The book of Job is widely regarded as a profound masterpiece of poetic literature. Daniel Webster called it “the most wonderful poem of any age and language” (Glatzer ix). Thomas Carlyle extolled Job as unique in its “literary merit” (Glatzer ix). It seems natural, therefore, to look to Job for an answer to the mystery of human suffering. Job’s story is well-known, and while it may not be as pervasive as Return of the Jedi or The Fellowship of the Ring in today’s popular culture, it’s certainly as relevant. Everyone suffers to some extent. But what exactly does Job’s story teach us about suffering? In order to answer this question, it’s important to understand the composition of the book. The bulk of the book of Job is the long poetic narrative in which Job argues with his friends about the nature of his suffering. This narrative is sandwiched between the beginning and ending of a folktale which was probably well-known at the time that the poetry was written (Asimov 474). The poetic narrative in the book of Job certainly has a different author than that of the folktale in which it is framed (Crenshaw 863). One indication of this is that, as we shall see, the characterizations of Job in the separate sections contrast greatly: submissive and compliant in the folktale, but “a defiant rebel” in the narrative (Crenshaw 863). Each portrayal of Job’s character provides a distinct perspective from which his suffering may be understood.
In the folktale, it’s made perfectly clear that Job’s suffering is being inflicted by God. After Job’s livestock, slaves, sons, and daughters are all senselessly slain, Job says, “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes” (Gordis 6). God accuses Satan, saying, “You incited Me against [Job] to destroy him …” (Gordis 6). Then again after Job is struck with sores all over his body, he asks, “Shall we accept good from God and not accept evil?” (Gordis 8). Finally, near the end, the folktale refers to “all the suffering that the Lord had brought upon [Job]” (Gordis 497). Even despite this evidence, it might be supposed that it is in fact Satan, and not God, that is responsible for Job’s suffering. But it’s crucial to understand Satan in the proper historical context, as Job predates the contemporary concept of “the Devil” (Ehrman 165). Bart D. Ehrman, the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, points out that “the Satan here is not the fallen angel who has been booted from heaven, the cosmic enemy of God. Here he is portrayed as one of God’s divine council members …” (165). “Satan” is literally “the Adversary,” and it may be more exact to interpret it not as his name, but as his official title as a sort of divine prosecuting attorney (Ehrman 165).
Aside from the Adversary’s goading, one may wonder what motivates God to strike out so harshly and violently against Job. One thing is certain: he is not punishing Job for wrongdoing. God himself describes Job as “blameless and upright, fearing God and avoiding evil” (Gordis 4). Even while Job suffers God’s afflictions, he does “not sin or impute anything unseemly to God” (Gordis 6). Job’s suffering in the folktale appears to be a sort of divine test. Job is faithful to God, and thus he is restored to all his former glory. What is troubling here, however, is that Job is not the only one that has suffered. Job’s children are all murdered, as God admits, “without cause” (Gordis 6), or as rendered in the New International Version, “without any reason” (Job 2.3). Their suffering is nothing more than a plot device, an afterthought. Even more disturbing is that Job, in a kind of perverse reimbursement, is compensated with new (and prettier!) children to replace the dead ones. It’s difficult to imagine an emptier and more inhuman concept of justice.
In the poetic narrative, Job’s innocence and God’s responsibility for his suffering are not as explicit. To be sure, Job blames God and maintains his innocence throughout, but there are conflicting views presented by other characters. Job’s friends—Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar—continually insist, in spite of Job’s indignation, that his suffering is God’s punishment for sin. Eliphaz asks, “Is it because of your piety that He reproves you and enters into judgment with you? In fact, your wickedness is immense, there is no end to your iniquities” (Gordis 240). God himself neither admits nor denies that Job is innocent or that he is the cause of Job’s suffering. Instead, he simply asserts his sovereignty, asking Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (Gordis 436). God is above reproach, and needn’t answer to anyone. Job is
bullied into submission as God flexes his heavenly muscles: “Have you an arm like God; can you thunder with a voice like His?” (Gordis 468). Job is overwhelmed by God’s power: “I had heard of You by hearsay, but now my own eyes have seen You. Therefore I abase myself and repent in dust and ashes” (Gordis 491). This seems to be the message that the poet intended to convey. God is so powerful, so awesome, that no one has the right to challenge his infinite wisdom and divine judgment. G. K. Chesterton notes in The Everlasting Man that “the Book of Job avowedly only answers mystery with mystery.” In Job, suffering is a problem that humans must endure graciously and without question.
Whatever the author’s intentions, however, Job’s scathing and pointed criticism of God’s injustice is ultimately unanswered. Job believes that he’s innocent and undeserving of the suffering that’s befallen him. He is resolute on this point, and challenges his friends to present evidence to the contrary, saying, “Teach me, and I shall be silent, and where I have erred, make me understand” (Gordis 66). “Let Him weigh me in a just balance and God will know my integrity!” he insists (Gordis 340). Job’s language is unambiguous in placing the blame for his anguish: “For the arrows of the Almighty are in me; my spirit drinks in their poison; God’s terrors are arrayed against me” (Gordis 64). The passive and long-suffering Job of the folktale is nowhere to be found in the poetic narrative. Instead he rails against God, accusing him bitterly:
I was at ease, and He smashed me;
He seized me by the neck, and crushed me;
He set me up as His target.
His archers surround me,
He pierces my kidneys without mercy,
He pours out my gall to the ground. (Gordis 170)
Job’s suffering is so severe that he not only longs for death, but wishes he’d never lived at all. “Perish the day when I was born,” he says (Gordis 28). “Why did I not die in the womb?” (Gordis 28). This is important, because Job does not understand his suffering to be an evanescent trifle in the context of a blissful and eternal afterlife. In fact, he explicitly rejects the possibility of anything resembling the modern notion of a hereafter. In the Talmud, it is written that when Job says, “As a cloud dissipates and is gone, so who descents to Sheol would not ascend,” it “shows that Job denied the resurrection of the dead” (Pinker 81). Rashi, the “great medieval commentator,” found the same to be true in Job’s belief that he’d “never see happiness again” after he died (Pinker 81-2). Job sees his existence as transitory and therefore all the more precious. “My days are swifter than a runner,” he says, “they have fled without seeing any joy” (Gor
dis 98). To have his life wasted being tortured without warrant at the hand of his creator is the epitome of injustice. Job’s outlook regarding death is significant also with respect to a wider view of injustice in the world. He sees “the wicked live on, reach old age, and … spend their days in well-being” (Gordis 224). They die in peace and with honor, “borne in pomp to the grave” (Gordis 226). Yet their ultimate fate is the same as that of the righteous: “Alike they lie down in the dust, and the worm covers them both” (Gordis 226).
Job doesn’t hold anything back in his tirade against God; he goes far beyond accusing him of negligence or incompetence. Job’s God is a sadistic god, one who “mocks the plea of the innocent” as he destroys (Gordis 96). Job sees the poor exploited as they “reap in a field not their own and toil late in the vineyard of the wicked” (Gordis 254). He sees the “dying groan in terror and the wounded cry out for help” (Gordis 256). “Yet in all this,” he says, “God sees nothing wrong!” (Gordis 256). Job sees God’s judgment as arbitrary and fickle: “… the blameless and the wicked He destroys alike” (Gordis 96). He seems to have put his finger on an idea that Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza would pin down centuries later. In the Ethics, Spinoza would argue that “nature has no particular goal in view,” and that observation shows “by infinite examples, that good and evil fortunes fall to the lot of pious and impious alike.”
Works Cited
- Asimov, Isaac. Asimov's Guide to the Bible: Two Volumes in One; The Old and New Testaments. New York: Wings Books, 1981.
- Chesterton, G. K. The Everlasting Man. 1925. Comp. Martin Ward. 1997. n. pag. De Montfort University. 4 November 2008 <http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/everlasting_man.html>.
- Crenshaw, James L. "Job, Book of." The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Ed. David Noel Freedman. New York: Doubleday, 1992.
- Ehrman, Bart D. God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question—Why We Suffer. New York: HarperOne, 2008.
- Glatzer, Nahum N. The Dimensions of Job. New York: Schocken Books, 1969.
- Gordis, Robert. The Book of Job: Commentary, New Translation, Special Studies. New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1978.
- Pinker, Aron. "Job's Perspectives on Death." Jewish Bible Quarterly 35.2 (2007): 73-84.
- Spinoza, Baruch. Ethics. Trans. R. H. M. Elwes. 1883. Comp. Ron Bombardi. 1997. n. pag. Middle Tennessee State University. 2 November 2008 <http://frank.mtsu.edu/~rbombard/RB/Spinoza/ethica-front.html>.
Illustrations are from William Blake's Book of Job.
