Chapter 9 (The Story of Job)

I’m not sure why the Book of Job is in the Bible, but before we get to that let’s review the story of Job.

 

Job’s story

First, we’re told who Job is. He lives in a land known as Uz. Job is blameless and upright. He fears God and eschews evil. He is a wealthy man possessing extensive flocks of sheep, camels and oxen. He has a large family. He observes all of God’s laws and is an ideal servant of God.

Next the scene shifts to heaven. The Lord is meeting with the heavenly beings (often considered Angels). Also present is Hasatan, in Hebrew meaning the adversary or the accuser (translated often as Satan). The Lord asks Hasatan, where have you been? Hasatan answers I’ve been roaming earth observing your creation. The Lord asks Hasatan, have you seen my loyal servant, Job? He is blameless and upright, a perfect servant of God. Hasatan answers “yes” and doesn't disagree that Job is all that, but then he asks, does Job fear God for nothing? You’re buying him off. You’ve given him wealth, a large family, large flocks, why wouldn’t he be your loyal servant but if you took all that away, he would curse you to your face.

The Lord takes Hasatan up on the challenge and tells Hasatan take all that Job has away, just don’t touch Job. Marauders descend upon Job’s cattle and take his oxen, camels and flocks. Job receives word that all his sons and daughters were gathered together at his oldest son’s house when a great wind destroyed the house killing all of his children. When Job gets the news, he shaves his head, tears his clothes as a sign of mourning, and then falls to the ground and worships. He says “naked came I out of my mother’s womb and naked shall I return; the Lord gave and the lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the lord”.

The scene returns to Heaven. God is meeting again with the sons of God. The Lord asks Hasatan as before where he has been? Hasatan answers that he has been going to and forth on the earth. God brags to Hasatan. Well did you see my servant, Job? He is still blameless and upright despite you having tried to destroy him without cause. Hasatan answers “yes”, but then he raises the ante. Yes, Job is still blameless and upright but you haven’t really touched Job himself. “Skin for skin”, you haven’t touched his skin. If you touch his flesh and bone, he will curse you to your face. God takes Hasatan up on the challenge. He says Job is in your hands and allows Hasatan to touch Job’s skin. Job is given a painful disgusting skin disease. Job’s wife seeing him this way says to Job why don’t you just curse God, then he will strike you dead and all this will all be over. Job says no you foolish woman, we must accept what God gives the good and the bad. Job refuses to curse the Lord.

Next three friends appear to mourn with Job and comfort him. On seeing Job, initially they don’t recognize him. When they realize it is him, they weep, tear their clothes, and sprinkle dust on their heads. They sit down with him and are so distraught about his condition that for seven days and seven night they all sit and say nothing. Job is then first to break the silence and he is beginning to crack. He does not curse God but he curses the day that he was born saying “let the day perish wherein I was born and the night in which it was said, there is a man child conceived…why died I not in the womb?” Job continues throughout chapter 3 telling his friends that he wishes he had never been born, never lived.

His friends push back. A good man accepts life and doesn’t want to die. The first friend points out that Job has given such advice to many other people, but now that it has come to Job, he becomes impatient. Another suggests that Job’s children may have brought their own deaths upon themselves. All three friends suggest that Job must have done something to offend the Lord. God doesn’t just do this to someone for no reason. They suggest that maybe if Job probes for what he did and repents the Lord will forgive him. One friend goes so far as to argue that whatever Job did probably deserves greater punishment than what he has received.

Job rejects all these arguments maintaining that he has never been anything other than upright and blameless. He has nothing to repent for. A long discussion ensues with Job becoming increasingly irritated with his friends as the conversation proceeds, at one point referring to them as “worthless physicians.” Job’s friends are offended that Job doesn’t take their criticisms to heart. Job laments the injustice in the world that the wicked prosper while good and innocent people suffer. Job’s friends respond that Job lacks an appropriate reverence for God. Job’s rhetoric becomes more angry and he begins to address God, at one point suggesting that God has wronged him. Job wants to be heard and to confront God. He asks God why can’t you just let up on me? Job laments that if only there was a witness or redeemer as he is called in the text who could testify on his behalf, one who could intercede on Job’s behalf with God. Finally, a fourth friend appears and enters the conversation. He argues that that Job has spent too much time and energy vindicating himself rather than venerating God. This friend explains that physical suffering provides the sufferer with the opportunity to realize God’s love and forgiveness when he is well again. The fourth friend repeats the argument that Job must have done something to bring this on himself and that Job’s continued protesting is an act of rebellion against God. Job rejects these arguments.

Finally, the Lord has heard enough and appears out of a whirlwind. He says to Job who do you think you are? Who are you to challenge me and asks a series of essentially rhetorical questions. Where were you when I created the limits of the land and the sea? I ordered the Universe? Have you performed these same deeds? How can you know my ways? And of course, Job has no answers. He can’t say anything. He doesn’t know God’s ways. He doesn’t have God’s powers. Job repents. He acknowledges God’s unlimited power and the limitations of his knowledge. The Lord forgives Job while at the same time criticizing the friends for their unsound advice. The Book of Job ends with Job’s wealth being restored. He is given twice as many flocks, herds, sons and daughters. He lives a very long life. Job’s relationship with God is restored.

What is the Book of Job about?

The Book of Job is one of the best-known books in the Bible. It is organized into 2 chapters of prose followed by 39 books of poetry and then a short concluding section in prose. The first two chapters introduce the story up through the arrival of the first three friends. Chapter 3 begins when Job starts to speak after the 7 days of silence. The Book of Job was probably written by more than one author between the 7th and 4th century BCE. It may well have started as a prose folk tale with a later poet separating the beginning and end of the folk tale with the 39 chapters of poetry. The poetry itself is regarded as among the most beautiful writing in the Hebrew language.

Back to the original question of why is the Book of Job in the Bible? Books are typically in a religious text because they contain content that advances the development of the religion, information concerning a deity or deities, a founding figure or information on what is expected of a religion’s followers. The Book of Job was one of the later books to make its way into the Old Testament becoming part of the canon in the first century CE. The redactors responsible for its selection, therefore must have seen some value in its inclusion and as with the two stories of creation in Genesis (yes, there are two stories of creation in Genesis that differ in significant details), ancient writers seemed to have been less bothered by contradictions. But how does the Book of Job advance the story of the God of the Old Testament?

Is the book of Job about why there is evil in the world?

The book is often interpreted as being a study of why there is evil in the world and let’s define evil here as bad things happening to good people. The problem of evil is central in Western religions. That God is good and all powerful is taken as axiomatic. An all powerful God can create whatever world he wishes and if that God is good why wouldn’t he create a good world? Then why do good people suffer through no fault of their own at the hands of bad people? Why do the wicked prosper at times when the good suffer? Why do natural disasters that harm good people occur?

Interestingly, this is not a problem in Eastern thinking. In polytheistic religions like Hinduism, there are good gods and bad gods. The bad gods are the source of evil. Some gods like Shiva are seen as both a creator and a destroyer. The goddess Kali embodies death and destruction but also creation, fertility and salvation. In Buddhism, evil is just part of the fabric of the existence that we are in. The Buddha’s three marks of existence of include suffering (dukkha) and impermanence (annica). These characteristics are not really good or bad, they just are. Suffering in the long run can be explained by the laws of karma. Good deeds will be followed by good karma and bad by bad, all controlled by the individual. Those results may not be seen in this lifetime but eventually karma of any type will return to the individual who created it. In Hinduism and Buddhism, the goal is to escape the cycles of reincarnation and be released from the wheel of existence that we are in now. Understanding evil is not a problem.

This was not a problem either in early near eastern thinking. The Egyptians, Babylonians and original inhabitants of Canaan were all polytheistic. As in the East, there were good gods and bad gods; the bad gods could be blamed for evil. The early Israelites accepted the notion that multiple gods existed but would come to owe their allegiance to only the one God. In the first creation story in the Book of Genesis, evil is pre-existent in the world in the form of matter. References to the void, the unformed, the dark, and the deep were all symbolic of evil in the ancient near east. The God of Genesis did not create the world out of nothing (ex nihilo). Rather he brings light and order, i.e. good into the world. The problem of evil was already there. In the second Genesis creation story, Adam and Eve bring evil into the world by their disobedience of God. Thus, in neither creation account is God the cause of evil. The later Prophets would develop a different view and ultimately the view of God adopted by Jews and Christians would be a God who created the world out of nothing and could not escape responsibility for evil.

Yet if the Book of Job is about providing an answer to why there is evil and suffering in the world, its answer is wholly inadequate. Job is suffering because God wants to win a bet with Satan and doesn’t mind Job suffering to prove his point. In the Book of Job, Satan is only the instrument of evil, not its cause.

The Book of Job can also be seen as illustrating the problem of we can’t understand God’s ways. We can’t know the mind of God and the workings of the Universe God created and thus understand why God does what he does. Job and his friends are trying to explain God’s actions with only the limited information available to them. A central argument that the four friends keep coming back to is God doesn’t do this to someone for no reason. Job you must have done something. It is true that Job and his friends don’t know the mind of God and that God is allowing this to happen for a reason. The problem is we know the back story and Job is suffering because he has become caught up in a game between God and Satan. Job is blameless and upright and is being destroyed without cause, God and Satan agree on that. The explanation God gives to Job in the end of “well you can’t understand my ways” is true. Job doesn’t understand how God created the limits of the land and the sea, and ordered the Universe but that’s not why Job is suffering.

Another view of the Book of Job is that it is not about the cause of evil in the world but the relationship of Job to God. Is Job just in it as long as there is something in it for him? To a certain extent probably yes. Job does break and curses the day he was born. Yet, he never curses God directly and it seems that he can’t let go of God and give up on a relationship with God. The dialogue between Job and the four friends can be seen as a thoughtful discussion on how one should respond in the face of suffering? The problem is the discussion is occurring without the discussants knowing the context in which Job’s suffering is occurring.

A God that is hard to understand

The problem of the story of Job can be seen as one example of a larger problem of why does particularly the God of the Old Testament do things that are hard to understand. Christopher Anderson in his book “the God i Don’t Understand” alludes to many examples. In Deuteronomy, God ordering the Israelites to destroy the Canaanites is one such story. The story of King Saul and the Amalekites is another. The Amalekites were a nomadic tribe that attacked the Israelites during their exodus from Egypt. They also did not show appropriate reverence for God. Through the prophet Samuel, Saul was instructed to kill all of the Amalekites including all men, women, infants and nursing babies as well as all of their animals. Saul did most of this but spared their King and the best of their flocks. Later Saul is confronted by Samuel who asks why did you disobey God? Saul answers that he spared the best of the animals so that they could be sacrificed to God. Samuel answers God does not want your sacrifices, he wants your obedience. Saul kills the Amalekite King but it is too late, he has lost his chance with God and David is chosen to rule Israel.

Richard Dawkins in his book “The God Delusion” states it quite bluntly at the beginning of chapter 2:

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction; jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully”.

Although few Jews or Christians would welcome Dawkin’s comments, the problem is not unknown. Dawkins points out that Thomas Jefferson wrote “the Christian God is a being of terrific character-cruel, vindicative, capricious and unjust”. The problems also don’t stop with the Old Testament. Why would an all-powerful God who could design any world he pleases design one in which his own son needs to be crucified for humankind to have the chance of salvation, a problem referred to in Christian theology as the doctrine of the atonement. Christopher Anderson after considering several options settles on what is maybe the only acceptable answer that we just don’t know God’s ways (p. 42-43). The problem in the book of Job is we do know God’s ways.

References

“The Book of Job” in The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha. Fifth Edition, Michael D. Coogan editor, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 2018.

https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/oldtestament/section11/

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Bantam Press, New York, NY, 2006.

Christopher J. H. Wright, the God I Don’t Understand, Zondervan, Grand Rapids Michigan, 2008.