Classed with the poetic books of the Old Testament, Job is a book of deep philosophy which deals with some of the basic problems of life. It is cast in the form of a dramatic poem. There is a prose beginning which explains the situation and a prose ending which concludes the story. A rich man of antiquity, Job was noted for his righteousness. Satan was allowed to test him by deep suffering. The major discourses with the comforters are about the problems of suffering and of life itself. In rounds of conversation Job speaks three times with each of three friends, with the exception of the third speech of the last comforter which is given by a newcomer, Elihu. After this, God himself speaks to Job and in humility Job accepts God’s reproof. The book ends with Job’s restoration.
OUTLINE
Introduction, Job’s calamities, chapters 1:1–2:13.
Job’s nine speeches, chapters 3; 6–7; 9–10; 12–14; 16–17; 19; 21; 23–24; 26–31.
Eliphaz’ three speeches, chapters 4–5; 15; 22.
Bildad’s three speeches, chapters 8; 18; 25.
Zophar’s two speeches, chapters 11; 20.
Elihu’s speech, chapters 32–37.
Jehovah’s reproof and Job’s submission, chapters 38–41.
Conclusion, chapter 42.
Some have argued that the first two and last chapters which are written in prose, were by an author different from the writer responsible for the body of the work which is poetry. But Terrien, speaking on Job in the Interpreter’s Bible, calls attention to the fact that other ancient pieces also exhibit such a structure (Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 3, p. 879). Actually, the argument of the book really depends on the setting as given in chapters 1 and 2.
Job is a theodicy. It faces the problems of why the righteous suffer and offers an answer or answers justifying the ways of God with men. Job has ever since been an example of integrity (Ezek. 14:14, 20) of suffering and of patience (Jas. 5:11).
THE NARRATIVE
The record of Job’s experiences is given with great artistry. The first chapter, though in prose, attains by a simple recitation of the staggering facts a climax of tragedy. Job is bereft of all. Unknown to Job but given to the reader is the information that his misfortunes have occurred under the permission of God at the instigation of Satan.
Now what should be Job’s reaction?—despair?—rebellion?—abandon? No, his attitude is one of absolute submission to the will of God (1:21). It should be noted that this is not only Job’s reaction, it comes with the approval of the inspired author (1:22). Job, having passed the test, is attacked by Satan, again with God’s limitation that Job shall not be killed. Again Job had no way of knowing that God had set these limits. Indeed, Job knew no more of the divine purposes in his trials than we do in ours. He could not sense that he was just then the special arena of Satanic forces contending with the divine, while angels watched to see the supporting power of the grace of God. God never let Job go. In all his affliction He was afflicted, and as his eye is upon the sparrow so Job was the object of God’s loving care even when God seemed to be most withdrawn. Satan has great power over Job and over us, but God speaks the last word.
In Job’s further trial his wife turns against him. But again Job expresses submission (2:10), and again this attitude is the one approved by the author, “In all this did not Job sin with his lips.”
Now absolute submission to the will of God is the proper attitude for a Christian to take. And this is neither fatalism nor irrationalism. It is not fatalism because the will of God is the will of a personal Father rather than a blind impersonal force. It is not irrational because the Christian has adequate reason to know that in the long light of eternity the will of God is best.
Inability to understand this is one of the failures of the current play J. B., by Archibald MacLeish. The play cleverly reproduces Job’s suffering in terms of present society. It sharply poses the problem of how to know the chief end of man and can God himself be known. But the play offers no answer to either question. It lamely ends that all our answer is “we are” and that what suffers can love. Love on earth and the fact of existence are apparently all the play leads to. This is merely the road to despair. The play ends in a blank. But existence without God is a terrible blank (Eph. 2:12). The end of Job is very different as James 5:12 assures us. Job meets God and is satisfied and God blesses Job at the last.
The answer of Job to suffering is, however, no easy and superficial answer. Job in his person and in his thought plumbs the depth of suffering. At first, as we have said, he declares that his confidence is anchored in the rock of sublime trust in the ultimate goodness of God. But in the following chapters he is shaken by the extent of his anguish. Here the so-called “comforters” play their part. The book does not call them comforters, though it does say they came to comfort their friend in his disasters (2:11). Their function in the book is to discuss the “why” of suffering. Apparently the answers of the three men are all alike and make no great progress. They claim that Job has greatly sinned and therefore his great suffering is penal. If he will repent and reform, all will be well (4:8; 8:3–7; 11:6, 13–16). Some of the remarks of these men are in a measure true. God does punish sin; repentance and reform are commanded by God; He does do unsearchable things beyond man’s wisdom. But these limited answers do not fit Job’s cause. Why do the righteous suffer? How can we explain the inequalities of life?
Job at times falls into blank despair. He sees no answer. He curses his day. He sees nothing beyond the grave (7:9; 10:21, 22) and longs for death in a passage as poignantly beautiful as it is spiritually hopeless (3:17–19). These thoughts are not recommended by the author nor are they to be considered as divine instruction any more than Asaph’s preliminary observations on a similar theme (Ps. 73:13–16). They are the anguished questions which at last bring forth the epochal advances in God’s revelation to Job.
Job never loses sight of two points, first that he is guiltless of the grievous sins charged against him, and second that God is righteous. An important verse is 13:15, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” Unfortunately, there is a dispute here on the reading. The Hebrew “lo” (preposition l plus him) is vocalized by some of the Jewish witnesses as “lo” (not) and is read, “He will slay me, I have no hope” (RV and RSV). But all the older translations, the Greek Septuagint, the Syriac Peshitta, the Jewish Targum, and the Latin Vulgate take it as does the King James, and in the Hebrew grammar the verb hopeor trust needs the preposition I to compliment the meaning. The King James reading is preferable. Job retains his faith in God.
And he concludes that present injustice is remedied hereafter. The force of the passage in 14:7–14 is missed in most translations, but it clearly considers the hereafter. The argument is that even a tree when cut down sends up a second growth. “It will sprout again” (yachlîph). But how about man? Can it be that the summit of creation, a sentiment being of moral possibility is of less consequence to God than a tree? “If a man die, shall he live again?” Job answers his plaintive cry by the affirmation of an abiding faith, “I will wait till my second growth (chalîphah) come. Thou shalt call and I will answer thee. Thou shalt have a desire to the work of thy hands” (14:14, 15). The word chalîphah comes from the root “chālaph,” meaning to pass away or succeed (hence our word Caliph). In this context there is doubtless an allusion to the second growth of a tree as symbol of resurrection mentioned in verse 7.
The affirmation of Job forms the background of the famous passage in 19:23–27. Through his groping Job sees the possibilities of an ultimate answer. His sufferings cannot now be justified. But they will be justified at last. In a solemn appeal to the future Job declares his confidence that his “vindicator” (more accurately than “redeemer”) lives and shall at last appear. Verse 26 is difficult. The words “after my skin” hardly makes sense. After can be a preposition of time (as after two days) or of place (as behind the tree’), but “after my skin” is inappropriate. But the root “ ‘wr” (skin) is identical with that of the verb awake used of resurrection in 14:12. It would fit the Hebrew grammar much better to translate “after my awaking.” This is the marginal reading of the King James translators. The RSV reading “after my skin has been thus destroyed” is impossible. It would require the preposition after to be used with the infinitive of the verb destroy and the word skin to follow. The Hebrew does not read this way. The next phrase “worms destroy this body” is more difficult still. The Hebrew lacks worms and body. Perhaps it means “when this (suffering) is struck off (or finished).” The verse would then read, “After my awaking, when this misery is over in my flesh shall I see God.” It is debated whether the phrase should read “in (i.e. out from) my flesh” or “apart from my flesh.” The Hebrew “min” (from) could mean either one, but inasmuch as the following verse emphasizes that Job himself with his own eyes shall see God, it seems that the reading “in my flesh” is fully justified. Consideration of these details is necessary to show that the above suggested translation of the crucial verse does full justice to the Hebrew and considers the verse in relation to Job’s triumphing faith in his eventual blessing in a future life.
The above concepts are carried on in Job’s recognition that the wicked, though they may prosper in this life nevertheless can expect God’s condemnation at last (21:7–30; 24:19–24; 27:13–23). Job, however, declares his firm trust in God (23:10; 28:28) and his innocence before his accusers (31:1–40).
Elihu, a fourth comforter enters the picture at chapter 32, but seems to add nothing new to what has previously been said. He too alleges Job’s guilt (34:7) and declares that God would bless if he would return from sin (36:12, 16).
At last the trial of Job is over. God himself speaks. In highly poetic form he shows Job (and we should take the lesson to heart) how little of the ways of God are known to man. How complete then should be our submission to His will.
In the speech of the Almighty, Job is reproved for lack of perfect trust in God (40:7, 8), and Job at last finds full satisfaction in meeting God face to face (42:1–6). God then reproves Job’s companions, accepts Job’s sacrifice and intercession, and finally restores his possessions. It is beautifully remarked that he was given twice as many possessions as before, but only an equal number of children. Yet he had not really lost his former children—those he would meet again in heaven.
DATE
The date of Job has been much discussed. In one sense it makes little difference when the book was written for nowhere is it dated in the Old Testament or New. Conservatives have often dated it in the general time of Moses, as it mentions Abraham’s nephews, but omits all reference to the worship of the tabernacle or temple. This is a sound argument. Other conservatives have suggested the time of Solomon. Critics have claimed that the language is late and a few have held that the book is as recent as 200 B.C. The latter date is now impossible to sustain as fragments dating from that time have now been found in the Dead Sea caves. Parts of Job are among the earliest fragments found. Surely a date in the prophetic period, that is, from Moses to Ezra, is most logical. One reason for conservative zeal for an early date is that usually the critical considerations arguing for a later date of Job would indicate too late a date for other books such as Proverbs, some of the Psalms, portions of Isaiah, and so forth. It is true that the style of the body of the book of Job is unique. This may be due not so much to a late date as to the mixed non-Hebraic dialect of the area where Job was written. Affinities of the language with both Aramaic and Arabic have been pointed out. More significant are affinities with the old Canaanite language of Ugarit. Indeed it is likely that some items in the peculiar dialect of Job are marks of antiquity rather than of lateness. As to the ideas of Job, they are not a sufficient guide to dating for we do not know the ideas of hinter-Palestine in antiquity. Some have supposed that the concept of the resurrection in Job marks it as late. This is begging the question for we do not know how early the idea was revealed to Israel. Others have denied that Job teaches the doctrine of the resurrection at all! The fact is that as far as we can tell, Job’s doctrine of the resurrection cannot be denied to early Israel. The book of Job itself may well have been a milestone in God’s revelation of this truth.
LITERATURE
The standard commentaries of Keil and Delitzsch and Lange are helpful. The work of E. S. P. Heavenor in the New Bible Commentary (IVCF, London, 1953) is also good, but does not go into detail on the crucial passages in chapters 14 and 19. Works on introduction and critical questions are fully covered in Edward J. Young, An Introduction to the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 1949). For the mass of literature on Job, mostly critical, compare the treatment of Samuel Terrien in the Interpreter’s Bible (Abingdon, 1954).
R. LAIRD HARRIS
Professor of Old Testament
Covenant College and Theological Seminary
