/a>, his three friends\u2014Elipha<\/span>z, Bildad, and Zophar\u2014arrive and wisely sit with him in silence for seven days, mourning Job\u2019s losses. The friends start off so well: Immediately they hear of Job\u2019s distress; they travel great distances to be with <\/span>him; and when they see him and can hardly recognize him, they discern the extent of his sufferings (2:11\u201313<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In chapter 3<\/a> Job plunges into despair, cursing the day of his birth and wish<\/span>ing he could undo the very fiber of creation. In his first speech, Job curses the day of his birth, the \u201cday,\u201d the \u201clight,\u201d and the night, strategically reversing the order of God\u2019s creative work in G<\/span>enesis 1<\/a>.1<\/a> As Job falls apart, he inadvertently reveals important things about himself. For example, he imagines that if he died, he would retain his high position in society and be with kings, couns<\/span>elors, and wealthy rulers (3:14<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In 3:25<\/a> he acknowledges that what has happened to him has fulfilled his worst fears. The very things his religion was designed to protect him from have happened. Even<\/span> as we sympathize with Job, we see that his suffering is touching on the very areas of his life that most needed attention if he was to become truly wise. There is nothing pleasant about this and his suffering is unimaginable; yet, despite Satan or through Satan, God is at work in his formation of Job.<\/span><\/p>\n

Job\u2019s realization of his deepest fears\u2014of that from which he most sought to protect himself\u2014indi<\/span>cates that there is more going on with Job than simply meaningless suffering. A psychologist friend of mine, Brenda Stephenson, calls this \u201ccreative suffering.\u201d This title does not for a moment detract from the sheer hell of Job\u2019s experience, but it signifies that a transformative process is at <\/span>work amid the hell. Deep suffering is terribly slow and protracted, just like Job 3\u201341<\/a>. If you find 3\u201341<\/a><\/span> slow, repetitive, and, frankly, a bit of a drag, then remember that this book performs on the reader the experience of suffering; it is exhausting, tiring, and feels like an endless painful cycle. It<\/span>\u2019s relentless.<\/p>\n

In 42:5<\/a> Job looks back and describes his journey: \u201cMy ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you.\u201d Job is on a journey from being wise to being wise at a much deeper level of <\/span>his being. It is a journey of depth formation and one that moves deeply into God; of course, in Christian spirituality these two go together. His suffering does come to an end. He is transformed and his fortunes are restored (<\/span>42:1\u201317<\/a>). But 3\u201341<\/a> remind us that there is no shortcut in a journey of transformation. We all want to be saints, but few of us are prepared for the journey it requires!<\/p>\n

Job\u2019s<\/span> journey involves despair, physical and mental suffering, counseling, anger, desperate appeals to God, and anything-but-passive waiting. He entered a tunnel of darkness and had no idea where it led.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/span><\/span>Suggested Reading<\/p>\n

\u2022 Job 1\u20133<\/a>; 42<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2022 Appendix A: \u201cFearing God in the Old Testament\u201d by Miles Custis<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2022 Appendix B: \u201cSatan in the Old Testament and the Serpent of Genesis 3\u201d by Michael S. Heiser<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Reflection<\/p>\n

Job was regarded as very wise by his fellow citizens and \u201cchurch members.\u201d But was he really?<\/p>\n

At the deepest level, what motivates you to serve God?<\/p>\n

Are there any unhelpful motives that you need to gently surface and hold before God, asking him to help you serve him because he is God?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/span><\/span>3<\/p>\n

The Portraits of God among Job\u2019s Friends<\/p>\n

Years ago a British doctor, Sheila Cassidy, went to serve as a doctor in Chile. She gave medical aid to a government opponent and was arrested, tortured, and<\/span> eventually released and returned to the UK.1<\/a> I heard her speak in Cheltenham, and she made the important point that we need images of God that are adequate for the journey of life<\/em> with all its challe<\/span>nges.<\/p>\n

This is especially true of suffering since it turns ours lives upside down and we feel helpless, with no idea what God is up to. In such contexts, it becomes all the more important that we hold <\/span>on to healthy concepts of God. In this respect, it is fascinating to see what views Job and his friends have of God.<\/p>\n

Suffering often drives us to look for help, and today that usually means seeking co<\/span>unseling. In the last century or so counseling has exploded as a profession and many of us turn to professional counselors when in trouble, when suffering comes knocking at our doors. Turning to others for <\/span>help is a natural and good thing; but times of suffering are also vulnerable times, and we need wise counselors with healthy views of God to help us on our journeys.<\/p>\n

At first it appears that Job<\/span>\u2019s friends are model counselors. They are older, influential people, and once they hear of Job\u2019s troubles, their response is impeccable. The take leave from their busy and important lives, travel long distances, discern the exte<\/span>nt of Job\u2019s suffering, and sit with him in silence for seven days of lament and mourning. Furthermore, in their discussions they all consider God with the utmost seriousness. When Job starts to bare his tortured soul in <\/span>Job 3<\/a> they soon begin to respond, and then we discover that these good friends have unhelpful views of God and his ways. The seemingly endless speeches <\/span>stretch from 3\u201337<\/a>, until God comes on the scene and addresses Job in 38\u201341<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Who said that?<\/p>\n

It can be easy to lose track of who is speaking during the long speeches of Job and his friends, but the auth<\/span>or has in fact helpfully organized their speeches in cycles that include the criticisms of Job\u2019s friends and his responses to them. Here is one way of organizing these cycles: cycle 1 (Job 3\u201314<\/a>), cycl<\/span>e 2 (Job 15\u201321<\/a>), cycle 3 (Job 22\u201331<\/a>), Elihu\u2019s four speeches (Job 32\u201337<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Having been provoked by Job\u2019s outbursts of agony and despair (see also 4:2<\/a>; 8:2<\/a>; 11:2\u20133<\/a>), Job\u2019s friends enter the dialogue. Th<\/span>eir responses make for fascinating reading. They line up to defend God against Job\u2019s outbursts and to affirm a mechanical<\/em>, automatic view of what has been called the act-consequence theme in biblical <\/span>wisdom. Proverbs in particular and biblical wisdom in general teach that obedience leads to blessing and sin to judgment. But, as we noted above, even Proverbs demonstrates a much more nuanced view of this theme. The friends make a great mistake in viewing God as <\/span>operating in a simple, mechanistic fashion. The brutality of this approach is evident in Bildad\u2019s first speech. In 8:4<\/a> he states unequiv<\/span>ocally that he knows why Job\u2019s children died: \u201cWhen your children sinned against him, he gave them over to the penalty of their sin.\u201d One by one, Job\u2019s friends urge him to be completely honest about the sin in his life<\/span> that is supposedly causing his miseries.<\/p>\n

The climax of Eliphaz\u2019s argument is found in Job 22<\/a>. In 22:5<\/a> he asks, \u201cIs not your wickedness great? Are not your sins endless?\u201d And then in<\/span> 22:6\u20139<\/a> he lists a series of sins that he accuses Job of committing. His conclusion: \u201cThat is why snares are all around you, why sudden peril terrifies you, why it is so dark that you cannot see, and <\/span>why a flood of water covers you.\u201d Eliphaz\u2019s solution is found in 22:21\u201330<\/a>, where he says Job must repent of his sins and call to God.<\/p>\n

In Job 20<\/a> Zophar rants about the fate of the wicked. He concludes <\/span>in 20:29<\/a> with: \u201cSuch is the fate God allots the wicked, the heritage appointed for them by God.\u201d<\/p>\n

The point of Bildad\u2019s case is found in Job 25<\/a>. In 25:4<\/a> he asks, \u201cHow can a mortal be righteous before G<\/span>od? How can one born of a woman be pure?\u201d Bildad finds it unthinkable that Job can keep protesting his innocence.<\/p>\n

How do Job\u2019s friends view God? There is much about their view that is thoroughly ortho<\/span>dox. They have a biblical view of God as transcendent and yet deeply involved in his world. They recognize that God is just. They rightly see human life as lived before the face of God, and they know that God hears and answers prayer. They understand that God reveals himself to humans <\/span>(see also 33:14\u201315<\/a>). In 4:12\u201317<\/a> Eliphaz describes a mystical experience in which a word of \u201cGod\u201d comes to him. But<\/span> they have no sense of God as God, a God whose ways are often unexpected and inscrutable. Their God is reduced to their mechanistic theology. They may appear orthodox, but Job finds them of no help in<\/span> his torment. In 16:2<\/a> he describes his friends as \u201cmiserable comforters\u201d!<\/p>\n

The three friends are old and mature, but a young man has been observing the dialogue; once he sees that the three friends hav<\/span>e made no progress with Job, he can no longer contain himself. In 32:1<\/a> we read that the three stopped answering Job because \u201che was righteous in his own eyes.\u201d The younger Elihi (see also 32:6\u20139<\/a>) can <\/span>no longer contain his anger because Job is justifying himself in his own eyes rather than God\u2019s (32:2<\/a>). The young man, however, provides more of the same sort of advice, seeking to defend God against <\/span>Job\u2019s outbursts.<\/p>\n

Then God gives a verdict on the friends\u2019 advice in 42:7<\/a>:<\/p>\n

After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, \u201cI am angry with you and your two friends, becau<\/span>se you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.\u201d<\/p>\n

God commands Eliphaz to offer a burnt offering and to have Job pray for him so that God will not deal with him \u201caccording to your fo<\/span>lly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has\u201d (42:8<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The repetition of \u201cyou have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has\u201d makes God\u2019s view of the friends\u2019 advice <\/span>clear. It is not wisdom but folly! What was wrong with the friends\u2019 view of God? Note that God says to Eliphaz twice, \u201cYou have not spoken of me<\/em> what is right.\u201d The friends assume that God, being whol<\/span>ly good and all powerful, would never allow Job\u2019s sort of suffering to befall a righteous man, but they are deceived. As \u00c9douard Dhorme says, \u201cHis friends seek to apply normal solutions to the exceptional case.\u201d<\/span>2<\/a> Job protests and rails against the mystery of what has befallen him; the friends, however, assume that their mechanistic theology can penetrate that mystery and explain Job\u2019s circumstance<\/span>s. The result, as we see in their speeches, is cruel and vindictive counsel to a man experiencing despair and feeling lost amid his undeserved suffering. Can you imagine saying to a man who has recent<\/span>ly lost all his children, \u201cWhen your children sinned against him [God], he gave them over to the penalty of their sin\u201d?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/span><\/span>Suggested Reading<\/p>\n

\u2022 If you have time, read the whole of Job 4\u201337<\/a>. If not, choose one of Job\u2019s friends and read his speeches and Job\u2019s responses.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Reflection<\/p>\n

Choose one of the friends from Job 4\u201337<\/a> to focus on. What do you make of his arguments? What view of God does he present?<\/p>\n

Read through Job\u2019s responses to this friend. What are his major points?<\/p>\n

Imagine you are one of Job\u2019s friends. What would you say to Job?<\/p>\n

Imagine you are Job. What would you say to the friend whose speeches you read?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/span><\/span>4<\/p>\n

Job\u2019s View of God<\/p>\n

We know that Job\u2019s friends held a false view of God, but how could God so readily affirm Job as having spoken correctly about him (42:7\u20138<\/a>)? Does this refer only to Job\u2019s speech in <\/span>42:1\u20136<\/a> or does it refer to all that he has said in the book? God\u2019s indictment of Eliphaz places the friends\u2019 words in contrast with what Job has said. Thus, God\u2019s verdict appears to apply to all<\/em> that <\/span>Job has said and not just his confession in 42:1\u20136<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How should we characterize Job\u2019s speeches? A major element is protest<\/em>. As Job says in 7:11<\/a>, \u201cI will not keep silent; I will speak out in the anguish<\/span> of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.\u201d The philosopher Alvin Plantinga points out that Job\u2019s problem can be understood in two ways.1<\/a> The first, common interpretation is the inte<\/span>llectual one: Job protests because he cannot understand why God would allow an innocent person to suffer. As Martin Buber perceptively notes, \u201cJob cannot forego either his own truth or God.\u201d2<\/a> The seco<\/span>nd possibility is that Job is angry and disagrees with what God is doing. God may have reasons, but Job, in effect, says, \u201cI don\u2019t give a fig for those reasons, and I detest what he is doing!\u201d3<\/a> These <\/span>two responses are not antithetical and combine in Job\u2019s tormented protests to God.4<\/a> It is not that Job sees himself as sinless; in 7:17\u201321<\/a> he fires off a series of questions at God, one of which is \u201cW<\/span>hy do you not pardon my offenses and forgive my sins?\u201d Job is open to the fact that he is a sinner, but he cannot wrap his mind around the lack of proportion between any of his sins and what God has a<\/span>llowed to happen to him. In this sense, Buber is surely right: \u201cJob cannot forego either his own truth or God.\u201d In Job\u2019s words to his friends, \u201cTill I die, I will not deny my integrity\u201d (27:5<\/a>). The re<\/span>sult is excruciating tension, despair, and rage.<\/p>\n

As we find in the Psalms, God wants his people to bring their difficulties, problems, and complaints to him, and this is<\/em> what Job does. Job\u2019s friends t<\/span>heologize about his situation, whereas Job lives it in all its ugliness before God (see, for example, 7:7<\/a>: \u201cRemember, O God \u2026\u201d; 7:19\u201321<\/a>; 16:7\u20138<\/a>; 30:20\u201331<\/a>). A major difference between Job and his frien<\/span>ds is that Job addresses God directly and appeals to him, whereas the friends merely talk about Job\u2019s situation. Job\u2019s God is one to whom he can direct strong protest, whereas the friends\u2019 God is one who has already revealed truth and that truth j<\/span>ust needs to be applied to Job\u2019s situation. As Robert Alter notes: \u201cJob\u2019s cosmic poetry, unlike that of the Friends, has a certain energy of vision, as though it proceeded from some immediate perception of the great things it reports.\u201d<\/span>5<\/a><\/p>\n

In terms of Job\u2019s view of God, he:<\/p>\n

\u2022 recognizes God as ultimately behind his situation (3:23<\/a>; 6:4<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\u2022 knows that God <\/span>is the creator and sovereign over his creation (9:1\u201310<\/a>; see also 28<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\u2022 experiences God as completely absent in his sufferings (9:11<\/a>; in 23:17<\/a> he describes his experience as one of \u201cthick darkness\u201d)<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>experiences his life of suffering as meaningless (10:18\u201322<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\u2022 wants to bring God to court to force God to answer his case against him (10:2<\/a>; 13:3<\/a>) but recognizes that God is of a different order entir<\/span>ely to humankind (9:14\u201320<\/a>, 32\u201335<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Job experiences God\u2019s actions in his life as a complete mystery, and to his credit he lives this mystery in all its agony before his friends and God.<\/p>\n

Job 28<\/a> is an ext<\/span>raordinary poem about wisdom. Because of its serenity and beauty, scholars have questioned its place between Job\u2019s raging in 26\u201327<\/a> and 29\u201331<\/a> and its authenticity as one of Job\u2019s speeches. In my view, <\/span>its juxtaposition between Job\u2019s rants is appropriate since this is how extreme suffering goes\u2014moving from despair to insight and sanity, and then plunging back into the hell. In this context, Job 28<\/a> i<\/span>s extraordinary and anticipates the arrival of God on the scene in Job 38<\/a>. Whereas Proverbs starts with the fear of the Lord as the key to knowing the world, Job 28<\/a> starts from the other end, as it we<\/span>re, first acknowledging the extraordinary feats that humankind is capable of in mining the depths of the earth for precious metals (28:1\u201311<\/a>). However, despite humankind\u2019s great abilities, neither they<\/span> nor the personified creation know the way to the source of wisdom (28:12\u201322<\/a>). Even those great boundaries of death and destruction can say, \u201cOnly a rumor of it has reached our ears\u201d (28:22<\/a>). It is Go<\/span>d alone who knows the source of wisdom, for it lies in him. He is the creator and humankind is the creature, so: \u201cThe fear of the Lord\u2014that is wisdom\u201d (28:23\u201328<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n

Job 28<\/a>: An interlude on Wisdom<\/p>\n

Job 28<\/a><\/span> is a poem that asks, \u201cWhere shall wisdom be found?\u201d It is unclear whether it is spoken by Job or is a self-contained poem added by the narrator. It includes a description of the lengths people go to <\/span>when searching for gold and other valuable resources (28:1\u201311<\/a>). It then turns to wisdom, showing wisdom\u2019s value and questioning its accessibility (28:12\u201322<\/a>). Finally, it reveals God as the source of w<\/span>isdom (28:23\u201328<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

God arrives on the scene in Job 38<\/a>. Long has Job waited for this, but he could never have expected the answer he receives from \u201cout of the storm\u201d (38:1<\/a>). Ironically, God\u2019s answer<\/em> is<\/span> a series of more than 80 rhetorical questions<\/em>. The two lists of questions are divided by Job\u2019s short reply in 40:3\u20135<\/a>. God immediately begins his speech with questions:<\/p>\n

Then the Lord answered<\/em> Job out <\/em><\/span>of the storm<\/em>. He said:<\/p>\n

Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?<\/p>\n

Gird up your loins like a man,<\/p>\n

I will question you<\/em>, and you shall declare to me (38:1\u20133<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The word \u201cstorm\u201d (se\u2019<\/span><\/span>arah<\/span>) appears here for the first time in Job, and it is used again in 40:6<\/a>. As Lindsay Wilson suggests, the \u201cstorm cloaks the fierce otherness of the presence of God in his fullness in the midst of th<\/span>e world of human experience \u2026\u201d6<\/a> In his own way, God does indeed reply to Job. Alter notes of God\u2019s speech:<\/p>\n

When God finally answers Job out of the whirlwind, he responds with an order of poetry formal<\/span>ly allied to Job\u2019s own remarkable poetry, but larger in scope and greater in power \u2026 That is, God picks up many of Job\u2019s key images, especially from the death-wish poem with which Job began (Chapter 3<\/a><\/span>) and his discourse is shaped by a powerful movement of intensification, coupled with an implicitly narrative sweep from the creation to the play of natural forces to the teeming world of animal life.<\/span>7<\/a><\/p>\n

Michael Fox\u2019s analysis of the questions that make up the bulk of God\u2019s speech reveals a whole range of techniques at work in God\u2019s reply to Job.8<\/a> The questions are of three types: (1) \u201cWho?\u201d questio<\/span>ns, which point back to God\u2019s power (e.g., \u201cWho shut up the sea behind doors \u2026?\u201d; 38:8<\/a>); (2) \u201cWhat?\u201d questions, which emphasize the breadth of God\u2019s power (e.g., \u201cWhat is the way to the abode of light<\/span>?\u201d; 38:19<\/a>); and (3) \u201cHave you ever?\u201d or \u201cCan you?\u201d questions, which reinforce the limits of human power and knowledge (e.g., \u201cHave you entered the storehouses of the snow \u2026?\u201d; 38:22<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Job is confronte<\/span>d with the power of God, with the huge difference between God as creator and himself as created, with the omniscience of God and the limits of his own knowledge. In the middle of God\u2019s speeches, Job responds briefly <\/span>(40:3\u20135<\/a>). He acknowledges the power of God\u2019s evidence and his own finitude: \u201cI am unworthy,\u201d or more literally \u201cI am humbled\u201d (40:4a<\/a>). This is probably not a confession of guilt, since<\/span> Job is aware of his innocence as far as the suffering is concerned, but a confession of his creatureliness before the omnipotent creator. Job also realizes that although he has been given space to speak\u2014the very thing he had wanted for so long\u2014it is n<\/span>ow appropriate to remain silent: \u201cI put my hand over my mouth\u201d (40:4<\/a>).<\/p>\n

After Job\u2019s short speech, God returns to his questions and to two unusual des<\/span>criptions of the Behemoth (40:15\u201324<\/a>) and the Leviathan (41:1\u201334<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Look at Behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox. What strength it has in its loins, what power in th<\/span>e muscles of its belly!\u2026<\/p>\n

Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook or tie down its tongue with a rope? Can you put a cord through its nose or pierce its jaw with a hook?<\/p>\n

Behemoth is the plural word fo<\/span>r \u201cbeast\u201d (behemah<\/span>) and is the same word used for the first creatures on the land in Genesis 1:24<\/a>, typically considered cattle. It is common nowadays, however, to interpret this as a reference to the <\/span>crocodile or the hippopotamus; the fact that it \u201cfeeds on grass like an ox\u201d (Job 40:15<\/a>) makes it more likely that it refers to the hippopotamus. Leviathan is also referred to by Job in 3:8<\/a> and in othe<\/span>r Old Testament passages concerned with the mysterious nature of creation and justice (see, for example, Pss 74:14<\/a>; 104:26<\/a>; Isa 27:1<\/a>). As in Psalms 74<\/a> and 104<\/a>, the use of Leviathan here in Job could r<\/span>efer to the whale as the great creature of the deep. The reference in Isaiah 27<\/a>, however, portrays a \u201ccoiling\u201d or \u201ctwisting\u201d serpent creature. The mythical connections with water, chaos, and the deep <\/span>cannot be ruled out, nor can the personification of death.9<\/a> Together the Behemoth and the Leviathan reinforce the overall message of the divine speeches: God\u2019s creation is vast, diverse, and mysteriou<\/span>s\u2014way beyond human control and yet easily within his<\/em> control. The poetry of the questions accentuates the strength of God\u2019s answers to Job.<\/p>\n

But whereas Job\u2019s intensities are centripetal and necessaril<\/span>y egocentric, God\u2019s intensities carry us back and forth through the pulsating vital movements of the whole created world. The culmination of the poem God speaks is not a cry of self or a dream of self snuffed out, but the terrible beauty of the Leviathan, on t<\/span>he uncanny borderline between zoology and mythology, where what is fierce and strange, beyond the conquest of man, is the climactic manifestation of a splendidly providential creation that merely anthropomorphic notions cannot grasp.<\/span>10<\/a><\/p>\n

God\u2019s speeches alert us to two fundamental truths about God. First, he is God and we are creatures. Job <\/span>acknowledges this in Job 42:3<\/a>, referring back to God\u2019s penetrating question in 38:2<\/a> and its parallel in 42:3<\/a>: \u201cSurely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.\u201d Seco<\/span>nd, God\u2019s powerful and often mysterious rule of the universe, while utterly sovereign (see 42:2<\/a>), is caring, with its eye on the well-being of his whole creation. God satisfies the land with rain (38:<\/span>27<\/a>); he feeds the lion (38:39<\/a>) and the raven (38:41<\/a>); he provides the wild donkey with a home and food (39:5\u20138<\/a>). He also provides freedom and the \u201cwisdom\u201d for horses, ostriches, oxen, locusts, eagles,<\/span> and hawks to achieve their created purpose in the world. By implication, if he so cares for the animals, how much more does he care for Job?<\/p>\n

So, while the divine speeches make Job\u2019s finitude clear, t<\/span>heir focus is on Yahweh\u2019s power and wisdom in creating and ruling his world. God rebukes Job, along with the other characters and the audience; calling him, and us, to a new wisdom of trust and even wonder\u2014a discipline of humility and a faith in God\u2019s abilit<\/span>y to rule his world justly and lovingly, even in the midst of mystery and reoccurring suffering.<\/p>\n

As we noted above, in 42:3<\/a> Job returns to God<\/span>\u2019s opening question from 38:2<\/a> and acknowledges that he has indeed obscured God\u2019s counsel without knowledge. He spoke of things he did not understand, things too wonderful for him to know. Job\u2019s encoun<\/span>ter with God has moved him to a different place; he has received no answer as to why he suffered, but resolution has come through his existential encounter with God. Job has come face to face with the limits of his knowledge and has submitted to the mystery of God\u2019s purposes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Human autonomy and a strong sense of \u201cour truth\u201d often manifests itself in a bucket approach to knowledge,11<\/a> where we try t<\/span>o scoop up endless facts and arrange them logically. Job\u2019s growth in wisdom here is better understood in terms of the torchlight approach; what we see and know is always in relation to the light shone on the situati<\/span>on. Through his encounter with God, Job\u2019s torchlight has been cracked wide open and expanded so as to bring a new perspective on life. Somehow, in God\u2019s immense and wonderful design, injustice is allowed to play a role in God making things right again, or even better than they were before. <\/span>Job does not know how<\/em>, but spiritually he is in a position to accept that God can make even th<\/span>is situation work for his good purposes.<\/p>\n

Job\u2019s last words\u2014\u201cTherefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes\u201d (42:6<\/a>)\u2014create even more debate. On the surface, it seems as though Job is repenting,<\/span> but the Hebrew is ambiguous. In the first phrase, the Hebrew verb m\u2019s<\/span> could mean \u201crefuse,\u201d \u201creject,\u201d or even \u201cloathe,\u201d as many translations render the verb in Job\u2019s other use of this phrase in 9:21<\/a>.1<\/span>2<\/a> However, regardless of translation, it is not entirely clear what Job means. The second phrase is equally troubling. Habel translates it \u201cI leave my ashes,\u201d which alerts us to the significance of t<\/span>he word \u201cashes\u201d in this context. F. I. Anderson and others relate this clause to the \u201cdust and ashes\u201d that Abraham speaks of in Genesis 18:27<\/a>. Here dust and ashes allude to our created nature\u2014our huma<\/span>nity.13<\/a> We are, after all, just animated earth or breathing clay. Adam and Eve were made from the dust (Gen 2:7<\/a>) and were destined to return to dust upon their death (Gen 3:19<\/a>). If Job has these conte<\/span>xts in mind, this verse brings us to a summary statement for the book: Humans are gifted with wisdom, but it is, nevertheless, the wisdom of creatures<\/em>\u2014of animated dust\u2014and not of the infinite divine. <\/span>In a world of suffering, we are profoundly limited in our understanding and lament our fallen and distorted creatureliness.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/span><\/span>Suggested Reading<\/p>\n

\u2022 Job 38\u201342<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Reflection<\/p>\n

How would you describe the development in Job\u2019s understanding of God?<\/p>\n

J. B. Phillips wrote a book titled Your God Is Too Small<\/em>. Do you think this was true of Job?<\/p>\n

Are there ways in which this is true of you?<\/p>\n

Have you ever been through a difficult time that has enlarged your view of God?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

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5<\/p>\n

The Power of Poetry<\/p>\n

One of the fascinating characteristics of Job is that the bulk of the book, chapters 3\u201341<\/a>, are written in poetry. This section is enclosed by the frame of 1\u20132<\/a> and 42<\/a>, which are written in narrative prose. This makes it unlikely that Job should be read as a historical account, although there is debate about this among scholars. What is crucial is that we not make the false distinction that \u201chistorical\u201d means the same thing as \u201ctrue\u201d and \u201cfictional\u201d means \u201cfalse.\u201d Literature can be true and powerfully convey truth without being historical in the sense of recounting events that actually happened. For example, I grew up in apartheid South Africa, and to this day when I speak publicly about South Africa I always turn to Alan Paton\u2019s classic novel, Cry, the Beloved Country<\/em>. Although Paton\u2019s book is a novel and thus the characters and plot are not strictly historical, the book powerfully evokes the relational breakdown that occurred in apartheid South Africa, with its racism and oppression. Story and poetry are able to evoke human experience in a way that straightforward descriptions cannot.<\/p>\n

We know this well from the Psalms. It is one thing to say: \u201cGod is loving and he cares for his people.\u201d It is far more evocative and rich to say with Psalm 23<\/a>, \u201cThe Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want \u2026\u201d Job is narrative art at its best, and it is significant that most of Job is in poetry<\/em>. Poetry is uniquely suited to plumb the depths of Job\u2019s suffering, to evoke his tragedy, to alert us to the sterility of the friends\u2019 speeches, and to set God before us as the majestic creator and sovereign of the universe. The friends\u2019 speeches, like the Psalter, resort to stereotypical images but lack the life of the Psalms. \u201cEliphaz,\u201d says Alter, \u201cspeaks smugly without suspecting that there might be a chasm between divine knowledge and the conventional knowledge of accepted wisdom.\u201d1<\/a> Elihu\u2019s poetry is more powerful and sophisticated than the friends\u2019, though it does not, as Alter says, \u201csoar like the Voice from the Whirlwind\u201d2<\/a> in chapters 38\u201341<\/a>. Job is not afraid to protest, and Alter notes, \u201cJob\u2019s cosmic poetry, unlike that of the friends, has a certain energy of vision, as though it proceeded from some immediate perception of the great things it reports.\u201d3<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Parallelism in Hebrew Poetry<\/p>\n

There are at least three types of parallelism in Hebrew poetry. In synonymous parallelism, the second line restates or supports the idea of the first line (Job 3:11<\/a>). In antithetic parallelism, the second line contrasts the idea of the first line (Job 8:7<\/a>). Finally, in developmental (or synthetic) parallelism, the second line expands or builds on the idea of the first line (Job 5:19<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The great characteristic of Hebrew poetry is that of parallelism, in which one or more lines work in parallel with the first line.4<\/a> Even if you cannot read Hebrew, this characteristic is evident from the way modern versions set out poetry in their translations. It is rare for Hebrew poetry simply to repeat the same thought in a second or third line; normally there is an intensification of some sort or the development of the idea in some way. Take Job 38:2<\/a>, for example, which we can set out as follows:<\/p>\n

Who is this<\/p>\n

that darkens my counsel<\/p>\n

with words without knowledge?<\/p>\n

The phrase \u201cwith words without knowledge\u201d parallels \u201cthat darkens my counsel.\u201d But it more than reproduces the idea, it intensifies it by showing how Job darkens God\u2019s counsel, namely by speaking without true knowledge. In the Hebrew there is also a play on letters in \u201cwords without\u201d: Both words contain the Hebrew letters b, l<\/em>, and y<\/em>, thereby highlighting the emptiness of the words.<\/p>\n

Many other features of Hebrew poetry are similar to those of modern poetry, including evocative language, allusion, the use of metaphors and similes, plays on words, etc. In 38:2<\/a> above, for example, God speaks of one who \u201cdarkens\u201d his counsel. In the Old Testament, \u201ccounsel\u201d is associated with wisdom and light, but here we are alerted to a form of speech that casts a shadow over God\u2019s wisdom.5<\/a> Like good poetry, it leads us to ponder this image and ask a host of questions such as how, why, in what way, etc. Such an image would also have cut Job to the heart. He had longed for God to appear and to be held accountable, and now he stands accused of darkening God\u2019s counsel!<\/p>\n

Job\u2019s speeches are a rich repository of poetry and readers are encouraged to explore them in this way. Let\u2019s look more closely at Job\u2019s final words before Elihu\u2019s speech and then God\u2019s speeches. Job 31:35\u201340<\/a> lead up to the narrator\u2019s note in 31:40<\/a>\u2014\u201cThe words of Job are ended.\u201d This statement is itself significant, indicating that Job really has nothing more to say; he has run out of words. Job 31:35\u201340<\/a> reads as follows:<\/p>\n

(\u201cOh, that I had someone to hear me!<\/p>\n

I sign now my defense\u2014let the Almighty answer me;<\/p>\n

let my accuser put his indictment in writing.<\/p>\n

Surely I would wear it on my shoulder,<\/p>\n

I would put it on like a crown.<\/p>\n

I would give him an account of my every step;<\/p>\n

I would present it to him as to a ruler.)\u2014<\/p>\n

\u201cif my land cries out against me<\/p>\n

and all its furrows are wet with tears,<\/p>\n

if I have devoured its yield without payment<\/p>\n

or broken the spirit of its tenants,<\/p>\n

then let briers come up instead of wheat<\/p>\n

and stinkweed instead of barley.\u201d<\/p>\n

The words of Job are ended.<\/p>\n

In 31:35<\/a> Job first expresses his great desire to be heard, and especially by God. In his speeches, Job often expresses the desire to take God to court so that God will be forced to explain himself. Here again in 31:35<\/a> we have the language of a law court, indicated by the Hebrew word for \u201cindictment,\u201d which refers to a legal case against, in this case, Job.<\/p>\n

The lines, \u201cLet the Almighty answer me; let my accuser put his indictment in writing,\u201d are parallel\u2014the second line intensifying the meaning of the first. Job requires not just an answer but a legal indictment explaining the case against him in writing. The Almighty is also identified in the second line as Job\u2019s accuser. Job signing off on his case also anticipates \u201cThe words of Job are ended\u201d in 31:40<\/a>. Job knows that his case is hopeless: How can he get the Almighty to submit his case in writing? But he has had enough and has nothing more to say. Going to court is often our last desperate measure for justice, and Job here, as it were, reviews his case, is satisfied with it, and signs off on it. There is absolutely nothing more he feels he can do.<\/p>\n

The parallelism in 31:36\u20137<\/a> is easily identifiable:<\/p>\n

Surely I would wear it on my shoulder,<\/p>\n

I would put it on like a crown.<\/p>\n

I would give him an account of my every step;<\/p>\n

I would present it to him as to a ruler.<\/p>\n

The second line in 31:36<\/a> intensifies the thought of the first. Job imagines God\u2019s written indictment as something he would want everyone to see; it would virtually establish him as royalty\u2014\u201clike a crown\u201d\u2014because, in Job\u2019s mind, it would establish his innocence.<\/p>\n

In 31:37<\/a> the second line develops the first. In the first line, Job states that he will provide God with an exhaustive report of his life. In the second line, he says he will present it to God with humility and reverence as befits a ruler. Job again pleads his innocence in 31:38\u201340<\/a>, this time with the central metaphor of the land. This concern for the land and its inhabitants anticipates God\u2019s concern for the whole creation. Indeed, the book of Job contains major resources for an environmental ethic. Job knows that God loves the creation, the land, and its peoples, and in these verses he personifies the land, similar to the way the Lord does in Genesis 4:10<\/a>\u2014where God speaks of the land as crying out over the spilling of Abel\u2019s blood. Job knows that humans have a responsibility to care for and steward the land. And as a great landowner, he speaks of \u201cmy land\u201d in Job 31:38<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Genesis 4<\/a> the land cries out against Cain, and here Job says that if he has caused the land to cry out and its furrows to weep through abuse and evil, and if he has practiced economic exploitation of its inhabitants (31:39<\/a>), then God should be free to curse the land (31:40<\/a>) as he did with Adam and Eve. The same Hebrew words are used here for \u201ccry out\u201d and \u201cland\u201d as in Genesis 4:11<\/a>, but the words for \u201cbriers\u201d and \u201cstinkweed\u201d differ from the words in Genesis 3:18<\/a>, though the idea is the same. The implication is, of course, that Job is innocent of any such crimes and undeserving of the suffering he is going through. If he has the early chapters of Genesis in mind, then his plea is that even if he is guilty\u2014which he is sure he is not\u2014then let the punishment fit the crime as with Adam and Eve, and Cain, but not this unbearable and disproportionate hell he is going through.<\/p>\n

This short section of Job\u2019s concluding words gives us a taste of the power of poetry to evoke Job\u2019s pain and desperation. Thus, first, poetry enables the book of Job to evoke the depth of the tragedy that struck Job. The Jewish thinker George Steiner argues, using Job as an example, that \u201cTragedy is alien to the Judaic [Jewish] sense of the world\u201d;6<\/a> tragedy in his view is essentially an ancient Greek affair and arises from a view of the world in which humans encounter blind necessity. C. S. Lewis once commented that his greatest fear was not that there was no God, but that God was not good. The Greeks struggled with something even worse. They had no view of a personal, good God governing the world and thought that ultimately they were at the mercy of an impersonal force who governed their lives without any concern for their well-being and whose control was inescapable!<\/p>\n

Clearly what Job encounters is not blind necessity but the difficulty of squaring his suffering with the God he serves. Job\u2019s struggle is closer to C. S. Lewis\u2019 fear. Steiner\u2019s definition of tragedy is, however, narrow, and it remains valuable to see Job in the context of the struggle with tragedy in ancient and modern literature. The American philosopher Martha Nussbaum notes the important role of narrative and image in learning about morality: \u201cCertain truths about human experience can best be learned by living them in their particularity. Nor can this particularity be grasped solely by thought \u2018itself for itself.\u2019\u00a0\u201d7<\/a> This relates to her point that a contribution of tragedy is to explore the gap between what we are and how well we manage to live our lives.8<\/a> The book of Job, with its poetry and vivid and sterile images, evokes precisely such tragic particularity. As Henri Nouwen noted, often the most personal is the most universal. By allowing us to see the gap between Job at his lowest\u2014amid the direst circumstances\u2014and his eventual restoration and development, the poetry of Job enables us to look again at our struggles and to find hope for where God may be at work in them.<\/p>\n

Unlike his opponents who held to an abstract view of virtue, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle saw the emotions of pity and fear as central to tragedy and valuable as sources of illumination and clarification.9<\/a> Job is full of the range of emotions and the book expects his readers to be formed as they journey with Job through his tragedy to resolution.<\/p>\n

The Christian theologian Peter Leithart refers to the Christian perspective on life as one of \u201cdeep comedy.\u201d He is, of course, using \u201ccomedy\u201d in an unusual sense to refer to the fact that the ending the Bible envisages is uncontaminated by any fear of future tragedy, and the characters progress to a fulfillment that exceeds their beginning; the move is from glory to glory. However, as Leithart rightly notes, such deep comedy does not erase tragedy; it simply enables us to see it in all its painful depths as \u201cdeep tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because the resurrection vindicates the Crucified, not the crucifixion, the gospel story undercuts any easy moralism or sentimental liberalism.\u2026 Thus the cross and resurrection intensify sadness and the sense of loss, and in a sense make tragedy more tragic.10<\/a><\/p>\n

As Plantinga notes, \u201cThere could be no such thing as genuinely horrifying evil if there were no God.\u201d11<\/a> There is thus a sense in which Bernard Williams is right to criticize moral philosophy\u2019s attachment to serving up \u201cgood news\u201d about our condition.12<\/a> A role of tragedy, and not least that of Job, is to confront us with the horrors inherent in fallen human life. The critical difference, of course, between Job and Greek tragedy with its horrifying blind necessity, is the central character of Job, God, and God\u2019s providential ordering of his good creation.<\/p>\n

Poetry also enables us to catch a vision of God as creator and sovereign over his universe. The divine speeches in Job are remarkable:<\/p>\n

If the poetry of Job \u2026 looms above all other biblical poetry in virtuosity and sheer expressive power, the culminating poem that God speaks out of the storm soars beyond everything that has preceded it in the book, the poet having wrought a poetic idiom even richer and more awesome than the one he gave Job.13<\/a><\/p>\n

When God finally answers Job out of the whirlwind, he responds with an order of poetry formally allied to Job\u2019s own remarkable poetry, but larger in scope and greater in power \u2026 That is, God picks up many of Job\u2019s key images, especially from the death-wish poem with which Job began (Chapter 3<\/a>) and his discourse is shaped by a powerful movement of intensification, coupled with an implicitly narrative sweep from the creation to the play of natural forces to the teeming world of animal life.14<\/a><\/p>\n

Scholars debate whether the divine speeches are an answer to Job\u2019s experience of suffering.15<\/a> C. A. Newsom discerns a multiplicity of voices in Job and argues that no voice, not even God\u2019s, provides an answer to the questions raised in the book. In his review of Newsom\u2019s The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations<\/em>, Jon Levenson perceptively notes, \u201cThree centuries of secularization and historical criticism impel us to place God\u2019s words about himself on a plane with human speculations about him. There is ample reason to doubt that ancient Israelites felt the same agnostic impulse or evaluated interminable dialogue with no chance of resolution so highly.\u201d16<\/a><\/p>\n

It is true that Job receives no direct answer as to why he suffered. But Job confesses that he had previously only heard<\/em> of God but now he sees<\/em> him, which tells us that his suffering has worked a profound transformation in him. The divine speeches answer Job but not the questions he<\/em> was asking. The repetition of the reference to darkening counsel in 38:2<\/a> and 42:3<\/a> that frame God\u2019s speeches\u2014in biblical studies we refer to this enveloped structure as an inclusio<\/em>\u2014and Job\u2019s reference back to 38:2<\/a> in 42:3<\/a> indicate that God\u2019s speeches have indeed achieved their aim. God\u2019s agenda is radically different to Job\u2019s and the divine speeches facilitate the momentous shift in Job from knowing about God to deep, interpersonal relationship in which Job assumes and embraces his creaturely status.<\/p>\n

A surprising aspect of the divine speeches is their focus on the non-human aspects of the creation. Kathryn Schifferdecker rightly mentions this non-human emphasis but falsely, in my view, concludes that the divine speeches are unique in the Bible in this respect. Creation, and not covenant<\/em>, she stresses, is where Job\u2019s answer is to be found. However, the recurrence of Yahweh<\/em>, the great covenantal name of Israel\u2019s God (see also Exod 3<\/a>; 6<\/a>) in Job 42<\/a>, plus the reference to a burnt offering (Job 42:8<\/a>), undercut any non-covenantal reading. And in terms of the unique place of humankind in the creation, we should remember that it is Job who is taken on the tour of creation, not an ostrich or a donkey!17<\/a><\/p>\n

The divine speeches do not articulate a different creation theology to what is portrayed in the rest of the Old Testament. But they place the emphasis on the non-human in order to facilitate the decentering of Job\u2014a part of his transformation process. Job needs to realize that there is far more to the creation than him, and the focus on nature and animals intentionally broadens his perspective that has\u2014understandably\u2014become obsessed with his own<\/em> experience. In Job 3<\/a>, Job\u2019s attempt to un-create the world is centered around himself; the divine speeches focus on Yahweh and the world apart from<\/em> Job and humankind.<\/p>\n

Rolf P. Knierim perceptively notes:<\/p>\n

Job is told that his challenge to Yahweh\u2019s justice is evaluated on the basis of the universal order of Yahweh\u2019s created and sustained world and not on the basis of his own experience. To the extent that Job saw Yahweh withdrawing from the wholeness of his life he was correct. But he was wrong when challenging Yahweh\u2019s justice universally. For such a challenge, his experience was not universal enough. His experience cannot be the sum total of wisdom because it does not represent the structure of the whole world, just as he himself is not the creator and sustainer of this structure.18<\/a><\/p>\n

God\u2019s speeches are truly remarkable. George Steiner commented that on a good day he can imagine the great Shakespeare sitting at home and writing his plays, but he cannot imagine any human writing these speeches of God in Job. There really is something divine about them. The novelist Frederick Buechner says of God\u2019s speeches:<\/p>\n

Just the way God cleared his throat almost blasted Job off his feet, and that was only for starters. It is the most gorgeous speech that God makes in the whole Old Testament, and it is composed almost entirely of the most gorgeous and preposterous questions that have ever been asked by God or anybody else.19<\/a><\/p>\n

In 38:2\u201338<\/a> God focuses poetically on his work of and in creation, and then in 38:39\u201340<\/a> he moves on to the animals of creation. In 40:6\u201314<\/a> God speaks of his justice, a theme much closer to home for Job, and then in 40:15\u201341:34<\/a> he discusses the Behemoth and the Leviathan\u2014great and mysterious creatures that humankind cannot control, but God can.<\/p>\n

We have already noted how questions dominate God\u2019s speeches. My psychologist friend encourages me in difficult meetings to ask questions<\/em>, as it makes the other party do the work on the issues under discussion. This is precisely what God\u2019s questions are designed to do\u2014to make Job reflect hard on who he is<\/em> in relation to Yahweh.<\/p>\n

God\u2019s speeches are full of rich metaphors, allusions, and evocative expressions, all designed to bring home to Job the reality of the expanse of creation and God\u2019s powerful, caring rule of the whole. As we saw above in our exploration of Job\u2019s final words, Job pleads, \u201cLet the Almighty answer me\u201d (31:35<\/a>). Whereas here in 38:3<\/a> the Lord says to Job, \u201cI will question you, and you shall answer me.\u201d<\/p>\n

A series of evocative questions appear in 38:4\u201338<\/a>, showing Job that Yahweh is the creator and he is a creature. Their poetic form allows the questions to be posed with great force and energy. Take a moment to read Genesis 1:1\u20132:3<\/a> and then this section of Job. Both describe creation, but it is immediately apparent that Job 38<\/a> is poetry whereas Genesis 1<\/a> is narrative prose. You do not find in Genesis 1<\/a> references to the sea bursting forth from the womb (38:8<\/a>), to God making the clouds the garment in which he wraps the sea (38:9<\/a>) or the \u201cproud waves\u201d (38:11<\/a>), to giving orders to the morning and showing the dawn its place (38:12<\/a>), to the storehouses of the snow and hail (38:22<\/a>), to the road to the place where lightning is dispersed (38:24<\/a>), etc. This is rhetoric of a high order all designed to show, as God\u2019s ironic question in 38:21<\/a> demonstrates, \u201cSurely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years!\u201d\u2014that Job is a creature with a limited time span, with a limited perspective, and thus with limited knowledge.<\/p>\n

In Job 38:39\u201340<\/a> and in 40:15\u201341:34<\/a> God draws Job\u2019s attention to the animal world. God created humankind in his own image, to be God\u2019s royal steward to care for and develop the creation in a way that images the great king over all the creation (Gen 1:26\u201328<\/a>). Therefore, God cares about the animal world, as should humans, and is depicted in these chapters as being in direct relationship with that world. For example, in Job 38:41<\/a>, the young ravens cry out to God<\/em> for food in a time of famine. God\u2019s questions to Job demonstrate what Job doesn\u2019t know or do, but, at the same time, they indicate what God does<\/em> know and do! Job 39:1\u20132<\/a>, for example, implies that God does take an interest in and knows when the mountain goats give birth. It is God who grants the wild donkey freedom (39:5\u20138<\/a>) and a place to thrive and hills to range for forage. Job 39:7<\/a> personifies the donkey as laughing at the commotion in the town and ignoring the shout of a driver. These verses point out that there is life apart from humans in the creation, which implies that there is far more to life than Job. We get the sense that God takes delight in these non-human aspects of his creation and is genuinely concerned that his creations thrive and flourish. For example, in 39:13\u201318<\/a> there is humor in the stupidity of the ostrich in her dealings with her young but admiration in the speed at which she can run.<\/p>\n

God\u2019s questions to Job about nature and the animal world all relate to the immense difference between Job as a person and God as the omnipotent creator. In 40:7\u201314<\/a> this difference is related specifically to Job\u2019s questioning of God\u2019s justice. Remember, Job did not get to see the heaven scenes in Job 1\u20132<\/a>, as we did, and God doesn\u2019t explain to Job why he was subjected to such suffering. Instead, God draws Job\u2019s attention to his<\/em> greatness and Job\u2019s smallness by comparison. This leads on to the discussion of the Behemoth and the Leviathan (40:15\u201341:34<\/a>) as examples of creatures that humankind cannot control but which God knows and is sovereign over. Buechner rightly notes:<\/p>\n

He [Job] had seen the great glory so shot through with sheer, fierce light and gladness, had heard the great voice raised in song so full of terror and wildness and beauty, that from that moment on, nothing else mattered. All possible questions melted like mist, and all possible explanations withered like grass, and all the bad times of his life together with all the good times were so caught up into the fathomless life of this God, who had bent down to speak with him though by comparison he was no more than a fleck of dust on the head of a pin in the lapel of a dancing flea, that all he could say was, \u201cI had heard of thee by the hearing, but now my eyes see thee: therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes\u201d (Job 42:5\u20136<\/a>).20<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Suggested Reading<\/p>\n

\u2022 Genesis 1\u20133<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2022 Job 29\u201331<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Reflection<\/p>\n

Take a short section from Job 29\u201331<\/a>. Does reading it closely and attentively as poetry help you to empathize with Job\u2019s suffering? How so?<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Can you think of a novel or poem that has had a profound effect on your life?<\/p>\n

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Why do you think it was a poem or novel that affected you in this way?<\/p>\n

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How is the literary form of Job as a story with poetry peculiarly suited to deal with the subject of unexpected and terrible suffering?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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6<\/p>\n

Job\u2019s Journey of Transformation<\/p>\n

A reading of Job as a story containing long stretches of poetry alerts us to its central theme of formation through suffering<\/em>. It is very useful to examine some books<\/span> of the Bible through the lens of another discipline. For example, Ellen Davis, in Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture<\/em>,1<\/a> opens up a fruitful dialogue between the Old Testament and the new agrarianism,<\/span> and with Wendell Berry in particular; the results are very insightful.<\/p>\n

With Job, psychology is such a discipline. An experience like Job\u2019s is ripe for psychological analysis, and in this section we w<\/span>ill use insights from Jung to explore Job\u2019s experience.2<\/a> Susannah Ticciati rightly notes that the self<\/em> and its being transformed are central to Job.3<\/a> Within the Jungian tradition Edward F. Edinger pro<\/span>poses a more helpful reading of Job than Jung himself, according to which Job recounts a comprehensive account of the encounter with the Self.4<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Jung on Job<\/p>\n

The eminent psychologist Carl Jung\u2019s fullest<\/span> treatment of the book of Job can be found in his 1952 book Antwort auf Hiob<\/span> (translated into English in 1954 as Answer to Job<\/em>). In it, Jung controversially proposes that God did wrong by allowing the<\/span> righteous Job to be afflicted.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

For Jung, the Self is the center of the total person, conscious and unconscious, whereas the Ego is the center of conscious personality. Further, the Ego is the center<\/span> of subjective identity while the Self is the locale of objective identity. The Self is identified by Jung with the imago dei<\/em>; it is the creative center where God and humankind meet\u2014what Old Testament<\/span> wisdom calls \u201cthe heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Psychologically, the relationship between the Ego and the Self is vitally important. Many psychological problems are illuminated in terms of the Ego-Self relationship. Jung <\/span>distinguishes between the inflated Ego, the alienated Ego, and the Ego\u2019s encounter with the Self, leading to a healthy relationship between the Ego and the Self. Inflation refers to the identification of the Ego with the Self. \u201cIt is a state in which something small (the Ego) has arrogated to itself the qualities of something larger (the Self) and hence is blown up beyon<\/span>d the limits of its proper size.\u201d<\/span>5<\/a> However, this state cannot continue indefinitely because the experience of life frustrates the expectations of the inflated Ego, resulting in an estrangement between the Ego and the Self. \u201cThi<\/span>s estrangement is symbolized by such images as a fall, an exile, an unhealing wound, a perpetual torture.\u201d6<\/a> This experience of alienation is, from this perspective, a necessary stage en route to aware<\/span>ness of and a healthy relationship to the self.<\/p>\n

According to Jung, \u201cThe self, in its efforts at self-realization, reaches out beyond the ego-personality on all sides; because of its all-encompassing n<\/span>ature it is brighter and darker than the ego, and accordingly confronts it with problems which it would like to avoid.\u2026 For this reason, the experience of the self is always a defeat for the ego.\u201d7<\/a> Th<\/span>e inflation of the ego is thus symptomatic of the idolatry of the \u201cI\u201d as the center of one\u2019s existence, rather than the \u201cI\u201d finding its identity in relation to God. The journey toward health involves a d<\/span>ecentering of the ego, the \u201cI,\u201d as part of<\/em> the self and as constituted by<\/em> the self, but not as<\/em> the self. For S\u01ffren Kierkegaard, the 19th-century Danish Christian philosopher, as for Jung, the proce<\/span>ss of moving from an inflated Ego, through an alienated Ego, to a healthy Ego-Self relationship is wrought by pain and struggle\u2014for it is a journey that the Ego instinctively resists.8<\/a> Maturity or inn<\/span>er transformation is thus nothing less than an encounter with the Self.<\/p>\n

How does this theory help us understand what Job undergoes? When Job loses everything he holds valuable, he is plunged into desp<\/span>air and a state of alienation. If the Self, from a Jungian perspective, is to be recognized as the supreme value, then all lesser attachments\u2014those most closely connected with the inflation of the Ego\u2014<\/span>must be loosened<\/em>. This is not to suggest that Job was not a true believer, but it is to argue that he needed to grow and develop as a believer, to advance in what we call sanctification<\/em>\u2014becoming holy<\/span>, becoming like God, becoming whole.<\/p>\n

Job evidently centered the meaning of his life in family, property, and health. The indications of this are found in his obsessive protection of his family in 1:5<\/a> <\/span>and in his inflated vision of what should happen to him at death in 3:14\u201315<\/a> (see also 30:1<\/a>), where he imagines himself at peace with the great and wise ones of the earth! When deprived of his attachme<\/span>nts, he despaired and entered what St. John of the Cross calls the \u201cdark night of the soul.\u201d9<\/a> Job\u2019s life has shattered and his response is to seek to cause creation to shatter (Job 3<\/a>).10<\/a> Alter describ<\/span>es Job 3<\/a> as \u201ca powerful, evocative, authentic expression of man\u2019s essential, virtually ineluctable egotism.\u201d11<\/a> Schifferdecker adds, \u201cJob\u2019s own world has descended into turmoil or chaos (\u03b6\u03b3\u03c1<\/span>), and he a<\/span>ttempts to inflict that chaos on creation itself; first by cursing creation, then by ascribing chaotic tendencies to God.\u201d12<\/a> Job remains convinced of his innocence and for Edinger, he thereby demonstr<\/span>ates that he is unconscious of the dark, \u201cshadow side\u201d of his personality. The repetitiveness of the dialogues, which so irritate the impatient reader, enact this performatively in the reading process, since the resistance of the ego involves returning again and again and aga<\/span>in to the same issues. The friends, incidentally, similarly show that they are unaware of the shadow sides of their personalities since they, too, return again and again and again to the same issues.<\/span><\/p>\n

From Edinger\u2019s perspective, the centrality of God in Job is deeply significant since it provides the assurance that there is<\/em><\/span> meaning in Job\u2019s suffering. Through his encounters with God, Job is brought to the realization that the Ego is ignorant of the Self in its totality, or, as we might say, of his creatureliness. He is <\/span>not God. Satan\u2019s suggestion that Job will curse God, and the encouragement to do so by his wife, highlight the issue of Ego inflation. \u201cTherefore the program is arranged to test the ego in the fire of tribulation, and out of that ordeal comes Job\u2019s full encounter with the reality of God.\u2026 we can say that it was God\u2019s purpose to make Job aware of Him.\u201d<\/span>13<\/a> Through his riveting encounter with God, \u201cJo<\/span>b\u2019s questions have been answered, not rationally but by living experience. What he has been seeking, the meaning of his suffering, has been found. It is nothing less than the conscious realization of <\/span>the autonomous archetypal psyche; and this realization could come to birth only through an ordeal<\/em>.\u201d14<\/a><\/p>\n

This may seem like a lot of complicated theory for a rather simple solution: Job has to realize th<\/span>at he is a creature and not God. And it\u2019s easy to think, \u201cWe are Christians, we know that already!\u201d But as Job had to learn, there is a difference between knowing about something, and knowing<\/em> it in th<\/span>e depths of one\u2019s heart. The quest for human autonomy\u2014for humans to be a law unto themselves rather than to have to submit to God\u2019s ways\u2014is the sin that introduced sin into the world in Genesis 3<\/a>. And<\/span> this quest echoes down through history in a myriad of ways and is arguably the sin<\/em> of the modern world. Modernity, with all its many good things, is deeply founded on a desire to do without God and t<\/span>o place humankind at the center of life. This toxin is in our wiring and it is not<\/em> easily dismissed.<\/p>\n

Yes, the truth of Job is ultimately simple, but it is also profound. Job arrives at what Proverbs c<\/span>alls the starting point, namely: \u201cThe fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom\u201d (Prov 1:7<\/a>; 9:10<\/a>). But it is not a starting point we ever leave behind. Rather, as the great poet T. S. Eliot might re<\/span>mind us, it is a starting point that we return to again and again, to see and understand it more fully:<\/p>\n

We shall not cease from exploration<\/p>\n

And the end of all our exploring<\/p>\n

Will be to arrive where we <\/span>started<\/p>\n

And know the place for the first time.15<\/a><\/p>\n

Wisdom is not just head knowledge, but an existential knowledge of God that needs to permeate and reform our entire being. Job reminds us that this wil<\/span>l often be a traumatic process. It will mean, from time to time, going through the furnace of formation.<\/p>\n

A literary and psychological reading illumines the fact that the book of Job, like Ecclesiastes<\/span>, is about the transformative dimension essential to true wisdom. \u201cThe Book of Job is really a record of a divine initiation process, a testing by ordeal, which when successful, leads to a new state of being.\u201d<\/span>16<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/span><\/span>Suggested Reading<\/p>\n

\u2022 If you are interested in a psychological reading of Job and can get hold of Edward F. Edinger\u2019s Ego and Archetype<\/em> (Baltimore: Penguin, 1972), you might like to read Edinger\u2019s secti<\/span>on on Job, pp.76\u201396.<\/p>\n

\u2022 For a comparable reading of Ecclesiastes, see Craig G. Bartholomew, Ecclesiastes<\/em>. BCOTWP. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009), 375\u201389.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Bible is full of stories of formation throug<\/span>h trials. Read Jonah, for example, and compare his journey with Job\u2019s.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Reflection<\/p>\n

Do you find a psychological reading of Job helpful? Why or why not?<\/p>\n

What does Job\u2019s journey teach you about what to look for in a good counselor?<\/p>\n

Does Job\u2019s journey of transformation cast light on any hard times you have been through?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/span><\/span>7<\/p>\n

Job and Jesus<\/p>\n

The only mention of Job in the New Testament is found in James 5:11<\/a>:<\/p>\n

As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job\u2019s perseverance and have seen what<\/span> the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.<\/p>\n

James was Jesus\u2019 brother and we would be wise to pay close attention to his letter. James has much to say about trials and te<\/span>mptations, and his reference to Job comes in a section dealing with patience and perseverance in suffering (Jas 5:7\u201312<\/a>). His two examples of perseverance amid suffering are the prophets and Job. He pe<\/span>rceptively refers to \u201cwhat the Lord has finally brought about\u201d in Job and follows this with an astonishing statement, \u201cThe Lord is full of compassion and mercy.\u201d James\u2019 reference to perseverance in chapter <\/span>5<\/a> likely connects to his discussion of perseverance in chapter 1<\/a>, in which he notes that perseverance is vital for God\u2019s formative work to take place. Thus James rightly alerts us to Job\u2019s story<\/span> as an example of perseverance in suffering and of God\u2019s formative work through that suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Job Elsewhere in the Bible<\/p>\n

Besides Job and James, the only other biblical book to mention Job is Ezekiel<\/span>. In Ezekiel 14:14<\/a>, 20<\/a>, Job is mentioned alongside Noah and Daniel as positive examples whose righteousness cannot be transferred to anyone else.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

In Job 28:12<\/a>, Job asks, \u201cWhere can wisdom be found?\u201d <\/span>The New Testament unequivocally answers, \u201cIn Christ.\u201d The most extensive christological reading of Job in modern times is that by the German theologian Karl Barth, who devotes 100 pages to Job.1<\/a> Barth<\/span> argues that Job is a type of Christ as the true witness and his encounter with the falsehood of humanity. The New Testament does not identify Job as a major source for understanding Jesus, but in the conte<\/span>xt of Jesus as wisdom personified it is surely legitimate to make this connection. As with Job, suffering is central to the wisdom of Jesus. Hebrews 5:8\u20139<\/a> points out that, like Job, suffering wa<\/span>s transformative for Jesus; through it he learned obedience and became perfect. Jesus\u2019 suffering, like Job\u2019s, is hellish; at the Mount of Olives he is in anguish, and his sweat is like great drops of blood (<\/span>Luke 22:39\u201346<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Unlike Job, Jesus does not protest the injustice of God except in the very darkest moments of the garden of Gethsemane and from the cross (\u201cMy God, my God, why have you forsaken<\/span> me?\u201d). Unlike Job, Jesus, in his suffering, takes upon himself the burden of the world\u2019s guilt and sin. Unlike Job, Jesus dies, crushed by that burden, but rises triumphantly to open the gates of the kingdom to all. Central to the biblical narrative is the slain Lamb upon the throne; his death will ultimately remove all suffering. But in the time between his inauguration of<\/span> the kingdom and its consummation, believers will continue <\/span>to suffer and continue to need a book like Job. Yet, we know that our Redeemer lives and that we shall live to see him.<\/p>\n

In the Gospels, Jesus exhorts us to take up <\/span>our cross and follow him (Matt 10:38<\/a>; 16:24<\/a>; Mark 8:34<\/a>; Luke 9:23<\/a>). He identifies this as an indispensable mark of being one of his followers. As one commentator perceptively notes, in the ancient wor<\/span>ld, if you were to take up a cross, there was only one destination in view: crucifixion. Thus, Christians need to be prepared to suffer like Jesus, and therefore we can look to Job as a vital resource for discipleship.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/span><\/span>Suggested Reading<\/p>\n

\u2022 Mark 8:27\u20139:1<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2022 Hebrews 5:1\u20139<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Reflection<\/p>\n

In what ways is Job similar and different to Jesus?<\/p>\n

Now that Jesus has come, why do we still need a book like Job?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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8<\/p>\n

The Reader\u2019s Journey of Transformation<\/p>\n

What then should we learn from the extraordinary book of Job? First, we should read it as the immensely practical book it is. Some biblical scholarship has bee<\/span>n unhelpful in this respect, doing everything with Job apart from reading it to hear God\u2019s transformative word. In his Repetition<\/em>, S\u01ffren Kierkegaard provides a far healthier example of how to live wit<\/span>h Job:<\/p>\n

If I did not have Job! It is impossible to describe all the shades of meaning and how manifold the meaning is that he has for me. I do not read him as one reads another book, with the eyes, but<\/span> I lay the book, as it were, on my heart and read it with the eyes of the heart, in a clairvoyance, interpreting the specifics in the most diverse ways. Just as the child puts his schoolbook under his pillow to make sure he has not forgotten his lesson when he wakes up in the morning, so I take the book to bed with me at night. Every word by him is food and clothing and healing for my wretc<\/span>hed soul. Now a word by him arouses me from my lethargy <\/span>and awakens new restlessness; now it calms the sterile raging within me, stops the dreadfulness in the mute nausea of my passion. Have you really read <\/span>Job?\u2026 Every transcription of this kind is laid upon my sick heart as God\u2019s hand-plaster.\u2026 Nowhere in the world has the passion of anguish found such expression.\u2026 At night I can have all the lights burning, the whole house illuminated. Then I stand up and read in a loud voice, almost shouting, some passage from him.\u2026 Although I have read the book aga<\/span>in and again, each word remains new to me.\u2026 Like an inebriate, I imbibe all the intoxication of passion little by little, until by this prolonged sipping I become almost unconscious in drunkenness.<\/span>1<\/a><\/p>\n

Kierkegaard was not unfamiliar with suffering, and<\/span> he rightly saw the need to read Job so that it penetrated to the core of his being. We should do likewise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n

Kierkegaard and Job<\/p>\n

The Danish philosopher S\u00f8ren Kierkegaard wrote on the book of Job twice,<\/span> both in 1843: first as part of his book Repetition<\/em>, and second in his \u201cedifying discourse\u201d on Job 1:20\u201321<\/a>, \u201cThe Lord Gave, and the Lord Hath Taken Away, Blessed Be the Name of the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Second, we <\/span>should learn from Job that suffering can be part of our discipleship. We should never go looking for suffering; this was a mistake that some Christians in the early church made, thinking that martyrdom was the h<\/span>ighest act of service. If we can avoid suffering, we should. But it is rare for a person to avoid it their entire life. Suffering has a way of finding us when it needs to, as it did with Job.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are many reasons why people suffer. Sometimes it is<\/em> because of our sin; sin can, and does, cause suffering. Think of a murderer sitting in prison. Prison is no fun, but he or she has brought <\/span>such suffering upon her or himself. Substance abuse is another example. Such abuse of the body is sinful and can result in horrible addiction. But often suffering is not because of sin\u2014contrary to what some parts of the health, wealth, and prosperity movement would have us believe. Christians, especially in North America, are often tempte<\/span>d to believe that suffering is always the result of (personal) sin and that if we only obey God, then prosperity will result. But by no means is all suffering related to sin. Bad things do happen to good people and Job is <\/span>the<\/em> Old Testament reminder of that tru<\/span>th. The lengthy speeches of Job\u2019s friends further remind us how debilitating and shameful a simplistic application of the sin-equals-suffering connection can be. Indeed, the counsel of Job\u2019s friends is itself condemned by God as sinful<\/span> (see 42:7<\/a>). Job\u2019s story also shows us that sometimes the godliest people are called to live through terrible suffering, and it is quite evil to tell such people tha<\/span>t their suffering is because of their sin, as Bildad did to Job (8:4<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Some Christians, even if they don\u2019t believe that all suffering results from sin, have an unhealthy habit of sidelining people whe<\/span>n they go through messy and protracted experiences, rather than recognizing that God may be deeply at work in the mess, uncovering amazing gifts in the process. We need to recover a Christianity of th<\/em><\/span>e cross<\/em>, recognizing that just as our Lord suffered, so, too, may we. And if we wait with such suffering, we might be surprised what the Lord has wrought through it.<\/p>\n

Third, we should recognize that Go<\/span>d uses suffering to form his people at the deepest level. In this respect, we can use the book of Job to identify many characteristics of suffering.<\/p>\n

It is no accident that Job deals with suffering thr<\/span>ough the story<\/em> of an individual. In practice, suffering is never something in the abstract, like a philosophical argument; rather it is rooted in the life\u2014the story\u2014of a particular person. It is deepl<\/span>y existential, and to understand it we need to know the story of the person involved. We have seen how Job\u2019s story gives us clues as to what God might be doing\u2014and will continue to do\u2014through suffering.<\/span><\/p>\n

But what is the nature of suffering? Nouwen rightly notes that our own wounds<\/em> are the hardest to carry through to healing. It is one thing to be there for others when they suffer; it is quite anoth<\/span>er to live through our own, deep suffering. The thing about suffering is that it is horribly individual. It is Job<\/em> who is going through his particular hell and not his friends. As Job comments in 3:25<\/a><\/span>: \u201cWhat I<\/em> feared has come upon me; what I<\/em> dreaded has happened to me.\u201d Deep suffering of Job\u2019s sort is unique and individual. If we compare Job with other characters in the Bible who suffer greatly, w<\/span>e will see how different suffering is for different individuals. Qohelet, the main character in Ecclesiastes\u2014generally translated as \u201cthe Preacher\u201d\u2014suffers immensely, but he experiences more of an intellectual crisis that guts him to the core of his being as he desperately searches for meaning in life. Jonah also suffers, but in a very different way than Jo<\/span>b and Qohelet. Deep suffering seems to shut us up into ourselves, since we alone are going through this horrendous experience. In <\/span>Les Miserables<\/em>, a character sings, \u201cThere is a grief that can\u2019t be spoken,\u201d which evokes the terrible individua<\/span>lity of deep suffering.<\/p>\n

If suffering were expected, it would be much easier to deal with. We could prepare for it, read up about it, make sure we had the right support structures in place, and so on. <\/span>But the nature of suffering is that it comes as a terrible surprise. Nothing could have prepared Job for what happened. One day all was well and the next his life was turned upside down so that it wou<\/span>ld never be the same. Even when suffering approaches more slowly, its intensity and terror still come as a dreadful surprise.<\/p>\n

Suffering is also a mystery. We see this again and again in Job\u2019s story, a<\/span>s he struggles to make sense of what has happened to him. There is a great mystery to suffering and even when resolution comes it does not necessarily explain what and why this happened to me<\/em>. Sufferi<\/span>ng always confronts us with this mystery because, like Job, we feel so deeply that if we only knew why<\/em> this had happened, we might be able to cope with it.<\/p>\n

It is painful to see the level of Job\u2019s vuln<\/span>erability in his speeches and interaction with his friends. His life has been shattered and this leaves him very vulnerable. Amid suffering, we experience a range of emotions, some we hardly knew existed. We may move, like Job, from faith to ra<\/span>ging despair, to anger with our friends, to longing to never have been born, to railing against God, and so on. We keep returning to our suffering like an itchy sore that we can\u2019t leave alone. Suffering envelops our horizon and we face it at every turn.<\/span><\/p>\n

The result is that suffering is incredibly messy. There is nothing nice and ordered about deep sufferi<\/span>ng. It takes out our feet from under us and we, like a drowning person, desperately try to find ways to cope and get things back under control. We are not pleasant to be with: Emotionally we are a mess; we can\u2019t focus on anything apart from our ordeal; and we lash out at those who don\u2019t understand us.<\/span> Job\u2019s relationship with his wife is a mess; his relationship with God seems to have vanished into thin air; his friends turn out to be no help; and he has gone from being respected to being despised.<\/span><\/p>\n

The nature of suffering is that we are not in control of it. Job was used to being in control and<\/span> giving advice to others. Then his life spun completely out of control, and he had no idea what to do about it. Job 29:1\u20136<\/a> is deeply informative in this respect:<\/p>\n

Job continued his discourse:<\/p>\n

\u201cHow I lo<\/span>ng for the months gone by,<\/p>\n

for the days when God watched over me,<\/p>\n

when his lamp shone on my head<\/p>\n

and by his light I walked through darkness!<\/p>\n

Oh, for the days when I was in my prime,<\/p>\n

when God\u2019s intimat<\/span>e friendship blessed my house,<\/p>\n

when the Almighty was still with me<\/p>\n

and my children were around me,<\/p>\n

when my path was drenched with cream<\/p>\n

and the rock poured out for me streams of olive oil.<\/p>\n

Job looks b<\/span>ack on times of \u201cintimate friendship\u201d with God. Job was no nominal Christian, but had experience of God\u2019s blessing and consolation. This is not to say that his life had always been easy, but of those dark times <\/span>Job says, \u201cBy his light I walked through darkness.\u201d Job had experiential acquaintance with Psalm 23<\/a>. He had known the Lord as his shepherd in good times and bad.<\/p>\n

But now Job experiences som<\/span>ething completely different. During the worst crisis of his life, when his need is greatest, God seems completely absent! In St. John of the Cross\u2019 language, this is a classic case of the dark night of the soul, in which God is<\/span> experienced as absent in the midst of a suffocating darkness. This sort of suffering is uncontrollable. We may have experienced a kind of suffering where God is deeply present and sustains us through it. But in Job\u2019s type of suffering there is no sense of God\u2019s consolation; the world seems to have gone mad and God seems to have become your enemy rather than your great friend.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And this type of suffering is protracted. The book of Job demonstrates this for us through the long, repetitive speeches. Are they endless? That is just how such suffering feels. Each day drags<\/span> and you may be unsure how you\u2019ll make it through this day, let alone the next one. Any plans you had for the future are dashed as life closes in to the immediate horror.<\/p>\n

Because suffering is unexpect<\/span>ed and so disorienting, we often have no choice as to which friends and counselors we turn to. Job\u2019s friends were exemplary in taking time out for him and in spending seven days with him in silence, mourning and lamenting. But on<\/span>ce the dialogues begin, the friends become reactive, quickly seeking to interpret Job\u2019s suffering through the grid of their mechanical theologies. Tragically, they thereby enhance his suffering\u2014as well-meaning friends can easily do. Job rightly says to his friends: \u201cYou, however, smear me with lies; you are worthless physicians, all of you!\u201d (<\/span>13:4<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Job\u2019s friends turn <\/span>out to be examples of how not<\/em> to be a good friend to someone who is suffering deeply. They are also the sort of friend to avoid, if possible, while you are suffering and vulnerable. Beware of friends <\/span>who quickly impose their own concerns and categories upon you while you are in pain. Job\u2019s friends should have listened far more, been content to be with Job in his pain, affirmed the mystery of what he was going through, and, like Job, cried out to God for help and understanding.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our world is full of suffering, and good friends and counselors are a great treasure. One thing we can learn from Job <\/span>is to work to become that sort of friend, as well as to cultivate such friends in our own lives. Wonderfully, evangelicals nowadays are recovering the ancient practice of spiritual direction, and a wise spiritual director can be an invaluable resource during times of suffering.<\/span>2<\/a> One thing a wise spiritual director will never do is to try to play God; rather, the wise director will accompany us on <\/span>a journey of discerning and seeking God\u2019s ways.<\/p>\n

We discussed above the value of a psychological reading of Job. Psychology and psychiatry are, at their best, great gifts and can be of great help in di<\/span>fficult times. Sadly, however, much psychology and psychiatry is thoroughly secular and deliberately does not take the living God into account. As Job found, ultimately it was God he needed, and resolution comes though an encounte<\/span>r with God. Deep suffering focuses on the question of whether God is for real. Even with all the help we can get\u2014and we should seek help in suffering\u2014there is no alternative to waiting for God and finding resolution in and through him.<\/span><\/p>\n

One great lesson from Job is that we should be utterly real before God in the midst of suffering. We can rage, shout, protest, scream,<\/span> and cry. After all, God affirms Job\u2019s response to his pain but condemns the mechanical theologizing of the friends. Many of the Psalms similarly cry out to God amid despair and struggle, and these are examples and prayers that we should take note of.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have seen in Job\u2019s story how suffering confronts him with the shadow side of his personality. Many of us live completely unaware in this regard, <\/span>but we don\u2019t have to. We need to learn to know ourselves and to actively work on coming to grips with who we are and the shadow sides of our strengths. We know that God wants to make us holy, whole human beings, and we can work with the Spirit in this respect by proactively attending to our own growth and development. This relates to all aspects <\/span>of our personhood. The Dutch art historian Hans Rookmaker asked, \u201cWhy does God save us?\u201d And he perceptively answered, \u201cTo make us fully human.\u201d Too much of church life today advocates a sort of Christianity that ignores our humanity. But holiness is about becoming the sort of people God wants us to be in all areas of our lives. Irenaeus famously said, \u201cThe glory of God is the human person fully alive!\u201d We need to rehabilitate a vocabulary of \u201csanctification\u201d in our churches with a biblical understanding of holiness as becoming fully human\u2014as<\/span> God intends us to be.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As noted above, the experience of suffering is one of terrible aloneness. Sufferi<\/span>ng is unique and individual, but the very fact that we have Job in our Bibles is a reminder that we are not alone; others have been where we are, and we can learn from them, finding hope in their stor<\/span>ies.<\/p>\n

The Christian tradition\u2014unlike too much modern, superficial Christianity\u2014is well acquainted with the role of suffering in the Christian life. I have already mentioned St. John of the Cross\u2019 Dark <\/em><\/span>Night of the Soul<\/em>, and good spiritual directors will have a wealth of experience about how to journey through the dark night. There is also a wealth of good literature, including narratives by those w<\/span>ho have suffered terribly and come through the other side. C. S. Lewis suffered greatly when his wife died of cancer, and his book, A Grief Observed<\/em>, is a rich resource for living through such pain.3<\/a> <\/span>Nicholas Wolterstorff lost one of his adult sons in a mountain climbing accident and ended up writing Lament for a Son<\/em>, a book that many have found helpful in their own painful times.<\/p>\n

Jerry Sittser wa<\/span>s a young professor, and his wife homeschooled their children. They were studying native culture and went one afternoon to visit a native settlement. On their return journey, they had a head-on collision with a drunk<\/span>, native driver. Jerry\u2019s mother, wife, and one of his children were killed. In A Grace Disguised<\/em>, he describes how at a certain point he had to consciously enter the darkness of his ho<\/span>rrific experience with no idea where it would take him. Years later, Jerry is able to look back and use the word \u201cgrace\u201d for his suffering.<\/p>\n

In his biographical work,4<\/a> the novelist Frederick Buechner d<\/span>escribes how the whole of his life opens up from the suicide of his father when he was a young child. Author Henri Nouwen also suffered a lot in his life, and his gift was to write honestly about his experiences. After his restless he<\/span>art finally found a home at the L\u2019Arche house in Toronto, his great need for deep relationship reached crisis point and he suffered a major breakdown. From that exper<\/span>ience, he wrote his exquisite book, The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey through Anguish to Freedom<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Christians are certainly not exempt from suffering, and in the tradition we find rich resources to he<\/span>lp in times of trouble. Just knowing that others have been where we are can help, as does learning how they gradually found their way through and were deeply formed in the process.<\/p>\n

Perhaps one of the <\/span>most extraordinary affirmations of grace and God\u2019s providence in suffering is that of the 20th-century Japanese Christian Takashi Nagai. Nagai was an adult convert to Christianity and became part of a<\/span> vital Christian community in Japan that had suffered terrible persecution over the centuries. He was a doctor, a radiologist, a professor, a husband, and a father. He was in Nagasaki on the day the atom bomb was dropped on the city. Nagai\u2019s wife, Midori, and many, many others died instantly or la<\/span>ter from the terrible radiation. At least 8,000 Christians died in the blast. The cathedral in Nagasaki was destroyed, and Nagai was asked to speak at the requiem mass for the dead held in its ashes. He thought hard about what to say. In his speech, he noted that on the morning of <\/span>August 9, 1945, the <\/span>Supreme Council of War was in session to decide whether to surrender or to continue fighting. At 11:02 the atom bomb fell on Nagasaki. At that same time, the Emperor of Japan asserted himself and decl<\/span>ared his decision to surrender unconditionally. The Imperial Rescript was promulgated on August 15, ending the fighting. Nagai noted that August 15 was also the Feast of the Assumption of Mary. He sug<\/span>gested that this convergence of events was \u201cthe mysterious Providence of God\u201d and goes on to argue that:<\/p>\n

God\u2019s Providence chose Urakami and carried the bomb right above our homes. Is there not a profo<\/span>und relationship between the annihilation of Nagasaki and the end of the war? Was not Nagasaki the chosen victim, the lamb without blemish, slain as a whole burnt offering on an altar of sacrifice, at<\/span>oning for the sins of all the nations during World War II?5<\/a><\/p>\n

Nagai died from exposure to radiation, but in his final years, he bore a truly extraordinary witness to God and his love. He wrote a series <\/span>of books and lived a life of simplicity and service to the end. As Paul Ham says, \u201cNagai\u2019s faith would survive the toughest tests which God had set before Job.\u201d6<\/a><\/p>\n

The extraordinary message of Job is th<\/span>at deep suffering is graced. Generally, we only see this in retrospect\u2014once we or someone we know has emerged out of the darkness\u2014and it is unhelpful to keep telling people this when they are in the midst of hell. But the book of Job make<\/span>s clear that Job\u2019s suffering was graced. Buechner expresses this beautifully:<\/p>\n

As for the children he had lost when the house blew down, not to mention all his emp<\/span>loyees, he never got an explanation about them because he never asked for one, and the reason he never asked for one was that he knew that even if God gave him one that made splendid sense out of all the pain and suffering that had ever been since the world began, it was no longer sp<\/span>lendid sense that he needed because with his own eyes he had beheld, and not as a stranger, the one who in the end clothed all things, no matter how small or confused or in pain, with his own splendor. And that was more than sufficient.<\/span>7<\/a><\/p>\n

He had seen the great glory, so shot through with sheer, fierce light and life<\/span> and gladness, had heard the great voice raised in song so full of terror and wildness and beauty, that from that moment on, nothing else mattered. All possible questions melted like mist, and all pos<\/span>sible explanations withered like grass.8<\/a><\/p>\n

Suffering led Job into a much deeper experience of God and in the process formed him into a wiser and better man. Although suffering is always a mystery, Job\u2019s<\/span> sort of suffering has the uncanny habit of going after the bull\u2019s-eye of a person\u2019s life, attending to those areas that really need transformation. Genesis 22<\/a> recounts a similar and harrowing story o<\/span>f Abraham, who was told to go and sacrifice his son Isaac. In order to be worthy of the covenant, Abraham had to be willing to relinquish the covenant, as embodied in Isaac.<\/p>\n

There is<\/em> evil in suffering<\/span>; hence the role of Satan in Job 1\u20132<\/a>. But evil has a habit of overreaching itself, and Satan would never have guessed how Job would turn out in the end\u2014more mature, wiser, and blessed. Books like Job <\/span>enable us, albeit with difficulty, to face the worst forms of suffering, in all their horror and agony and mystery, and yet to emerge from the depths and to be able to say with Julian of Norwich, \u201cAll will be well, and all manner of things will be well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

We should also note that counselors are fashioned through the furnace of suffering. Nouwen wrote a book called The Wounded Healer<\/em>. Wounds are mes<\/span>sy things, and most of us would rather run 1,000 miles than face our smelly, disgusting wounds. Ironically, however, wounds are the place of growth, and we will never be good counselors\u2014people who can bring healing i<\/span>nto the lives of others\u2014without having lived our own wounds through to healing. We want good pastors and counselors, but let us remember, that we will only get such when they are granted the space to go through the furnace of formation.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/span><\/span>Suggested Reading<\/p>\n

\u2022 Job 29\u201330<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2022 Read one of the books mentioned above and compare that author\u2019s story to Job\u2019s.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Reflection<\/p>\n

Far too many of us live relatively unconscious of the forces and people that have shaped us into who we are. A useful exercise is to map out or draw the major contours of our life stories.<\/p>\n

Are you familiar with the difference between suffering in which you experience God\u2019s presence and suffering in which God feels completely absent?<\/p>\n

Why do you think God sometimes withdraws from us in times when we feel we need him most?<\/p>\n

In terms of what we can learn from Job, which areas do you most need to attend to?<\/p>\n

How do you plan to do this?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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9<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/p>\n

As Kierkegaard so clearly knew, we need the book of Job! Sadly, it is not a book that is well-known or much read, studied, or preached upon by Christians today. That is greatly to our los<\/span>s and needs to change. My hope is that this book will contribute to such a recovery. Job has important lessons for those of us who suffer and for those of us who counsel those who suffer. When we really, really want to yell at God, Job is there for us. For those who suffer profoundly, Job is a reminder that in our darkest hours God is present and at work, even though we have absolutel<\/span>y no idea what he is up to and even if it feels as though the world and God have gone mad. For those who counsel, Job calls us to discernment as to when repentance is required and when God is deeply at work in ways we do not understand. In the latter context, the worst thing a counselor can do is to offer quick solutions; rather, a wise counselor should provide support when possible and wait with the sufferer to see what God will bring to pass. It <\/span><\/span><\/span>will<\/em> pass, and with James we will find ourselves saying, \u201cSee what God has wrought!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/span><\/span>Suggested Reading<\/p>\n

\u2022 Make time to become familiar with Job. Read it slowly and attentively.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/span><\/span>Reflection<\/p>\n

How has Job spoken to you over the time you have spent with it?<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Are there lessons you should not forget?<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/span><\/span>Further Reading<\/p>\n

\u2022 Read and reread Job. There is no alternative to immersing ourselves in the actual text.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The best recent commentary on Job is, in my opinion: Lindsay Wilson, Job<\/em>. 2 Horizons OTC. (G<\/span>rand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming).<\/p>\n

\u2022 Craig G. Bartholomew and Ryan O\u2019Dowd, Old Testament Wisdom: A Theological Introduction<\/em> (Nottingham: Apollos; Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2011) may also be<\/span> a useful resource.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Do consult the many useful resources in the Lexham Bible Dictionary<\/em>. CheckitoutatLexhamBibleDictionary.com.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Read stories of people who have suffered and how they have found God<\/span> in the midst of such experiences.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/span><\/span>Appendix A<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fearing God in the Old Testament<\/p>\n

Miles Custis<\/p>\n

Fearing God is an important concept in the ot. While \u201cfear\u201d can describe terror or dread (Gen 3:10<\/a>), the ot use of \u201cfear\u201d often indicates awe o<\/span>r reverence. To fear God is to express loyalty to him and faithfulness to his covenant. Those who fear God exhibit trust in him and obedience to his commandments. According to the ot, those who fear G<\/span>od obtain God\u2019s protection, wisdom, and blessing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Response to Holiness<\/p>\n

The fear of God is often evoked in response to God\u2019s holiness (Exod 3:5\u20136<\/a>; Isa 8:13<\/a>). For example, the biblical writers describe God and his name as holy and \u201cawesome\u201d (Psa 111:9<\/a>). The term \u201cawesome\u201d translates the word nora<\/span>,<\/em> a form of the word yara<\/span> which means \u201cto fear.\u201d The fear of God is also related to God\u2019s greatness (Deut 7:21<\/a>; Psa 99:3<\/a>); people fear God because of his mighty deeds (Exod 15:11<\/a>). For example, the Israelites respond to God\u2019s saving power in bringing them out of Egypt by fearing him (Exod 14:30\u201331<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Obedience<\/p>\n

The biblical texts often parallel the fear of God with obedience. For example, in Gen 22:12<\/a>, God recognizes Abraham\u2019s obedience to sacrifice Isaac as fear of him. The link between fearing Go<\/span>d and obedience appears throughout Deuteronomy, where fearing God and keeping his commandments are closely linked (Deut 5:29<\/a>; 8:6<\/a>; 10:12\u201313<\/a>). In the ot, people demonstrate fear of God by obeying the L<\/span>aw (Deut 6:2<\/a>). Likewise, obedience to the Law teaches people to fear God (Deut 4:10<\/a>; 14:23<\/a>; 17:19<\/a>; 31:12\u201313<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Fearing God is also related to obedience in Leviticus, specifically regarding social relat<\/span>ions. For example, Leviticus states that, instead of wronging others (Lev 25:17<\/a>) by doing things like cursing the deaf and blind (Lev 19:14<\/a>), people should fear God. The text of Leviticus further asso<\/span>ciates the fear of God with honoring the elderly (Lev 19:32<\/a>), forgoing the charging of interest (Lev 25:36<\/a>), and treating servants kindly (Lev 25:43<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/span><\/span>Loyalty and Faithfulness<\/p>\n

The fear of God is also closely tied to loyalty and faithfulness to God (2 Chr 19:6<\/a>). For instance, after the people of Israel conquered the land of Canaan, Joshua charged the<\/span>m to faithfully fear God by serving him alone and putting away other gods (Josh 24:14\u201315<\/a>). In 2 Kings 17:35\u201339<\/a>, the fear of God describes loyalty to him in contrast to worshipping other gods.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/span><\/span>Fear of God in Prophetic Literature and Psalms<\/p>\n

The prophets equate fearing God with a pious attitude toward him; fearing God is linked to honoring God (Isa 8:13<\/a>) and obeying his commands (Isa 50:10<\/a>). <\/span>The prophets often criticize the Israelites for forsaking the fear of God (Jer 2:19<\/a>; 3:8<\/a>; Mal 3:5<\/a>); when speaking of restoration, they include a restoration of the fear of God among God\u2019s people (Isa <\/span>59:19<\/a>; Jer 32:39\u201340<\/a>; Hos 3:5<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In the Psalms, fearing God is often likened to trusting God (Pss 40:4<\/a>; 115:11<\/a>). The designation of \u201cthose who fear God\u201d is used to refer to the community of those faithf<\/span>ul to him (Pss 22:25<\/a>; 66:16<\/a>). Those who fear God receive protection, deliverance, and blessing (Pss 25:12\u201313<\/a>; 31:19<\/a>; 34:7<\/a>, 9<\/a>; 85:9<\/a>; 111:5<\/a>; 115:13<\/a>; 145:19<\/a>). They also enjoy a close relationship with Go<\/span>d (Pss 25:14<\/a>; 33:18<\/a>). The Psalms likewise equate worship and praise with the fear of God (Pss 5:7<\/a>; 22:23<\/a>; 135:20<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Fear of God in Wisdom Literature<\/p>\n

The fear of God also appears as a central theme of Wisdom literature, where it several times refers to the beginning of wisdom or knowledge (Prov 1:7<\/a>; 9:10<\/a>; Psa 111:10<\/a>). Proverbs classifies those without a fear of God as haters of knowledge (Prov 1:29<\/a>). Proverbs also relates the fear of God to humility and righteous living (Prov 3:7<\/a>; 8:13<\/a>; 14:2<\/a>; 16:6<\/a>; 22:4<\/a>). Fearing God also leads to blessing and long life (Prov 10:27<\/a>; 14:26\u201327<\/a>; 19:23<\/a>; 28:14<\/a>). Like obedience, the relationship between fearing God and wisdom is cyclical: Fearing God results in wisdom (Prov 15:33<\/a>), and receiving wisdom helps people understand the fear of God (Prov 2:1\u20135<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The book of Job describes Job as someone who fears God (Job 1:1<\/a>; 1:8<\/a>; 2:3<\/a>). In fact, Job\u2019s fear of God is the focal point of the book, as Satan questions Job\u2019s reason for fearing God (Job 1:9<\/a>). The book of Ecclesiastes concludes with an exhortation to \u201cfear God and keep his commandments\u201d (Eccl 12:13<\/a>). It also notes that God acts in order that people may fear him (Eccl 3:14<\/a>).1<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Satan in the Old Testament<\/p>\n

The Hebrew word satan<\/span> is not a proper noun in the ot. As such, the term was not used to refer to a cosmic archenemy of God. A brief consideration of the Hebrew grammar helps explain why.<\/p>\n

Like English, Hebrew does not attach the definite article (\u201cthe\u201d) to proper personal nouns. For example, English speakers do not refer to themselves (or to another person) with phrases like \u201cthe Tom\u201d or \u201cthe Janet.\u201d However, most of the 27 occurrences of satan<\/span> in the Hebrew Bible include a definite article\u2014essentially reading \u201cthe satan<\/span>.\u201d For example, all occurrences in the book of Job (Job 1:6\u20139<\/a>, 12<\/a>; 2:1\u20134<\/a>, 6\u20137<\/a>) include the definite article. The term is applied to a divine being with the definite article in Zech 3:1\u20132<\/a>, where Joshua the high priest stands before the satan<\/span> who accuses him of misdeeds in the company of the Angel of Yahweh. Yahweh then rebukes the satan<\/span>,<\/em> since he has pardoned Joshua (and so, Israel).<\/p>\n

Of the remaining occurrences of satan<\/span>,<\/em> only three passages use the word of a divine being: Num 22:22<\/a>, 32<\/a> and 1 Chr 21:1<\/a>. The rest are used of humans. In these three passages, a definite article is not included\u2014meaning that there is no grammatical<\/em> reason to prohibit them from referring to God\u2019s archenemy. Yet the context of each of these passages rules out this interpretation. In fact, the two occurrences in Numbers refer not to God\u2019s enemy, but to the Angel of Yahweh. The remaining occurrence\u2014where the satan<\/span> provokes David to take a census\u2014also does not refer to God\u2019s archenemy: in the parallel passage to the event (2 Sam 24:1<\/a>), God himself prompts David to take the census; and contextual clues in 1 Chr 21:1<\/a> indicate that the satan<\/span> is the Angel of Yahweh. Thus the two passages can be harmonized, as the ot often co-identifies God and the Angel of Yahweh (see 1 Chr 21:1<\/a>). Ultimately, there are no passages in the ot where the word satan<\/span> refers to God\u2019s divine archenemy.<\/p>\n

But why is the word satan<\/span> used to refer to humans and the Angel of Yahweh? The answer is straightforward: the term means \u201caccuser\u201d or \u201cchallenger.\u201d Satan<\/span> describes a particular action or role, often in the context of opposition or judgment. In the case of Num 22:22<\/a>, 32<\/a>, God sent the Angel of Yahweh to oppose Balaam on his journey to curse Israel. In the case of 1 Chr 21:1<\/a>, the parallel passage of 2 Sam 24:1<\/a> explains: \u201cThe anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, \u2018Go, number Israel and Judah.\u2019\u00a0\u201d God was already angry at David and planned to judge him. He then sent the Angel to prompt David to take a census, which led to his punishment. God used the Angel (his accuser) as an instrument of judgment on David.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Serpent in Genesis<\/p>\n

The word satan<\/span> does not occur anywhere in Gen 3<\/a>; rather, the word translated \u201cserpent\u201d is nachash<\/span>. Hence, the two terms are never co-identified in the Old Testament. But just because the serpent (nachash<\/span>) is not called satan<\/span> does not mean that the serpent was not a divine being. Satan<\/span> may refer to either a human or a divine being, depending on the context. Likewise, nachash<\/span>\u2014though typically referring to a snake\u2014has nuances which allow for multiple meanings.<\/p>\n

When nachash<\/span> functions as a noun, it means \u201csnake.\u201d But the root consonants of the word also form the Hebrew verb that means \u201cto conjure\u201d or \u201cpractice divination\u201d (see 2 Kgs 21:6<\/a>; Gen 30:27<\/a>; 44:5<\/a>). Nachash<\/span> in Gen 3<\/a> can be interpreted in this light, and understood as \u201cthe conjurer.\u201d Since the practice of divination aimed to solicit and dispense divine knowledge, the context of Gen 3<\/a> is consistent with this possibility. However, technical grammatical reasons make this interpretation unlikely.<\/p>\n

The root is also the basis for words that refer to shining metals, such as bronze\u2014a description used elsewhere in the ot for divine beings (see Ezek 1:14\u201316<\/a>, 27\u201328<\/a>; Dan 10:6<\/a>; compare Matt 28:3<\/a>; Rev 10:1<\/a>). For example, Ezekiel 28:13<\/a> contains an \u201canointed cherub\u201d figure, who inhabits the garden of Eden. If this figure is a divine being, there may be a link between that figure\u2019s brilliant, shining appearance and the root of nachash<\/span> in Gen 3<\/a>. Consequently, the word nachash<\/span> may refer to a \u201cshining one\u201d in the Garden of Eden\u2014a divine being who conversed with Eve and deceived her.<\/p>\n

Since Eden was God\u2019s temple and abode, the \u201cshining one\u201d option represents a viable interpretation. It also helps explain why Eve is not surprised when the nachash<\/span> speaks to her. The primary obstacle to this perspective is the possible inter-relationship between Gen 3<\/a>, Ezek 28<\/a>, and Isa 14<\/a>: Both Ezekiel and Isaiah describe Eden and the cosmic rebellion without reference to a snake.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

New Testament Conflation of These Terms<\/p>\n

In the book of Revelation, the term satan<\/span> and the serpent (nachash<\/span>) of Gen 3<\/a> are conceptually merged. The correlation is logical: The serpent was the original \u201c<\/span>opposer\u201d (\u201cadversary\u201d; satan<\/span>) of God\u2019s kingdom on earth. As such, the nachash<\/span> was perceived as the original enemy, the Grand Adversary (satan<\/span>). However, when this correlation developed is less apparen<\/span>t. A number of non-biblical Jewish writings prior to the birth of Jesus developed a rich tradition about the Grand Adversary. Some of these texts used \u201cSatan\u201d as a proper noun in referring to that enemy; <\/span>nt writers did as well. Many of these non-biblical texts were associated with conceptions of apocalypse, as is the book of Revelation.1<\/a><\/p>\n

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<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE BOOK OF JOB 1 Introduction A student once asked Brevard Childs how to become a better exegete of the Bible. Childs replied, \u201cBecome a deeper person!\u201d Job is one biblical book that is both about its main character becoming a deeper person and an invitation to the reader to be formed by God. Outline … <\/p>\n

\u201eWhen You Want to Yell at God\u201c <\/span>weiterlesen<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allgemein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142,"href":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions\/142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}