Job
Psalm 26 (Year B October 2-8) both prayers for divine justice and becomes ais a protestation of innocence. The poet insists that he has conducted his life as the Lord requires and therefore should not be punished. His plea assumes that the righteous are rewarded and the wicked punished, yet in his case this expectation seems not yet to have been fulfilled. Like Psalm 25, it uses some language of wisdom literature. The content of the psalm suggests that someone has brought accusations in accord with sacral law. If so, the penalty was death. This context makes understandable the apparent self-righteousness. The poet begins with a plea for judgment, that the Lord would adjudicate him and find him righteous. asking the Lord to vindicate him, for he walked in integrity and trusted or hoped in the Lord without wavering, such trust or faith being the foundation of hope, which is always in God. [1] He asks the Lord to test him (Psa 139:23-24) by examining him in a way that determines his essential qualities, especially his integrity. [2] He asks the Lord to try him, to assay him, in a way like one would way test the quality or genuineness of precious metals. The Lord tested Abraham in this way regarding the sacrifice of his son Isaac (Genesis 22:1). The Lord tests Israel to see if it would observe the commandments and rely upon God and to see what was in their hearts (Deuteronomy 8:2). The Lord even tests them with the gift of manna (Exodus 16:4). The LXX translates it as πειράζω.It comes into the New Testament in this way at I Corinthians 10:9-13. He wants the Lord to test his heart and mind in the sense of rfining or purifying to remove impurities. The writer is confident of innocence, so he invites the Lord to cross-examine him. Another poet invites the Lord to bashan and tsaraph, for the Lord will find no wickedness or transgression, avoiding the ways of the violent (Psalm 17:3). The poet then shifts to his protestation of innocence. He affirms that the faithful love of the Lord is, which affirms the identity and consistency of the eternal God in the divine turning in love to the creatures the Lord has made. [3] His protestation of innocence and his non-association with the worthless, hypocrites, evildoers, or the wicked have a deep connection. He washes hands in innocence, for one must have clen hands and pure hearts (Psa 15, 24) to enter the presence of the Lord. In an action typical of priests, which may suggest his occupation, he goes around the altar of the Lord, singing a song of thanksgiving and telling of the wondrous deeds of the Lord. He then shifts to a prayer to the Lord that emphasizes the Temple, where he loves the house in which the Lord dwells and the place where the glory, the dazzling presence and the light streaming from deity abides with the people. The people of the Lord assemble to experience that presence. He asks that the Lord not sweep him away with sinners, the bloodthirst, those in whose hands are evil devices, and whose right hands are full of bribes. If the poet is swept away with the sinners, bloodthirsty, those with evil devices, and those who bribe, he will not be able to come to the Temple, which he loves. He concludes with reaffirming his innocence. As he began, he concludes that he has walked in integrity, and asks the Lord to redeem him and be gracious to him. He is without blame and level ground are an echo of the notion of having integrity and to be upright, the desired traits of the righteous person. On this basis, that he has developed habits of faithfulness as over against momentary displays of piety, he will ask for help in his time of trouble.
The protestation of innocence in Psalm 26 is an obvious connection to the book of Job, which is the next portion of the Old Testament the lectionary explores. I begin with an introduction to the book.
The author of the book of Job is unknown. Suggestions seem to range from around 900 BC (Solomon) to around 100 BC. Dating the book from 550-350 BC is the best for which one can hope, given similarities with II Isaiah and Zechariah 3. A date in the 400s is strong possibility.[4] The book arises out of the wisdom tradition, especially from Mesopotamia.
The latest historical reference may be to the Persian Empire. However, the author has a profound grasp of history in the period before the exile and in the period of the Patriarchs. Yet, the question raised is one that pervades much of human history.
The book takes the form of a symposium, a dramatic dialogue or debate between a man who, though righteous, has been subjected to extreme suffering, and his friends, whose speeches alternate with the response of Job. It culminates with speeches from the Lord. The philosophical diatribe of the Greek and Roman literary tradition was a form of classical writing in which a particular viewpoint is presented as if it is being argued in a speech. In such writings a second voice is present, but only to refute an opposing view to that of the main speaker. The speeches of the Lord raise the argument to a new level and then close off all further conversation without directly answering any of the deep and painful questions that have been raised along the way. Such dialogues characterize ancient Near Easter wisdom literature from Mesopotamia.
The most obvious point is that human suffering is not necessarily deserved. True, we may bring about our own suffering by neglecting though in some cases we may bring about our own suffering. The real problem with suffering comes with the many cases in which someone’s pain, sorrow, or distress are unrelated to anything they have done or failed to do. Job will argue this point forcibly against his friends. The friends, to safeguard the goodness of the Lord, argue that if a person suffers, they must “somehow” deserve it. Of course, this leads to another point, that if suffering is deserved, suffering falsifies either the character of the sufferer or the character of the Lord. The friends argue that Job is a sinner, and Job argues that the Lord acted unfairly and is indifferent to human suffering. The point Job is making is that despite the suffering and evil he has encountered, God is good. He puzzles as to how his experience is consistent with that goodness. Thirdly, the reasons for suffering, if there are any, are simply beyond human comprehension, but the speech by the Lord at the end affirms the parental care of the Lord for all creation. This explains why the response of Job is to repent and state that now he sees God face to face. The suffering and evil he has experienced has shown Job to be the person of glowing and excellent character the Lord thought he was at the beginning of the book.
The book contains the struggle of believing in a good and powerful God on the one hand and the realities of suffering and evil in a human world on the other. For many people, this is a deal breaker. Any God worthy of worship would not allow a world of so much evil and suffering to exist. Yet, such a view can easily lead one toward resentment concerning the real and human world, full of its imperfections. It also ignores our obvious experience of people who have gone through deep suffering and have come out of it better, even glorious, persons. The belief in God holds out the hope of eventual reconciliation of even this tension that we find in this world.
We rightly puzzle about the reality of our world. It has so much suffering, pain, and evil in it. Much of it is irrational. Natural disaster hits one home and not the neighbor. Disease strikes in unexpected ways. For many, death comes far too early, and it leaves family and friends to suffer the loss. We desperately want a world that does not make sense to somehow make sense. Many of our attempts to justify suffering and evil are attempts to soften the blow, but also to help us move on with our lives. We must do so. Confronted with the dangers, it takes courage to lead a human life. Our fear, anxiety, and dread as we encounter the suffering, evil, and irrational nature of reality are realistic responses to reality. Our wonderment about such experiences is also realistic, for we must learn to cope and move forward with our lives, knowing that death will be our end. Surrendering to the irrationality of reality can be a form of cowardice. Yet, blithely assuming that everything has its reasons is another form of cowardice in that we are unwilling to face the harshness and irrationality of reality. We must be willing to navigate some difficult waters when set out on this journey, knowing that there is no answer to our question.
The book has several structural issues that do not find scholarly consensus. How are the prose and poetry sections related? The poetry begins with a pattern that is abandoned by the end. Job offers his lament in Chapter 3, Eliphaz speaks, Job replies, Bildad speaks, Job replies, Zophar speaks, Job replies, and the cycle begins again. The third time, the first two repeat, but Zophar does not. The final Job speech is much longer and contains arguments that contradict what Job said previously. Chapter 32 introduces a new character, Elihu. When the Lord speaks in chapter 38, the response is to Job, not Elihu. One argument, presented by Nissim Masnuth (1100’s AD) and S. R. Driver, is that the reason the book omits a third speech by Zophar is to show that the friends had exhausted their arguments. Of course, some scholars will try to reconstruct a third speech from the material given.
The book of Job the patient (1-2, 27-28) and the book of Job the impatient (the rest of the speeches) are both present, the latter clearly being the more profound struggle. The narrative of 1-2, 42:7-17 may be the oldest part of the book. The effect of the canonical composition is to relegate Job the Patient to an appendix. One uniqueness of the book is that the friends of Job need to apologize both to Job and to the Lord.
In the context of Old Testament literature, classification among the laments is common. In one literary work, it reflects the trials meted out to Israel, intensified into superhuman suffering. However, the connection between the personal dilemma of Job and the experience of exile by Israel overlap in ways that make it understandable Job found its way into the canon. The connection between Job and the Suffering Servant passages is an intriguing one. The disproportion between sin and punishment is a theme of both exilic and post-exilic periods. This book leads to reflecting upon disaster in terms of the purpose of God and in a way that does not bring dishonor to God. It leads to a deepened appreciation of the relationship between humanity and God, a lesson arising out of the historical experience of the people.[5]
Job 1:1, 2:10 (Year B October 2-8) is part of the narrative prologue that tells the story of a question raised in heaven and an answer given on earth. It provides the narrative framework for the canonical book. The accuser is an official of the royal household of the Lord, a public prosecutor, had an audience day put the question of whether the renowned piety of Job was whole. The accuser acts as an expression of the interest of the Lord. Job will not give a theological understanding to his suffering, for he confines himself to the solemn assertion that he can see nothing in this suffering that must cast doubt on his loyalty to the Lord. He shows himself to be a vulnerable man. He can only ask with amazement whether one would really grant to God only the power to give, and not the power to take away as well. We can imagine the heavenly court eagerly waiting to see whether Job would justify the word of the Lord, which was now at stake, or discredit it. This portion of the story may be centuries older than the dialogue section.[6]
The story is a didactic tale or drama about how to respond properly to undeserved suffering. The Lord points out to the Adversary that Job is the most virtuous person on earth, but the Adversary suggests that his virtue is a function of his material success, arguing that if Job were to suffer, he would cease to be a man who fears God and would blaspheme God. God empowers the Adversary to afflict Job with undeserved suffering to test by experiment the word of the Lord that the virtue of Job is unconditional. The verdict of the prologue is that Job responds to the loss of all his material goods and the death by natural disaster of his seven sons and three daughters by praising God and refusing to blaspheme. When the Adversary challenges the Lord to perform an additional experiment to see if physically afflicting Job himself might cause Job to commit blasphemy, the Lord agrees to the test. Even though his wife attempts to goad Job into blasphemy, Job said nothing sinful, thereby vindicating God in the argument God had with the Adversary.
Scene One (1:1-5), on earth, Job’s way of life and his good fortune. It reads like a folktale, especially with phrases like 1:1 there was once a man in the land of Uz (Edom, Genesis 36:28 and Lamentations 4:21) whose name was Job, receiving a mention in Ezekiel 14:14, in which the point is that not even someone as righteous as he would save a faithless land. However, what is important about him is not ancestry, but his character. That man was blameless (complete, finished, wholesome, perfect, having integrity). We find the word in poetic contexts, especially in Psalms, Job, and the Song of Songs, and usually in texts dating from later periods. Job was also upright (yashar straight), reaching theheight of moral perfection. The Deuteronomic History refers to God in this way. It applies to the character of persons in Job, Proverbs, and Psalms. Yet, while God made human beings straightforward, they devise many schemes (Ecclesiastes 7:29) and no one is left in the land who is upright (Micah 7:2). Thus, on the one hand, human beings can be upright, but some passages deny such uprightness on the part of human nature. Job was one who feared God and was thus a religious man. The midwives who protected Moses also feared God (Exodus 1:17, 21). Nehemiah appointed Hananiah as commander of the citadel because he feared God more than others did (Nehemiah 7:2). Most of the ten references to “Fearing God” occur in wisdom literature. The more common phrase is “fear the Lord your/our God.” That phrase refers to psychological fear of a powerful and unpredictable and to a benign sense of awe and reverence appropriate to true religion. Further, Job turned away from evil. This description is common for people who avoid wickedness. In Proverbs, the advice is turn away from evil (3:7), turn your feet from evil (4:27), fools will turn from evil (13:19), and the wise turn from evil (14:16). Jeremiah urges the people turn from evil (18:11), other prophets urged the people to turn from evil (25:5), the people may turn away from evil and thus avert disaster (26:3), the Lord sent prophets to urge them to turn from their evil ways (35:15). In its obverse, Jeroboam did not turn away from his evil way (I Kings 13:33) and Pekiah did not turn away from the evil of Jeroboam (II Kings 15:24).
In heaven, Scene Four (2:1-6), the second dialogue between the Lord and the Adversary about Job. This text is troubling. It depicts God and Satan chatting about mortals, Satan just returning from a "feet-on-the-ground" tour ("going to and fro on the earth," 1:7). 2:1 He opens with a reference to “sons of God” suggesting superhuman creatures who make up the court and council of God. In Genesis 6:1-4 they had sex with human women and generated the heroes of old. Psalm 29, 82, and 89 all mention this heavenly council of divine beings. Interestingly, one can envision a similar scene with a prophet in the time of Ahab (874-853). According to the prophet, the Lord wanted to deceive Ahab, and called a heavenly council. As Micaiah envisions it, the Lord sits upon a throne, the armies of heaven stand to the right and left, and the Lord asks who is willing to entice Ahab! The heavenly beings talk among themselves. Finally, “a spirit” comes before the Lord and volunteers to entice Ahab. When the Lord asks the spirit how, the spirit says he will put a lying spirit in the mouth of the prophets. Micaiah then affirms that the Lord has decreed disaster for Ahab (I Kings 22:19-23). In Genesis 3:1, the serpent has a similar role of testing and enticing Eve in the Garden of Eden. Zechariah 3:1-2, written in 520 BC, has the Lord rebuking Satan. In Luke 22:31-32, Satan wants to sift Peter like wheat, but the prayer of Jesus is that he will recover and strengthen the other disciples. He then refers to the satan or the accuser. This heavenly being is an ambiguous, questionable figure, skeptical as regarding human beings, anxious to find fault in them, and capable of unleashing disaster on them and enticing them to sin. This heavenly being is at least skeptical about the success of God in creating humanity. The accuser is an official of the royal household of Yahweh, a kind of heavenly public prosecutor. The ancient story of Balaam gives the angel of the Lord the title of “the accuser” in Numbers 22:22. In addition, the Philistines call David “the accuser” in I Samuel 29:4. The point of this title is that this heavenly being stands in opposition or is an obstacle. The author seems to have in mind the pattern followed by Persia, where secret agents roamed the road system of the Persian Empire as part of a secret intelligence system. We note this with the use of the definite article, "the Satan," in that the name appears a title rather than a personal name. The Lord asks what the accuser has been doing, and he responds going to and fro on the earth, walking up and down it. This phrasing comes from the same verbal root and stem for “walking up and down” as used to describe the LORD “strolling” in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3:8. The form used suggests iterative or habitual action, which may in turn indicate that the Accuser’s role was to patrol the earth (and the heavens as well) looking for trouble. Further, I Peter 5:8 has the devil strolling about as a roaring lion and seeking prey, thereby preserving the image presented here. The goal of the accuser is to get Job to “curse” God in 1:11, 2:5. The prologue of Job would rather trace evil, misfortune, and destructive forces to God than recognize a power of evil that is independent of God. For that reason, even Satan is a servant of Yahweh.[7] 3 The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. He still persists in his integrity, although, Yahweh notes significantly, you incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason.” Within this story, in fact, Satan has a boundary that only God can change. Satan entices the Lord to act against Job, thus admitting that the cause of the suffering and evil is in the hands of God.[8] I find so much disturbing about this. Can someone “incite” God against us? God admits that what has happened will “destroy him for no reason.” That is our biggest fear. When the ebb and flow of life take away the gifts of God, does it happen for no reason? We want it to make sense. God seems to admit that what happened to Job was for no reason. This observation by God that the suffering of Job has no cause is consistent with the complaint of Job in the dialogues. It also sets up a situation where the author lets the reader know that the author does not have an answer to the question of suffering in which life becomes fair. Life is not fair, either in nature or in the social world. The world is not set up in a way in which justice and morality are the outcomes of nature and the social world. Further, God has already observed that Job is blameless, upright, fears God, and turns away from evil. All this is consistent with the claim Job will make throughout the dialogue. At the same time, this is a disturbing theological point. Can anyone “incite” God to cause you suffering? According to this story, it happened with Job. What type of deity allows the faithful to suffer just to prove a point? Is God simply avoiding direct responsibility for what happened to Job? If we drop the matter here, we have a puzzling view of the relationship between God and humanity. Yet, if we look at the prologue differently, we might see that the conversation between God and Satan has another message. Satan clearly is far from the Lord, “roaming the earth.” His purpose is to cause damage to that which God has created. Yet, God may well be drawing Satan out as to his purpose in the presence of the heavenly court. Satan wants God to cause the suffering, but instead, God allows Satan to act. When Satan acts, he goes to the extreme, revealing his character. Satan has wanted to show the weakness of Job, but instead, Satan reveals his weakness and cruelty. Satan wants to show God that human beings will move far away from God if given an opportunity. The story of Job shows that human beings, confronted with immense suffering and evil, can display the highest of character, to the point that they deserve remembering for generations.[9] 4 Then Satan answered the Lord, “Skin for skin! A proverbial saying. The Lord has allowed Satan to get at the outer wall, but now is the time to let him penetrate Job himself. All that people have they will give to save their lives. 5 However, stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” 6 The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, he is in your power; only spare his life.” The conclusion of the wager with the conversation partner with God is that God places Job in the power of Satan. How would you like it if God spoke to the devil, referring to you? How would you like to be in Satan's power with God's permission? Job's children die — over a bet!!!
On earth, Scene Five (2:7-13), Job in the second phase of his trial. 7 Therefore, Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and inflicted loathsome sores on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. The disease was probably a boil that becomes ulcerous and leaves a deep scar. 8 Job took a potsherd with which to scrape himself, and sat among the ashes. The scraping is probably a sign of grief. 9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die.” She wants Job to do what Satan expects Job to do. Chrysostom suggests this was the greatest trial the Satan could leave behind. Augustine and Rabbi Abba b. Kahana (Gen Rab 19:12) noted that Job did not listen to her, as did Adam. 10 Nevertheless, he said to her, “You speak as any foolish woman (or shameless in Genesis 34:7 and Deuteronomy 22:21 referring to intercourse with one not her husband) would speak. Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” Job unexpectedly again (first in 1:20-22) offers his worship to God. He confines himself to the solemn assertion that he can see nothing in the suffering that must cast doubt on his loyalty to Yahweh. Job shows himself a vulnerable man. He can only ask with amazement whether one would really grant to God only the power to grant good and not the power to grant bad. This form of resignation to destiny or fate is an important element of the piety of the Sumerians. Job’s response articulates one of the theological puzzles with which ancient Israel, along with all other monotheistic religions, had to deal, namely, both evil and good residing within the same source. Much of the rest of the book considers this painful problem, which remains no less puzzling today than it did to the first hearers of Job’s story. In all this Job did not sin with his lips. While the narrator declares Job innocent of spoken sin (subtly narrowing the declaration of Job’s innocence from 1:22), the narrator says nothing of the torment doubtless under way in Job’s heart and mind. In Jewish monotheism, theodicy arises because it taught that God is the sovereign author of evil as well as good. Only the suffering of the righteous and the good fortune of the wicked brought an assault against Jewish faith, since both were incompatible with the righteousness of God. Jewish eschatology developed out of the failure of the first attempts at theodicy.[10]
My own suggestion is that we look upon this scene as a parable, a picture, rather than take it literally. God has nothing to prove, especially to Satan. The idea of God directing such affliction on Job is not a healthy or helpful image to have of God.
The point of the passage is in the response of Job. “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” Job is not overwhelming in his affirmation of God at this point. Life is what it is. God is God. What is at stake here is that Job worship God, not because of any earthly blessing, but because of who God is. In his response, Job removes the circumstances of his life — whether good or bad — from having any bearing on his relationship with God. Job’s life — whether one of prosperity or misery — is what it is. His relationship to God is that of the created to the Creator. The Creator is worthy of awe, fear, admiration, worship, praise, and glory without factoring anything else into the equation.
This notion of the relationship between God and humanity is a tough sell. Yet, if “we” can learn this lesson, surviving challenging times will be much easier because faithfulness to your core values and beliefs is what matters, even when times are tough. Such faith does not change because it has never anchored itself to, or predicated itself upon, whether one has wealth and health. Our faith anchors itself to the ineffable and eternal God whose very existence should cause us to drop to our knees.
Psalm 22:1-15 (Year B October 9-15) is an individual lament. The date of this psalm is pre-exilic. The theme of Psalm 22 is anguish of mind and religious doubt. Matthew has used it as a messianic prophecy. The mood is one of alternate fear and a desire to seek God in the first part and in the second part a contemplation of the providential rule of God. The poetic images move our hearts, though we cannot know details. The psalm expresses the spiritual anguish brought on by religious conflict. The writer is in shock to the point of expressing itself in physical symptoms due to the lack of response from God and the scorn of non-believers. Throughout the psalm, the writer portrays himself as a faithful worshiper of Yahweh. This faithfulness is the ground of his appeal to God for help. For this reason, one cannot see the psalmist as one who has fully despaired. He genuinely believes that an appeal to the power and justice of God will be efficacious. It opens with a person in a crisis from a serious illness but ends in in his prayers receiving an answer as he brings the offerings he vowed to make and gives public acclaim to the Lord as he promised.
If you want to know why the question of theodicy will never have a definitive answer for us, here is the fundamental reason. If you want to know why atheism will always be a valid response to our experience of life on this planet, meditate upon this psalm. Suppose you have an experience in which you want God to speak or to act so much that it hurts. Suppose you look at an historical event, such as the Holocaust, and ponder why God did not stop that. In other words, the silence of God becomes deafening. If God is silent during the horrors of personal life and human history, then the silence can say a great deal. Belief in God is an affirmation that life triumphs over death, that hope triumphs over despair, that light triumphs over darkness, and that love triumphs over apathy. Yet, what would happen if the silence of God amid tragedy means that death, despair, darkness, and apathy are the final word this universe has to say to humanity?
To the leader: according to The Deer of the Dawn, a musical term that may indicate the melody to which the words were sung. A Psalm of David. The superscription of the Psalm is unique and unclear; it may refer to a musical setting for the psalm or to a now lost collection of psalms. According to the Masoretic Hebrew text (which is v. 1 in the Hebrew), the title is “The Deer of the Dawn.” According to the Greek translation of Symmachus, and the Aramaic Targum, however, the title reads “My help of the Dawn,” translating the Hebrew word ‘eyaluti as “my help,” which appears in verse 19, rather than ‘ayelet, or “deer,” which appears in the Hebrew verse 1. It is fascinating that this psalm, known for its despairing opening, should have such a hopeful name in these two traditions. One should keep in mind that since Mark quotes Jesus as citing the psalm in the Aramaic, he knew its title in Aramaic as well — a title that points to the belief that the help of the Lord will come to the faithful like the dawn. The verses in the psalm alternate between the complaint of the psalmist and the affirmation of the reasons he believes God will answer his complaint.
Psalm 22: 1-21 are a prayer of supplication. Verses 1-11 ask God, who cared for the ancestors and the psalmist in the past, does not do so now. Verses 1-2 are a cry of despair, total aloneness, seeing only separation between himself and God. Doubt is an important experience in going deeper with God. The religion arising out of Judaism and Christianity encourages examination of one’s faith and life. The opposite of faith is certainty. Faith includes noticing the mess, emptiness, and discomfort but also the faith that light will return. The fact that Mark records Jesus as quoting from the opening line of this Psalm gives us an opportunity to reflect upon an important event in the spiritual life of most saints. How do you deal with your life with God when God is silent? You have come to a point in your life when you want clarity, you want God to speak and act, but God is silent. Jesus, in the closing hours of his life, had that experience. Through his parables, sayings, and stories of healing and casting out demons, he affirmed the presence and reality of God. Yet, in the last hours of his life, his heavenly Father encountered him with silence. As one of Jesus’ words from the cross, recounted in Aramaic by Matthew and Mark (Matthew 27: 46; Mark 15: 34), the first line of Psalm 22 has become the quintessential cry of despair for the Christian tradition. More of Psalm 22 than simply the first verse figures in the passion narratives, however. While only Matthew and Mark relate Jesus’ quotation, all four evangelists draw parallels from the psalm to Jesus’ execution in some way, which we will see as the Psalm progresses. However, this line has had the heaviest influence on Christian teaching. The fact that Christ, in his suffering, would utter this cry, has signified to Christian theologians throughout history that Christ was indeed fully human. The fact that he could feel the thoroughly human emotion of despair, despite his divine nature, is both a scandal and a miracle by which Christians affirm the dual nature of Christ. Even as the Son of the Father, he experienced the silence of God. In fact, in the closing hours of his life, the silencing of his Father is deafening. Jesus no doubt knew the entire psalm whose first line he is citing, and therefore we can understand his quote of the Psalm to the understood to possess not only the human emotion of despair, but also the paradoxically human emotion of hope despite despair that is evident in the rest of the psalm. In v. 1b-2, while experiencing the silence of God at a critical moment in his life. He wants God to help and hear. He wants God to speak and act. God is silent. He is not blaming God. He is not asking why God did or did not do something. He is asking what God is amid his suffering. In his suffering, there is little evidence that is God with him. The poet continues to trust that God will speak and act.
Suffering reaches to the depth of all living things. After living things come to life, they mature and die. In human beings, an important part of maturing is the struggle toward adult life, as we move through the various stages of life, facing the challenges problems present, learning lessons, and moving on to the next stage is an important part of our maturity.
Yet, sometimes, more often than we care to admit, the problems surround us in a way that makes us feel overwhelmed. We want help. We extend a hand to someone, a friend, an organization for which we have worked, a church, and to God, and it seems as if no one is listening. No one, it seems, will be there.
“Why” is a common question for people to ask. We keep pushing the boundaries and limits of reasoning. We want to know. It seems as if some of our questions reach a limit. A rational explanation, especially in suffering, does seem to address the question. Somehow, we think life ought to be easier than this.
True, some of the obstacles and challenges in life we have put there. We need to have the strength to make the personal changes we need to make. Yet, sometimes, life throws so much at us, more than we think we can bear. We can have the faith that God is here. We can have faith that God will give us strength. We can have faith that these obstacles and challenges will be part of forming us into the people God intended. Of course, sometimes, such faith is difficult to have.
A message concerning suffering can be tough, both for the listener and for the one who gives it. Both of us know we will find no answers. Fear of experiencing suffering can lead us to hold back and fail to take the risks that are part of a human life. It can lead you to retreat from people. Yet, the people you need to accompany you through life are there. The only genuinely meaningless suffering is when you let suffering make you retreat into loneliness and despair. Suffering becomes meaningful when you let it open you to people in such a way that you become a source of inspiration to others. Human life is full of risk. Do not let the risk hold you back from engaging life fully and confidently. Yes, suffering is part of it, but life has far more positive to offer if we engage it.
Verses 3-5 sense the vast difference between God and persons, as well as God's continued silence. Typical of the lament, the poet appeals to the faithfulness of God as a confession of trust and a reason to hope. Abandonment is not the last word. Remembering Exodus 15:11, the poet affirms the beautiful image that God is holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. One reason the absence of God seems so unfair to the poet is knowing that God has rescued faithful ancestors in the past. Why is the poet not experiencing salvation from the hand of God? Verses 6-8 shows the real strain is on his faith, his mind overcome with sorrow and grief. He describes his desperate situation. He feels less than human, The author experiences the desertion of other people. They mock his attempt to commit his cause to the Lord. He receives scorn from those who think that God will not help him. The crowd at the execution of Jesus mocks him with these words (Psalm 22: 7-8 compared with Matthew 27: 43; Mark 15: 29-31; Luke 23: 35). Verses 9-11 shows that, though his faith is under attack, he finds renewed strength. He hopes that God who was with him since conception will not abandon him now. He can look upon his life and see the faith of his mother nurturing him. If no one else helps him in his time of trouble, he wants God to help him. We need to have confidence of the presence of God in our pain. Some of us need to offer a simple prayer: “Be as near to me as my troubles are.” Our prayer may not be so much to ask God to lighten our load as to give us a stronger back.[11]
Psalm 22: 12-21 paint the opponents of the psalmist as animal predators. The mixing of metaphors and similes of diverse types is common in the psalms. Verses 12-13 shows the strong emotion that fear of enemies brings him. In referring to the bulls of Bashan surrounding him, he refers to the territory ruled by the Syrian city-states, such as Damascus, who were frequently enemies who threatened the northern border of Israel. The area was famous for its fat, strong cattle, which are predators here, who have their mouths open wide like a ravening and roaring lion, the icon of the Assyrian empire, whose rise to power spelled the end of the northern kingdom and contributed to the fall of Judah as well. Such images may be military images drawn from the history of the struggles of Israel with its neighbors. Here is a reminder that the obstacles we face are our lives. They shape our character and personality. They shape our destiny.[12]Some of the bulls of Bashan that surround us and threaten us are the results of choices we have made. They represent internal battles with desires and wishes that distract us from doing what God has called us to do. Can the struggles, obstacles, and suffering that are part of a human life have any positive effect? I am not ignoring the genuine pain we experience. Yet, if we assume the significance of this space and time we inhabit, if we look honestly at our experience, do we not have to agree that some of our times of greatest personal growth have been through some of the struggles we have had? Suffering and pain increase our awareness of life. Suffering becomes meaningful to the extent that it calls for protection and healing in those attacked by pain. It can show to us our limits and potential. Suffering can become meaningful because of how others respond to this suffering and how the one who suffers responds to it.[13] Verses 14-15 may refer to the result of distress, a graphic description of a mortal illness. This event has caused profound distress to the point of affecting him physically. It feels like death. The poet senses his body stop working and disintegrating. He sees himself die; his body so dried up that it turns to dust. The scorners are like dogs hunting prey. They gloat at his death and are eager to take his possessions, dividing his clothes among themselves by casting lots, recalling Isaiah 53:5, and all four gospels relate the fact that soldiers divided his clothes among the executioners of Jesus (Matthew 27: 35; Mark 15: 24; Luke 23: 34; John 19: 24).
A human life has many twists and turns. It has corners around which we cannot see. This psalm is pointing us to embracing the ambiguity of a human life, to embrace it all as the multi-layered reality in which human life consists.
The anguish of the poet in Psalm 22 connects closely with the anguish of Job.
Job 23:1-9, 16-17 (Year B October 9-15) describes the divine absence. A major theological theme in the Old Testament concerns God hiding the divine face from the believer, allowing them to be punished unjustly. Job would like to get a hearing with God to defend himself, making these reflections forensic in nature. Yet, Job cannot find God, even though he has followed the ways of God. If God has chosen to judge, one has no hope. The poor receive oppression while God does not hear the appeal. The wicked go on their normal way.
The greatest promise through the Scriptures is that God is with us. God is present with us, and we are present with God. We speak theologically of the omnipresence of God. Paradoxically, however, God’s absence (or the inexplicable absence of favorable divine action) is also a prominent feature of quite a few biblical texts (as in the complaints of many psalm-writers). Hence the intriguing title of Samuel Terrien’s The Elusive Presence. There are times when we do not feel any sense of divine presence. Sometimes that may have to do with our own state of mind. God chooses to remain hidden from us at times. If so, it should be for reasons that will be beneficial to us eventually. We see that Job eventually learned what true faith is. He trusted God without evidence. Certainly, there are times when we go to church and barely manage to keep our minds on the service. There is absolutely no sense of any divine presence at all. This is often true of our prayers. We feel at times like a child throwing rocks at the moon.
The suffering of Job has led him to ponder the absence of God at this point in his life. Life has become inhospitable to him. It does not feel like a home. He is pondering God, of course, but he is also pondering his life experience. Absence is more powerful than is presence, fullness, meaning, and purpose. We do well to ponder this tension in our experience. Since reality is “becoming” and is thus never fully “there,” all we have is the fleeting trace of presence and the possibility that absence is more a part of life than we care to admit. Friends may be absent at a critical moment in our lives. We may be absent to ourselves and feel lost and alone, adrift at sea, with no guiding light. It may well be that any guiding light we thought we saw was only an illusion.
It is hard to spar with an invisible fighting partner. He wants to go to the house of God and give God a piece of his mind. Job wants to storm heaven itself, if necessary, to contend with God. Many people groan at that statement. Job faced severe torment, and not just physical pain and grief. This good man, who never knowingly, intentionally hurt a soul, this splendid citizen, this faithful person in his religion, now finds that in the darkest moment of his life he cannot find God. What a travesty his religion must have seemed to him. If Job could have such a hearing, it would not be a one-way experience. It would be a mutual hearing. God would not overpower Job. Rather, Job would hear and understand God, and God would listen and pay attention to him. Although Job has a contentious argument with God, he wants a hearing before God. It does not seem like a fair fight; God knows where Job is, but Job does not know where to find the hidden God. Job cannot escape, he cannot hide from God. Even so, Job still wants to. He expects to win, even if he imperils himself by being so bold. A fair trial would vindicate Job. He is a person of integrity rather than one who deserves suffering due to his unrighteousness, as his friends argue. As readers, we know from Chapter 2 that his suffering comes from the arbitrary actions of God. Job believes he would win his case, even though God is both his judicial adversary and his judge. In Job 9:32-33, Job expresses his frustration that God is not mortal so that they could face each other in the courtroom. No one can be the umpire between God and Job. Since God is hiding, no matter where Job searches, he cannot find God. He cannot find his judicial adversary or the judge, so he cannot have the trail for which he longs to have. Without God, he can have no case before the court. An interesting connection is with Psalm 139:7-10, where the author, with trust and assurance says that he cannot escape the Spirit and presence of the Lord. He can ascend to heaven or descend to Sheol, and the Lord is there. If he went to the farthest limits of the sea, the hand of the Lord will lead and strengthen him. Job has a profound sense of holy terror before Almighty God. He stands in awe or dread. Despite that experience, he wants to engage God in the courtroom. Despite it all, Job wants to engage God in courtroom fight, fair or not. What an intimate, enigmatic, terrifying relationship with God! We may think we have “tamed” God in our world today. However, Job knew the untamable God, and chose to wrangle with God anyway. Yet, a part of Job would like to disappear rather than have a direct encounter with God. He wants to engage God in battle and hide from God. Job wants to hide from God in the darkness but realizes he cannot do so. God can see in the dark. God hides from Job, but Job has no way of hiding from God. Again, note the contrast of tone with Psalm 139:11-12, where the writer admits that even if he becomes so discouraged that he thinks darkness covers him, and the light around him seems like night, the darkness is like light to the Lord. Such trustful confidence the psalmist had does not describe the experience Job is having. Most people who have taken their walk with God seriously will testify to dark places in the journey. Yet could it be that the darkness is part of our training for the tasks and the mission God has for us? Even our fears can train us to meet the challenges of life. The key is not to surrender to darkness and fear. We prefer the moments of sun, happiness, health, and success. Yet, most of us have learned much in the treasures contained in the darkness and in the fear. Darkness and fear will pass, but what one learns through them for their journey and mission in life will last.[14]
Arguing with God has many biblical parallels. Many of the poets/psalm-writers show such holy boldness. As do such biblical folks as Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and Jeremiah. Abraham, in Genesis 18:16-33, asks God to have mercy on the people of Gomorrah and Sodom (where his nephew Lot and his family resided), if only even a few were righteous there. Moreover, God considers Abraham a worthy challenger, even filling him in on the divine plans and going tête-à-tête with him for several rounds. Jacob wrestles with God (Genesis 32:24-32) at Peniel (“the face of God”). Moses also goes up against God, on more than one occasion. For example, see Exodus 32:7-14, where Moses objects energetically to God’s planned destruction of the people of Israel, for their idolatry; and God listened. Jeremiah the prophet frequently complained boldly to God. Nevertheless, God kept him on as prophet.
Not surprisingly, some of God’s people through the centuries follow their example. See Elie Wiesel’s Night (p. 65, 1982 Bantam edition), where he says (with reference to God’s non-intervention during the horrors of the Holocaust), “I was the accuser, God the accused.”
“Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.”[15]
In our modern experience, our dominant experience of God may be one of distance and absence. Thus, as modern as we are, we can identify with the ancient figure of Job. Yet, for us, the roles in the courtroom have reversed. Job viewed himself as the accused. For us, God is the accused, and we are the judge and prosecutor. Does God have a reasonable defense for making and permitting a world of so much war, poverty, and disease? What about bone cancer in children? How does God dare to create a world with so much misery that is not the result of our actions? Why should human beings respect a God who creates a world with so much injustice and pain? We are ready for God to answer our questions. We are in the judge’s bench, and God has the right to offer a defense. We might even acquit God if God has a satisfactory answer.[16]
If you could have an audience with God, what would you ask? Would you ask about something you have experienced? Would ask about the most pressing injustice and pain in the world? I doubt if I could find a limit to the questions we would like to ask God. Our questions do not come from idle curiosity. Many of us are experiencing some pain or grief common to the human condition. We have a personal investment in the questions we would ask. Such questions take life seriously. Our discussion of such matters will not answer our questions. No answer exists in our world. Thus, we need to be patient toward the unsolved questions of our hearts. We need to love the questions with which we live. Demanding answers today from questions that have no answers today is fruitless. We might not even be able to live with the answers! We need to live the questions, and in the process, without noticing it, we live into the answer.[17] All Christians can know is that the Father allowed the Son to experience injustice, misery, and suffering. The Father was silent in the cross. The Son awaited the life-giving Spirit to give him new, eschatological life, bringing him to intimate fellowship with the Father. Since we are not in that new, eschatological life, we must live with the experience of divine absence during our anguish.
The story of Job is a story of the tests that we might encounter in our lives. They are tests of who we are and desire to be. What is your character? Job, you think of yourself as a servant of the Lord. However, are you such when times become tough? Will you persevere to the end and pass the test? Job is the one going through the test of whether he will trust God, regardless of the circumstances.
In the end then, Job’s story is a faith story. I want to mention a few things that we can learn about faith in Job. For one thing, we might describe faith as a movement toward God that goes beyond evidence and reason, but not in a different direction from reason and evidence. Faith will always require us to make commitments of which we are not completely sure of the outcome. Some truths do not disclose themselves to us until we commit ourselves to them.[18] Another dimension of faith is that from the perspective of Job, he can trust God only in direct opposition to the evidence of his present experience of life. Judging only from the evidence, he could conclude that there is no God, that God hates him, or that God is evil. Yet though his presence experience tests his faith, it survives, and without supporting evidence. Thus, even though God were to kill him, he will trust in God (Job 13:15). It may well that faith opens the way for a deeper experience of God. Yes, faith will have, at times, a warm feeling accompanying it. Yet, faith may also be the perception of an outline of meaning even in troubled times, when one can see no evidence for it.
Psalm 14:1-9, 24, 35c (Year B October 16-22) is a hymn oriented to nature. The poet combines profound religious thought with reflecting on nature in an intimate way. The poet offers praise of the creator of a perfect world. Creation is an ecological harmony in which all are provided for and is an ideal world in which evil has no place.
The creation focus of Psalm 104 is like that of Psalm 19:1-6 and Genesis 1, where the Lord created sun, moon, and stars (which other people worshiped as gods/goddesses), and the creation praises the Creator. Also, in Psalms 96:9-13; 98:7-9; and 148 (all), creation itself does the praise-singing. Other passages that marvel at creation include Psalms 8 and 89; Proverbs 8:23-31. It resembles the divine catalogue of creation in Job 38-39. See Isaiah 40 passim and Isaiah 46:1 ff. for a prophetic emphasis on the Lord God as Creator, in mocking contrast to the inability of idols made by human beings to do anything. Isaiah 40:12 ff. parallels Job 38:1 ff. The reign of God is without beginning or end, not attained by a fight with chaos. Further, the sequence here of plants before the stars is like Genesis 1, largely because they belong closely to the earth and to depreciate the stars in comparison with the divine rank that the stars had in the religious world around Israel, especially Babylon.[19]
One parallel to Psalm 104 in another culture is that of Ikhnaton, Pharaoh Amenophes IV (1375-1358 BC), Hymn to the Sun, where the two poems have a similar divine catalogue of creation. It refers to the beauty of the sun, affirming it has the beginning of life. The sun blinds the earth with its love. The world is in silence and darkness until the sin rises. Animals, like cattle, birds, and sheep, as well as vegetation, offer praise to the sun. The sun gives life and breath. The sun (Aton) makes the Nile in the Netherworld to preserve the people of Egypt. Aton is in the heart of the poet and holds the earth in his hand.
The psalm opens with a call to himself, o my soul, to praise the God of Israel. This poetic reflection on nature leads the poet to affirm that the Lord is great, clothed with honor and majesty. He contemplates the heavens, which become a theophany of the Lord from heaven. The Lord is clothed in the glory of what the Lord has created. Creation is the house of the Lord and transports the Lord. He then moves to the earth and reflects on its origin with wonder. The Lord set its foundation so that nothing can shake it.
The poet then expresses the Israelite fear of the sea. The sea represented a scary, overwhelmingly unpredictable, and frequently deadly location, since they were a non-seafaring people. Theologically it meant the chaos that their providential Lord God would personally have to keep in check. The Lord created the primordial waters, whereas in Genesis they were there at the beginning of creation, and then separated them from the dry land. The blast from the Lord put the chaotic waters to flight, like in Psalm 29:3, where the voice of the Lord thunders over the mighty waters and in Jeremiah 5:22, where the Lord made the sand as a barrier that the waves and the roar of the sea cannot cross. The Lord set a boundary for the waters. The Lord brought cosmos from chaos. Never again will the waters of chaos cover the earth. These verses incorporate recollections of the Canaanite mythological tradition attested at Ugarit and also found elsewhere in the Bible. Accordingly, God sets boundaries for (or otherwise controls) the ocean’s chaotically destructive waters. See also Genesis 1:9-10; Job 38:8-11; Proverbs 8:28-29; Jeremiah 5:22; Nahum 1:4). Awe and trust in God are the source of this poetic expression. Here, the Lord has established the earth for eternity and experiences protection against the waters of chaos. The Lord has set the earth on a solid foundation, covering it with a garment, and setting boundaries.[20] Jesus walks on water (Mark 6:45 ff.) and calms the winds and storm-tossed sea (Mark 4:35 ff.). Revelation 21:1 speaks of the time when there will be no more sea.[21]
All this suggests Katharina von Schlegel’s hymn (translated by Jane Borthwick), “Be Still My Soul,” with its words, “Leave to your God to order and provide; in every change God faithful will remain.” Further, as Robert Browning put it, “God’s in his heaven, all is right with the world” (in Pippa Passes). Even amid the “tough stuff,” preachers and congregations might well reflect on God’s promises to limit the effects of chaos in the lives of those who entrust themselves to God’s care.
Yet, the Lord fills the sea with wonders. The Lord is worthy to receive glory, honor, and power, for the Lord created all things (Rev 4:11). The works of the Lord are many, making them all in wisdom. Creation through wisdom appears elsewhere in Scripture (Prov 3:19, and the parallel Psa 136:5, as well as Jer 10:12 and 51:15). Indeed, in Prov 8:22 ff., God creates Wisdom first. A common observation among scholars today is that the Torah and the Prophets view the Lord primarily in terms of covenant, while the wisdom tradition views the Lord primarily through the Lord as creator. If one observes life, one can see the harmony in creation and live in right relation to it.[22] Such wisdom teaching is akin to the New Testament's understanding that God created and sustains everything through Christ; see such passages as John 1:1-5, 10, 14, where God explicitly has created everything through the Word. Also see Heb 1:2-3; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Colossians 1:13-17 ("firstborn" can mean either first in order or highest in rank = supreme over). The carol/hymn "Of the Father's Love Begotten"[23] reflects this outlook.
Of the Father's love begotten
ere the worlds began to be,
he is Alpha and Omega,
he the Source, the Ending he,
of the things that are, that have been,
and that future years shall see,
evermore and evermore!
…
now he shines, the long-expected;
let creation praise its Lord,
evermore and evermore!
…
let no tongue on earth be silent,
ev'ry voice in concert ring,
evermore and evermore!
The psalm concludes with an appropriate praise of the Lord.
The psalm connects with the Old Testament lesson by its reflection on creation.
Job 38:1-7, 34-41 (Year B October 16-22) is part of the theophany that involves the conclusion to the book of Job.
The Theophany, the speeches of the Lord in Chapters 38-41, in the canonical order the twenty-second speech, cannot give an answer to Job for his suffering despite his righteousness and piety, which God affirms in Chapters 1-2, for it would remove the nature of the test. If the book addresses this question, then the conclusion may be that we cannot know the ways of God, and that to insist that God act in a certain way is to limit the power and knowledge of God.
Another question raised by the book is whether the righteous should continue to be righteous when they suffer. If God turns away, if one experiences the absence of God, and if God becomes the enemy, is the call to be righteous still in effect? Should one remain righteous even when experiencing injustice? Is God worthy of worship, regardless of the circumstances we face? St. John of the Cross wrote his The Dark Night of the Soul to describe the process of maturing persons through allowing times of suffering and darkness in their lives. He faced arrest for his work of reform within the church. His awareness was that God must take away spiritual consolation to purify the inner being of our lives. God takes us into the darkness, weaning us from the pleasures of this life, developing humility, simplicity, contentment, peace, moderation, joy, and strength. We grow by entering this darkness.
In fact, the book of Job never actually attempts to answer the question of whether or not Job was really completely righteous, or whether God was being arbitrary in allowing Satan to plague an innocent believer with misfortune. In theology, the question of whether God is good, just, and powerful is the question of theodicy. Many readers think of Job as a reflection upon that question. Job’s faith posits divine sovereignty — his God is in ultimate control of the universe — and his religious tradition posits a system of strict moral retribution: the good receive reward and the evil punishment. Job, however, seems to be suffering the punishments of the wicked without having done the deeds to deserve it; the moral universe has gone topsy-turvy, and the book is an attempt to sort it out again. God’s response from the whirlwind is the beginning of God's contribution to that attempt.
The first speech of the Lord is in Chapters 38-39. In a hymn to God's power in Chapter 38, the Lord urges Job to meditate upon the works of God in nature, which reveal both justice and power. Theologically, we have a reminder that the biblical belief that creation in its richness of life and in the variety of its forms plays a significant role.[24] In a series of rhetorical questions that contrast the power and wisdom of God with that of Job, the speech argues that, since Job was not present at the creation and has no notion of how such matters as the rising of the sun occur, let alone how many other natural phenomena happen, he has no right to demand explanations. The cumulative effect of these questions is powerful. The effect of this speech is to put Job in his place, to awe him with the might of God. Yet, readers who go to Job for answers on the theodicy question often find the Lord’s answer to Job beginning in chapter 38 to be less than satisfying. Job has demanded an audience before God, but the Lord will not give a straight answer. Thus, God’s answer deals with something different from Job had asked. The answer consists in a storm of questions, all of which point to the ludicrous limits set to human penetration. Life is full of riddles, more than Job can imagine. Behind each marvel of the world is another. The point is that the Lord is innocent the charges that may be brought against the Lord. The Lord is just toward the creatures the Lord has made. Job holds to his righteousness, and the Lord points to the glory of providence in sustaining all creation.[25] Both Job and his friends agree that God is powerful, but the friends affirm that God is just and Job questions this traditional view of God in Israelite thinking about God. God is powerful, but God might be unjust. If so, the resolution found in the speeches of the Lord is only that God is powerful, leaving the other matter for debate open. Some interpreters will remove the rhetorical nature of the questions and take them as questions in which the Lord concedes weakness and asks Job if he could do any better in running the world fairly. The indirect and ambiguous nature of the speeches, and the answers Job provides to these speeches, are ambiguous. The chapter may say that human beings do not have the knowledge or perspective to imagine the answers to the riddles we pose regarding the mystery that we are here. God alone has that perspective.
To provide some context, outside the books of Job and Ecclesiastes there appears to be extraordinarily little divergence in the predominant theological view of ancient Israel (represented best by Deuteronomy), namely — that if one is righteous, God will reward that righteousness with a prosperous and happy life. In part, the book reflects on why the righteous suffer. Why is it that believing in God and following the commandments of God do not entitle one to a life of happiness? Because there was no clear belief in life after death in ancient Israel much before the post-exilic period, it was essential to an Israelite doctrine of a good and just God that this God would reward and punish both virtue and iniquity in this earthly life. This, however, left those who felt they had suffered for no apparent cause, as illustrated by the character of Job, puzzled over this seeming contradiction in the way God was expected to relate to the universe. Either God is not a God who rewards the good and punishes the guilty (and is therefore not a particularly just God) or human beings who suffer must simply deserve the suffering they get whether or not they can divine the cause of that suffering in some personal shortcoming.
The Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind, tempest, or storm. Elihu refers to a storm in 37:2. We also see it at 40:6. Natural upheavals were a regular accompaniment of divine revelations (e.g., Psalm 18:7-15). Such pervasive Old Testament imagery derives from the various ancient pre-Israelite cults of weather deities, most notably the Canaanite storm-god Baal, who seemed locked in a centuries-long battle with Yahweh for the loyalty of the Israelites. The Lord accuses him of speaking without knowledge. Elihu also accused Job of speaking out ignorance in 34:35. The same question appears at 42:3. Job is to prepare for battle. God is now the one doing the questioning, rather than Job. God refuses to submit to questioning. God also refuses to list Job's sins. The response of the Lord is a series of rhetorical questions that Job cannot begin to answer, and no answer is expected. Where was Job when the Lord laid the foundation of the earth? Eliphaz asked Job related questions in 15:7-8 and Elihu in 37:18. Job was not present at creation. The author evokes imagery of primordial days when water covered the face of the earth so that the first creative act of God was to form dry land upon which creation could take hold (Genesis 1:2-10) and to control the power of the remaining chaotic powers. God anchored this island of dry land that we call earth and set it upon a sure foundation. The value placed in the Old Testament on an earth that does not shift is no doubt because earthquakes were a common experience in biblical times (Amos 1:1). Job cannot order nature to do his bidding. He has no power over nature, nor does he have detailed knowledge of it. The laying of a foundation (Ezra 3:10-11) or the positioning of a capstone (Zechariah 4:7) was an occasion for great liturgical and secular celebration, occurring at either the start of an important undertaking or at its successful completion.The question (verses 4-6) reflects ancient Israelite cosmology, in which it conceived the earth not as a sphere suspended in limitless space, but rather as a rectangular plane with four corners (Isaiah 11:12), supported by pillars, which were, in their turn, resting on a solid foundation of unfathomable depth and substance. God set the time for this work at the very earliest point in creation. Although the celestial bodies were frequently mythologized in the OT as heavenly armies under the command of Yahweh (giving rise to the common title “the Lord of [the heavenly] host”; cf. Isaiah 40:26), they were also part of the heavenly court (1 Kings 22:19-23), and as such, their responsibilities included hymning the praises of their liege (e.g., Psalm 19:1-4; 29:1-2; 148:1-4). This is a reference to the ancient Near Eastern belief that the stars were minor gods, known elsewhere in the Old Testament as the “hosts of heaven.” Worship of these minor gods was common in other countries (witness Assyrian Ishtar who is the morning and evening star deity of Mesopotamia), but in the Bible they are creatures, created by the One God as worthy of worship, such minor creatures not being worthy objects of worship. In this passage, the author portrays them worshiping the One God and glorifying him for his creative power. Given all of this, of course, the point is the folly Job displays in questioning the wisdom and justice of God. The purpose is not to demonstrate the Lord’s righteousness within the moral framework proposed by Job and his friends, but rather to shift the terms of the debate completely. By demanding that Job articulate his participation in the ongoing fact of creation, the divine response makes the point that the human self cannot serve as the point of reference for the moral universe. The divine speech is a direct refutation of the view attributed to (among many others) Protagoras of Abdera (c. 480-410 B.C.) that the human being is the measure of all things. Whether the author of Job had this philosopher’s views in mind is doubtful,[26] but the idea was widespread even in the ancient world. The purpose of the first divine speech is not to demonstrate Job’s innocence, but rather his ignorance, and the role that ignorance plays in constructing a functional morality.
God shifts from describing the role of the divine in making the created universe to pointing out the continuing care of God for creation. Like Eliphaz in 22:11b, the Lord asks of Job can lift his voice to the heavens. The Lord refers to wisdom in the inward parts and understanding to the mind, suggesting that Job knows little in challenging the divine. The image of God gathering the heavenly or terrestrial waters into a waterskin or bottle is one we also find in Psalm 33:7. God is the one who brings rain, without which nothing grows in Palestine. Psalm 37:39, 41 also has the images of young lions and ravens seeking their food from God (Psalm 104.21; 147:9). God is the one who provides prey for the wild animals and birds. This speech portrays God as the provider of all sustenance needed by his creation. God not only makes life, but God also sustains life. For this reason, Job should acknowledge that God is the initiator and the sustainer of his life — the author of all that is. Once Job acknowledges this fact, all questions about the relative virtue of God’s behavior in creation become absurd. The chapter ends, as it began, completely ignoring the narrow morality with which Job and his friends have approached the problem of his suffering and points the argument in an entirely new direction, toward the God whose actions in creation beggar human comprehension.
It will require sustained attention to self, God, and world if we are to wrestle with the goodness of God as we encounter so much suffering and evil. It will require sustained attention to hear truly what the book of Job seeks to teach us. For many people, suffering is the deal breaker when it comes to belief in God. We know that in general, suffering and evil occur. For some people, pondering suffering in humanity and in human history is enough. If God existed, if God made a world, it would be better than this one. For others, it becomes personal. A terrible thing happens in their lives, and something snaps inside. How could God allow this? How could God do this?
I want to be quite careful here. Anytime one attempts to speak about God and human suffering, there is always the risk that we will sound like Job's friends. I sympathize with them, as I hope you do as well. What do you say when a friend suffers? When they have deep questions concerning themselves, life, and God, what do you say?
As our attention turns to Job, a side of us likes him. He defiantly demands from God to know why. Throughout the book, we find the imagery of the courtroom. He demands to stand before the judge, God, and lay out his case. He says, “I do not deserve this.”
Some questions we will need to live with throughout our lives. If you think you can explain all the horrendous things that happen in life, I think you are trying to explain too much. Our minds have limits. At some point, we will need to have faith that God will work, even amid horror. God will be at work, even in the things that happen that are contrary to the direct will of God.
Another key aspect of the book of Job is the odd disjunction caused by the way God changes character between chapter 1 and chapter 38. In Chapter 1, God brags to Satan of Job's complete faithfulness, his exemplary character, and sounds every bit like a doting parent singing the praises of a favorite child. In those early portions of the book, God is wearing the face associated with the kindly father, the ancient of days. This God associated with agrarian patriarchal society where the beneficent elder God reigns as judge over a counsel of other heavenly beings (called in Job 1:6 and 38:7 and elsewhere the bene elohim, or “sons of God”). This image was most popular in Northern Israel as well as during the era when Israel was an agrarian tribal society ruled by their elders. In this heavenly court God is the righteous judge who rules the creation through force of covenant law that is, and should be, intelligible to the average human being. This God of covenant loyalty, one can trust to be faithful to the rules of covenant and to seek retribution only against those who violate the covenant. This image portrays God, the initiator of the covenant law, as an elder whose primary role is to sit in judgment of those bound together by this law, with its predictable rules of reward and punishment. God wears this face at the beginning of Job, leading the reader as well as the protagonist to assume, wrongly, that God the judge will always act in a manner that one can rationally deduce from the laws of the covenant governing the divine/human relationship. Job assumes that he can use the mechanisms of a court, whose prosecutor, or Satan, has accused him, to defend himself against any charge. He believes that he has a defense attorney, (Hebrew, go'el) or Redeemer somewhere who will plead his case for him (Job 16:19; 19:25)! In covenant law, the go'el is your nearest kin who has the covenant right and obligation to ransom you if you are taken captive, revenge your death if you are murdered - in short, to defend you from wrong under the law, as Boaz does for Ruth and Naomi. Job feels he knows that he is dealing with the God who founded this system of justice and that one can expect God to act accordingly.
How different from this image is the fierce rebuke with which the Lord greets Job in chapter 38. Many readers wonder where this change comes from. Is it merely Job's very human desire to know and to understand what he has done wrong that turns God from his defender to his accuser? This seems unlikely, given the fact that many characters, both venerated (Abraham, Genesis 19; Moses, Exodus 32), and not so venerated (Jonah) argue with God and question God's intentions without receiving such a devastating response. It seems more likely that Job is intentionally portraying God in two different guises, both of which one can find elsewhere in the Bible. After Job’s lengthy protestations of his innocence, God changes form so that the God who answers Job out of the whirlwind is not the kindly elder. God becomes the warrior God, Divine King of the universe at the height of his power. Seen in this form, God is not required to rule by law. Rather, God rules through absolute power and divine right as Creator. This aspect of God need not justify divine actions to anyone, through law or any other means. Here God is a being of raw power that one is simply to worship for who this God is and without question. Here, God is the Divine Warrior King, Creator of the Universe. This God does not respond to appeals to law. This God is more like Canaanite Baal, or Babylonian Marduk, the God of the Storm, who vanquishes his enemies, creates the world out of the wreckage, which the divine assembly declares King, and takes up residence in his temple, to receive worship by all. In Job 38, God speaks to his "creature" Job - not to his covenant partner. This God does not rule through judgment and decree. This God rules by dazzling opponents and shifting the very ground under their feet. Therefore, Job began in the presence of God the kindly elder. He soon finds himself, however, at the mercy of God the Divine Warrior. Although these two divine faces carry with them widely divergent theological overtones, the Hebrew Bible holds both of these images (as well as many more!) in creative tension (e.g. 1 Kings 18-19).
Job is shifting from the image of God the "Adjudicator" to God the "Dazzler" is also central to the way in which Israel began dealing with the problem of righteous suffering. The older God, the God of Law, is one might expect to reward the righteous and punish the wicked in the here and now, but as Job and Ecclesiastes in particular, point out, this often does not happen in real life. One way to understand what is happening when the righteous suffer is to cling to the worship of God the Dazzler. This God, though inscrutable, is still one on whom one can count upon to be righteous. If this God does not reveal the plan in this life, one can still assume this God to have a plan to restore justice, even if in another life. The key place that Job and Ecclesiastes occupy in the development of Old Testament theology is that they open the door to the beginning of apocalyptic speculation about life after death by pointing out that if God is indeed just, then there must be some future reality in which God will balance the scales of injustice created in this life. The key to happiness then, is not in an endless soul searching which may or may not reveal a personal shortcoming that justifies God for inflicting one’s suffering, but rather in acknowledging that God is ruler of the universe and the owner of all power, and that one cannot second-guess God concerning the uses of that power. The Israelite religion gradually began to walk down this road as it explored apocalyptic thinking and later Hellenistic notions of the eternal life of the soul separate from the body. What Job portrays in its depiction of God's changing face is what humanity experiences whenever it feels the "Redeemer," whom faith insists must be present, is hiding. When evil has overpowered good, God the All-powerful Creator is still in charge of the universe, whether or not the universe can comprehend exactly what God is doing.
The items of evidence used to subdue Job’s objections throughout God’s answer to him are clear reminders of Job’s finitude, his incomplete knowledge, and his insufficient right to question God’s motives. In passages that portray God as the elder judge of covenant law, one recounts God’s great acts in history as the justification for human faith in God (Deuteronomy 29; Joshua 24). In Job 38, however, the repetition of the vivid descriptions of the great acts of creation to enumerate the many ways in which God’s order of power and order of being surpass any human ability to understand or comprehend and abrogate all human rights to question God’s actions.
Yet, if we pay attention to how God refers to creation, we can see the love and care God has for it, whether inanimate or animate. God is inviting Job to consider that God remains good even while he has suffered and experienced evil. God allows for chaos in this world, and thus opens the possibility of reconciliation with life. Chaos is present, but it is not all there is.
The reader has some surprise that God deals with something completely different from what Job had asked. The point seems to be that God has an Eternal and Infinite perspective that human beings can never have. Some questions and puzzles of human life are beyond figuring in the context of belief in God. The answer consists in a storm of counter-questions, all of which point to the ludicrous limits set to human understanding. God shows Job how many more and greater riddles lay behind life. The answer of God insists upon the marvel of the providence of God concerning the world. Yet, the point of the counter-questions is to help Job see that God turns a smiling face toward creation; God cares for those creatures of which Job is not even able to think. The whole of creation is dependent upon God. Yahweh is innocent of all charges. The divine answer to Job glorifies the justice of God toward the individuals God created. God turns toward them to do them good and bless them. That is the answer to the questions of Job. Job held fast to his righteousness, and thus questioned God. God gives the answer by pointing to the glory of the providence of God that sustains all creation. The only answer Job gets is that in this life, with all its mystery and suffering, he has the assurance of the presence of God. Though Job demands an audience with God that answers his questions, he does not get one. Yet,
Job is in the straits of a dilemma from which he cannot escape. Job should be in the right, even though he is also in the wrong. This situation is intolerable and is resolved. Job shows himself to the witness of Yahweh, taking the new step forwards with God. He is right in the upshot in relation to his human opponents. Regarding them, he shows himself to be a witness to the truth, and they are revealed to be liars. The fact that this God lives is what makes it impossible for Job so long as breath remains in him, to yield to his friends and to cease his cycle of questioning, petition, protest, and resignation, substituting deception instead at this painful point. He writes of a flight from the strange to the true God. Job is contemplating God meeting him in darkness, terror, and wrath, that it is at the divine hands that he suffers and yet to God that he appeals and in God that he seeks comfort. In 14:13-15 and 19:25-27, Job is looking to the point where the obscurity of the divine rule encounters him at its most impenetrable, to the approaching darkness of his being in death, in the underworld, with the hope in Chapter 14 and the certainty in Chapter 19 that even there he will have to do with the God who holds him in the divine hands as his redeemer, seeing God with his own eyes. The flight is from the God unknown in unknowability to the God whom we hope or are sure is known in the same unknowability. R. de Pury says that the remarkable thing about this Book of Job makes not a single step of flight to a better God but stays resolutely on the field of battle under the fire of the divine wrath. God treats him as an enemy. Yet, Job does not falter and calls upon the God who crushes him. Job’s word keeps an ear open for God to speak the divine Word. Job must not leap ahead. He must follow with complete openness. He must look steadily into and not past the hostility with which God encounters him.[27]
God made no mistake in the step forward God made with this man. From within divine concealment and unknowability, God reveals and makes known the divine self. Yahweh is the God whose servant is Job the Edomite. Yahweh is the one who makes this transaction with Satan which is the first turning-point in the history of Job, and who speaks the Word of decision that is the second. Yahweh is the one who proclaims the right of Job and transforms his grief into even greater joy. Yahweh is the ruling subject in the history of Job indicated in the names Elohim and Shaddai. The right of Job is his unwearying demand for the self-declaration of Yahweh. The answer that Yahweh gives to Job consists in Yahweh being known as Elohim-Shaddai, as the one who even in the enigmatic character of the rule of divine majesty and omnipotence is still the God of the election of Israel and therefor of Job, before whom he can only keep silence. Job will “see” Elohim-Shaddai in the cosmology and zoology of Chapter 38-39. We must not miss the fact that God takes seriously the questioning man, Job. Yahweh is the covenant partner and friend of Job. Yahweh is also Elohim-Shaddai, the Most High, the Almighty. The point in these chapters is not that humanity should recognize divine superiority. Rather, can humanity really think that the cosmos belongs to it? Can humanity really think that one can order it around human wishes? Humanity needs to respect the mystery of creation. Job sees Yahweh directly in creation. This is Yahweh’s answer out of the whirlwind. Job will need to confess that he is incompetent in respect of the independence of the cosmos and confess the freedom of Yahweh in the divine rule of Elohim-Shaddai. For the reader, this is a strange answer from Yahweh. God recognizes Job as a servant of the Lord who has remained faithful through it all.
Psalm 34:1-8, 19-22 (Year B October 23-29) is an individual thanksgiving hymn. The psalm has a close relationship to Psalm 25, but not necessarily the same author or the same situation. The Psalm is acrostic, each verse beginning with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the letter vav missing. It also means loosely connected thoughts between the verses. The grateful poet invites other afflicted persons to join him. It praises the Lord for deliverance from trouble.
It opens by reminding us that the Lord intends that our entire lives serve the glory of the Lord. The witness of the individual is also an invitation to the community. He will bless or give praise to the Lord. His soul, parallel with “I” and identical with it, will boast in the Lord, and let the humble or lowly, those completely dependent on the Lord, hear this testimony and be glad. He invites others to magnify and exalt the Lord with him. Thus, the poet opens with the importance of human activity. The person blesses, praises, boasts, magnifies, and exalts the Lord. The poet then shifts to the answering of the prayer. Here is the reason for the offering of praise to the Lord. It becomes a testimony by the worshipper in the community. The witness of the individual moves easily to the community since they have union at a deep level. It offers a goldmine of religious aphorisms. The deliverance the poet receives is from his fears, significant because such psychological deliverance is unusual in the psalter. He urges others to look to the Lord and be radiant. An unusual reference to this poor soul crying out, because the Lord feels distant, and the Lord heard him and saved him from every trouble. A guardian angel protects him. The aphorism of tasting and seeing that the Lord is good explains why the early church used this psalm during communion. The phrase is unique in the Old Testament. Nowhere else does the Old Testament suggest that one can know the divine by taste. The closest referent would be the many stories of deliverance from hunger by the Lord (e.g., with manna in the wilderness, Exodus 16). Note the human activity again, as the human being seeks the Lord, looks to the Lord, cries to the Lord, and even tastes and sees the Lord. Yet, we should also note the divine activity. The Lord answered, delivered, and hears. The Lord is the one in whom we can take refuge and enjoy happiness. The psalm reminds us that we worship an active God.
The poet concludes by showing that individual experiences receive wider application by presenting their universal significance. The theme is the fear of the Lord while happiness is the supreme goal. This part of the psalm shows affinity with wisdom school. He shows the varying fates of the righteous and the wicked. While the righteous experience affliction, acknowledging that this does happen, but it is temporary in that the Lord delivers them from them all. None of their bones will be broken. Evil brings death to the wicked, but the Lord condemns those who hate the righteous. The final verse stands outside the acrostic and provides a happy conclusion for the psalm. Reflecting the orthodox piety of the faithful in the Old Testament worshipping community, the Lord redeems the lives of the servants of the Lord and will condemn those who take refuge in the Lord.
This psalm connects with the Old Testament Lesson in that it acknowledges the righteous experience affliction, but it is temporary, and that the Lord does not condemn those who take refuge in the Lord.
Job 42:1-6, 10-17 (Year B October 23-29) continues the theme of theodicy. The literal rendering of the project of theodicy is to justify the ways of God to humanity. It specifically addresses how suffering and evil can become part of the ways of a good and just God. For a human being to offer a conclusive theodicy is impossible, since that human being would have to see matters the ways that God does. Theodicy also continues the questioning of the human mind. We ask why and thank God that we do. Yet, the question has no answer when it comes to relating suffering and evil to the ways of God. Theodicy may say much more about who we are. We want to feel at home in this world. Theodicy is our way of justifying reality when reality is harsh, confusing, troubling, and irrational. We want the world to make sense, even when it does not. This dramatic climax — the Lord’s first direct address to Job and Job’s only direct response to the Lord — has been anticipated by much of the content of the book, but especially by the prediction of the “satan” (the adversary) in 1:11 and 2:5 that, given the chance, Job would curse the deity to his face in response to Job’s travails. Job’s railing has led one to anticipate such a possibility, but the actual response turns out to be quite different, one of the many unanticipated twists in this story.
The Lord has just asked Job, in two detailed speeches (38:1-40:5 and 40:6-41:34), whether Job’s knowledge and abilities extend to the creation and management of the natural world, elaborately (and sometimes whimsically, 41:5) described by the Lord. The purpose of the speech(es) is to confront (and crush) Job’s sense of moral outrage at his treatment with the larger, cosmic framework. Job affirms the omnipotence of God, meaning that the divine power knows no limits, unlimited and infinite.[28] He nearly quotes what the Lord said in 38:2. Job acknowledges the truth that he does not understand the mysteries of creation, as Elihu charged in 34:35. Yet, he does understand that he did not deserve his sufferings. The Lord refuses to submit to the questioning of Job. He also refuses to list the sins of Job. In speaking about the wonders of nature and control of the world, Job sees the folly of questioning the wisdom and justice of God. He has challenged the goodness of God. The speech from God at the end reaffirms the parental care of God for all creation and by implication for human beings. In his act, Job reveals that through his experience of suffering and evil, he becomes a person worthy of us remembering and from whom we can learn. The story of Job invites us to relate to the world of suffering and evil in the way Job did. We can become such persons worthy of remembering if our experience of suffering leads us to a deeper encounter with the Lord. [29] Job admits that he has had only unreliable or unconfirmed information, such as rumors or secondhand reports, regarding God. He now sees God with his eyes, a privilege rarely accorded individuals and was thought to be accompanied by mortal danger (cf. Hagar’s statement in Genesis 16:13; Moses’ request to see God in Exodus 33:12-23; and Isaiah’s fearful temple vision, Isaiah 6:1; in contrast, see Exodus 24:9-11). Thus, he contrasts his hearing of the Lord in the past with his seeing of the Lord now. There are several ways to interpret this exchange but seems to be that Job has come to an awareness of the divine he did not have before. The contrast Job is making, then, is that he once heard of God’s ways (from his friends and from his religious tradition, both of which conflicted with his lived experience), but now he has indeed “seen” (i.e., experienced) how God operates, and now he understands. In other words, now Job gets it. Job becomes convinced of the providential care of God. God has met the demands of Job, for something had to convince him that God was on his side and would vindicate him. It seems as if we have reached the culmination of the entire of saga. Yet, what does Job see? He sees that he does not see. The ways of God are beyond his understanding. His desire for God to vindicate him reduces God to little more than an idol created by human imaginings. He despises himself, repenting in dust and ashes, which he has been in since 2:8. This phrase can describe the human condition in general, especially human finitude (e.g., Genesis 18:27), or it can also describe being placed in abject humiliation or degradation (as appears earlier in the book of Job, 30:19). Job may be repudiating the human perspective he brought to divine mysteries, or he may be affirming his newfound awareness and denying the need for further humiliation. The ambiguity of these, Job’s final words, is deliberate. Job repents, something his friends had recommended throughout their dialogue. Does he reject his former speeches and attitudes? What Job might repent of is the desire to occupy the place of God so that he could justify the ways of God to himself. Of course, he will never occupy that place. Job acknowledges his finitude and the limits of his wisdom. Why the change? He experiences God in the whirlwind, in the turmoil. He does not regret what he has said. Rather, this experience of God has changed his perspective. He cannot know what only God can know. Job recognizes human limits and accepts the power of God. Thus, the epilogue acknowledges that 1) one comes to this point only through struggle, 2) Job was right to be angry, 3) This may be all that human beings can say. God can do all things, but we cannot comprehend God's purposes.
In verss 10-17, the narrative that began the book now concludes the book, concluding with the restoration and enlargement of the fortunes of Job. Readers and scholars alike have found the epilogue, by turns, perplexing, consoling, unsatisfying and frustrating, and whatever comments one makes about it one must make with due regard for the provisional understanding that attends the entire work, and the relation of that work to the broader context of theological and philosophical literature in general. Indeed, when we examine opinions regarding these final verses, they seem to relate more to whether one thinks of human life as a fundamentally tragic or comedic structure.[30] Thus, many readers (and, presumably, hearers) have found this section of the book deeply unsatisfying, as it appears to confirm the central theological tenet espoused collectively by Job’s three friends: The righteous receive reward and the wicked receive punishment. Such a view, foundational to Deuteronomistic and prophetic theology, is extremely difficult to reconcile with the deity’s statement to Job’s friends in 42:7, that they “have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” Scholars have offered various proposals to smooth the rough edges, usually involving a “history of composition” of the book approach. In such cases, the conflict is the result of two different, incompatible theological perspectives from two different periods and authors. While such an approach resolves the conflict, it avoids the problem of the canonical text as we have it.
Admittedly, we may have preferred that the story of Job end with his final speech. Job demands an explanation for his suffering. The Lord appears from out of the whirlwind, swats away the questions of Job, and affirms divine majesty. Job responds with humble contrition. His words seem appropriate to all that has gone before. The text puts everyone in their place. It exalts the Lord. It humbles Job. The painful questions regarding believing in the goodness of the Lord in the presence of so much suffering and evil receive no easy answer. If it ended here, it would not attempt to explain the mysteries of the purposes of the Lord. Such an ending would seem true to the rest of the book. It would be a realistic conclusion regarding the experiences of those who suffer. Yet, the epilogue that concludes the book of Job as we have it seems like prosaic prose. We have the happily ever after ending of a fairytale. We like such happy conclusions. Yet, we tend to be suspicious and skeptical of them as well. This ending seems as jarring as a conventional Hollywood happy conclusion would be at the end of King Lear. The temptation is to follow the course of many others and ignore it or skip over it as quickly as one can. I would like to consider the benefits of doing neither.
Beginning in verse 10, the Lord restores and enlarges the fortunes of Job. Job receives comfort from his relatives and friends and the Lord restores double his wealth and family. Like the disasters in the prologue, the blessings of Job in this life have no explanation. We might assume that his repentance is the reason, but the text does not say this. The Lord simply decides to bless Job in this life. As the Lord took away the blessings of this life in the beginning, the Lord brings beatitude in this life at the end. The Lord does not explain suffering, but neither does the Lord explain beatitude. They are twin mysteries. The reason for either one is beyond our view or understanding. Suppose at the beginning of the story, before the tragedies, Job demanded an audience with the Lord so that the Lord could explain why he had so much in contrast to what other people had. The answer of the Lord would have been the same. The speeches of God would be the same. Yet, as the story ends, now we want to know why Job experiences so much beatitude in this life. When we do, we must realize that beatitude in this life is equally as much a mystery in this life as is evil and suffering. It has the feel of “and they lived happily ever after,” fairy tale ending. Job had raised such large, penetrating, existential questions, only to cave in at the end and submit to the traditionalist view that God is good and always rewards good people with good things. Job's prosperity brought back friends and family. The Lord does not simply restore the fortunes of Job; the Lord doubles them. Job’s family and friends also return to him, overcoming the alienation that had proved so bitter to him earlier (19:13-22). I invite you to consider whether this was an effortless process for Job. Was it easy to pray and make offerings for the friends who made accusations against his character? I suspect it was not. Persons who had abandoned him become friendly again, now that the Lord has restored his good fortune in this life. Was this a happily ever after ending? I think it was not. I suspect this involved much forgiveness from all sides. It also required the recovery of trust. Anyone who has been through that process knows how hard that can be. The herds of Job also flourish. Such rebuilding of the family business undoubtedly took years of faithfully engaging the normal work of everyday life. The author concludes by emphasizing the role of the three daughters. This signifies the end of the test begun in Chapter 1 and the restoration of Job to his status prior to the test. His daughters were beautiful and given an equal share of inheritance. Women did not receive an inheritance unless there was no son. This is unique in Old Testament and elevates status of women within patriarchal society. He lives twice the normal life span, fitting in nicely into the theme of multiplying the fortunes of Job. Living to a ripe old age and having many progeny is the ideal of the blessed person in the Bible. Job’s latter days more than compensated for his earlier suffering, not necessarily as a reward for his faithfulness, but simply as an unmerited blessing. We learned in the final speech of Job that he has learned repentance and humility before the majesty of the Lord. We have now learned that he had to live this new posture toward life. He has reunited with his wife, had many children, and revived his cattle business. After all that happened, imagine the difficulty of reuniting with his wife. Such reconciliation must not have been easy. Such results are far from the conventional happy ending. He will live his daily life out of the new perspective on the Lord, self, and the world that he has gained. What may strike us as a successful conclusion may be more like an extraordinary act of faith. After such tremendous losses, he does not end his life. In fact, he resumes his life as it was before, willing to risk losing it all again. To have twice as much as before is to double the risk. To embrace his wife is to embrace life, despite potential suffering and unanswered questions. To have many children, which every parent knows is a lot of work in the daily grind,
To the modern mind, a quick reading seems to take away whatever gains one might have thought one had in the dialogue. I like to think I have shown, however, that read another way, this ending is fitting to Job as a faithful witness to the Lord. Further, given the cultural context, this conclusion is quite natural, for it shows that the Lord has accepted Job completely. In fact, I wonder if some asceticism does not get in our way here. Before Job died, the Lord allowed him to enjoy the pleasures of this world. We too often fail to enjoy them. Yes, a form of holy abstinence may bring us closer to the Lord in certain circumstances. However, can we also admit that the failure to enjoy the pleasures of this world may lead us away from God? Job now met the Lord in the beauties and pleasures of life. From this perspective, the world is not an obstacle on the way to the Lord. Rather, the world is the way to the Lord.[31]
Therefore, before we get too skeptical of a fairytale ending, I invite you to consider another approach. Sometimes, good things happen to good people. Sometimes, bad things happen to bad people. Of course, not always, but sometimes, the world is like that.
Let us consider the obvious. Job questioned the goodness of God due to his experience of suffering and evil. As the story ends, the invitation contained in the text is to relate to a world of suffering and evil in the way Job did. We become worthy persons, even worth remembering, if our experience of suffering leads us to a deeper encounter with the Lord. In that way, the prologue and epilogue reflect upon Job as the pure form of the true witness. Who is Job? He is among those witnesses in the Old Testament who are outside the covenant of Yahweh, but who still arise and work as true witnesses as prophets of Yahweh. Although he is an Edomite, the Lord refers to him as “my servant Job.” Since there is none like him in piety, sincerity, the worship of the Lord, and hatred of evil, he is a unique figure in relation to whom the Lord is quite sure of the divine cause will be successful in him. The Lord will pledge the divine honor against Satan and entrusts it to Job. The Lord has confidence in Job. He will not curse Yahweh. He will not say anything concerning Yahweh that implies separation from Yahweh. He will say what is right concerning Yahweh. We see the attitude of the Lord toward Job in the external blessings the Lord gave to him. He maintains the positive character of his life with the Lord with an unparalleled confidence. Job will assert his practical commitment to the Lord. Armed with his own declaration of his innocence and righteousness before the Lord, he calls for the corresponding accusation against him. Where is it? He wants to see and read it. He wants to lift it on his shoulder like a trophy, and wind it round his head like a crown or turban. It will prove to be untenable at every point and will thus speak more strongly for him than anything he might say. Adorned with this writing, he will meet the Lord like a prince. His relationship to the Lord is not just personal, but is priestly on behalf of others, for his children and for his three friends. Job made this intercession, Yahweh accepted it, and in response, the Lord gave him twice as much as he had before. The true witness does not merely unmask them, but also effectually intercedes for them. The relationship between Yahweh and Job has the character of freedom rather than caprice. How does Yahweh come to be the Partner of the Job in the drama of this history? The basis is the good-pleasure of Yahweh. The basis is not a moral or judicial law secretly presumed as existing above God. The basis is divine fidelity, and in one sense, free and royal conduct. The Lord appears to Job to be an enemy and persecutor. The Lord does not owe a favor and can allow disaster to fall upon him. He can also end the experiments of Satan. W. Vischer who commented on 1:9 and the little phrase, “Does Job fear God for nothing?” In this “for nothing” is the righteousness at issue in Job. God would not be God if God were not able both to give and take away. Job would not be Job if he were not free to receive both evil and good from God. He fears and loves the free God and concerns himself with God and not any divine gifts. In the rest of the story, he will move through temptation to this goal in a new offering of himself and under a new blessing of God. In all of this, Job prefigures the true witness we find in Jesus Christ.[32]
How would the world be a different place if people would simply say, "You know what? I do not know. I do not have enough information. There may be more to this than meets the eye." There is a saying in the Talmud, "Teach thy tongue to say 'I don't know.'"
Job was a good man. The Lord says so in Chapter 1. He was an exemplary man of his community. At the end of story of Job, the Lord tells the friends to ask Job to offer sacrifices for them and pray for them. Job receives double in the end in comparison to what he had in the beginning, an unmerited blessing of grace from the Lord.
However, the story of Job poses the question of the moral structure of the world. The accuser of Job before the Lord says that Job will curse the Lord and die if circumstances remove the good things of this world from him. Enemies killed his children. They destroyed his property. Finally, disease attacked his body. He carried on a dialogue with his three friends, later joined by a fourth, concerning why such suffering attacked his life. In order for the story of Job to be a moral story, surely he must have sinned, the friends argued. If he only repents, God will bless him. The argument Job has is only in part with his friends. His primary argument is with God. He demands an audience with God. He questioned the wisdom and justice of God. He has moral outrage concerning the story of his life.
Finally, the Lord speaks to Job from out of the turmoil. The Lord says that Job, a good man, speaks out of ignorance. He needed to learn that it was OK to say, to some questions we human beings have, “I do not know.”
The Lord refuses to submit the questioning of Job. Job wanted to turn God into an idol he could manage. The Lord does not list the sins of Job. The Lord is the one who made the world and offers providential care for the world. As the Lord speaks to Job, Job receives his audience with God.
The perspective of Job changes. Job realizes that his story, as painful as it has been, is part of a much larger story that he does not comprehend. The story of Job is not a moral story because Job was a good man. Rather, the story of Job is moral because of the much larger canvas our lives are part of, a canvas of which we do not see the totality. The Lord puts Job in his proper place. In that place, Job has found freedom and peace. He had heard about the Lord from others. Now, he has experienced a reality of the Lord that he had not understood before. The ways of the Lord are beyond human understanding. Job acknowledges his finitude and the limits of his wisdom. He recognizes human limits and accepts the power of God. Yet, Job comes to this point only through struggle. He cannot know what only the Lord can know. Human beings cannot comprehend the purposes of the Lord. Job repents of his human perspective that he had sought to impose upon the divine mysteries.
First, life became confusing for Job. He was not sure where he stood with God. The book captures the portion of the life of Job that is a test of who he is. He experiences a test of his character and commitments. Throughout the book, he has endured difficult trials and less-than-helpful counsel and explanations from friends. Therefore, he wants a break from it all in the form of a little divine clarity.
“Then call, and I will answer; or let me speak, and you reply to me” (13:22).
“Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his dwelling!” (23:3).
“Oh, that I had one to hear me!” (31:35).
Does that not reflect how we feel before God at times? We have questions about the fairness of life. Life seems so chaotic and sometimes violent. It seems as if life is a mess. What are we to do with God then? While the Lord’s ways have been mysterious to Job, God did not remain silent forever. In chapters 38-41, God gives Job an indication of where he is in his relationship with God.
Second, this story reminds us that between God and us are an infinite, qualitative difference. “Job, I am here. You are there. Don’t ever be confused about that difference.” If we can fully comprehend God, would God really be God? If we could fully comprehend life, we would no longer be human beings. We would be God. It may well be that our anger and frustration with life, our demand for God to answer our questions concerning the unfairness of life, are signs to which we need to listen carefully. We may well be wrestling with our limits as individuals and as human beings.
First, let us explore the notion that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and infinite; we are not. We have limits. Job lost his possessions, his home, and his children. He lost the support of his wife. We like the times in our lives when we receive. We do not like the times when life takes away things and people. In one of the deleted scenes from the movie Bruce Almighty (2003), a young person prayed that God would give him the strength in gym class to go up the rope. Bruce figures, “Why not?” In the end, God says that the struggles of his life would make the boy, as an adult, a poet. The struggles and losses of life are painful. We would not choose them. In the song, The Dance, Garth Brooks imagines a relationship as a dance. He is glad he did not know at the beginning of the relationship that she would leave him, for,
“I could have missed the pain,
but I would have missed the dance.”
We will never have the view of our lives that God has. Pain and loss are part of this life. We will get angry at times. Yet, such anger can lead to increased openness to God.
Second, people will often take what they want to see happen, and rubber stamp “God’s will” language onto it. If you read carefully what the friends of Job say, you will notice that they are quite sure of what God wants to say to Job. The Book of Job would tell us that we would be better off if we have some humility in this regard, especially as we consider what we say to other people. The story of Job and his friends is that of several men trying to put together puzzle pieces to form a clear picture of God and to answer the question “Why?” Their problem is that they have not received all the pieces of the puzzle. One lesson is that we dare not reduce the suffering of others to trite answers.
Third, in 42: 5, Job is now convinced of God's providential care. Job experiences God in the whirlwind, in the turmoil. The experience has changed his perspective. This recognition of his limits occurs because he has new knowledge of God. Before, he had only hearsay and religious tradition. Now, he knows God through personal experience: "now my eye sees you." He knew God in his head, so to speak, but now, he knew God from the heart.
It may well be that the struggles and questions we have concerning life and God are there for us to see more clearly our limits and to trust the vast mystery that is God. Such experiences can destroy the idols we have made. The journey given to Job was not to understand God and the ways of God. His journey was to continue to respond faithfully to God even though he did not have all the pieces to the “Why?” puzzle.
One of the persons who helped me with the conclusion to the book of Job is Søren Kierkegaard in his little book Repetition. How else would you like the book to end? It began with Job experiencing so much blessing and friendship with God. It has a long ordeal through which Job must pass where he feels alienated from God. Here at the end, we find the friendship and blessing of God at the end of his life. The book invites us to consider that while life will have its trials, we can come out on the other side with a deepened friendship with God. In fact, it may well be that the restoration of Job at the end is not so much a guarantee that our fortune will be restored, but that we will have a deeper appreciation of our friendship with God and blessing from God.
[1] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 3, 174.
[2] TWOT (article 230)
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[4] Bernard Lang, “Afterlife: Ancient Israel’s Changing Vision of the World Beyond,” Bible Review (February 1988), 18.
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[11] Phillips Brooks
[12] Alfred D’Souza
[13] Paul Tillich (Systematic Theology, Part III, I, D3c)
[14] --Leslie Weatherhead, Prescription for Anxiety (Hodder & Stoughton, 1956), 32.
[15] -Miguel de Unamuno, Tragic Sense of Life, 213.
[16] W. H. Auden. C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock.
[17] Rainer Maria Rilke.
[18] William James
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[21] An alternative (or supplemental) interpretation of Psalm 104:6-9 is to understand these verses as an allusion to God’s promises after the Genesis flood. By this understanding, these verses parallel God’s covenant promise to Noah (= humankind) never more to send an all-the-earth destroying flood (Genesis 9:8-17). Cosmologically speaking, God created and still controls the waters; they do not have self-standing power in opposition to God (in contrast to the views of some of Israel’s neighbors). Even the “sea monsters” (Genesis 1:21) and Leviathan (here in Psalm 104:26), a potentially destructive crocodilian or serpentine force, are parts of God’s creation, no longer representatives of potentially untamable chaos; God controls Leviathan (see Psalm 74:13-14 and Isaiah 27:1); and God will destroy the comparable dragonlike creature of the book of Revelation). God rescues the faithful who call upon God for deliverance from the “waters” of life (see Psalm 18:4-5, 15-16). After all, according to Psalm 24:1-2, “The earth is the LORD’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it; for he has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers.”
[22] Carole R. Fontaine (in Women's Bible Commentary [Westminster John Knox Press], 153):
[23] Aurelius Clemens Prudentius, 348-410
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[26] (although not impossible, as the book of Job has been dated as late as the third-century B.C.),
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[30] (Carol Newsom, in The New Interpreter’s Bible [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996], vol. 4, 637).
[31] —Ron Miller, The Gospel of Thomas: A Guidebook for Spiritual Practice (SkyLight Paths Publishing, 2004), 18.
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