Job

Structure:

·         Prologue introducing Job

·         The first test (striking Job’s family and wealth) and second test (striking his body)

·         Friends join Job, and join him in silent mourning for seven days.

·         Job curses the day he was born.

·         Three rounds of speeches. In the first two rounds, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar speak in turn. In the third round, just Eliphaz and Bildad speak. Job answers each of their speeches directly before the next friend starts.

·         A poem (interpolation?) concerning wisdom – chapter 28

·         Job’s final speech, challenging God with a declaration of innocence

·         Elihu’s speeches. (Elihu has not been mentioned before.)

·         Yahweh’s speeches to Job, with Job’s reply and final submission

·         The vindication of Job

Job’s friends argue for a doctrine of distributive justice, stressing man’s worthlessness before God, man’s ephemerality and ignorance, the need to turn to God in penitence, praise of God, the disciplinary power of misfortune, the happiness of the penitent and the claim to possess a wisdom greater than Job’s.

In the first round of speeches, the friends become increasingly scolding: Eliphaz only implies Job is a sinner, but Bildad proposes that Job’s children died for their sins, and Zophar says that Job suffers less than he deserves.

In the second round of speeches, goaded by Job’s refusal to withdraw his arraignment of God, the friends describe in detail the punishment of the wicked. In response to their generalised comments, Job particularises his own suffering, stressing the success of the wicked and arguing that he is not one of them.

In the third round of speeches, Bildad accuses Job or oppressing the poor, and Bildad gives a (very short, and possibly interrupted) doxology asking how man can be righteous before God.

Elihu speaks. He is rhetorically florid, repeats to some extent to tired doctrine of retributive justice of Job’s other friends, and does say some things in error, for example, that Job has accused God of injustice. Nonetheless, Elihu does say that God does speak to man, that not all suffering is punitive, and that contemplation of nature’s greatness opens the mind to God’s greatness – a line of apology for God that does not involve blackening Job’s character.

Yahweh’s speeches – in contrast to the anthropocentrism of Genesis 1 or Psalm 8, man is presented as marginal to the created order. Only one who comprehends the vastness and complexity of God’s work can pass judgment on Him. God’s governance cannot be judged by its manifestations in human society alone. Human notions of reason and justice are simply too limited to apply to a God whose very creation is fathomless.

Chapter 28 has already anticipated the conclusion at which Job must arrive in the face of God’s wonders: for mankind, wisdom consists in fearing God and shunning evil. More than that he cannot know.

Job’s friends seek to teach him traditional wisdom, but he ends up teaching them the inaccessibility of true wisdom.

We should neither infer sin from suffering (the error of the friends), nor the enmity of God towards the sufferer (the error of Job).

1

Job lives as a good rich man from Uz. He has seven sons and three daughters. Job makes offerings when his sons feast, in case they sinned. Satan meets with God, and obtains permission to test him by making him suffer. A string of servants come to tell Job that his property has been destroyed by fire, his livestock taken away, and his children when a wind collapses the house they were in. At the end of each servant’s news, there is the refrain, ‘and I alone have escaped to tell you.’ Job says that the Lord gives, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.


2

Satan and the Lord discuss Job. The Lord gloats that Job did not lose his integrity. Satan replies that Job will curse God if he is afflicted in the body. Job is afflicted with boils from tip to toe. Job’s wife tells him to curse God, but Job says he must accept adversity as well as prosperity from the Lord. Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite visit Job, and stay with him seven days in silence while he is afflicted.


3

Job curses the day of his birth, wishing it to be consumed in darkness. Job wishes he had died that day, so he could have lain at rest with the kings and counsellors of the earth. Why is light given to him that is in misery?


4

Eliphaz says that Job may be guilty of some sin, because the upright do not suffer. He talks of an angel who visited him in a vision and talked about man's frailty, unholiness and mortality: ‘Can a mortal be more righteous than God?’


5

Eliphaz speaks to Job: people bring trouble on themselves. He encourages Job to turn to God, listing examples of his goodness and willingness to help people. Happy is the man whom God corrects, for he bruises, but he binds up.


6

Job speaks to friends: he says his grief cannot be weighed, and he laments his weakness. Job's friends are not helping him; he challenges them to point out his unrighteousness to him.


7

Job speaks to friends: his present suffering like the futile, discouraging work of a servant or a hired man, with no hope or reward, only weariness. ‘My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle.’ Job wishes God to leave him alone, and that he has been made God’s target inexplicably.


8

Bildad rebukes Job: Job and children must have sinned to cause Job's trouble. We were born yesterday. Man without God withers like a payrus without a marsh. God will bless the blameless.


9

Job expresses frustration with the unknowable power and majesty of God. Such a mighty God who can crush him with a tempest cannot be answered, or argued with. Because Job despises his life, he feels that there is nothing to fear in accusing God of destroying the innocent. Job’s days are swifter than a runner. There is no point in him defending himself. There can be no legal mediator between Job and God.


10

What Job would say if he could: show me why You contend with me. Is it good that you should oppress me in this way? Why are you afflicting me if I am your creation? (This is exactly the sort of speech Job says in chapter 9 that it is not worth making.) Job wishes to go to the land of darkness.


11

Zophar: God exacts less from you than you iniquity deserves. Can you search out the deep things of God? Repent and stretch out your hands to God. The eyes of the wicked shall fail.


12

Job dismisses his friends’ wisdom. All creation understands God’s power. God underthrows the mighty, and his judgment is irrevocable.


13

Job’s friends are worthless physicians. Your proverbs are platitudes are ashes. Job asks why God hides from him, and does not reveal his sins.


14

Job laments man’s frailty, which comes forth and fades like a flower. God has appointed the length of man’s days. Man lies down and does not rise. Job considers the limitless power of God and despairs.


15

Eliphaz that Job is accused by his own words. Job is arrogant: ‘were you born before the hills?’ Man is universally impure. The wicked man writhes with pain all his days, despite his transient life of wealth and luxury.


16

Job reproaches his friends: shall words of wind have an end? God has delivered me to the ungodly (which seems to be a satirical swipe at his friends as well as a more general lament about his misfortunes). He wishes that a man might plead with God – again using the legal imagery of, eg, chapter 9.


17

Job’s spirit is broken. ‘If I say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘You are my mother and my sister,’ where then is my hope?’


18

Bildad is offended by Job’s criticism. The wicked suffer and their memory perishes from the earth.


19

Job again complains about his friends, and describes how God has attacked and estranged him. I am nothing but skin and bones; I have escaped with only the skin of my teeth. Then, there is a flash of faith in the otherwise unremittingly dark language: I know that my redeemerlives, and shall stand at last on the earth.


20

Zophar: the triumph of the wicked is short-lived. Wickedness and injustice is described using the imagery of venom (particularly of snakes). A violent death awaits the wicked man.


21

Job: the wicked prosper and become old.


22

Eliphaz describes Job’s wickedness: he has not given the weary water to drink, withheld bread from the hungry.If Job returns to the Almighty, he will be built up.


23

Job would present his case to God if he could find Him. Job asserts his own righteousness. Noone can compel God to change the way he acts.


24

The wicked oppress the poor. The wicked perform their deeds in darkness, in apparent security.


25

Bildad: How then can man be righteous before God? Or how can he be pure who is born of a woman? If even the moon and stars are not pure, how much less so is man?


26

Job describes God’s power over all creation. How small a whisper we hear of Him!


27

Job is committed to righteous behaviour despite the fact that God has made his soul bitter. The wicked do not prosper in the long term.


28

The earth is a treasure house of value and riches for those who are willing to work hard and search for them. Wisdom, however, cannot be found out in the same way. Only God understands its place, and knows its way.


29

Job wistfully remembers more prosperous days when he was surrounded by family. He was righteous and had authority.


30

Now men younger than Job mock him. He suffers both physically and spiritually, and is ignored by God. His suffering is undeserved.


31

Job proclaims his innocence: he is not guilty of lust, falsehood, adultery, cruel treatment of servants, callous indifference to the poor, greed or idolatrous worship of the sun or moon. He has no means of makinf his case to God, however. Job curses himself if he has not always acted righteously.


32

Elihu (not previously mentioned) speaks: he stresses his youth, but then criticises Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar as ineffective. Elihu is compelled to speak.


33

Elihu speaks: you think yourself without sin. God is not accountable, and may have spoken to you in a dream. Job must receive God’s messenger.


34

Elihu (inaccurately) says Job has accused God of injustice. Elihu asserts that God is just and impartial. Sinners may not hide from God, who does not operate on the same terms as men. Job adds rebellion to his sin.


35

Elihu speaks: do you think you are more righteous than God? God is further above you than you can imagine. God does not answer the proud, even if they are oppressed. God does not want to hear your empty talk.


36

Elihu speaks: God rewards the obedient, while the disobedient perish. God would have helped you had you not been full of the judgment of the wicked. God has an unsearchable greatness – who can understand the works of nature, such as clouds, thunder and lightening?


37

Elihu speaks: God is transcendent, and His voice is like thunder. He controls the rain and the clouds. You do not understand how God works through nature. Stop trying to speak to God, and simply fear Him instead.


38

The Lord answers Job from the whirlwind. He speaks disapprovingly of words without knowledge (is he talking about Elihu or Job?) Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Where were you when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Do you understand the nature of the earth? God asks a series of rhetorical questions about all the things Job can have no knowledge of. Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you hunt the prey for the lion?


39

More rhetorical questions, about the mountain goats, the wild donkey, the wild oxen, ostriches, horses and hawks.


40

God: shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? Job: behold, I am vile. God: would you condemn me that you may be justified? God mentions the Behemoth, an example of His might.


41

God: can you draw out Leviathan with a hook? Everything under heaven is Mine. Leviatha’s awesome might and appearance is described in detail: he is king over all the children of pride.


42

Job confesses his presumption and lack of knowledge, and repents. Gid rebukes Job’s friends, and vindicates Job. Job’s losses are restored; he is blessed and received by friends again. He has seven sons and three daughters, and dies at a ripe old age.