One of the most celebrated books of the Bible, the Book of Job differs markedly from the rest of Old Testament literature in both genre and content...
One of the most celebrated books of the Bible, the Book of Job differs markedly from the rest of Old Testament literature in both genre and content. It is a book in the form of a parable, a reflection on human life as such, without a direct connection to the context of sacred history. Many interpreters, including highly authoritative ones, regarded the Book of Job as historical and even tried to determine precisely when and where its events took place. We cannot rule out the possibility that the legend, extensively reworked as literature by an unknown author, does indeed have a historical basis. In terms of the book's own content, however, what matters is that its hero represents humanity in general, knowing God not through the Revelation given to the chosen people, but through inward spiritual experience.
As far as one can judge from evidence within the Bible and from the book itself, the legend of the long-suffering Job had been known in the Old Testament world since remote antiquity; similar traditions also exist in the literature of the peoples surrounding the biblical world. The date of the Book of Job's composition is highly disputed. Its events take place in the patriarchal period, long before the covenant at Sinai, and many interpreters, chiefly ancient ones, date its composition to that period or a somewhat later one. Modern scholars, however, consider the Book of Job to have been written at the end of the fifth century BC. If this view is accepted, the second half of the Book of Zechariah, the Book of Joel and the entire extensive literature of the ‘sages of Israel’ should be regarded as contemporary with Job. Though stylistically close to the latter, the Book of Job differs markedly from it in meaning and tone. In content, Job's author is much closer to the authors of the second half of Zechariah and of Ecclesiastes. Like Ecclesiastes, the author of Job is concerned first and foremost with the meaning of an individual's life, with personal tragedy and a personal relationship with God. This is a strong argument for the Book of Job having been written precisely in the fifth century BC, after the preaching of the great prophets and under their influence.
The plot itself is fairly simple: it tells of a prosperous righteous man who suddenly loses everything he possessed—wealth, family and health. His friends come to the sufferer, trying to comfort Job and make sense of what has happened together with him. In the end, the Creator himself intervenes and delivers Job. For his faithfulness and patience, he is rewarded with the restoration of everything he lost. The main, poetic part of the book contains Job's conversations with his friends; the narrative framework is set out in the prose prologue and epilogue.
The opening lines portray Job as devout and prosperous. In reading them, it is important to remember that traditional Old Testament religiosity presupposed a direct connection between righteousness and prosperity, sin and misfortune. Old Testament authors did not know the idea of recompense after death; a person's fate after death was imagined as something like suspended animation. In Sheol, ‘the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for even the memory of them is forgotten’ (Eccl. 9:5). The author deliberately paints an idyllic picture in the prologue: Job is righteous, and therefore wealthy and prosperous. But this idyll is far from real life; it is merely the narrative's theoretical starting point. Real life is full of inexplicable suffering in which righteousness goes unrewarded. The prophet Habakkuk had already asked God about the reasons for such injustice; the example of Jeremiah and other prophets, and indeed the whole history of the exile, confirmed the question's relevance. Ecclesiastes bitterly acknowledged the impossibility of answering it through reasoning.
Within the paradigm of a direct relationship between righteousness and earthly prosperity, the origin of evil and the suffering of the righteous cannot be explained. The author of Job therefore portrays a strange dialogue between God and Satan. For the modern reader—and, I think, for the ancient reader too—this scene raises burning questions. Satan slanders Job, claiming that he is faithful to God only because of the gifts the Creator has bestowed on him. To refute these fabrications, the Creator allows Satan to deprive Job of everything he possesses by God's mercy. Job himself thus becomes a ‘pawn’, a blind plaything of Satan and... of God, who withdraws his hand from Job without the slightest concern for what it will be like for Job to endure this. For a modern person, this is so incompatible with the idea of God as a loving Father that it often causes their faith to waver. Reaching verse 12, people close the book in horror, afraid to look further. That is why it is important to remember that the Book of Job was written before the Incarnation of the Son of God and is a work of literature.
And so, in a single day, Job loses everything. His sons and daughters perish, in whom alone, according to Old Testament ideas, he could hope for his life to continue; all his wealth vanishes like smoke. Yet Job remains patient in calamity. This confirms that he does not bless God for gain. How many people would be capable of remaining faithful and not murmuring against God in such a situation? But even this is not enough for Satan: he claims that if Job himself is struck, he will turn away from God. The Lord again agrees to this trial, and Job is struck with leprosy, which causes him terrible torment. Once again the reader asks: why did God agree to test Job? Does he have the right to do so? Is the reader willing to honour such a God, and does he not remind the reader of bloodthirsty Baals? In any case, does an all-knowing God need to test a human being?
But these are the reader's questions. The book's author does not look at his hero's suffering from the outside, and an entirely different question matters to him: what is life for at all, if it is filled with suffering? ‘Curse God and die,’ Job's wife suggests. It is very important that blessing God and blaspheming against him mark the boundary between life and death. Yet Job shows incomprehensible humility, agreeing to receive both good and evil from God. It is precisely this humility that gives him grounds to lament his lot and demand justice. For in the story, Job knows nothing of Satan's slander against him, or of God's agreement to test him in order to settle a dispute with Satan. So too in life, the causes of misfortune often remain unknown to a person; still more hidden is the meaning of their suffering. Like Job, we can only thirst for an explanation and seek the causes and meaning of suffering. Not that this makes it easier—of course not. But with an understanding of its cause and meaning, one can somehow go on living. Otherwise, a person feels like a plaything in the hands of higher powers to whom they are worth nothing. This is why, among other things, the Book of Job becomes a herald of biblical personalism.
2 Satan moves for another trial of Job, which God permits, Job 2:1-6.
Satan smites him with boils from head to foot, Job 2:7-8.
He is tempted by his wife, but resists the temptation, Job 2:9-10.
His friends come to comfort him, Job 2:11-13.
2:9 Then said his wife - Whom Satan spared, to be a troubler and tempter to him. It is his policy, to send his temptations by the hands of those that are dear to us. We must therefore carefully watch, that we be not drawn to any evil, by them whom we love and value the most.Die - I see thou art set upon blessing of God, thou blessest God for giving, and thou blessest God for taking away, and thou art still blessing God for thy loathsome diseases, and he rewards thee accordingly, giving thee more and more of that kind of mercy for which thou blessest him. Go on therefore in thy generous course, and bless God, and die as a fool dieth.
2:10 Shall we - Shall we poor worms give laws to our supreme Lord, and oblige him never to afflict us? And shall not those great and manifold mercies, which from time to time God hath given us, compensate these short afflictions? Ought we not to bless God for those mercies which we did not deserve; and contentedly bear those corrections which we do deserve. And if we receive so much good for the body, shall we not receive some good for our souls? That is, some affliction, whereby we may be made partakers of his holiness? Let murmuring therefore, as well as boasting, be forever excluded. Sin with his lips - By any reflections upon God, by any impatient or unbecoming expression.