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Part 1 of this series covered much of the background of the Book of Job, some matters of translation, and the first two chapters, which cover much of the story of the book as it is commonly told. From here we’ll proceed through the parts of the story that have remained largely untold.
What’s notable here, at the transition point between the first two chapters and those that follow, is that there is a profound stylistic shift. The first two chapters of Job are written in dry, dull pose. Returning to the opening lines:
There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. He had seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred donkeys, and very many servants; so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east.
1:1-3
Now consider this selection from chapter 5, written in a stunning, eloquent, and florid style of poetry, in which Eliphaz, a friend of Job, praises the beneficence of God:
“How happy is the one whom God reproves;
5:17-26
therefore do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.
For he wounds, but he binds up;
he strikes, but his hands heal.
He will deliver you from six troubles;
in seven no harm shall touch you.
In famine he will redeem you from death,
and in war from the power of the sword.
You shall be hidden from the scourge of the tongue,
and shall not fear destruction when it comes…
You shall come to your grave in ripe old age,
as a shock of grain comes up to the threshing floor in its season.”
I’d like to do some stylometric analysis of the text to confirm this, but I believe that the book of Job was written by multiple authors, probably at least three. Overall, the text reads as though subsequent people had taken it in whatever form they had found it in and added onto it or otherwise modified it, and this will be seen more as we proceed through the text.
One might ask the question at this point, was it at all common in the ancient world that texts would be acquired, altered, and then redistributed? After all, if this was an isolated example then it would want for an explanation of why such would happen only once. But in fact there are works that are in the canonical Bible that are clearly forgeries. What else would one expect in a time before anyone could do much to verify authorship? If a document from the ancient world was the unedited work of a single author, that would want for an explanation of how it survived that long in its original form before the printing press, at the least.
Returning to the narrative, what happens here first is that three friends of Job arrive: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They are distraught to see their good friend in such bad shape. They sit with him for seven days, none of them speaking. After this, Job is the first to speak. Far from the meek resignation he displayed the week prior, here we find Job full of rage and contempt, which he describes at length in some of the most beautiful poetry of the ancient world. While not explicitly cursing God, he curses the life that God has given him and the suffering that God has visited upon him and demands to know the reason for it. Whether or not he can be truly said to curse God can be debated, but the story told of Job that he remained perfectly faithful throughout his ordeal is manifestly false.
“Why is light given to one in misery,
3:20-26
and life to the bitter in soul,
who long for death, but it does not come,
and dig for it more than for hidden treasures;
who rejoice exceedingly,
and are glad when they find the grave?
Why is light given to one who cannot see the way,
whom God has fenced in?
For my sighing comes like my bread,
and my groanings are poured out like water.
Truly the thing that I fear comes upon me,
and what I dread befalls me.
I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;
I have no rest; but trouble comes”
And then come three arguments, presented by each of the three friends, as to the reasons for Job’s suffering. Eliphaz is first, saying that Job must not have been blameless in his life, and that God is disciplining him, making him better. The section from Eliphaz that I quoted above by way of demonstrating the stylistic shift in the text shows Eliphaz describing how Job will be improved by these trials (and how much does this sound like an abusive relationship? “He wounds but he binds up, he strikes but his hands heal”). Job offers an impassioned counterargument that whatever reward cannot possibly be worth what has been done to him; all he yearns for now is for God to strike him dead. And further, Job says, if he has sinned at all, his punishment is fantastically disproportionate.
Bildad says, “It doesn’t matter whether you’ve erred or not: God knows better, so you had best simply repent. If you do, you will get back everything you have lost and more. If you don’t, that is God’s justice for having done wrong in Their eyes, even if we cannot understand it.” Job’s answer to this is that God’s anger must be greater than God’s mercy:
“God will not turn back his anger,
9:13-24
the helpers of Rahab1 bowed beneath him.
How then can I answer him,
choosing my words with him?
Though I am innocent, I cannot answer him;
I must appeal for mercy to my accuser.
If I summoned him and he answered me,
I do not believe that he would listen to my voice.
For he crushes me with a tempest,
and multiplies my wounds without cause;
he will not let me get my breath,
but fills me with bitterness.
If it is a contest of strength, he is the strong one!
If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him2?
Though I am innocent, my own mouth would condemn me;
though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse.
I am blameless; I do not know myself;
I loathe my life.
It is all one; therefore I say,
He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.
When disaster brings sudden death
he mocks at the calamity of the innocent.
The earth is given into the hand of the wicked;
He covers the eyes of its judges —
if it is not he, who then is it?”
What can Job do, as a mortal, against such infinite rage? And if it couldn’t have been said before, it can certainly be said now: Job curses God, saying, “Therefore I say, he destroys both the blameless and the wicked.”
This leaves both Eliphaz’s and Bildad’s arguments rejected. Zophar remains, and reiterates much of what his companions have said: Job must have somehow erred, even if in some way beyond human ken and knowable only to God, and that he must “direct [his] heart rightly” so that God might redeem him. Zophar seems to be coming from a place of deep mystical knowledge, but Job rebukes him for this, saying, “I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you” (12:3). In other words, Job claims his own mystical understanding, in which his prognosis is less than favorable. Now Job comes to cursing God directly:
If he tears down, no one can rebuild; if he shuts someone in, no one can open up… The deceived and the deceiver are his. He leads counselors away and makes fools of judges… He deprives of speech those who are trusted, and takes away the discernment of the elders… He uncovers the deeps out of darkness, and brings deep darkness to light. He makes nations great, then destroys them.
12:14-23
Job’s understanding has arisen out of his suffering: God is capricious and arbitrary, acting as They will. If Job has been blameless and upright his entire life and God still torments him to this degree, can he expect that repentance will save him? Job then proceeds to brutally rebuke his three “friends” for the bad advice they have given him: “As for you, you whitewash with lies; all of you are worthless physicians. If you would only keep silent, that would be your wisdom!… Your maxims are proverbs of ashes, your defenses are defenses of clay” (13:4-12).
Job then prays to God, asking first that his torments cease, and then that God explain to him why They have done this. There is then a second round of arguments, again presented separately by Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, with Job responding to each. Each argument is a variation on the theme of Job having done wrong but not knowing it and needing to repent, but Job counters these arguments and affirms his innocence at every turn. After a third round of arguments (absent any offering by Zophar this time), Job offers a lengthy summation of his position, as well as a poem concerning wisdom (which concludes with God saying to humankind, “Truly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom,” which is chapter 28 verse 28).
Finally, at the 40th and last verse of the 31st chapter, the text states, “The words of Job are ended.” And here things take a bizarre turn. A fifth character arrives, introduced by a short section in prose:
So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes. Then Elihu son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, became angry. He was angry at Job because he justified himself rather than God; he was angry also at Job’s three friends because they had found no answer, though they had declared Job to be in the wrong. Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job, because they were older than he. But when Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouths of these three men, he became angry.
32:1-5
I believe we have here our third author. Elihu’s identification is oddly specific, especially given that no other character in the book is specified to that degree, and the text is quite aggrandizing of his character. My suspicion here is that this section was written by Elihu himself, and that he wrote himself into the story to offer his own position, that being that Job’s suffering is essentially irrelevant and that God should be praised regardless for Their infinite goodness and majesty.
At last, God arrives in the form of a whirlwind (a powerful force of nature) to set the record straight, to explain to the five (and to all of us) Their reasoning and motivation. I believe that this is the second author again, and that Elihu’s section was inserted between this section and the earlier arguments of the three friends. Nothing further is mentioned of him.
God speaks first to Job’s four counselors:
“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
38:2-3
Gird up your loins like a man,
I will question you, and you shall declare to me.”
I find this an entirely hilarious rebuke. And what are God’s questions to the four?
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
38:4-7
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements — surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone
when the morning stars sang together
and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?”
God goes on like this for quite some time, and then directs a similar speech at Job. God describes Their creation of two great and terrible beasts, Behemoth and Leviathan, beings of incredible power. If God can create beings of such incredible power, then God’s own power must be even greater. Job responds:
“I know that you can do all things,
42:2-6
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
‘Hear, and I will speak;
I will question you, and you declare to me.’
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
Therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”
“Despise myself” does not seem to be a very apt translation; “I retract my words” seems better, and several translations of the Bible use something closer to that. What Job is saying here is that, God’s power being so immense, Job, whatever injustice he feels has been done to him, has no recourse but to kneel in the ashes of his former life and worship. And here at last, God has received the acknowledgement that They were seeking, and They restore Job’s wealth, giving him even twice as much as he had before. What’s more, “…there came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and they ate bread with him in his house; they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him; and each of them gave him a piece of money and a gold ring” (42:11). And this is that word ra’ again, which implicitly declares that God is not perfectly good but may choose to do evil.
After all of this, after all of the back and forth about the nature of God and justice, it comes down to power. Does Job offer the proper sacrifices to God? God doesn’t care. Does Job offer deference to God in matters of fate? God doesn’t care. Is Job innocent of wrongdoing? God doesn’t care. Does Job acknowledge God’s infinite power and fear Them for it? On that matter, it is clear that God cares a great deal. In order to effect this acknowledgement, God had everything that Job cared about taken away from him and had him tormented until he acknowledges that God can do what They want and can even go so far as to demand that Job worship Them for it. For the God of the Book of Job, there are no reasons of justice or good; only will and power.
This is actually consistent with another chapter in the Old Testament that describes God as working evil in the world, Isaiah 45:7: “I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I the Lord do all these things” with woe translated from that same Hebrew word ra’. Taken as a whole, Isaiah 45, just as do the final chapters of Job, describes God as being justified by Their great power rather than by Their goodness or justice or by any other measure. This story neatly rebukes the common notion that good and justice are the chief values of the Judeo-Christian God; in fact, if we are to take Christians at their word that the Old Testament was divinely inspired, we have a God who is petty, capricious, arbitrary, and amoral, who should be worshiped only out of fear of Their immense power. Though Satan the Accuser is hardly blameless in this story, he has at least provoked humans into thoughtful philosophical discussion and debate, something for which God rebukes all those involved.
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