Job

1. PROLOGUE (1:1–2:13)

Job 1 and 2 serve as a prologue for the book and set the scene for a thorough discussion of a godly response to adversity. The prose prologue and the epilogue (42:7–17) function as a literary and interpretive framework for the otherwise poetic book. Without this prose framework, the book would not form a coherent story with a beginning, development, and resolution.

The initial chapter introduces Job as a man of exemplary character. Both the narrator (1:1) and the Lord (1:8; 2:3) describe Job as blameless, righteous, and God-fearing. Under the intense pressure that he faces, Job will make some statements that sound harsh toward God, but the prologue makes it clear that Job is a profoundly righteous man.

1:1–5. Usually in the OT when a major figure is introduced, his genealogy is traced. In the case of Job, however, it is his exemplary character that is prominent (1:1). Within the bounds of human fallenness, the righteousness of Job is commended by the Lord. By every tangible measure, Job is prosperous (1:2–3). He is living, at the very highest level, the good life that wisdom promises as a blessing from the Lord (Pr 10:22).

1:6–12. In the NT, Satan is the leader of the forces of evil that endeavor to thwart the will of God. He is portrayed as unsuccessfully trying to tempt Jesus (Mt 4:1–11) and as resisting the rule of God (Rv 12:9; 20:2, 7–8). Elsewhere in the OT, aside from 1 Ch 21:1 and Zch 3:1–2, the Hebrew term satan is translated as a descriptive expression (e.g., “enemy” in 1 Kg 5:4; “accuser” in Ps 109:6) rather than as a personal name for the enemy of God and his people. In Job, Satan is best viewed as an antagonist to the Lord and his servant Job (1:6; see the CSB footnote).

When the Lord points out Job’s exemplary life (1:8), the adversary questions Job’s motivation, suggesting that Job may be using God to get the material blessings he wants (1:9–11). There may be an implicit claim that God is using Job to get the worship he craves from humans. The Bible often speaks of God as the protector of his people (cf. Pss 91; 121). Here the adversary boldly charges that if the Lord were to remove this hedge from Job and allow Job’s perfect life to be touched by calamity, then Job’s worship would turn into cursing.

Because the Lord alone is God and the supreme sovereign over all, he could reject the adversary’s challenge outright. But he does not duck the challenge; he allows the adversary to touch Job’s possessions, yet not Job’s body (1:12).

1:13–19. The scene shifts from heaven to earth as four servants come to Job in rapid succession, each with devastating news. In just a few moments Job is reduced from riches to rags, from delight to disaster, from celebration to sorrow. He knows nothing of the conversation in heaven between God and the adversary. All he can see is the devastation of his livelihood and his family.

1:20–22. Job’s response to this profound calamity is twofold. Feeling the full force of grief, he tears his clothing and shaves off his hair, which are customary rites of mourning in the ancient world (1:20; cf. Gn 37:34; Is 15:2; Jr 7:29). He also falls to the ground and humbly worships God. All that he owns has been given by the Lord rather than gained by his own efforts, and all that he has just lost has been taken away by the Lord rather than merely by the secondary agents who have inflicted damage on him. He concludes by blessing the Lord, not by cursing him as the adversary predicted in 1:11 (1:21). In 1:22, the narrator puts a final exclamation point on Job’s response.

2:1–3. The narrative in 2:1–3 is nearly identical to that in 1:6–8. In 2:1, the adversary comes among the sons of God with apparent eagerness to continue his dispute with God about Job. When God’s words in 2:3 are compared to his earlier description of Job in 1:8, it is evident that the first round of adversity has not subverted Job’s righteous character. It is not the Lord’s pleasure that Job be afflicted, but he has allowed the adversary to pursue his strategy against Job.

The prophet Ezekiel mentions Job twice (Ezk 14:14, 20), pointing to Job’s righteousness.

2:4–8. Rejecting the Lord’s favorable evaluation of Job, the adversary retorts with a proverbial expression insisting that Job will not feel the affliction until his own health is in danger (2:4–5). The adversary is not free to work independently of God’s control (2:6). It is clear that God is sovereign over the adversary and that he puts limits on how far the adversary may go.

Wasting no time, the adversary goes out from the Lord’s presence and strikes Job with a serious skin disorder, possibly a burning rash (2:7–8). This painful ailment (cf. Ex 9:9–11; Lv 13:18–20; Dt 28:27–28) brings overwhelming discomfort to those whom it afflicts. Hints in Jb 7:5; 16:16; and 30:30 suggest that it gives Job both intense pain and a hideous appearance.

2:9–10. Job’s wife speaks only this one time in the book (2:9). It may be best to view her words as proceeding from her understandable sympathy for her husband and as expressing her desire that he not have to suffer longer. Nevertheless, even if this is what has prompted what she says, she is then willing to have Job surrender his commitment to do what is right so that his pain can be relieved. Job refuses to do that. At the time when Job has already lost so much, he now feels that he has lost the support of his wife as well.

Job replies to his wife that she is speaking like a foolish woman, that is, her speech does not adhere to God’s path of wisdom (2:10). By contrast, Job’s speech, which is a window into his heart, demonstrates his unshaken integrity.

2:11–13. From their subsequent speeches, it seems evident that the three friends are Job’s intellectual peers as wisdom teachers (2:11). However, their primary intent in meeting with Job is not scholarly but pastoral, for they come to sympathize with him so that they can comfort  him.

The initial instincts of the friends are on the mark. Realizing that words cannot explain Job’s tragic situation, they choose to identify with Job in his pain as they sit with him for seven days, their silence likely a part of their mourning for Job (2:12–13). Only after Job breaks his silence will they attempt to explain why he has experienced such a severe loss. It is evident that Job’s pain is very great, which is an ironic echo of 1:3, where Job is described as the greatest of the people of the east.

2. DIALOGUE: FIRST CYCLE (3:1–14:22)

A. Job (3:1–26). Chapter 3 begins an extended section of poetry in which Job and his three friends speak in turn. After the prose prologue (chaps. 1–2), the narrator fades from view, and we hear the voices of the individual speakers. Without the narrator, the readers have no interpreter to explain what is being said, so they have to listen attentively to the threads of the dialogue.

3:1–10. After a seven-day silence, Job releases his pent-up emotions. Instead of cursing the Lord, as the adversary has predicted (1:11; 2:5) and Job’s wife has exhorted (2:9), Job curses and laments the day he was born (3:1). The transparency he displays is similar to the language of many of the lament and imprecatory psalms and the confessions of Jeremiah (e.g., Jr 20:14–18). Job’s turgid language evidences that he feels as though the whole created order of the world has come apart. In contrast to the creation narrative in Gn 1:3–4, in which God says, “Let there be light,” Job now wishes for what is impossible, that the day of his birth might be turned back into darkness, that is, that it be undone (3:3–4), as by a solar eclipse (3:5). He wishes that the night of his conception were absent from the calendar (3:6).

Job’s reference to Leviathan (3:8) calls to mind Babylonian myths about a seven-headed sea monster that was often used as a symbol of chaos. In the OT, Leviathan is created and controlled by the Lord (cf. Jb 41; Pss 74:14; 104:26; Is 27:1). The “morning stars” (3:9) are probably Venus and Mercury, which often appear before sunrise, and perhaps the fainter, more distant planets as well.

3:11–19. Job turns from cursing to questioning in 3:11–26, using a series of rhetorical questions that all of the speakers will attempt to answer. His key word throughout this section is “why.” The rhetorical questions reveal the frustration in Job’s spirit and unintentionally imply that there are aspects of his experience that he does not understand. Job perceives death as a step above his present condition (3:13). He feels isolated from his community, but he regards death as the great social leveler. He supposes that it liberates all humans from the inequities of life, because in death all people are equally devoid of possessions, power, and prominence (3:14–15). As he perceives death through the lens of his adversity, he sees former captives enjoying their ease far from the oppression of their previous taskmasters (3:18–19).

3:20–26. Although he clearly views death as preferable to the kind of life he is experiencing (3:20–22), he does not take the next step toward ending his own life, as his wife has come close to recommending. In OT Wisdom literature, “path” (3:23) is frequently used of God’s path of wisdom that leads to life (e.g., Pr 4:18). Job asks why life is given to one who cannot understand where his painful path of life is proceeding. In 1:10, Satan said that the Lord had placed a protective hedge around Job; here the same picture expresses a sense of being trapped and restricted by God (cf. Hs 2:6).

Job concludes his initial lament by focusing on his personal crisis (3:24–26). He does not lament the possessions or even the people that he has lost, but rather he is intent on his inner turmoil. In contrast to God’s created order, which was in evidence in the prologue, chapter 3 ends with agitation. Thus Job discloses that he faces more than just tragic circumstances: this is a spiritual struggle, as Job tries to reconcile what has happened with what he believes about God and his rule. Only when the Lord reappears with his own set of questions in Jb 38–41 will Job find the peace that now eludes him.

B. Eliphaz (4:1–5:27). Job’s three friends (2:11–13) wait until after Job’s opening lament before they speak. From chapter 4 through chapter 27, the friends and Job speak alternately. Eliphaz is the lead speaker in each of the three cycles of speeches, and his words introduce the key points that are developed later by Bildad and Zophar. The three friends represent the major teaching of traditional wisdom, the retribution principle. Eliphaz argues for his position in chapters 4–5, and then Job replies to him in chapters 6–7.

4:1–6. As the leader of the friends (cf. 42:7, where God singles him out), Eliphaz begins with a positive, almost apologetic, tone, commending Job for his past instruction of others in their times of need (4:3–4). Later in the book when Job utters his final confession of innocence, he too recalls how he has counseled the afflicted (29:21–23). Taking the same conciliatory tone of voice, Eliphaz tries to counsel Job to listen to his advice rather than dismiss what he has to say.

After commending Job, Eliphaz shifts his tone to condemn his friend (4:5). He assumes that what Job is experiencing is simply another routine case with a standard explanation. Job simply needs to practice what he has preached. In 4:6 Eliphaz uses language that must be painful to Job. By referring to Job’s “piety” (“fear” of the Lord in Pr 1:7; 9:10) and “integrity” (used of God-honoring people in Ps 84:11; cf. Gn 6:9; 17:1), Eliphaz’s question becomes ironic in that Job’s “integrity” has been emphasized in 1:8 and 2:3.

4:7–11. Without considering the specifics of Job’s situation, Eliphaz treats it as a generic case that can be adequately explained by retribution theology. His first rhetorical question in 4:7 assumes an answer of “No one.” But in chapter 21 Job will adduce numerous counterexamples.

Here in 4:8 and in 5:3 Eliphaz appeals to personal observation as the source of his knowledge. By this he is employing the predominant procedure of traditional wisdom, which scrutinized the world in order to discern its embedded divine order (e.g., Pr 6:6–11). In Gn 2:7 the breath of God gives life to Adam; here in 4:9 (as in Is 40:7 and Hs 13:15), God’s breath is compared to a destructive wind that destroys those who are wicked.

Echoing verses such as Pr 22:8 and anticipating Gl 6:7, Eliphaz contends in Jb 4:8 that those who act wickedly reap what they sow. His implication is that Job is receiving from God only what his actions deserve. Although divine retribution is valid as a general principle, books such as Job and Ecclesiastes illustrate the exceptions to the rule.

In the Psalms, the lion is often a metaphor for a wicked person (Pss 7:2; 17:12; 22:13). Since Eliphaz implies that Job’s passionate words in chapter 3 were merely the growling of a toothless lion (4:10–11), his rhetoric sounds more pompous than persuasive.

4:12–17. After arguing from observation (4:7–9) and by rhetoric (4:10–11), Eliphaz appeals to a secret divine revelation that he has received in a dream (4:12–21). The bizarre language he uses (4:12–16) sounds much like a parody of the traditional method of revelation to the prophets that enables them to say confidently, “Thus says the Lord.”

In 4:17 Eliphaz contends that no human, including Job, can be considered righteous when measured against the standard of God’s own righteousness. By this reasoning, Eliphaz actually obliterates the distinction made in Wisdom literature between the wise, who are righteous, and the foolish, who are wicked (Ps 1). To justify his assessment of Job as guilty, Eliphaz paints with too broad a brush and thus implicates all humans as hopeless before God.

4:18–21. Eliphaz enlarges the scope of his argument to include even the angels, God’s messengers (4:18). Since God scrutinizes all his creatures and finds even the exalted angels guilty, then humans, who are made of dust (cf. Gn 2:7; 3:19) and therefore are inferior to the angels, cannot withstand divine examination.

The term Eliphaz uses for “moth” (4:19) is used elsewhere as a picture of weakness and frailty (e.g., 27:18). By contrast, Ps 8 celebrates the exalted place of humans in God’s ordered world. Eliphaz states in 4:21 that before the holy God humans are as vulnerable as a tent held up by frail cords, or perhaps by tent pegs. As soon as adversity blows on them, they are prone to collapse, before they acquire wisdom.

5:1–2. In Jb 5, Eliphaz continues his first speech. He sticks to the retribution principle, arguing that Job’s sin must be genuine because it has brought God’s intense punishment upon him. In the larger context of the book, much of what Eliphaz says is highly ironic (e.g., 5:26). He often speaks more truth than he knows.

The implied answer to the second rhetorical question of 5:1 is “No one,” and there is a hint of sarcasm in Eliphaz’s tone. He indicates that it is futile for Job to call out for a heavenly intercessor because his sin has disqualified him from assistance. None of the holy angels (see 4:18; cf. 1:6; 2:1) will take up Job’s cause. Later, Job expresses his desire for such a mediator to present his case before God (9:33; 16:19–21).

Eliphaz uses two familiar categories from traditional wisdom (fool, simple/gullible) to imply that Job is not wise and so will be destroyed (5:2). He suggests that Job resents the adversity he has received from God, because his agitated response has evidenced his folly. Eliphaz also implies that Job envies those who do not experience pain as he does. Apparently, Eliphaz equates wisdom with a serene and stoic attitude, and Job’s passionate reaction has not fit that profile.

5:3–7. Eliphaz’s description of the fool in 5:3–7 is clearly directed at Job personally. Though Eliphaz began his speech with sensitivity toward Job, by this point his language has become critical and even hurtful. In fact, his insensitive references to Job’s children in verses 4 and 25 must feel like daggers to Job’s heart. His reference to the vulnerable children of the fool (5:4) makes the death of Job’s children (1:19) Job’s own fault.

According to Eliphaz, just as sparks naturally fly up from a fire, so the kind of trouble that Job has experienced is a natural consequence of human sin (5:7). To be human is to be corrupted, and therefore trouble afflicts all people, even Job. This observation is consistent with the scriptural teaching that when sin entered into the human race it brought corruption to human nature.

5:8. Eliphaz speaks of himself, but he clearly intends to instruct Job with these words. According to Eliphaz, Job’s only hope is to seek God, so that God will either grant him mercy or make known what offense Job has committed. Later in the book, Job places his legal case in God’s hands (31:35), not confessing his sins but instead calling on God to vindicate his innocence (27:5–6; 31:6). The Lord’s judgment in 42:7–8 will exonerate Job, in contrast to the charges raised against him by Eliphaz and the other friends.

5:9–16. By praising the incomprehensibility of God (5:9), Eliphaz actually undercuts his conclusion based on observation (4:8). That God’s ways are beyond human comprehension will become more evident when God speaks in chapters 38–41. Eliphaz has good theology but does not apply it properly to Job’s situation.

The emphasis in Eliphaz’s song in Jb 5 on God’s intervention on the side of the needy (e.g., 5:11, 15–16) is echoed in the Song of Hannah (1 Sm 2:1–10), the Magnificat of Mary (Lk 1:46–55), and Jesus’s beatitudes in Mt 5:3–12.

God is as sovereign over the human realm (5:11) as he is over the natural world (5:9–10). Eliphaz’s statement in 5:13 that God “traps the wise in their craftiness” is quoted by Paul in 1 Co 3:19, as he argues that the wisdom of humans is insufficient for their salvation. As Eliphaz notes, God reverses social inequities as he comes to the aid of the needy (5:15–16), but this means that God should be on Job’s side!

5:17–19. Eliphaz now changes from a lecturer to a counselor, speaking directly to Job. Using the standard wisdom phrase “happy is the person” (e.g., Ps 1:1), he urges Job to accept divine discipline, for, as Pr 3:11–12 teaches (cf. Heb 12:5–11), discipline is an expression of God’s love and a means for growth (5:17). However, to accept correction Job will have to admit that he has sinned, which he does not believe. This is the first of thirty-one occurrences in Job of the divine title Shaddai (“Almighty”), which is used later to speak of God’s just rule over humans (8:3–6) and transcendent power (37:23).

Numerical sequences like the one in 5:19 are used in OT Wisdom literature to present a comprehensive list (e.g., things that God hates, Pr 6:16–19). The sense here is that God will certainly rescue the one whom he corrects (5:17–18).

5:24–27. In 4:21 and 18:6 the tent is a picture of human vulnerability (5:24). Eliphaz assures Job that if he submits to God’s correction, then he will regain the secure prosperity of his former life (5:25–26). But by referring to Job’s lost possessions and dead children, Eliphaz is untactful. Ironically, the epilogue will describe Job in similar terms as the Lord blesses him with a long and good life (42:12–17). But that blessing will not come because Job confesses his supposed sins, as Eliphaz insists is necessary.

Speaking in the plural on behalf of the three friends, and probably as the voice of wisdom in general, Eliphaz says emphatically that his assessment of Job’s condition is accurate (5:27). Sounding like a confident prosecutor concluding his opening statement, Eliphaz patronizes Job by suggesting that what he has said is the only answer that Job need consider.

C. Job (6:1–7:21). Job indirectly refers in a few places to what Eliphaz has said but does not refute him point by point. After speaking directly to his three friends in chapter 6, Job turns away in chapter 7, opening with a soliloquy on his inner feelings. Although he has issues with his friends, his overriding complaint is against God (7:7–21), who he thinks has not treated him rightly. Throughout the remainder of the book, Job more and more will turn away from the friends to address God, and by the end of the book only God and Job are left speaking.

6:1–13. In Job’s reply, it is clear he is frustrated with his painful situation (6:1–13) and with what he sees as the disloyalty of his friends (6:14–23). In the lament psalms, people in adversity turn to God in their “grief” (Hb kaas, 6:2) to plead for his intervention on their behalf (Pss 6:7; 10:14), but the same term is used in Pr 12:16 to warn against a fool’s “displeasure.” Eliphaz warned that kaas (“anger”) kills the fool (5:2), but Job here contends that his despair compels him to speak rashly (6:3).

Bending the familiar OT image of God as the divine warrior fighting for the benefit of his people, Job pictures God instead as an enemy attacking him with poisoned arrows that penetrate both his body and his spirit (6:4). He does not view this as the beneficent discipline of the Almighty that Eliphaz described (5:17–18). With his rhetorical question about “bland food” (6:6), Job implies that Eliphaz’s words are insipid. His friend has not nourished him with life-giving instruction; what he said is worthless, tasteless, and totally unappetizing, so Job refuses to accept it.

Job wants clear resolution to his situation, whatever that might be, so he calls on God either to bless him or to crush him, but not to leave him in his miserable condition (6:8–9). Like Moses (Nm 11:15) and Elijah (1 Kg 19:4), he desires God to take his life, because that will give relief from his pain. However, he does not express the option of suicide but leaves his life in God’s hands. All that matters to Job is his integrity before God (6:10), and he does not want to get to the breaking point where he denies God.

6:14–23. Job denounces his three critics as false friends who have shown their true colors by their disloyalty to him (6:14). By misconstruing the situation and accusing Job of sin, they fail to fortify Job with faithful kindness when he is struggling physically and spiritually. The wadis that Job describes (6:15–17) are stream beds that are dry during most of the year, but after storms they can become raging torrents. Caravans crossing the Arabian Desert from Tema in the northwest or Sheba in the southwest too often were disappointed by potential water sources they glimpsed at a distance that turned out to be dry wadis (6:18–20). Like these wadis, Job’s friends cannot be counted on as a reliable source of support.

Job’s confidence in his integrity causes him to question if the retribution principle holds in all cases. By speaking of his friends’ fear (6:21), Job may be suggesting that they are afraid to rethink what they believe and teach, or he may be saying that they rush to speak against him lest something terrible happen to them as well. Despite his overwhelming losses, Job never asks the friends for financial help (6:22), but he does want their faithful devotion. They, however, are not willing to pay the price to help him. Job views them as curious to observe but not committed to assist him.

6:24–30. Job now demands that his friends speak honestly and kindly to him. Eliphaz spoke only about how all humans are corrupt before the just God but did not show that to be the case in Job’s life. His accusations have not proved anything (6:25–26). Job insists that his friends do not have evidence to make their indictments stick. Therefore, he contrasts his own painful but honest words with their glib and baseless charges. Job then directs a barb of his own at the friends (6:27). Their treatment of him, Job says, reveals what they truly are like. They are heartless enough to gamble for orphans and sell helpless humans. Later, in 22:5–9, Eliphaz will use even harsher language as he accuses Job of mistreating powerless people.

Job feels that the friends are talking about him as an object rather than to him as a person. He pleads with them to look at him instead of averting their eyes, so as to acknowledge that he is indeed their friend (6:28). There is also the implication that since the friends know their accusations are false, they do not dare look Job in the eye. Job appeals to their sense of justice, because he feels wrongfully accused by his friends (6:29). His righteousness, that is, his vindication, is what is at stake. His friends construe his adversity as evidence of his guilt, but Job contends that their conclusion is unjust and not true to the facts.

7:1–6. Job then turns away from addressing his friends and discloses his inner feelings in a soliloquy (7:1–6). Job uses the language of conscripted labor (see 1 Kg 5:13–14) to speak of God’s treatment of humans (7:1–2). The focus in the book is usually on the intensity of Job’s pain rather than its length in time; “months” (7:3) may be a general marker for the duration of Job’s distress as his life feels totally empty and useless. The maggot (7:5) is an image of decay, because maggots feed on decomposing corpses (Jb 21:26; cf. Is 14:11). The same term, which Job uses here to describe his physical affliction, is later employed by Bildad (25:6) in his final derogatory description of the human being, whom he dismisses as a maggot and a worm.

The same Hebrew term means both “thread” and “hope” (7:6). Job feels as useless as the small ends of the thread snapped off a loom after weaving is completed (cf. Jos 2:18, 21). He is without hope (cf. Is 38:12). Job’s friends, reflecting the wisdom instruction of Pr 10:28, insist that the righteous are those who have hope (4:6; 11:18), but the wicked have no hope (8:13; 11:20).

7:7–16. Although Job is unhappy with his friends, his real complaint is against God (7:7–21). In Gn 2:7, God breathes into Adam his breath or life force, but Job uses the language of breath in a very different way as an image of the transitory nature of human mortality (7:7–10). Like the psalmists of the imprecatory psalms, who call down divine condemnation on those who afflict them (e.g., Pss 58:6–8; 59:3–5), Job does not hold back when he expresses his bitter feelings to God (7:11). This, however, is a risky move, because the wisdom tradition teaches that the prudent person is restrained in speech (Pr 10:19; 17:27). Job, however, refuses to be muzzled, as the sea was (7:12; cf. Gn 1:21).

In 7:12 Job alludes to the familiar motif of the battle between the creator God and chaos (see also 3:8; 9:8, 13; 26:12–13; 38:8–11; 41:1–34). In Canaanite mythology, the sea (Yam) and the sea monster (Tannin) were suppressed by Baal and Anath, respectively, and their victory established order on the earth. Similarly, in Babylonian mythology, Marduk defeated Tiamat and imprisoned her. In the biblical creation account in Genesis, God makes the sea monsters (tanninim, Gn 1:21), demonstrating his power and authority over them.

Job hopes that sleep will bring relief from his painful adversity, but, as in verse 4, it does not. While he is tossing and turning until dawn, he is also frightened by nightmares and visions (7:13–14). In ancient thought, nightmares were often regarded as the work of demons or divine agents, but here Job attributes them to God himself. It is possible that he also is taking a sideward glance at Eliphaz’s nighttime revelation (4:12–16). In any case, what he endures is the opposite of the comfort that he has expected.

In his opening lament (3:11–16) Job expressed his wish that he had died at birth rather than living to experience his adversity. Here in 7:15, his pain is so severe that he views a violent death by strangling as preferable to continued life in his painful condition. Using a term familiar from Ecclesiastes, Job complains that his days are hebel (“a breath,” 7:16). This term was typically used to refer to what is fleeting, futile, or enigmatic (see the CSB footnote). He just wants God to leave him alone (cf. 10:20). It is ironic that at the end of the story Job will be restored to live many years (42:17).

7:17–21. The psalmists frequently appeal to the Lord to watch protectively over Israel (Pss 12:7; 13:3; 25:20; 40:11; 61:7), but Job feels badgered by God’s unceasing scrutiny (7:17–19). In 6:4 Job complained that the arrows of the Almighty pierced him, and now he asks why God has treated him in this way (7:20). Assuming the basic validity of retribution theology, which says that punishment comes as a result of wickedness, Job asks what sin has justified this divine punishment. In the whole book Job never hears from God the reason for his adversity.

Job is not conscious of any unconfessed sin in his life, or he would admit it to God. He is not willing to follow the counsel of his friends and confess to sins that he has not committed. Speaking hypothetically, Job asks that if he has sinned, why is God unwilling to forgive him (7:21)? In verses 20–21, Job uses the three major OT terms for “sin” (cf. Ps 32:1–2, 5) as he refers to missing the mark of God’s will (“sinned,” v. 20), resisting God’s rule (“iniquity,” v. 21), and distorting God’s desires (“sin,” v. 21).

D. Bildad (8:1–22). In contrast to Job’s passionate speech, Bildad’s first speech is calm and analytical. With an almost unfeeling tone, Bildad is more the lecturing professor than the comforting pastor. Bildad intensifies the retribution principle into a rigid formula of double retribution, in which God always prospers the righteous (8:20) and always destroys the wicked (8:13), and Bildad refuses to consider evidence that contradicts his formula of how God maintains justice in the world.

8:1–7. Unlike Eliphaz, who at least began by affirming Job (4:3–4), Bildad is caustic from the start, dismissing Job’s words as a “blast of wind” (8:2). In 8:3–7, Bildad uses logic to support his argument. Bildad’s rhetorical questions in 8:3 clearly expect a negative answer. Distorting Job’s complaint against God (7:7–21), Bildad implies that Job has maligned God’s righteous character and his rule (cf. Pss 89:14–15; 99:4). If God cannot do what is unjust, then Job must be sinful. That alone could account for the divine punishment Job has suffered. Toward the end of the book, God asks Job the same question (40:8), but the divine assessment of Job is different from what Bildad alleges. Bildad asks the right question but gives an incomplete answer.

Bildad is so confident of the legitimacy of the retribution formula that he reasons backward from the observable effect to the necessary cause. He concludes that Job’s children must have sinned (8:4). Bildad speaks as though he understands completely what has prompted Job’s calamity. If Job’s life had been marked by moral purity (cf. Ps 119:9), then God would have come to his defense already (8:5–6).

8:8–10. Bildad next argues from tradition (8:8–10). Taking the condescending tone of a teacher scolding a recalcitrant pupil, Bildad instructs Job to review the lessons of past wisdom that he should have mastered (8:8). Because individual humans are limited in what they can observe directly, they need to make use of the accumulated observations of those who came before them (Dt 32:7; Pr 4:1–9). The singular “previous generation,” rather than the plural, might refer to the original wisdom possessed by God from the beginning (Dt 4:32; Is 40:21).

Using the image of a lengthening shadow to picture one’s brief days on earth (8:9; cf. 1 Ch 29:15; Pss 102:11; 144:4; Ec 6:12; 8:13), Bildad declares that it is crucial to listen to tradition, because an individual lifetime is too fleeting for one to accumulate substantial wisdom. The term translated “understanding” in 8:10 is the Hebrew leb, which is often rendered as “heart.” In OT thought, the leb is the center of the whole person, and it incorporates the thinking, feeling, and deciding aspects of the personality. In this verse, the intellectual sense is most prominent.

8:11–19. Bildad then uses analogies from nature (8:11–19) to argue his point. The papyrus plant (8:11–12), used for a variety of products (e.g., baskets, boats, and writing materials; cf. 9:26), requires a constant and ample source of water in order to thrive; without abundant moisture, the plant quickly withers and dies. Bildad compares this to forgetting God (8:13), which means more here than merely a lapse of memory. Instead, it has the sense of conscious opposition to God that causes one to exclude him. For that reason, it is parallel to “the godless.” Bildad then compares the trust of the godless in their possessions to the fragile web of a spider (8:14–15). By using this image, Bildad states that human resources are incapable of providing reliable confidence. He likely uses this language to allude to Job’s loss of his vast possessions, with the implication that Job placed his trust in what he owned rather than in God.

In 8:16–19 Bildad develops an extended picture of a plant that thrives but then is uprooted and withers, again to demonstrate that the joy of the prosperous will be short-lived if they trust in their own resources rather than in God. The test of what one trusts is how it holds up under the heat of adversity.

8:20–22. At the end of his first speech, Bildad summarizes his argument and appeals directly to Job. He correctly predicts Job’s restoration to God’s blessing (42:7–17) but completely misses how this restoration will come about. He has no place in his rigid retribution theology for exceptions such as a blameless person like Job who experiences adversity (8:20). Bildad leaves the door open for hope for Job, but only if Job will repent of his sin (cf. 8:5–7). Suggesting that Job’s situation can be redeemed, Bildad paints a hopeful picture of what Job’s life restored to God’s blessing would look like (8:21–22).

“Our days on earth are but a shadow” (Jb 8:9). This ancient sundial from Egypt marked time by measuring the length of the shadow.

© Baker Publishing Group and Dr. James C. Martin. Courtesy of the Aegyptisches Museum and Papyrussammlung, Berlin, Germany.

E. Job (9:1–10:22). In chapters 9 and 10, Job takes up the challenge made by Bildad (8:5) to plead with the Almighty. As he contemplates this possibility, Job focuses on his legal status before God and begins to work out in his mind how he might approach God with his situation and how God might respond. In chapter 9 he wonders whether he should enter a legal complaint against God (cf. Jr 12:1–4), because God appears to be almost arbitrary in his treatment of humans. In chapter 10, Job speaks out of the bitterness of his soul (10:1) and expresses what he would say to God, but he is pessimistic that God would acquit him. Job questions whether God is good after all. Discouraged by this thought, Job just wants God to leave him alone, if only briefly, before he dies (10:20–22). When Job is finally granted the opportunity to speak directly to God (40:3–5; 42:1–6), his answer is profoundly different from what he envisions here.

9:1–4. In 9:2 Job acknowledges that what Bildad said in 8:20–22 is true, but then he echoes Eliphaz’s question from 4:17. Whereas Eliphaz made the point that no human can be regarded as just by God, Job’s experience prompts him to ask how an innocent man like himself can be vindicated before God if God is unwilling to bless him as the retribution principle insists he should. The second line of 9:3 is ambiguous. If the subject is God (see the CSB footnote), then God as the defendant would not answer Job, the human plaintiff, one time out of a thousand. Job cannot compel God to do so (9:4).

9:5–13. As the psalmist does in Ps 46, Job portrays God as towering over the natural world in a hymn extolling the wisdom and power of God (Jb 9:5–10; see also 26:7–14), which is followed by his reflection on that theme (9:11–13). Similar language is used in Pss 18:6–15 and 29:3–11 to speak of the Lord’s powerful intervention on behalf of his people, but Job derives no such comfort from the awesome power of God over nature.

The mountains represent the most impregnable feature of nature, but God can move them at will (9:5–6). The description here may well refer to volcanic eruptions (cf. Pss 18:7; 97:5; 104:32; 144:5). The depiction of God treading on the waves of the sea (9:8) pictures God subjecting his enemy by stepping on its back (see the CSB footnote). The reference to four constellations (9:9) indicates that the Lord is superior to the stars, because he was the one who created them and who calls them by name (Is 40:26). Job agrees with Eliphaz (5:9) that God’s power is beyond measurement (9:10). Therefore, if Job were to lodge a legal complaint against God, he would face an intimidating prospect indeed, the thought that stands behind his question in verse 2.

In 9:13, Rahab, as Leviathan and sea monsters in other passages in Job, is cited as a symbol of chaos that was conquered decisively by the Lord (26:12; cf. Ps 89:10; Is 51:9).

9:14–20. Job is convinced that he is innocent, but he cannot envision how he could win in God’s court. He would not be able to answer God’s questions (9:14–15), secure a legal hearing (9:16), or maintain his stand under the barrage of God’s words (9:17–18). His insistence on his integrity and his recognition of God’s supremacy leave him with few alternatives. He cannot admit to sin, because that would mean abandoning what he knows to be true. He cannot compel God to declare him righteous. All he can do is plead to God against God. In this strange legal case that Job is contemplating, God is functioning as prosecutor, defendant, judge, and jury at the same time.

In the prologue, a storm killed Job’s children (1:19). As Job looks to the future, he can envision only more of the same treatment, because he feels that he is under divine attack (9:17; cf. 6:4; 7:20). Although Job anticipates that the situation will only get worse when the storm he fears arrives, God speaks from it to Job. What Job here views with anxiety eventually will become the setting for God’s restoration of blessing to him.

Job reasons that he has no possibility of successfully litigating his complaint against God (9:19). Even if he is in the right, he cannot force God to vindicate him (9:20). Because humans are not equal to God, they have no leverage to compel him to appear in court.

9:21–24. Unlike his friends, who demand that he confess his sin, Job consistently maintains that sin is not the issue prompting his catastrophe (9:21; cf. 10:7; 13:23; 23:11–12). But he cannot prove his innocence or get God to clear his name. He resigns himself to what appears inevitable. Job rejects the simplistic assertion by Bildad in 8:20 that God does not reject the blameless person or support evildoers (9:22). To Job, it appears that God destroys humans regardless of their moral condition, and this may be why God later describes Job as one who obscures his plans (38:2).

Job cannot conceive either how the just God could treat the blameless and the wicked alike or how anyone else could thwart God’s justice. Because Job is unaware of the dispute between the Lord and the adversary in the prologue, God appears to him as arbitrary and capricious in his treatment of humans (9:23–24).

9:25–26. In one respect Job’s pain seems to slow his life to a crawl (7:4). But his life also seems to be slipping away quickly without any progress (9:25). He has the bitter sense that his life will soon be over with no resolution to his adversity or answers to his questions. Boats constructed from papyrus (9:26) were very light and fast (cf. Is 18:1–2), but they were also fragile and easily destroyed. Job’s life under affliction bears both of those traits.

9:27–35. As Job thinks through whether he should enter a legal complaint against God, he finds himself left with three unsatisfying alternatives. He could drop his complaint (9:27–28), but then he would not have the opportunity to be declared innocent by God. He could try to purify himself (9:29–31), but he senses that this would still not satisfy God’s requirements. Or he could find an impartial arbiter to mediate the case (9:32–35), but who could fill such a role?

“Snow” (9:30) indicates a strong cleansing agent, soapwort (cf. Is 1:25; Mal 3:2). Even such extreme measures as using soapwort and lye rather than the typical water or oil would be insufficient to make Job clean before God (cf. Jr 2:22). Nothing would be able to render him acceptable to God (9:31).

Job and his friends share similar conceptions about the heavenly beings. Eliphaz refers to the holy ones (5:1), and Elihu speaks of a mediating angel to deliver humans (33:23–28). In 16:19 Job will contemplate a heavenly advocate for his cause. Here in 9:33, Job longs for a third party, likely a heavenly being, who could listen to both him and God and make a judgment between the two disputants. Job feels intimidated by God, because God seems hostile in his punishment of Job. Job fears additional divine disapproval if he speaks his mind (9:35). Only if God’s affliction were to be removed from him (9:34) would Job feel free to speak fearlessly about God.

10:1–2. Echoing his earlier description in 7:11 (“I will complain in the bitterness of my soul”), Job speaks to God out of his deep and painful emotion (10:1), in contrast to Bildad, who clinically analyzed Job’s suffering as punishment for sin. Bitterness has penetrated Job’s inner being, causing him to feel fearful, frustrated, angry, and disappointed. He now determines to take all these strong emotions to God as he presents his case to him.

In chapter 9, Job envisioned being a plaintiff against God, not realizing that the prologue has revealed that the adversary is the prosecutor and God is the defendant. Now Job views God as the prosecutor and himself as the defendant (10:2). He feels condemned by God and cannot understand why God would condemn him. So in 10:2–19, Job rehearses what he wants to say to God, should he have the opportunity. Because Job cannot fathom why God has condemned him to suffering, he pleads with God to state explicitly how he is guilty.

10:3–12. Job’s questions to God here anticipate God’s questioning of Job in chapters 38–41, but what Job asks is paltry by comparison. Psalm 5:4 states that God does not take pleasure in evil, but in Job’s case God seems to violate his own righteous character, not to mention the retribution principle (10:3).

Mere humans, like Job’s three friends, can make wrong judgments (10:4–6), but the all-knowing God cannot. Job is confident that the omniscient God knows that Job is not guilty (10:7). In Dt 32:39 and Is 43:13 the expression “no one can rescue anyone from my power” refers to the finality of God’s judgment. By using the same Hebrew phrase here (“there is no one who can rescue from your power,” 10:7), Job reflects his own feeling of hopelessness before the divine judge.

What should have been a great comfort, that God fashioned him with great care and skill (10:8–12; cf. Ps 139:13–16; Jr 18:5–12), causes Job to feel threatened by God. Job cannot comprehend why God would turn so diametrically against him.

10:13–19. In 10:13 Job takes a sharp turn away from God’s past beneficent action that made and protected him and instead focuses on the pain that he is experiencing in the present. He reasons that God’s treatment of him demonstrates that behind God’s apparent care is a hidden agenda. While appearing to show Job kindness, God actually is scrutinizing him for incriminating evidence to justify destroying him. Job suspects that God’s past blessing does not indicate how God really feels toward him.

Despite his blamelessness, Job feels disgraced and robbed of his dignity (10:14–15). He senses that, regardless of his guilt or innocence, God will be against him. Even if he were to stand tall and unashamed in the face of his adversity, God would hunt him like a lion (10:16). The emphasis of the rhetorical question in 10:18 is on “you.” Job asks why God, the one who so carefully crafted him (10:8–12), would bring him out of the womb only for him to experience such shameful suffering. As in 3:11–16, Job wishes that he had been stillborn rather than born only to endure adversity (10:19).

10:20–22. Job feels that the intimidating presence of God has destroyed his capacity for joy. Like a prisoner on death row granted a special meal before his execution, Job calls on God to relent and give him a few days of peace before his death (10:20; cf. 7:16). In 10:21–22 Job uses five parallel terms to emphasize the darkness of death. “Gloomy” (10:22) is the same Hebrew term used in Ps 23:4 of an intense shadow that cannot be penetrated by light. As far as Job can tell, there is nothing inviting or pleasurable in death. Nevertheless, as gloomy as the prospect of death is, Job considers it far preferable to the misery and frustration that his life under adversity offers.

As in Jb 10:21; 38:17, the OT regularly describes death as a place of gloom and darkness. Death is full of sorrow (Ps 116:3) and inactivity (Ec 9:10) and is devoid of the praise of God (Pss 30:9; 115:17). In the NT, the resurrection of Jesus introduces the expectation of hope beyond the grave (e.g., 1 Co 15).

F. Zophar (11:1–20). Zophar perceives that Eliphaz and Bildad have not adequately answered Job, so he determines to take up the challenge. He regards it as his moral duty to uphold God’s justice by silencing Job’s arguments. Zophar seems to be the most curt and insensitive of the three friends. By taking the retribution principle to its logical conclusion, Zophar insists that Job’s suffering necessarily proceeds from his sin. If Job would just repent, then God would restore him. Zophar is confident of his reasoning, as though he speaks for God (11:6).

11:1–6. Zophar impatiently dismisses Job’s lengthy speeches as “this abundance of words” (11:2). In Wisdom literature, speaking many words is often connected with folly rather than with wisdom (Pr 10:19; 17:27; Ec 5:2). Thus, Zophar implies that Job is a fool who talks too much. Zophar rejects Job’s words as so much empty rhetoric rather than substantive argument. In his view, what Job says is mere babbling as Job tries to talk the others into silence (11:3). Zophar attempts to shame Job into accepting what the friends have alleged about him. Ironically, in the third cycle of speeches Zophar will be reduced to silence.

As Zophar purports to quote Job’s words to God (11:4), he adds to what Job said in 9:20–21 and 10:7 and ascribes negative motives to him. Job has said that he is “blameless,” but Zophar substitutes a stronger term (“pure”). Zophar predicts that if God were to speak (11:5), as Job desires, he would say that Job actually deserves far more punishment than he has received. The implication is that, instead of complaining, Job should be grateful for God’s leniency (11:6). Zophar evaluates the situation in solely theological terms and seems devoid of any personal compassion.

11:7–12. Zophar praises God’s unlimited wisdom, implying Job’s foolishness. In 10:13 Job suggested that he knew the thoughts that lie behind God’s actions toward him. Zophar exaggerates what Job said into a claim to know all that God knows (11:7–9). Zophar’s questions in 11:10–11 are an aggressive rhetorical attack against Job rather than genuine questions for Job to answer, unlike the questions God will ask in chapters 38–41. In 11:12 Zophar uses what is probably an ancient proverb to drive home his point that it is impossible for a stubborn person like Job to become wise. By this cheap rhetorical shot, Zophar implies that Job functions at below the human level.

11:13–20. Zophar turns from accusing Job to exhorting him with the tone of a prophet. Using strict cause-and-effect logic, Zophar says that if Job would repent (11:13–14), then God would restore blessing to him (11:15–19). This repentance would need to include both Job’s private life (heart, 11:13a) and his public life (hands, 11:13b–14). Since Job’s sin has caused him to lose his standing before God, Job needs to repent so that he can stand in God’s presence (11:15; in contrast with Job’s complaint in 10:15–16). Job previously reflected on his prospect of a dark and gloomy death (10:21–22). By contrast, Zophar declares that Job’s repentance will result in a life of brilliant light (11:17).

In contrast to the hopeful conclusions by Eliphaz (5:25–26) and Bildad (8:20–22), Zophar’s first speech closes on a decidedly negative note as he describes the fate of the wicked and implicitly warns Job about his impending doom. Although he speaks in 11:18 about the hope of the repentant person, in 11:20 he indicates that there is no hope for people like Job who refuse to repent.

G. Job (12:1–14:22). Job is not persuaded by the argumentas of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, who agree that Job must repent of his sin. In the first part of this long speech Job speaks to his friends (12:1–13:12). After a transitional section (13:13–19), in which Job decides to turn away from them, he addresses God (13:20–14:22). He sees that his only hope is to argue his case before God, because he cannot convince his friends that he is innocent.

12:1–6. Job first addresses his friends (12:1–13:12). In chapter 12, Job presents evidence from his observation of life that indicates God often acts in ways that do not fit the retribution principle, by which the friends have evaluated Job’s situation. Job feels disgusted with them and so uses the dismissive tone that they used with him (12:2; cf. 8:2; 11:3). The friends regard themselves as the intellectual elite, wise in their own eyes alone (cf. Pr 3:7) and not in reality. Rejecting Zophar’s insult in 11:12, Job insists that he is not inferior to them in his understanding (12:3). They have spoken merely platitudes rather than genuine insights.

Job feels that his honor has been assaulted, as his friends treat him as a mere joke (12:4). Even though he is righteous and blameless, others have derided him. What makes this especially humiliating is that his friends are the chief offenders (cf. Ps 55:12–15). Instead of taking Job’s claim seriously, they have scoffed at his cries to God (cf. Ps 22:6–8). In 11:15–20 Zophar declared that only those who are right with God can enjoy security. Job counters, however, that sometimes those who provoke God are secure (12:6). By presenting this evidence, Job calls into question the conclusions that the friends have drawn from his adversity.

12:7–12. Alluding to wisdom sayings such as Pr 6:6, Job uses the observational approach of traditional wisdom to counter the conclusions of his friends. Animals know better than they do (12:7–8). Job thus parodies Zophar’s claim in 11:7–12 that God’s wisdom is too mysterious for humans to grasp. In reality, Job indicates, the animals get it, even if Zophar does not! Ironically, at the end of the book (Jb 38–41), God will use the same kind of evidence of the natural world to bring Job himself to understand the limits of his knowledge.

Job 12:9 contains the only use of the personal name Yahweh (“the LORD”) in Job outside the prologue, the epilogue, and the speeches by the Lord in chapters 38–41. Job affirms that everything in the created order, including his own adversity, ultimately goes back to the activity of Yahweh. Job is not willing to diminish God’s sovereignty over all in order to explain his adversity by some other means. He proceeds to expand on this point in verses 13–25 in a hymn that extols God’s control over all of life.

Three of the four qualities attributed to God in Jb 12:13 (wisdom, counsel, understanding) are also applied to the Messiah in Is 11:2, who is empowered by the Spirit of the Lord.

Both Job and the three friends work within the parameters of traditional wisdom, and there is much on which they agree. For example, they all hold that humans can derive wisdom through the process of observation and that long life should enable a person to acquire extensive wisdom (12:11–12), but the friends have not used the sources of knowledge that are available to them.

12:13–25. Job 12:13–25 contains a psalm of descriptive praise to God that focuses on his wisdom and power in governing the world. It is evident that Job believes that God is not thwarted in his plan and that he does not make mistakes in his rule (12:13–16). In his sovereign control, however, God does not always punish the evil and bless the righteous.

There is no sphere of life and no person too exalted, including counselors, judges, kings, priests, advisors, and nobles, to be outside the range of God’s control (12:17–21). By humbling rulers and leading them away stripped into captivity (cf. Is 20:2–4; Mc 1:8), God manifests his superiority to the supposed wisdom of humans. The implication is that even Job, “the greatest man among all the people of the east” (1:3), falls under God’s control. Nor is any human institution exempt from the sovereign control of God. Just as God rules over powerful individuals, so he rules over the nations they lead (12:22–23).

Just as God demonstrates his transcendent power (12:13–16) over humans and nations (12:17–23), so he manifests his superior wisdom (12:13–16) over the leaders of the earth (12:24–25). As with Nebuchadnezzar (Dn 4), when God withdraws reason from leaders, they are consigned to wander and grope into a “wasteland” (tohu, translated “formless” in Gn 1:2). Despite all their power and wisdom, humans are inept and in the dark before God.

13:1–12. Job has lost all confidence in his friends, so he expresses his fervent desire for God to hear his case (13:3; cf. Ac 25:11), because he believes that God will respond to him differently than how the friends have. The friends started out well, sitting with Job in silence (2:13), but as they began to speak, they became like quacks (13:4), making an inaccurate diagnosis and prescribing a treatment that does not apply to Job’s ailment. Compared to their empty words, silence would sound like wisdom (13:5), because “even a fool is considered wise when he keeps silent” (Pr 17:28).

In 13:6 (also 13:13, 17), Job wants his friends to stop talking and to start listening carefully to him. They have heard his words, and even quoted some of them in their speeches, but they have not really grasped his argument. Although the friends doubtless presume that they are defending God’s cause, Job charges that they are telling lies in a vain attempt to cover up for God and condemning Job to protect God’s reputation (13:7–8). He warns them that God will hold them accountable for their false testimony (13:9–11), as God indeed does in 42:7–8.

Job concludes his reply to his friends by describing their words as mere “proverbs of ash” (13:12). What the friends have said has no substance. Job may well have accompanied his words with object lessons, picking up some of the ashes and pieces of pottery where he was sitting to illustrate what their words will come to.

13:13–19. In this transitional section, Job contemplates whether to turn away from his friends to address God, which he will do beginning in 13:20. Job 13:15 contains a difficult textual problem (see the CSB footnote). The reading “I will hope in him” presents Job’s indomitable trust in God (cf. Jms 5:11). In the alternate reading, the Hebrew verb for “hope” could also have the nuance of “wait in silence” (cf. 32:11, 16). In that case, Job is insisting that even if God should kill him, he would not wait in silence but would continue to bring his legal cause before God (13:3, 18). This verse, then, would contrast with verse 19, in which Job says that if anyone can bring charges against him, then he will be silent and die. Although commentators disagree on how verse 15 should be read, Job’s attitude in this section is not hopeful toward God, and in the second line of the verse he resolves to defend himself to God’s face.

In 13:18–19 Job speaks like a lawyer who is fully confident of the case he has prepared and convinced that when he argues his case, God will declare him innocent. At the end of the book, the Lord does vindicate Job (42:7–8), but Job also learns how much he does not know about God and his ways (42:3). He is right about the final verdict but does not anticipate correctly the path God will take to get to that conclusion.

13:20–28. Job begins the direct address to God (13:20–14:22) that he has anticipated in verses 3 and 15. Job believes that he cannot argue his case if God exerts undue pressure on him that subverts a fair trial. He therefore asks for two pretrial conditions (13:20–21): God must withdraw from Job his heavy hand of affliction and remove the overwhelming terror that makes Job feel intimidated. What Job values most is communication with God in place of the divine silence he has experienced since his adversity began (13:22). He is willing to take the role of the defendant to answer God’s questions or to assume the role of the plaintiff addressing his complaint against God.

Like the psalmists in Pss 13:1 and 27:9, Job feels as though God has intentionally turned his face away from him (13:24a). He cannot understand God’s hiddenness, so he feels abandoned and neglected (cf. Dt 31:17; Ps 30:7). Because this kind of withdrawal by God is often prompted by divine wrath against sin (Is 59:2; Jr 33:5; Mc 3:4), Job thinks that God is treating him as a guilty enemy (13:23, 24b). In addition to hiding from Job, God seems to attack him as well (cf. Jb 7:12; 10:16). Job acknowledges that he committed sins in his youthful years (13:26; cf. Ps 25:7), but as a blameless man he has doubtless confessed them long before this time. He now wonders if his adversity can possibly be a long-delayed punishment for those youthful sins.

14:1–6. In chapter 14, Job broadens the scope of his lament to reflect on the human condition in general rather than just his own experience. In 14:1–2 Job concludes that humans are consigned to brief and troubled lives. He speaks generally, referring not to himself alone but to every human, including both the righteous and the wicked. This trouble is not merely a minor irritation but the dominant feature of life, and this brevity is like that of a flower that withers (cf. Pss 37:2; 90:5–6) and a fleeting shadow (cf. Pss 102:11; 144:4). Job’s rhetorical question “Do you really take notice . . . ?” (14:3) implies a positive answer, that God does indeed scrutinize humans during their brief and troubled lives. In contrast to the psalmist’s delight in God’s constant watching over him (Ps 8:4), Job perceives God as looking for every opportunity to find fault with humans (Jb 7:17–21).

In contrast to the eternality of God, humans live for mere days (14:5; cf. Pss 39:4; 103:15). The psalmist of Ps 31:15 is confident that his times are in the Lord’s hands, but Job regards humans as powerless to transcend the divine limits that constrain their lives. Before his great adversity, Job felt delight as the friendship of God hovered over his tent (29:4). But now Job senses a great social and emotional distance from God. Consequently, he pictures humans as hired laborers who are compelled to put in their time for a harsh taskmaster (14:6).

14:7–12. Using the observational technique of traditional wisdom, Job looks at nature to discern if there is hope to which humans can cling during their adversities. He observes that a tree can grow again after it has been cut down (14:7–9; cf. Is 11:1), but humans cannot (14:10). Like dried up seas or riverbeds, humans have no hope for renewal to life after death (14:11–12). As Job says also in 10:21 and 16:22, the grave is a place of no return. He does not have the doctrine of resurrection to appeal to, for he is limited in his understanding to what God has revealed at this time in history. His only hope is for God to intervene for him before he dies (cf. Ps 27:13).

14:13–17. Job tries, through his imagination, to glimpse hope for the future after death. The hypothetical desire expressed by Job in 14:13 contrasts with his revulsion toward the grave elsewhere (7:9; 17:16). As he grasps for any semblance of hope, he twists the image of the grave in a positive direction, hoping that perhaps in the dark recesses of Sheol he can find temporary concealment from God’s anger. Job views his life as toil that must be endured (14:14; cf. 7:1–3). Although the hope of resurrection has not yet been revealed in his day, Job determines to wait for his restoration or release by God, apparently hoping that this positive turn of events will occur during his lifetime, not after death. Here, the endurance of Job about which Jms 5:11 speaks shows through his intense pain.

As Job attempts to find hope in his adverse situation, he anticipates that God will eventually break his silence and speak (14:15). This renewal of communication would remedy the awful silence that Job is enduring. Job’s hope is actually fulfilled in chapters 38–41, but then he is unable to answer the questions God poses to him, as he here supposes he will be able to do.

In the ancient world, important items, including documents and clay tablets, would be sealed in a bag for safekeeping (14:17). Job refers to that practice to describe how he hopes God will keep Job’s sins out of sight or expunge them so that they will not be adduced as incriminating evidence against him (14:16).

14:18–22. Job’s daring hope in 14:13–17 cannot sustain him in the face of his great adversity. Once again he uses the procedure of observation. If a mountain cannot survive erosion (14:18), then what chance could a feeble human have in the face of God’s inexorable laws? This reality destroys human hope (14:19).

Despite his best efforts to imagine hope, Job ends this long speech on a despondent note, just as he did his previous speeches in the first cycle (3:20–26; 7:19–21; 10:18–22). At the end of this cycle, Job finds himself in despair because of the boundaries that God has placed on all humans. Death, he says, will separate people from all that they love. They will then have no communication with those who are alive (14:21), so they will not know anything about the honor or humiliation of their children. In death he will have only his bodily pain and profound loneliness (14:22), in contrast to the rich social connections he previously enjoyed (1:2–5; 29:4–5).

3. DIALOGUE: SECOND CYCLE (15:1–21:34)

In the second cycle the dialogue between Job and his friends becomes more strained, abusive, and insulting as the friends focus almost completely on the divine punishment due to wicked people like Job.

A. Eliphaz (15:1–35). In chapter 15, Eliphaz is not as courteous as when he first addressed Job in chapters 4–5. He now contends that Job is suffering what any wicked person deserves. Taking the tone of a belligerent prosecutor determined to prove his case, Eliphaz assaults Job with questions. Then he describes all humans as vile and corrupt before God and lectures Job about what he has observed in life, that sinners receive the punishment they deserve.

15:1–6. Eliphaz first attacks Job with a barrage of humiliating questions intended to prove Job guilty (15:1–13). In 12:2 Job dismissed the friends by saying that they think that with their words wisdom reaches its final end. Now Eliphaz uses the same sarcastic tone toward Job, saying that Job’s words are like the scorching and destructive “hot east wind” that blows off the Arabian desert (15:2). In Hs 12:1 the same image is used of Israel’s deceit and lies. Apparently, Eliphaz thinks that genuine wisdom should be cool, analytical, and objective, in contrast to Job’s passionate intensity.

Concerned by the potential negative effect that Job’s words could have on others, Eliphaz accuses Job of contradicting the fundamental wisdom principle of the fear of the Lord (cf. Pr 1:7; 9:10) and thereby undermining faith in God (15:4). Eliphaz here directly attacks Job’s piety, which the Lord himself has praised (1:8; 2:3). Distorting Job’s words in 9:20, Eliphaz accuses Job of being driven by his sin into dangerous words, thus condemning himself by the testimony of his own mouth (15:5–6). Eliphaz even charges Job with adopting the tongue of the “crafty” (15:5), using the same Hebrew term that is used of the serpent in Gn 3:1 (“cunning”).

15:7–13. Wisdom is often regarded as belonging to the aged (cf. Ps 119:100), who can call upon a lifetime of observations as the basis for their insight. In asking if Job was the first person ever born, Eliphaz rhetorically asks Job if he is the epitome of wisdom (15:7). In his reference to God’s council (15:8), Eliphaz asks if Job is privy to the conversations between God and his exalted angels when God describes his secret plans (cf. 1 Kg 22:19–22; Ps 82:1–4). The prologue (Jb 1–2) also presents such a scene, as the Lord debates with the adversary about Job.

In 13:2 Job insisted that he is not inferior to his friends in knowledge. Eliphaz now exaggerates what Job said, as he inquires sarcastically not about Job’s supposed equal knowledge but about his purported superior knowledge (15:9). Actually, all of the characters seem to pride themselves in what they know, or think they know, with none of them evidencing much humility. Eliphaz claims that the aged wisdom teachers all agree with him against Job (15:10; see also 15:17–18). These experts are older than Job’s father, which means that they are vastly more experienced than Job in his relative youth. As Eliphaz assesses Job’s rejection of his wise counsel, he sees this as pride on Job’s part, since Eliphaz is speaking for God (15:11–13).

15:14–16. In 7:17–18, Job parodied Ps 8 as he insisted that humans are scrutinized continually by God. Here Eliphaz also alludes to Ps 8 as he portrays humans as vile and corrupt before the holy God. Humans sin as often and as casually as they drink water (15:16). Since Job is human, he cannot be righteous before God and deserves only divine judgment.

15:17–26. Eliphaz lectures Job that sinners in the present receive the divine punishment they deserve (15:17–35). Drawing on what he has observed (15:17) and what he has learned from tradition (15:18–19), Eliphaz claims to be the spokesperson for wisdom. By exhorting Job to listen, Eliphaz assumes the role of the learned teacher, and he places Job in the role of the ignorant student.

In 8:13–19, Bildad described what the wicked can expect in the future. Here in 15:20–24, Eliphaz expounds on how the wicked, not just in the future but in the present, receive the torment that they deserve. Using a vivid term used of “writhing” in childbirth (15:20; cf. Ps 51:5), Eliphaz states that wicked people like Job will have miserable lives. Eliphaz’s straight-line logic ends up transforming blameless Job into the worst of godless infidels (15:25). Job has rebelled against God and treated God with contempt.

15:27–35. In a culture in which most people lived from hand to mouth, fatness was a tangible sign of prosperity (15:27). In 15:28–31 (see also Ps 73:3–4, 7) is raised the issue of the prosperous wicked, those who are both unrighteous and affluent. Eliphaz seems to imply that Job’s wickedness is related to his wealth, how he accumulated it, how he has trusted in it, and how it made him insensitive to others in need. Eliphaz says that God destroys the wealth of the wicked, clearly alluding to Job’s losses in chapter 1.

Olives and grapes are two of the major food items grown in the Near East, so when these crops fail, life becomes desperate. An olive tree that has shed its blossoms and a vine stripped of unripe grapes (15:33) reflect staples of life that have fallen far short of their potential.

B. Job (16:1–17:16). Job begins his answer to Eliphaz by countering many of the charges made previously by his friends. He vigorously rejects their claims to possess knowledge that is superior to his, and he dismisses their arguments as irrelevant to his specific case. Job then addresses God directly, expressing that God is oppressing him as an attacking warrior. Job longs for a witness to advocate for his innocence. In chapter 17 Job’s emphasis shifts to how his friends have mistreated him in his time of great need. He ends his speech by saying that he cannot see hope in either life or death.

16:1–6. Job’s strong language indicates that he is indignant and disgusted with his friends. As an indication of the increasing strain between them, Job throws Eliphaz’s insult in 15:2 back at him: Eliphaz is the true windbag in this controversy (16:3; see the CSB footnote). The friends initially intended to bring Job comfort (2:11), but instead these “comforters” (16:2) have managed to bring him only trouble. The last thing Job needs to hear from them is an indictment of false guilt that only adds to his already deep pain.

Job says that their talk is cheap, because it is easy to criticize someone else when they have a problem. If their roles were reversed, Job would do better for them than they have done for him (16:4–5). Job feels that no matter what he tries, he cannot find relief from his pain (16:6). When he speaks of his adversity, it does not relieve his pain but only brings criticism. When he suffers in silence, his pain continues unabated.

16:7–17. Starting in 16:7, Job turns away from his friends to speak directly to God. He complains that God has so touched his body that, according to the retribution principle, it witnesses to his guilt (16:8; cf. the question by Jesus’s disciples in Jn 9:2). Instead of coming to Job’s defense, God seems to be fighting as a warrior against him or stalking him as a fierce animal preparing to maul him with a lethal blow (16:9–14). With these descriptions Job echoes the intense language of the imprecatory psalms (e.g., Ps 57:4, 6).

In the ancient Near East, wearing sackcloth was the conventional sign of mourning (Gn 37:34; Est 4:1; Jnh 3:8). Job here wears sackcloth over his scabs as an expression of his deep grief (16:15). Sackcloth represents his sense that he is as good as dead. By extension, it could also picture a deep sense of humility, as Job feels he has no way to defend himself against God. Job consistently rejects as inaccurate the allegations by his friends (Bildad in 8:5–6 and Eliphaz in 15:4–5) that he is a sinner who needs to repent. Instead, Job insists that he is innocent and his heart is pure (16:17), thus fulfilling the standards required of those who would fellowship with the Lord (Ps 24:4).

Throughout the OT, the Lord is portrayed as a warrior who comes to the defense of his people in need (Ex 15:1–21; Dt 33; Jdg 5; Ps 46; Hab 3). Similarly, Revelation pictures the return of Jesus Christ to earth as the conquering King of kings (Rv 19:11–16). In Jb 16:14, by contrast, Job describes God as a warrior who attacks him (cf. Lm 3), even though Job is innocent and therefore undeserving of God’s punishment.

16:18–22. Throughout this speech, Job oscillates between discouragement and hope. Like Abel (Gn 4:10), he is innocent and his blood cries out to God for justice (16:18). Job, therefore, appeals to the earth to witness to his innocence. He wants the evidence justifying him to be preserved, so that he will eventually receive the justice he deserves. If his blood were covered, the crime against him would be concealed, and Job does not want his case to be forgotten.

Job wants a witness to advocate for his innocence (16:19; cf. 9:33; 19:25), just as Abraham appeals to God for his nephew Lot in Gn 18. Even though Job has no idea that God has already spoken on his behalf against the adversary in the prologue, Job clings to the hope that he will have an advocate to testify for him in heaven. Later Christian interpretation reads the mediatorial work of Christ into this statement as well as into Jb 19:25–27, but Job does not have the advantage of knowing that subsequent revelation.

Job’s friends have failed to minister compassionately to him (cf. 6:14), so Job directs his tear-filled eyes to God (16:20), even though he sees God as an enemy assailing him (16:9–14). Job has the profound sense that time is running out for God to come to his help, so once again (cf. 3:25–26; 7:21; 10:21–22) he expresses his longing for a quick resolution to his situation before he dies (16:22).

17:1–5. Job’s language is strong and bitter as he describes how his friends have mocked him (17:1–10). Although the three men came originally to comfort him (2:11), Job hears them as scoffers who speak with hostility against him (17:2). Job feels disgraced by them, as the psalmists are by people who mock them (e.g., Pss 22:7, 13; 119:51). Although he feels under attack by God (16:9–14), Job still believes that God knows he is innocent.

With no human to testify on his behalf, Job in effect calls on God to be a cosigner for him, to provide security until Job’s innocence can be proved (17:3). Job’s call for God to accept a pledge for him against his friends’ charges reflects the custom that a debtor could give a piece of property to a creditor as a pledge until the debt was paid (cf. Jb 24:9). Job therefore pictures himself as a debtor who offers security for a loan that he cannot presently repay (cf. Gn 38:17–18; Ex 21:2–6; Dt 24:10–15).

Perhaps employing a familiar proverb of his day (17:5), Job uses harsh language to criticize his friends. If they have wrongly denounced him as foolish, then their children will have to bear the consequences.

17:6–10. Job’s only recourse is in God, even though God seems to have failed him (17:6) by making him an object of ridicule. Job feels that he has been treated so poorly by others that people even spit in his face, which was the ultimate expression of contempt in his culture.

Job insists that because his situation is a troubling aberration of the retribution principle, righteous people should be appalled at the adversity he is experiencing (17:8). If a righteous person like him could suffer as he does, then others who are righteous could suffer as well. Thus he implicitly calls into question the supposed righteous character of his friends, because they have defended their theological dogma at the price of defaming Job’s innocence. Far from conceding to the friends’ negative assessment of him as guilty, Job calls them all fools (17:10; cf. Rm 1:22). He dares them to bring on their best arguments but is convinced that nothing they could say would be wise.

17:11–16. Job has lost hope in both life and death. Before his extreme adversity, Job assumed that he would live out his days in prosperity and peace (29:18–20), but now he sees it passing away quickly without his dreams coming to fruition (17:11). In 17:12 Job insists that his friends have totally misconstrued his situation. In Is 5:20, Isaiah pronounces an oracle of divine judgment against people who substitute ethical darkness for light and light for darkness, and Job uses the same language to say that what is bad the friends call good, and what is good they reject as bad.

Throughout the book of Job, the maggot or worm is a metaphor for decay (17:14; cf. 7:5; 21:26; 24:20; 25:6). Here, Job asks about the implication of being closely related to the worm, that is, being a human who will suffer decay in death. If that is all there is for him to anticipate, then what kind of hope is that?

Earlier in the book, Job considered death a welcome escape from his pain (3:11–13). By now, however, he has come to realize that death is corruption and not a source of genuine hope (17:15). He is therefore left with no hopeful prospect in life or death. So he must either yield to despair or find hope elsewhere. Job, still grieving for his children, realizes that death cannot give them back to him. As in 3:17–19 and 7:9 (cf. Ps 6:5), death is viewed as a shadowy and joyless semiexistence in which the dead are trapped. His hope will not come in his death, for the grave cannot restore to him a sense of family (17:16).

C. Bildad (18:1–21). Bildad’s second response to Job echoes many of the points made by Eliphaz in his second speech (Jb 15). Bildad views Job’s situation as a generic case study of retribution, not as the unique, personal tragedy that it is. Bildad considers only the negative side, that bad things happen to bad people. Doubtless he believes that the positive side, that God blesses those who are righteous, is irrelevant to Job’s situation. In the third cycle, Bildad will speak only briefly (25:2–6), so chapter 18 constitutes the major statement of his position.

18:1–4. Bildad begins with a strong retort against Job, rejecting as nonsense what Job has said. Job ended his previous speech with a list of rhetorical questions, and Bildad opens his speech in the same fashion (18:2). Once again the speaker starts with a barrage of insults (cf. Eliphaz in 15:2–3 and Job in 16:2–3). Bildad charges that Job (or perhaps the other friends, because “you” is plural) has been playing clever word games rather than entering into serious debate. By urging Job to be sensible, Bildad implies that Job’s words are nonsense and that therefore there are no reasonable grounds for conversing with him.

In 18:4, now using singular pronouns and distorting Job’s words in 14:18 and 16:9, Bildad wrongly portrays Job as insisting that God’s moral order must be overturned just for him. According to Bildad, Job holds that everybody else is wrong and only he is right.

18:5–7. The major portion of Bildad’s speech (18:5–21) is a lecture; he contends that the world functions as a machine in which wickedness is always judged by God. In Bildad’s system of thought there is no room for ambiguity or exceptions. Life is predictable because wickedness is always punished (18:5; cf. Ps 1:6; Pr 12:21). That Bildad does not mention God until verse 21 suggests that he views the retribution formula as an inflexible natural law, a machine working without divine intervention.

Bildad uses the image of life as a tent in 18:6, as he did in 8:22 and will again in 18:14, 15. In the book of Job, “light” often refers to life and darkness to death (3:5; 10:21; 17:13). The wicked will be driven from light into darkness, that is, from life into death (18:18). This is the only possibility in Bildad’s tidy world, which is driven by the retribution formula.

18:8–16. Bildad continues to emphasize that there is no way for the wicked to avoid just retribution for sin. Six different terms for a trap are used in 18:8–10. This concentration of similar language indicates that wherever the wicked go, they are just a step away from being ensnared in a trap they cannot foresee. They cannot avoid the judgment that their sin deserves. Judgment is thoroughly predictable.

Picking up his reference to the tent of the wicked in verse 6, Bildad says in 18:14 that the wicked person is snatched from the supposed safety of that person’s dwelling. Throughout this extended poem in 18:5–21, Bildad repeatedly alludes to the details of Job’s calamity and connects them with the destructive consequences that come to the wicked. To Bildad’s thinking, Job is receiving only what his sin deserves.

Bildad’s graphic language in 18:15 is reminiscent of God’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gn 19:24, 28), as well as predictions of eschatological judgment (Ezk 38:22; cf. Rv 9:17–18; 14:10). Burning sulfur, or brimstone, produced total, catastrophic devastation that left long-term barrenness on the land.

18:17–21. Bildad concludes that the wicked are left without any future after they die, because no one remembers them (18:17) and they have no offspring to survive them (18:19). In the OT, barrenness or death without surviving descendants was regarded as a deep grief (cf. the anguished cries of Rachel in Gn 30:1 and Hannah in 1 Sm 1:11–16). Those who had no physical posterity to carry on their names resorted to other means to gain some form of social immortality (e.g., 2 Sm 18:18; Ps 49:11).

Bildad’s only reference to God in this speech comes in his very last word (18:21). This passing nod to God suggests that he has constructed a deistic system that works mechanically and in which God does not actively intervene. Justice requires the punishment of the wicked, and adversity is proof positive that a person is sinful.

D. Job (19:1–29). In his response to Bildad’s second speech Job uses a mixture of lament and legal language to express how abandoned he feels by his friends (19:1–6), by God (19:7–12), and by his whole community (19:13–19). He pleads with his friends for compassion and articulates his hope for a redeemer to take up his cause. Job therefore does express some faint hope in God, even though his predominant emotion is hopelessness.

19:1–6. Job echoes Bildad’s opening questions in 8:2 and 18:2 by asking, “How long will you torment me . . . ?” (19:2), but he uses the plural form of “you” to indicate that he is complaining against all three friends. Using “ten” to refer to an indefinite but large number (19:3; cf. Gn 31:7), Job accuses them of repeatedly hurting and humiliating him with their words.

Using hypothetical language rather than admitting to any sin (19:4), Job insists that if he has committed a minor, inadvertent error (cf. Lv 5:18; Nm 15:28), not the kind of heinous, intentional crime that they have accused him of committing, then it would be a matter between God and him alone. However, Job feels wronged not only by his friends (19:3) but also by God (19:5–6). Rejecting Bildad’s earlier implication that God does not pervert justice (8:3), Job perceives God as breaking his own righteous rules in how he treats Job.

19:7–12. Despite Job’s scream of outrage (19:7), God seems to dodge acquitting Job, and he keeps Job hanging for a resolution to his case. In picturesque and vivid language, Job complains that God has treated him as though he were an enemy (19:11).

Rather than vindicating Job, God has worked against him in a multitude of ways. God will not let him escape but instead hinders Job’s flight (19:8). This is the opposite of the divine protective hedge around Job that the adversary complained about in 1:10. God also has removed Job’s honor (19:9), in contrast to the exalted place of humans in Ps 8:5. All in all, Job feels as though he is under a frontal assault by God’s massed armies, which threaten him so much that he has no hope for survival (19:12).

19:13–19. By citing twelve individuals or groups of people, Job complains that his place in the community has been broken. His relatives and friends have abandoned him (19:13–14). Rather than treating him with respect and eager obedience (cf. Ps 123:2), his servants ignore him (19:15–16). His immediate family regards him as repulsive (19:17). Even little boys ridicule him (19:18), and his closest friends detest him (19:19). He is left alone as a social pariah to face his adversity.

19:20–22. With his cry for mercy (19:21), Job calls on his friends to act as true comrades by being compassionate to him. Despite all they have said and done, Job still looks to them with hope. He asks why they have joined God in hounding him (19:22). Job sees himself as struck by the hand of God, so he needs his friends to side with him, not against him.

19:23–29. Job insists that he is innocent but has no expectation that anyone else will stand up in his defense (19:13–22). Sensing that he could lose this legal dispute because the deck is stacked against him, Job longs for a permanent record to be made that could witness forever to his character (19:23–24). He does not want justice to die with him; rather, he wants his claim to keep speaking even after his death. Yet, in the midst of his hopelessness, Job has a glimpse of hope, much like the confession of trust that often emerges in the midst of the lament psalms. Job is not clear about who his “Redeemer” or legal advocate will be (19:25), but he does have confidence that someone will stand up to defend him at last (see the article “I Know That My Redeemer Lives”).

Job’s hope, however, is not just for the future. In 19:26–27 Job may well think, or at least desire, that after his severe suffering God will intervene on his behalf to restore him within his lifetime on earth (cf. Ps 27:13). Indeed, Job will at last see God and is declared innocent (42:5, 7–8). Many have taken verse 26 as an OT anticipation of the personal resurrection of the Christian, but that is likely adding much to what Job himself meant to say. In 19:28–29 Job closes by warning his friends that they will have to face God’s judgment.

E. Zophar (20:1–29). Zophar speaks to Job for his second and final time. Numerous times he alludes to details in Job’s previous speeches, often trying to turn Job’s words against him, but in particular Zophar responds indignantly to Job’s reproof in 19:28–29. For Zophar, there is no room for an exception to the retribution formula. Considering only the negative side (cf. Eliphaz in 15:17–35 and Bildad in 18:5–21), Zophar contends that God always judges the wicked. Zophar does not directly condemn Job in this chapter, but his allusions to Job’s experience make it evident that he is not just talking abstract theology but is implying its relevance to Job’s situation.

20:1–5. Each of the speakers in the book of Job finds it easy to dish out insults, but they complain about being dishonored when someone says the same kind of things to them. Their elevated sense of honor and shame does not allow them to accept a rebuke silently. As a result, the tone of the conversation rapidly degenerates into meanness and ridicule. In 20:2–3 Zophar is more concerned about his own wounded ego than about Job’s pain and humiliation.

Zophar cannot tolerate even the flickering ray of hope that Job expresses in chapter 19. According to Zophar, the pride of the wicked will be humbled (20:4–11). Seeking to quench what he considers Job’s unwarranted optimism, he insists that any happiness that the wicked enjoy is at best temporary (20:5). The wicked always die young, not full of days. Zophar assumes that the retribution formula is well established by tradition (20:4), but in verse 5 he unwittingly undercuts his own argument. If the wicked enjoy even temporary joy, then the retribution formula is not as absolute as he presumes.

20:6–11. Zophar develops the principle that the higher the wicked rise, the harder they fall, likely subtly alluding to Job’s former lofty status as “the greatest man among all the people of the east” (1:3). Using vivid language, Zophar pictures the proud wicked perishing like dung (20:7). Indeed, the children of the wicked will have to compensate the poor, no doubt for what their father has extracted wrongfully from them (20:10). Zophar’s principle can be seen at work in God’s judgment on various people (e.g., Gn 11:1–9; Is 14:12–20; Ezk 28:1–19), and it echoes the wisdom saying that pride goes before destruction (Pr 16:18), but he is off the mark in regard to Job.

20:12–23. Zophar insists that the appetite of the wicked will destroy them. In 20:12–19 Zophar describes how God uses the sins of the wicked to bring about their destruction. What they eat will eat at them. With this language, Zophar vividly applies the maxim of Pr 26:27, which notes that people get what they deserve, because evil acts contain within them the seed of their own punishment.

Zophar asserts confidently that the wicked, despite their brief prosperity, will inevitably suffer a tragic reversal. Their greed will lead to cravings that cannot be satisfied (20:20), their treasure will not endure (20:21), and their plenty will be overtaken by misery (20:22–23).

20:24–29. Zophar is sure that destruction of the wicked is certain. Similar to the image in Job’s earlier complaint in 6:4, God is pictured here as an archer who attacks the wicked (20:24–25). An arrow can wound from a distance, and a bronze tip gives it especially lethal force. This image pictures the sudden and unexpected judgment by God on sinners (cf. Pss 18:14; 21:12; 64:7; 77:17). The implication is that the wicked may run, but they cannot escape God’s judgment (cf. Am 5:18–19). In 20:26 Zophar alludes either intentionally or insensitively to the fire of God that destroyed Job’s sheep and servants (1:16).

In ancient Near Eastern treaties, heaven and earth were traditional witnesses to covenants, and this same language is used in the Bible (20:27; cf. Dt 32:1; Is 1:2). When Job maintained his innocence in 16:18–19, he appealed to the heavens and the earth as witnesses that could corroborate his claims. Zophar now insists that all of creation will testify to the guilt of the wicked, leaving them no place to hide from God’s justice. Zophar considers Job so hopeless that he does not even appeal to him to repent, as he did in his first speech (11:13–19). Job is too far gone and can only anticipate total destruction from God, because God invariably destroys the wicked (20:29).

F. Job (21:1–34). Up to this point in the book, Job has been on the defensive as his friends argue that the retribution principle is an absolute pattern for life. In particular, they have insisted that Job must be a sinner, because the wicked are always judged by God with adversity. In chapter 21 Job unhooks the connection between a person’s acts and the experiences that follow. He refutes points made by the friends by citing counterexamples. Again and again, Job shows that the wicked often prosper, in stark contrast to what the retribution principle teaches. By the end of the chapter, Job rejects the friends’ answers as empty.

21:1–6. Job urges the friends to be silent and listen carefully to what he is saying (21:2–3). Then they can continue to deride him. Just as they have dismissed him as arrogant and blasphemous (e.g., 15:2–13), so he writes them off as mockers who only want to ridicule him. Job realizes that if his dispute were with the friends or with any other human, then there would be established legal procedures for handling the case (21:4). His complaint, however, is with God, so he cannot figure out how to get the matter resolved.

21:7–16. The friends’ unwavering commitment to retribution theology has caused them to accuse Job of wickedness. Here he launches a counteroffensive. With numerous examples he demonstrates that they are blind to what actually occurs. His description of the prosperity of the wicked (21:7–15) closely parallels Eliphaz’s portrayal of the righteous person (5:17–27) and directly contradicts Zophar’s assertion that the joy of the wicked is only fleeting (20:5–11).

Job points out that the wicked often live to old age and prosper (21:7), they have happy families and secure possessions (21:8–9), their cattle bear profusely (21:10), they enjoy family tranquility (21:11–12), they do not suffer debilitating disease but die painlessly (21:13), and they enjoy all this even as they reject God (21:14–15). The observable facts, then, do not support the claims by Job’s friends that sinful acts and painful consequences are invariably linked together. Echoing the language of Ps 1:1, Job emphatically rejects the charges by the friends that his adversity proves that he is wicked (21:16). On the contrary, he is righteous, rejecting the wicked and disavowing all they stand for.

21:17–21. In 18:5–6, Bildad asserted that the light of the wicked goes out. Job now asks rhetorically if Bildad’s claim is well founded on evidence (21:17–18). Similarly, Zophar contended that God sends his anger against the wicked (20:23), so Job asks how often divine calamity actually comes on sinners. Also, Eliphaz stated that God punishes the children of the wicked (5:4), but Job counters by saying that that is not really judgment on the wicked themselves (21:19–21).

As Job points to the prosperity of the wicked (Jb 21:7–15), he echoes other OT passages (e.g., Pss 49 and 73; Jr 12:1–4) that decry this conflict with the principles of wisdom and justice, which contend that the righteous should prosper and the wicked should not.

21:22–26. Job’s rhetorical question in 21:22 clearly anticipates a negative answer, because the data that Job has discussed demonstrate that God’s exercise of justice transcends what humans can comprehend. The point is that the retribution formula assumed by his friends is not adequate to explain how God always works.

Retribution theology tries to evaluate a person’s acts and consequences as black and white, but Job demonstrates from actual examples in life that such a rigid distinction does not hold up under careful scrutiny. In 21:23–26 Job insists that there is not a strict correlation between one’s morality and the prosperity or adversity that comes to one’s life. Two people living very differently can come to the same apparent end (cf. Ec 9:1–3).

21:27–34. Job challenges the friends to expand their range of observation to ask “those who travel” what they have seen elsewhere (21:29). The perspective from the friends’ theological ivory tower is too narrow for them to see fully what life can teach. Job continues to press his point that the friends’ formula does not fit all the facts. Far from being consistently punished, the wicked often avoid punishment during their lifetimes and are often honored, even with grand funerals (21:30–33).

Job is not comforted or convinced by what the friends have said (21:34). The more he evaluates the issue, the more problems he has with the legitimacy of the retribution formula, because it does not fit his personal situation and does not explain many other cases he has observed.

4. DIALOGUE: THIRD CYCLE (22:1–27:23)

In the third and final cycle of speeches, it is evident that Job and his friends are rapidly reaching an impasse. The speeches in this round are much shorter than before, and the dialogue disintegrates completely when Zophar’s turn comes but he does not speak (after chap. 26). In addition, the speakers are increasingly frustrated and caustic with one another.

A. Eliphaz (22:1–30). In Jb 22, Eliphaz takes a hostile tone of condemnation as he seeks to maintain his own theological dogma by attacking Job’s integrity. He charges that Job is ethically wrong in his behavior and theologically wrong in his beliefs, and he counsels Job to submit to God so that his prosperity can be restored.

22:1–5. Eliphaz poses a series of rapid-fire questions suggesting that Job’s situation is of little concern to Almighty God. As in his earlier speeches (4:2, 6–7; 15:2–3), Eliphaz gives Job no time to answer, but now his questions become more aggressive and accusatory. When he asks if a man can be of benefit to God, Eliphaz implies that the transcendent God is so distant that human good and evil are of no concern to him (22:2–3). With the sarcastic question of 22:4, Eliphaz intends to strike at the heart of Job’s self-defense that he is innocent before God.

22:6–11. Eliphaz goes on in 22:6–9 to accuse Job of a series of flagrant ethical offenses. Without acknowledging that he is contradicting how he previously commended Job in 4:3–4, Eliphaz invents crimes to justify from his perspective the extreme punishments that Job has received. Giving no objective evidence to sustain his charges, he accuses Job of extortion (22:6), withholding charity (22:7), abuse of power (22:8), and oppression of helpless widows and orphans (22:9). All these alleged offenses pertain to Job’s treatment of people in need. In chapter 31, Job will categorically deny all these charges.

Eliphaz seems not to have heard or grasped Job’s point in chapter 21 that the wicked often prosper, along with its implied corollary that the righteous may suffer adversity. Using the same imagery of traps that Bildad emphasized (18:8–11), Eliphaz continues to insist that Job’s adversity is proof positive of his grievous sins (22:10–11).

22:12–20. God is pictured as reigning in the vault of heaven above the earth (22:12; cf. Is 40:22; see also Pss 97:2; 104:3). From this exalted position, he should be able to observe all human activity, but Eliphaz falsely charges Job with saying that God’s sight is obscured by clouds, so that God cannot see what is occurring in the human realm of life (22:14). Eliphaz also misconstrues Job’s previous complaints about God’s silence. He accuses Job of saying that God is unable to know what Job is doing, so he can sin with impunity (22:13). By contrast, Job spoke in 7:17–20 about how he feels under constant scrutiny by God.

Eliphaz rhetorically asks Job in 22:15 if he is going to proceed down the same path that evil humans have taken in the past. Then Eliphaz alludes to the generation of Noah (22:16), when virtually the whole human race was destroyed by God because of its profound wickedness (Gn 6). They, too, presumed that God’s judgment would not touch them (22:17; cf. Mt 24:37–39), but they suffered divine punishment, as Eliphaz implies will also come upon Job.

22:21–30. In 22:21, Eliphaz begins to preach a great sermon, but he addresses it to the wrong audience. Without realizing it, Eliphaz comes to the same point as what the adversary alleged in 1:9, that Job’s apparent piety is a ploy to maintain the prosperity given to him by God. Eliphaz presses Job to submit to God by confessing his sins, so that he can regain his former state of divine blessing (22:23).

Eliphaz hints that love of wealth is the root of Job’s problems (22:24–25; cf. 1 Tm 6:10). He presumes that Job’s gold has become his god, turning his heart away from the Almighty. Eliphaz completes his final speech on a rhetorical roll, as he paints for Job an idyllic picture of his spiritual renewal and restored prosperity. All that Job needs to do is confess and forsake his sin of loving wealth, then all can be well.

Eliphaz counsels Job to “pray to him, and he will hear you” (22:27), which would indeed fit many situations, but it does not address the specific case of Job. Actually, Job has already prayed fervently to God, but God has not answered him. Ironically, at the end of the book Job does pray to God, not to repent of his sin, but to intercede for Eliphaz (42:7–10).

B. Job (23:1–24:25). In Jb 23, Job rejects what Eliphaz has just said when he counseled Job to “come to terms with God and be at peace” (22:21). Instead of speaking directly either to his friends or to God, Job speaks in a soliloquy (cf. chap. 3). Job’s final point in chapter 23 is that the sovereign God is free to act in ways that may not fit into a tidy formula of retribution. In chapter 24, he builds on that point by demonstrating that the retribution system does not explain all of life. Observation clearly shows that people do sin, even in grievous ways, and yet are not brought to judgment.

23:1–7. In 23:1–12, Job expresses confidence before God but also his inability to find God in order to present his case. Job does not follow the counsel of his friends, who urge him to repent of sins that he knows he has not committed. He wants to meet God face to face, so that he can present his arguments for his own innocence (23:4), but he cannot find the judge (23:3). Until God speaks to Job, Job is left to speculate what God would say (23:5).

In 23:6–7 Job is more optimistic than he was previously (see chap. 9), when he thought that God would pronounce him guilty even though he is blameless. He now is confident that God will pay attention to him and treat him justly. Because Job anticipates that he will be able to establish his innocence before an impartial judge, he believes he can come before God with confidence.

23:8–12. Job looks in all directions for God but cannot find him (23:8–9). If Job cannot locate the courtroom and the judge, then how can he get his case resolved? He will have to wait until God chooses to reveal himself, and Job cannot compel God to do that.

God is sovereign in directing Job according to the path that he has ordained for his servant (23:10). Job here reflects his trust that God knows what he is doing. Since Job is convinced that God is not punishing him for his sins, he is not likely here referring to God’s process of refining impurity out of his life (cf. Ps 66:10). Rather, this intense adversity will demonstrate that Job’s character has been gold all along.

The OT Wisdom literature often speaks of walking in the way of the Lord. Job does not turn to the right or the left (cf. Pr 4:26–27) but keeps on God’s path (23:11). By his commitment to God’s way, Job demonstrates that God’s original evaluation of his life (1:8; 2:3) was accurate. His commitment to God’s words (23:12) evidences that he values God’s wisdom more than even his daily food (cf. Pr 8:10–11).

23:13–17. Job discloses that he also feels terror before Almighty God. Job argues against his friends that God is free to work according to his own plan and is not bound by some external rule like retribution (23:13–14). As Job reflects on God’s transcendent knowledge and power, he confidently feels drawn to God but also feels intimidated by him (23:15–16). Job uses different terminology than is used in the expression “the fear of the LORD,” which is the beginning of wisdom (Jb 28:28; Pr 9:10). He speaks here of the terror evoked in his heart by God’s overwhelming power.

24:1–4. In 24:1–12 Job points to the widespread oppression of the poor and the needy. By the rhetorical question “Why does the Almighty not reserve times for judgment?” (24:1), Job implies that by neglecting to bring regular and swift judgment on evildoers, God seems not to enforce his own righteous standards. It appears that no impending judgment day is scheduled for those who act unjustly. This serves to discourage those who are righteous, who look forward in vain to their divine vindication.

Throughout the ancient Near East it was considered a grievous crime to move a boundary marker, because that was tantamount to stealing a portion of another’s property (24:2). Job has observed people doing this and yet not being judged by God for their sin. Elsewhere in the OT, the Lord is the defender of those who are most vulnerable in society, such as the fatherless and the widows (e.g., Pss 113:5–9; 146:8–9). Set against this backdrop, Job’s argument in this chapter takes on greater significance. The same God who sides with the needy also at times seems to let oppression against the needy go unchallenged and uncondemned (24:3–4).

24:5–12. In contrast to Eliphaz’s accusation of him in 22:5–7, Job clearly empathizes with the plight of those who are oppressed and in need. He has seen how the wicked have reduced the poor to abject destitution rather than using their resources to assist them, as he has done (cf. 29:14–16). As a result, the poor are reduced to foraging in the wasteland for their sustenance as though they were wild animals (24:5–6).

In several ancient Near Eastern cultures, children could serve as collateral for their fathers’ loans and thus could be taken to settle debts (24:9; cf. 2 Kg 4:1). Job here points to a particularly horrific example of oppression, as creditors seize a nursing infant as payment for a debt. He goes on to show how the poor suffer the loss of their family, home, clothes, and dignity (24:10–11). Nevertheless, God does not intervene, even when the suffering of the poor reaches such a terrible level (24:12). This is indeed a troubling state of affairs for Job, because God’s inactivity against injustice seems to conflict with his holy character.

24:13–17. Job describes the unimpeded wickedness of those who flout God’s righteous standards. They maliciously plan to defraud others by murder, adultery, and theft (24:14–15). They are unrestrained by God’s law and have no fear that they will be called to account for their criminal acts. Working under the cover of darkness, they suppose that if no human can see them, then their wrongdoing will remain undetected (24:16–17; cf. Jn 3:19).

24:18–24. Job here either expresses his longing for divine judgment on these evildoers or predicts that God will eventually judge them. In the book of Job, the worm (24:20) is repeatedly used to picture decay (7:5), because it feeds on rotting corpses (21:26). In Ps 22:6 and Jb 25:6, “worm” is a derogatory expression for what is revolting or despised.

Even though Job cannot understand why God does not exact swift judgment on evildoers, he does not become cynical against God. He believes that God will act justly and powerfully to take down sinners (24:22–24). But in the short run there are apparent anomalies in which God works in ways that escape human comprehension as he accomplishes his overall purpose, which is just and good.

24:25. As Job completes his speech, he throws out a challenge to his friends. He dares them to try to disprove his argument that there is observable injustice in the world today but that God will eventually balance the scales of justice. If they cannot meet Job’s challenge, then their silence will tacitly acknowledge that he is right.

C. Bildad (25:1–6). Bildad speaks only briefly before he and the friends tail off into silence. His firm commitment to retribution theology leads him to conclude that before the transcendent God humans are worthless and contemptible. Many scholars have speculated that Bildad also spoke the words attributed to Job in 26:5–14 and that Zophar also had a third speech in 27:13–23, but there is no textual evidence to support these theories. The present arrangement of the speeches in the third cycle suggests that the dialogue between Job and his friends has totally collapsed.

25:1–3. Instead of responding to the evidence of injustice that Job detailed in chapter 24, Bildad restates his previous points more emphatically. To Bildad, God is so powerful that it is inconceivable that anyone could rebel against his rule (25:2). His sovereign control prompts a sense of dreadful awe from his creatures. Thus, there is no conflict in God’s realm, because his power establishes order in the heights of heaven and order on earth as well.

Bildad’s rhetorical questions in 25:3 underline his conviction that God’s power and control are unlimited. Wherever the sun shines, God’s rule is in effect. His innumerable angels are his eyes and ears to detect and expose any wickedness in his world. No one can escape the long reach of God’s justice.

25:4–6. In 25:4 the comforting words of Ps 8:4 are once again distorted (cf. Eliphaz in 4:15–19; 15:14–16). By measuring humans against the perfect righteousness of God, Bildad concludes that humans are helplessly corrupt. “Pure” in 25:5 probably refers not to moral purity but to the brightness of the stars. The two lines in verse 5 are parallel, for both the moon and the stars may be obscured by clouds so that they can be seen only dimly. Similarly, humans (25:4, 6) are morally impure before the righteous God.

With the harsh words of 25:6 Bildad completes his third and final speech. He wants to make the point that no humans, including Job, are in a position to call God’s justice into account. But he overshoots his mark, because to support his position he has to devalue the whole human race. Bildad misconstrues God as viewing humans like Job with utter revulsion, as just maggots and worms.

D. Job (26:1–27:23). When Bildad says that humans are mere maggots and worms before the transcendent God (25:6), Job apparently interrupts him. Although Job agrees with much of Bildad’s lofty view of God, he draws different implications from their shared theology. Bildad has claimed that God’s greatness means that God’s world is thoroughly predictable, but Job declares in chapter 26 that God’s greatness means that humans cannot understand all that God is doing, so some aspects of life must be left in mystery.

Chapter 27 brings the dialogue section of the book to a ragged conclusion. The friends have not budged from their commitment to the retribution principle and its apparent condemnation of Job. Job, on the other hand, tenaciously insists on his integrity and refuses to confess to fabricated sins just to have his blessing restored.

26:1–4. Job sarcastically dismisses Bildad as giving no practical help and as expressing no wise insight (26:2–3), even though Job has repeatedly referred to his own weakness (6:11–13; 9:19; 12:16; 24:22). Job wonders about the source of Bildad’s words (26:4), because they do not have the ring of authenticity.

26:5–10. As Job describes God’s greatness in the natural world, he speaks of the north (26:7), that is, Mount Zaphon, which Canaanites considered the location of the assembly of the gods (cf. Ps 48:2; Is 14:13–15). The God of the Bible towers over all that is in his created world, even Zaphon.

In contrast to his friends, who suppose that they can define exactly how God works in his world, Job comes to realize, through his observation, that God transcends human description and explanation. When God collects water vapor and suspends it in the clouds (26:8), humans must ask in wonder, “How does he do that?”

The creation account in Gn 1 pictures the earth floating on the waters until the Lord “laid out the horizon on the surface of the ocean” (Pr 8:27), thus establishing a boundary between the land and the sea (26:10).

26:11–14. Job’s colorful description of God’s rule over the natural world reflects ancient conceptions of the cosmos. He pictures the world as a house or temple, with the heavens a vast roof supported by pillars (26:11). When God created the world, he rebuked the water of chaos that covered the land (Gn 1:2; Ps 104:5–9), and all creation shook in response.

In 26:12–13 “Rahab” refers to the mythological sea monster that is a picture of the chaos subdued by God (see 9:13; cf. Ps 89:9–10; Is 51:9–10). Rahab is closely connected with Leviathan, which is featured in the Lord’s speeches in Jb 38:8–11 and 41:1–34. In all these passages, God is firmly in control of these symbols of chaos.

What Job can see and comprehend only hints at the full measure of God’s greatness (26:14). He and his friends are not experts after all (cf. 42:2–3). Job is moving away from the “why?” that has dominated his speeches to focus on God himself. Humans are overwhelmed by God’s thunderous power, but Job also senses that there is much more to God’s rule than what humans have perceived, because they can hear only a faint whisper of his ways.

27:1. The introductory statement in 27:1 is unusual in speaking of Job continuing his discourse. This suggests that Job has waited for Zophar to speak, but when the friend remains silent, then Job resumes talking. The Hebrew term used here for Job’s “discourse,” mashal, suggests that what follows is a formal pronouncement before a court. Job thus indicates his intention to hand his case over for God to adjudicate. After an interlude in chapter 28, in 29:1 Job continues his mashal, which is not completed until 31:40, but the verdict will have to wait until 42:7, when at last God will publicly exonerate Job.

27:2–6. By using the name of God (27:2), Job expresses the most solemn and binding oath possible. If Job were swearing falsely, this oath in God’s name (27:4) would call down upon him divine calamity (cf. 1 Sm 28:10). Job reinforces the positive oath with a negative oath in 27:5 (cf. 1 Sm 12:23; 26:11). Job thus appeals to God to declare him in the right against all who have accused him. Job will not mouth inauthentic words of contrition just to get God’s blessing back into his life or abandon his conviction that he is innocent. He is certain that he has not sinned against God (27:6).

27:7–12. Just as Job is convinced of his own innocence, he is also certain that those who have accused him are wrong. He utters a powerful curse against them (27:7). Job wants God to treat them as wicked men deserving divine judgment. Even though Job has pointed out many examples from life in which the retribution principle does not hold (Jb 24), he does not abandon his belief that God rules over the world in justice (27:8–10). For the friends, everything is black or white, but Job realizes that some situations, such as his own, are not so clear-cut and predictable. Instead of totally discarding retribution, Job qualifies it. Job affirms that God does inevitably punish wickedness (cf. Pss 1:4–6; 73:3, 16–20; Pr 24:20), but also that in the short run there might be apparent anomalies.

27:13–23. The final section of the chapter (27:13–23) could well be a quotation of the “empty talk” to which Job refers in verse 12. In citing what his friends say about the fate of the wicked, Job declares what he thinks Zophar would say if he were to speak again. These verses sound a lot like what Zophar said previously (Jb 20), and Zophar’s concluding words in 20:29 are repeated almost exactly by Job in 27:13. Job agrees with the friends on the legitimacy of retribution, and that is why Job is so confused and upset by the adversity he has experienced. Job takes the long view of retribution, that God will eventually reward the righteous and punish the wicked.

Describing how precarious the life of the wicked is, Job says that the houses they build are like moths’ cocoons and like shelters made by watchmen (27:18). In ancient times, during the harvest the laborers would erect temporary shelters as lodging out in the fields. These flimsy shacks provided only minimal protection from the elements (cf. Is 1:8; Jnh 4:5). Job’s words indicate that though the wicked may suppose they have secure protection, it will crumble before God’s judgment. This judgment is pictured as a powerful wind (27:21) that carries the wicked off to destruction, just like the great wind that destroyed Job’s children (1:18–19). The friends rightly understand that the righteous God judges sin, but they have no room in their tidy system for divine mercy. Neither can they account for cases when adversity envelopes a righteous man like Job.

5. INTERLUDE (28:1–28)

Job 28 does not have a specified speaker, so scholars have viewed it in a variety of ways. Some commentators regard Job as the speaker from chapter 26 through chapter 31, including this chapter. However, the tone of Jb 28 is calm, in contrast to Job’s speeches in chapters 27 and 29–31, and its content is quite distinctive as well. It may well be, then, that Jb 28 is an interlude spoken by the narrator. If so, it serves as a transition from the three rounds of dialogue (Jb 3–27) to the three extended monologues by Job (chaps. 29–31), Elihu (chaps. 32–37), and the Lord (chaps. 38–41).

The soliloquy in this interlude pauses and muses on where wisdom can be found, implying that Job and his friends have not yet found wisdom, and it points ahead to the need for God to speak, because wisdom is a mystery only he understands fully. Human searching cannot find wisdom, and human wealth cannot purchase wisdom, because God alone understands the way to wisdom.

28:1–6. The first part of this interlude shows that human searching is not sufficient to unearth wisdom (28:1–12). By describing miners toiling deep beneath the surface of the earth in their search for precious metals and gems, the narrator pictures how humans probe assiduously to the furthest limits in their effort to discover what they greatly value. In this effort they employ creative and risky techniques, even dangling precariously from ropes as they attempt to reach the treasures they crave (28:4). They use fire to crack open the subterranean rock in order to expose its ore and gemstones (28:5–6).

28:7–12. It is hard to imagine seeing better or farther than a falcon, but humans as they search for wealth surpass even the keen-sighted birds of prey. None of the four wild animals cited in 28:7–8 has gone to the lengths that humans have in their attempt to find wisdom. Although humans seek throughout the whole world in their diligent search, they inevitably return disappointed.

Although humans have been successful in finding the source of mineral treasure, that success cannot be transferred to their search for wisdom (28:10–11). In fact, the success that humans have achieved in so many other areas of life only makes their inability to find wisdom all the more vexing. They may understand how to find wealth, but no one seems to know where and how to find wisdom. The question in 28:12 is repeated in verse 20 and answered in verse 23, when the narrator states that God alone understands the way to wisdom.

28:13–22. Wisdom cannot be discerned in the human realm or in the world of nature (28:13–14). Creation points to wisdom, but wisdom itself resides in God the Creator. Several words for gold and other precious substances are used in 28:15–19 to indicate that no amount of human wealth can purchase wisdom (cf. Pr 8:10–11). The wise teacher in Pr 4:5–7 urges the youth to get wisdom at the price of everything he possesses, but even that may not be sufficient to procure it.

As in Jb 26:6; 31:12; Pr 27:20; and Rv 9:11, Abaddon and Death (28:22) represent the forces of the underworld. No person, living or dead, has grasped wisdom, even though there are rumors that it does exist (28:21–22).

28:23–28. Job 28:23 provides the answer to the question posed in verses 12 and 20. Neither Job nor the friends have found wisdom, because humans are limited in their knowledge. Only God knows where wisdom dwells, because his knowledge is unlimited (28:24). The way out of the impasse that Job and the friends have reached will come not from a human source (despite Elihu’s valiant attempt in chaps. 32–37) but only from God himself, when he finally speaks in chapters 38–41.

Job 28:25–27 pictures God’s activity in creating and controlling aspects of the natural world that lie beyond human understanding (cf. Pr 8:22–31). As Pr 3:19–20 declares, God’s wisdom encompasses the whole sphere of his original creation of the world and his ongoing sovereignty over the world, so it is no wonder that finite humans cannot grasp it. In the concluding verse of the interlude (28:28), the narrator indirectly breaks the divine silence by quoting the traditional definition of wisdom as God’s words to the human race. God’s description of Job in 1:8 and 2:3 shows that God regards Job as a truly wise man, because Job fears God and shuns evil.

Job 28:28 quotes the traditional definition of wisdom found in Pr 1:7 and 9:10 (cf. Ec 12:13): “The fear of the LORD—that is wisdom.” Wisdom resides in God and is found in relationship with him as a person reveres and obeys God.

6. JOB (29:1–31:40)

The silence of Job’s friends following chapter 25 indicates that they have given up on their attempt to answer Job by their own wisdom. After the narrator’s interlude in chapter 28, Job resumes his testimony, which began in chapter 27, and defends his innocence before God. He recalls his former happiness, during which his life was amply blessed, just as the retribution principle teaches. In general terms, chapters 29 and 30 are an exposition of Job’s words in 1:21. As he looks to the past, he sees that the Lord has given him so much blessing and honor (chap. 29). In the present, however, the Lord has taken all of that away (chap. 30). Chapter 31 brings to a climactic conclusion the long dialogue between Job and his three friends. Despite all his adversity and all the accusations by the friends, Job is still convinced that he is innocent. Unwilling to follow their counsel and utter a contrived and insincere confession of sin just to get his suffering to cease, he holds firmly to his integrity.

29:1–6. In 29:2–6 Job describes his experience of God’s blessing. The terms “months” and “days” (29:2) may indicate the general length of Job’s ordeal. He counts the time not in hours or in years, but in days and months. His adversity, then, has been relatively brief, but very intense. As Job reflects on his past, he paints a beautiful picture of God’s kindly care over him (cf. Pss 91:11; 121:7–8). Job is aware and appreciative of God’s blessing, but he does not manifest a sense of entitlement, as though it is his right. Job’s past life was so blessed that only the language of exaggeration is adequate to describe it. Just as the land of Canaan is depicted as a land flowing with milk and honey (e.g., Ex 3:8), so now Job says that the festive delights of curds and olive oil flowed over his life (29:6).

29:7–17. Next Job describes his esteem in his community. In 29:7, Job speaks about taking his seat in the gate of the city. As the center of community life, the gate combined the activities of the commercial marketplace (2 Kg 7:17–18), the legal court (Dt 21:19; Ru 4:1), and the intellectual interchange of ideas (cf. Ps 127:5). To have a seat in the gate was to enjoy a privilege reserved for the most prominent citizens (Gn 19:1; Pr 31:23), so it reflects Job’s lofty status (29:8–10; cf. Jb 1:3).

In contrast to Eliphaz’s false accusations about Job’s mistreatment of vulnerable people (22:6–9), Job claims that his esteem was well deserved, because his behavior toward the needy was above reproach (29:11–16). He used his exalted position in the community to bring justice to the powerless, who are often oppressed by the powerful. He lived up to the divine standard for rulers (Ps 72:1–2, 12–14) and imitated the example of the Lord’s righteousness (Ps 85:10–14). Job took on the risk of confronting and countering predatory evildoers as he struck at the source of oppression, snatching victims out of the grasp of those who mistreated them (29:17).

29:18–20. Job describes his expectation that blessing on his life would continue. During his prosperity, Job was not being presumptuous or arrogant, but because he had lived according to God’s way, he expected that his God-honoring life should result in divine blessing. He assumed that the retribution formula ensured blessing for him. He had every expectation of a long (29:18) and secure (29:19) life. The bow (29:20) is used in the Bible as a picture of physical vigor and virility (e.g., Gn 49:24). In his former state of blessing, Job anticipated that he would maintain the strength of his youth. He could not foresee anything that could make his glory fade but expected to remain active and influential throughout his life.

29:21–25. The chapter closes with Job depicting his positive effect on others around him. Despite what the friends have said, Job is not just interested in preserving his own affluence. Rather, Job sees himself as a channel of God’s blessings to others (29:21–24). By his generosity, Job has brought joy and help to those in need. Job concludes his recollection of his past condition by describing how he lived in his community as though he were a loved and respected king (29:25). He was influential in directing his community in good ways. His virtuous life benefited all who came into contact with him. He comforted those who mourned, in contrast to the treatment he has received from his friends during his own adversity.

30:1–11. In 30:1–15 Job laments the rejection he feels from his community. The expressions “but now” (30:1) and “now” (30:9, 16) signal the tragic reversal in Job’s life. The word translated “mock” in 30:1a is rendered “smiled” in 29:24. This shift marks the profound change that has transformed Job’s past prosperity into present pain. He uses the literary pattern of tragic reversal as he negatively contrasts his present with his past.

As Job decries the people who mock him, he uses strong language that implies they are dogs (30:1b), and then his description of them in 30:2–8 represents them as so desperate that they live almost like animals. In the ancient world dogs were not lovable pets but often vicious scavengers, more like what we associate with coyotes. The men who treat Job with great dishonor forage for whatever food they can find, even eating salt herbs that they gather in the brush (30:4). Like animals (30:7), they eke out a miserable existence on the margins of society.

Now the rabble are mocking and scorning Job (30:9). His compassion (see 30:25) has been rudely rewarded with contempt, as the most disreputable people are treating him with disrespect. The image of an unstrung bow (30:11) indicates that Job’s strength is gone (in contrast to the picture of vitality in 29:20; cf. Ps 18:34). God has left Job defenseless in the face of his opponents, so the wicked swoop in to finish him off. His enemies are unrestrained, because they no longer feel awed by his high standing, which in the past was the indication of divine blessing and approval. If Job’s adversity evidences that God is against him, then what could hold back his enemies?

30:12–15. Job uses the image of a city under military attack to describe how he feels bombarded by those who mock and despise him (30:9–10). By this metaphor, Job expresses the sense of danger, fear, pain, and despair that has overwhelmed him. Those who mock him take pleasure in defeating and humiliating him. They are intent on destroying him so thoroughly that he can never recover (30:13). Instead of feeling compassion for Job, they exploit his calamity for their own advantage. In contrast to the honor he has enjoyed in the past, Job now feels deeply shamed (30:15). All his prior dignity has blown away.

30:16–23. Job complains about his apparent rejection by God. Job feels his life ebbing away (30:16) as he endures constant pain (30:17) that strangles or chafes him (30:18). What is most painful is that in addition to his human oppressors, God also seems to be fighting against him. Job feels that God is employing his great power to humiliate Job by throwing him into the mud (30:19a), leaving him reduced to dust and ashes (30:19b; cf. 42:6), which are signs of mourning. Job’s self-description indicates that he feels so humiliated that he is as good as dead. All that is left is his physical body, and even that is in a miserable state indeed (30:28, 30).

Like the psalmists, Job cries out to God, hoping that God will answer, but instead God seems to turn on him (30:20–21). God’s treatment seems sadistic to Job as it brings him down to what appears to be certain death (30:22–23).

Job feels like an outcast, “a brother to jackals” (Jb 30:29). Jackals often live a solitary life.

30:24–31. As Job looks ahead, he anticipates only despair without any prospect of relief. He insists once again that he has ministered to others in their affliction (30:24–25), but God has not rewarded him or cared for him in his need. The retribution principle maintains that God blesses those who act righteously, but Job has received the opposite of what he expects from God.

Job’s suffering penetrates well beyond his physical pain (30:27). As he looks ahead, he can see nothing but the prospect of continued adversity. This psychological trauma has left him perplexed and confused. Job’s self-description in 30:28 may refer back to verse 19. The ashes he sits in (2:8) have made his skin appear black. In 30:30 a different Hebrew term than in verse 28 is used when Job says that his skin “blackens” and peels. This likely refers to a skin disease (cf. 2:7).

Jackals (30:29) are noted for their solitary nature, but they also emit harsh sounds (cf. Mc 1:8) rather than life-enhancing tones (30:31). Likewise, Job feels alone and isolated from other humans and from God. His adversity has profound physical, psychological, theological, and social repercussions that are deeply painful for him to bear.

31:1–8. In chapter 31, Job pronounces a series of strong oaths by which he swears that both his actions and his attitudes are right before God. He is innocent and demands justice from God. Job begins his oath with a statement that establishes from the outset the extent of ethical innocence he is claiming. He declares that he has made a covenant, or a binding commitment, not to look at a young woman (31:1).

Job is convinced that he has not diverged from God’s path into falsehood and deceit (31:5), so he challenges God to evaluate him accurately, confident that this will demonstrate that he is blameless (31:6). If Job has transgressed God’s way, then he invites God to give his crops to others (cf. Lv 26:16; Mc 6:15) or to destroy his crops altogether (31:7–8).

31:9–15. Job’s denial of adultery is especially shocking in its language. The terms “door,” “grind,” and “sleep” (31:9–10) were common euphemisms for sexual activity. He proposes that if he has been guilty of adultery, then the fitting punishment is for his own wife to be sexually exploited by others. He is not trying to shift the consequences of his sin onto her but is so confident of his innocence that he speaks of what would be the most humiliating punishment for a man in the ancient world to endure (31:11).

In the treatment of his slaves, Job has gone well beyond what is required in the Mosaic law (31:13–15; cf. Ex 21:1–11; Lv 25:39–55; Dt 15:12–18). In the ancient Near East slaves were typically regarded as property, but Job views his slaves as fellow humans made by God. Therefore, he has treated them humanely, as people possessing human rights, just as he does.

31:16–23. Eliphaz earlier accused Job of mistreating the needy (22:7–9), so now Job emphatically denies the charge. He counters that he has taken a special interest in the plight of those who are dependent on the generosity of others. He has treated the fatherless and widows as though they were his own family (31:18). He has not abused his lofty status in the community to take advantage of the poor in legal proceedings (31:21). His care for the needy emerges from his reverence for God (31:23).

31:24–34. In his earlier speech, Eliphaz insinuated that Job was materialistic (22:23–26), but now Job insists that he has not placed his confidence in his wealth (31:24–25; cf. Ps 62:10). He has not compromised his commitment to God by idolatry, which would constitute unfaithfulness to God (31:26–28). It is natural for sinful humans to take pleasure in the defeat of their enemies (cf. Ob 12), but Job says that he has not taken delight when his enemy has suffered disaster (31:29–30). In his words and attitudes, Job obeys God by not sinning even against those who have wronged him (Pr 24:17–18). By his oath, Job invites God to probe his inner motives and attitudes, not just his overt actions (cf. Ps 139:23–24).

In the ancient world, hospitality to strangers was viewed as a solemn obligation (e.g., Gn 18:1–8; 19:1–3), and God commands his people to be faithful in this grace (Lv 19:34; Rm 12:13; Heb 13:2). Job is renowned for his generosity to strangers (31:31–32). It is evident that Job has given from the heart, not grudgingly.

31:35–40. Job is steadfastly confident of his innocence, so he imaginatively signs his name to this final legal argument and calls on God to break his silence and to rule in Job’s favor (31:35). Job is so sure that God will exonerate him that he looks forward to proclaiming the verdict publicly. He envisions wearing the verdict of innocence proudly on his shoulder (cf. Is 22:22) or as a crown (31:36; cf. Zch 6:9–15), so that everyone can read it.

Job’s words in 31:38–40 would seem to fit logically before his signature in verse 35, so it is possible that an early scribal error misplaced these three verses. He claims that his righteous behavior extends even to how he has treated his land. He has been a faithful steward over God’s earth, so his land has not cried out in complaint about how Job exploited it. For the last time, Job invites God to exact measure-for-measure judgment, in this case causing the land to produce thorns and stinkweed instead of wheat and barley, if Job has not acted as he has said.

7. ELIHU (32:1–37:24)

After Job concludes his words in 31:40, the reader expects to hear the Lord speak to resolve the debate between Job and his friends. Instead, a young man named Elihu bursts on the scene and holds the stage for the next six chapters. Elihu summarizes the points made by Job and the friends, often quoting or alluding to their specific words. He agrees with them that God sends suffering as his judgment on sin, but he adds that God can also use suffering to refine human character. Thus, for Elihu suffering is both punitive and formative. He supposes that he has the final word in this discussion, but God will retain that prerogative.

Chapters 33–37 consist of four uninterrupted speeches (chaps. 33; 34; 35; and 36–37). In the structure of the book, Elihu’s speeches extend the dramatic tension as the reader keeps waiting for God to bring resolution to Job’s case. Elihu talks more than anyone else in the book, with the exception of Job. Elihu is a skilled orator, and he finishes with a brilliant rhetorical flourish. But although Elihu thinks that he speaks for God, God will speak for himself in chapters 38–41, and in the epilogue will not refer to what Elihu has said.

32:1–5. This chapter begins with the narrator’s description of Elihu. Elihu perceives Job as regarding himself as more righteous than God by holding on to his claim of innocence. He cannot tolerate Job raising a question about God’s righteousness and feels that he must defend God’s honor and character against Job’s fallacious accusation. Elihu is angry, which in the wisdom tradition is a trait of a fool (Pr 29:22). He is angry with Job for justifying himself more than God (32:2) and with the friends because they have been unable to refute Job and have given up the attempt (32:3, 5). To Elihu, Job’s situation seems clear enough, and he is agitated that things have reached an impasse rather than a resolution. The repeated emphasis on Elihu’s anger and his youth may be intended to alert the reader that Elihu, for all his commendable theology and good intentions, does not provide the final answer to Job’s situation. That will await God’s speeches.

32:6–9. After the narrator’s description of Elihu (32:1–5), Elihu describes himself in an extended prelude to his speeches (32:6–22). Elihu has deferred to the seniority of Job and the friends, but he is deeply disappointed in their answers and so determines now to speak up for the truth. Traditional wisdom values the aged (32:6–7), because their long years have given them the opportunity to accumulate much observation of life (Pr 4:1–9). In wisdom thought, the young are the learners, and they receive instruction from their elders (Pr 1:8).

But Elihu argues that the elders do not have a corner on wisdom. Although he is young, he too has the spirit of understanding within him (32:8). “The spirit in a person” could refer generally to the spirit that all humans have because they have been made in the image of God (cf. Gn 2:7), but more likely Elihu is claiming that the Spirit of God is communicating through him as he speaks (cf. 33:4). Understanding, then, is not the sole possession of the aged (32:9); Elihu has the same capacity for understanding as they (cf. Ec 4:13–16; Ps 119:98–100).

32:10–16. Elihu expresses impatience with the friends and with Job. In 32:10–14 Elihu addresses the three friends. He has waited and listened to them speak, but they have been unsuccessful in refuting Job (32:11–12). They have claimed in vain to have found wisdom; what they have actually done is to defer to God to answer Job (32:13). Elihu resolves to answer Job more persuasively than they have (32:14), and in fact he does come closer to the mark, but God alone will give the full and final answer.

Beginning in 32:15, Elihu turns away from the friends to speak to Job. They have failed, so he sees no need to wait for them to speak further (32:16). He decides to express his opinion that is welling up within him (32:17–20). His turgid language makes Elihu come off sounding pompous rather than as a serious teacher of wisdom.

In Jb 32:19, Elihu compares his intention to speak to wine bottled up in new wineskins and ready to burst. Jesus uses the same image (e.g., Mt 9:17) to explain how his teaching cannot be confined within old ways of thinking that have grown rigid and inflexible. Since wine was typically stored in animal skins (Jr 13:12), which could expand as the wine fermented, even new wineskins had to be vented, or else they would explode under the pressure.

32:17–22. Elihu articulates how intent he is on speaking. In 15:2, Eliphaz asked rhetorically if a wise man should fill himself with windy knowledge. Elihu here seems to be doing just that, as he comically describes himself as a windbag who has to speak in order to get relief from the flatulence within him (32:18–20). Elihu is indeed “full of words” (32:18), but they come from his belly, which was regarded as the seat of the passions rather than of reasoned reflection. This appears to be another signal that Elihu’s aspirations in speaking to Job are better than the answers he gives him.

Elihu claims that he is incapable of partiality, which makes him an unbiased observer or a judge who speaks only the truth (32:21; cf. Job’s desire for an impartial arbiter in 9:33). Moreover, he says that God would take him away if he were to speak insincerely (32:22). After his long and promising prelude, Elihu’s actual speeches are disappointing by comparison.

33:1–7. After his extended prelude Elihu now launches into his speeches to Job. In the first speech (chap. 33), Elihu urges Job to listen to the wisdom that he intends to teach him. He is confident that he understands Job’s situation and can point Job in the right direction. In 33:4 Elihu echoes what he said earlier (32:8) when he implied that he speaks by special revelation from God. He claims to possess a better source of wisdom than either Job or the friends because he has received his insight directly from God, not indirectly through observation of life. In effect, Elihu suggests that he is the voice of wisdom (cf. Pr 8:7–8).

Elihu takes the tone of a prosecutor (33:5). Job has been regarding himself as the plaintiff, but Elihu tries to compel him into the role of the guilty defendant. Elihu seems to be overly impressed with his own intellect, because “if you can” implies that Job in fact cannot answer him. Referring to himself as “pinched off from a piece of clay” (33:6), Elihu indicates his own humanity. Other biblical passages refer to humans as clay that God sculpts (Jb 10:9; Is 45:9; 64:8; Jr 18:6; Rm 9:20–21), suggesting that humans are the recipients of God’s actions as he molds and directs their lives.

33:8–14. Elihu declares that he is quoting the very words of Job (33:8), but what Elihu says in 33:9–11 slants Job’s position in a simplistic way that does not encompass Job’s total way of thinking. Elihu depicts Job as saying that he is innocent (four times in 33:9) and that God has wronged him (four times in 33:10–11). With this skewed summary of Job’s speeches, Elihu expresses the friends’ misconceptions of Job more than Job’s actual position, which is much more complex than this.

Elihu’s criticism of Job in 33:12 rings hollow, because Job agrees with Elihu and the three friends about the greatness of God (cf. 9:19). Job’s real question is not about God’s transcendence but about God’s justice toward him. Elihu conceives of Job’s situation as a question of abstract theology, but Job is trying to comprehend how his experience of adversity can be reconciled with God’s sovereignty and justice.

In 33:14 Elihu counters Job’s complaint, cited in 33:13, that God does not respond to humans when they cry out to him. Elihu insists that God speaks in a variety of ways, even to sinners like Job. He will go on in verses 15–22 to explain how God uses dreams and pain to communicate with people. The problem is not God’s lack of communication but Job’s inability or unwillingness to listen to God. By wrongly insisting on his innocence Job has become deaf to what God has been saying to him all along.

33:15–22. Elihu states that one of the ways that God communicates with humans is through dreams and visions (33:15–17). God uses these disquieting messages to warn sinners and to turn them away from their wrongdoing and pride. The implication is that Job needs to heed the warnings he is receiving from God rather than dismissing them as inapplicable.

Elihu speaks in general terms of “a person” (33:19) experiencing pain, but his description of the person in pain closely resembles the descriptions of Job’s ailments (3:24; 16:8; 19:20; and 30:17). By chastening people with pain, God gives them an opportunity to repent rather than to proceed into death. Elihu suggests that Job should not reject his pain as an unwelcome intruder but should value it as God’s agent of conviction that can lead to his restoration.

33:23–33. Earlier in the book, Job expressed his desire for a mediator to represent his case before God (16:19; 19:25). Elihu now raises the possibility of an angel who can restore a person to uprightness and intercede for that person before God (33:23–26). This requires, however, that the person confess any sins (33:27–28). Like the friends, Elihu thinks that Job’s adversity has been caused by his personal sin. Thus, Elihu repeats their counsel, even though Job has steadfastly maintained that he is innocent of any wrongdoing and has no sin to confess.

Elihu concludes his first speech by summarizing what he has said in verses 13–28: God’s purpose in communicating to humans through dreams and pain is to deliver sinners from the precipice of divine judgment that looms before them (33:29–30). In Elihu’s view, God is just, but he is also gracious in extending forgiveness to those who repent. Elihu pleads with Job to be attentive to him rather than brushing him off (33:31). He is convinced that he has the wisdom that Job needs (33:33) and that what he has said will vindicate Job (33:32).

34:1–4. In his second speech (chap. 34) Elihu takes a more rigid tone. Adopting the retribution theology of the three friends, Elihu argues deductively from the justice of God to the conclusion that Job is a sinner. By objecting to how God has treated him, Job is proving that he is not pious. Elihu functions here as another prosecutor against Job as he defends God’s just governance of the world.

Elihu begins (34:1–9) and ends (34:31–37) this speech with appeals to wise men, whom he believes he represents. As Elihu speaks to Job, he also addresses a wider audience. His reference to “wise ones” (34:2) (cf. “men of understanding” in 34:10, and “reasonable men” in 34:34) is probably broader than just the three friends, because Elihu has rejected their claim to wisdom (32:11–14). He wants to present a united front of wisdom against Job and is confident that he has the answer that truly wise men understand.

34:5–9. Elihu’s quotation in 34:5–6 generally summarizes what Job has said before (esp. 9:15; 27:2–6). But he selectively cites Job’s words and then interprets them in a way that does not fairly represent Job’s meaning (34:7–8). He reduces all the evidence to two simplistic assertions that he puts into Job’s mouth: Job claims that he is innocent and that God is unjust. But these assertions do not truly represent all that Job has said.

In 21:14–15 Job came close to saying the words of 34:9, but there Job was describing what the wicked cry out. Elihu insists that Job is indeed one of the wicked (34:8) and that Job’s earlier sentiments in 9:29–31 are proof of his guilt. Elihu, however, fails to consider how these words were prompted by Job’s pain and anguish and takes Job’s words as an outright dismissal of God as morally arbitrary.

34:10–15. The central portion of Elihu’s speech (34:10–30) is an extended argument that God always acts justly. Elihu’s premise is that the sovereign God (34:13) is incapable of doing evil, so that whatever he does is just (34:10). This leads logically to the doctrine of exact retribution (34:11), by which God repays all people for what they have done. Any departure from divine justice is unthinkable to Elihu (34:12). He has no place in his tidy theological system for the possibility of a righteous man experiencing adversity, so he regards Job’s claim of innocence as a theological impossibility.

Elihu goes on in 34:14–15 to argue that God can do whatever he pleases, even extinguishing the whole human race. If God withdrew the spirit and breath he gave at creation (Gn 2:7), then all humanity would perish together and return to the dust from which they have been made (Jb 21:26; Ps 104:29). With these statements, Elihu comes very close to affirming the deistic dogma that whatever is, is right.

34:16–30. Elihu describes God as all-powerful, ruling even over the kings of the earth (34:16–20). He connects God’s power with his justice, reflecting the widespread ancient notion that the king is the source, interpreter, and executor of the law. Within this framework of thought, one who exercises rule is by definition just, so God as the absolute ruler must be absolutely just in all that he does. In 34:21–23 Elihu states that God sees every step that humans take. Consequently, nothing is hidden from the all-knowing God, a truth that Job also affirms (31:4). Unlike a human judge, God never has to acquire more information than he already possesses before he can make a just decision. Elihu concludes that Job cannot tell God anything that he does not know completely.

Elihu is confident that he knows where Job must fit in God’s just world: Job has turned from following God (34:27–28), so God has overthrown him (34:25–26), as God does regularly to evildoers. Thus Elihu lumps Job’s adversity into the general category of divine punishment of the wicked. Elihu grants that God may not always exact judgment immediately. This divine silence, however, should not be misconstrued as lack of sovereign control (34:29–30). Elihu’s implication is that Job’s previous prosperity, not his present adversity, is the anomaly.

34:31–37. To Elihu, the next step is simple: Job needs to repent of his sin (34:33). In this, Elihu echoes what Eliphaz said earlier (22:21–30). Elihu perceives that the ball is in Job’s court, not in God’s court, as Job insisted at the end of his final confession of innocence in chapter 31. God, moreover, will not change his rules of justice, no matter how much Job complains to him.

Elihu claims to speak for all who truly understand (34:34–35). He is supremely confident of his analysis of Job’s situation, and just as certain that Job speaks without knowledge and insight. In 34:36, Elihu expresses his desire that God would exact his full judgment on wicked Job. Elihu’s rigid logic has led him to conclude that Job is not at all a victim, as he has claimed. Rather, Job is an obstinate fool, a scorner whose words against God are prompted by a spirit of rebellion (34:37).

35:1–4. In his third speech (chap. 35) Elihu attempts to summarize Job’s claims and then counters them. He exaggerates Job’s anguished words (e.g., 7:17–21) into a view of God as unaffected by human actions and declares that Job has no grounds for his case against God. Elihu construes Job as saying that he is more righteous than God but that his righteousness brings him no profit (35:2–3). It is true that Job said that he is innocent (10:7; 27:5), but Elihu here puts words into Job’s mouth. Job actually said that it is the wicked who complain that serving God brings them no gain (21:15), although in 9:21–23 he did perceive God as treating the innocent and the wicked identically.

On the surface, Elihu appears polite, but once again he assumes the role of the master teacher explaining what he alone understands (35:4). He is condescending and supremely confident that he has the answer that has eluded the others (cf. 32:11–22; 33:2). Although Elihu regards himself as wiser than Job and the friends, he does not offer any additional insight.

35:5–8. Directing attention to the heavens (35:5), Elihu portrays God as so absolutely transcendent that there is a vast and impassable chasm between God and humans. This leads Elihu to agree with Eliphaz’s words (22:2–3) that God is so high that his governing of the world is unaffected by human sin or human righteousness (35:6–7). Elihu declares that human actions are significant only within the human sphere (35:8). Only humans suffer from oppression by other people, and only humans benefit from the goodness of others. From God’s lofty perspective, what humans do is negligible.

35:9–16. Elihu is skeptical about human appeals to God because they smack of self-interest. He argues that those who cry to God for relief (35:9) should submit themselves to God’s teaching (35:10–11), so that they can learn his wisdom. In Elihu’s thinking, all humans are sinful, so God does not listen to their cries (35:12–13). If this were the whole story, however, it would destroy any possibility of relationship between God and humans and would reduce God to thorough predictability.

In 35:14 Elihu twists words that Job has uttered previously. Job said that he cannot see God (9:11). He brought his case before God (23:4; 31:35) and expressed his hope in God (13:15; 14:14). And he complained that God is not acting justly toward him (9:24; 12:6; 21:17). Elihu takes Job’s words as an arrogant rejection of God. Taking the same harsh tone as the three friends before him, Elihu concludes that Job’s words have no substance or value, so he dismisses them (35:16). In Wisdom literature, the wise person is restrained in speech, but the fool speaks many words (Pr 10:19; Ec 10:14). In effect, Elihu insists that Job is not at all wise but that his empty prattle shows that he is indeed a fool.

36:1–4. Elihu’s fourth and final speech is his longest (chaps. 36–37). In a more compassionate and constructive tone, he now considers the consequences of suffering rather than merely its cause. He reasons that suffering is God’s discipline by which humans can be built up. The wise person will accept suffering and become better because of it, but the fool resists suffering and is destroyed by responding to it with hostility. Elihu likely senses that Job and the friends are getting impatient for him to finish (36:2). In 35:16 he accused Job of multiplying words, but he outdoes Job.

In 35:2, Elihu misconstrued Job as calling God’s righteousness into account. He now insists that he will champion the justice of God (36:3). He claims that what he says is right, because he has received his knowledge from afar, from the God who is right. In 36:4 Elihu once again touts his own credentials. In the prologue, Job was three times described as tam, perfect or blameless in his behavior (“of complete/perfect integrity,” 1:1, 8; 2:3). Now Elihu uses a closely related term to describe the “complete knowledge” he claims to have. In 37:16 he will affirm that God is perfect in knowledge. Thus, Elihu as much as says that because he has received his knowledge from God, he is the voice of God’s knowledge.

36:5–15. Elihu again reasserts the legitimacy of the retribution formula: God destroys the wicked (36:6) and exalts the righteous (36:7). In 21:7–16, Job called into question the validity of the formula with evidence that the wicked often prosper in life. Elihu, however, totally ignores those facts that disagree with his conclusion.

Elihu now develops a new point that significantly qualifies the retribution formula. He says that God uses adversity to reveal to humans their sin (36:8–9). This is really God’s severe mercy to them because through the pain of adversity God challenges them to repent of their evil (36:10). If they respond to God’s correction with repentance, they will enjoy his prosperity (36:11). If they refuse to listen to God, they will perish (36:12). In Elihu’s thinking, adversity is prompted by personal sin, but it may also have the positive effect of correction (cf. Pr 3:11–12; Heb 12:5–7), as well as the negative effect of punishment. How the sinner responds to God’s adversity makes all the difference.

Elihu states that godless people who reject God’s correction (36:13) will die young among the male prostitutes of the shrines (36:14). In Canaanite and in Mesopotamian fertility religions, both men and women were employed in cultic prostitution, as worshipers engaged in sexual acts to elicit the gods’ blessing on their crops. The reference here to dying young could point to venereal disease (cf. Pr 7:23). With this image Elihu paints the horrific and shameful end that Job will experience if he does not respond positively to God’s correction of his sin.

36:16–25. Here Elihu turns from expounding general principles (36:2–15) to speaking to Job about his specific situation. He portrays God as seeking to allure Job, by adversity, back into a place of blessing (36:16; cf. Hs 2:14). Job, however, has become preoccupied with his legal dispute against God (36:17). Job needs to respond positively to God’s overtures; otherwise he will have to endure the judgment that is due to the wicked.

Elihu depicts God as transcendent in both his power and his pedagogy (36:22–23), echoing what Job said in 21:22. Elihu urges Job to stop complaining against God and instead to praise God (36:24). Praise would silence Job’s objections and enable him to accept God’s correction. By this counsel, Elihu echoes the lament psalms, in which the psalmists turn to God in their times of affliction and thereby find their pain transformed into praise (e.g., Ps 30:8–12).

36:26–33. In 36:26–37:5, Elihu graphically describes God’s power in a thunderstorm (esp. 36:32–33). This storm, as also in Ps 29, is a visible indication of the greatness of God, which exceeds human understanding (36:26, 29). With this illustration, Elihu begins a transition to God’s speech out of the storm, which commences in 38:1.

Elihu draws a parallel between how God directs the natural world and how he governs the world of humans (36:31). In both, God is transcendent and in control, but he is also immanent. Just as God is actively involved in forming the thunderstorm, so he is involved in the affairs of humans. This claim actually undermines what Elihu said in 35:6–7.

37:1–5. In chapter 37 Elihu continues to employ the storm imagery to picture God’s awesome power and majesty. As Elihu observes God’s mighty display of power in the storm, he has a strong emotional response (37:1). This rush of adrenaline is similar to what Habakkuk (Hab 3:6) and the psalmist in Ps 29 feel as they view the awesome power of God evidenced in the natural world. In 37:8, the storm has a comparable effect on the animals, which scurry to take cover in their dens.

In 36:4 Elihu presumed that he was perfect in knowledge, but in 37:5 he has to acknowledge that God’s deeds exceed what humans can understand. He expresses the theological truth that God’s ways are inscrutable, but he does not seem to grasp the possible implications of that for Job’s situation.

37:6–13. By his inscrutable actions (37:6–12), God accomplishes a variety of purposes (37:13). Sometimes God acts in order to correct evil, as he did when delivering the people of Israel from bondage in Egypt. Sometimes God acts for the benefit of his creation apart from any human consideration (cf. 38:26). Sometimes God acts out of his loyal love for his people. In contrast to the simplistic retribution formula that the friends have expounded, there is no single purpose that governs all that God does in the world.

37:14–20. Once again, Elihu appeals to Job to consider God’s wonders in the natural world (37:14). Using the familiar teaching strategy of traditional wisdom (e.g., Pr 6:6), Elihu calls on Job to observe and be wise. Elihu follows this entreaty with a string of rhetorical questions in 37:15–20 that suggest how little Job really understands of God’s ways and how much he needs to learn. Elihu’s implication is clear: if Job cannot understand God’s dealings in the world of nature, then how can he reasonably expect to comprehend how God works with humans like him?

In 37:16 Elihu describes God as having total knowledge, and this corresponds to what the psalmist says in Ps 139:1–6. Elihu, however, has also claimed that he himself is perfect in knowledge (36:4), and that is where he has missed the mark. He has criticized Job for speaking beyond what he knows but is guilty of doing that very thing as well.

37:21–24. Elihu describes the breaking of a storm as the sunlight streams through the clouds (37:21–22). This vivid picture from nature is a fitting illustration of the awesome majesty of God Almighty. Just as the sun’s light is too intense to look at, no human can comprehend the majesty of God. Neither can they by their efforts manipulate what God does (37:23). They can, however, be certain that God is always just and righteous in his dealings. God, then, does not expect humans to comprehend all that he does, but he does want them to trust him to do what is just and right. With these words, Elihu anticipates—more than he realizes—the conclusion of the book, when Job will acknowledge that he cannot understand God’s ways, and yet he will submit to him (42:2–6). [Justice]

Elihu’s final words in 37:24 are ambiguous. The general point is that wise humans will revere God even when they cannot comprehend all that he does. This links back to the statement in 28:28, which affirmed the basic tenet of traditional wisdom, that the fear of the Lord is wisdom (cf. Pr 9:10; Ec 12:13).

8. THE LORD (38:1–42:6)

Throughout the speeches in chapters 3–37, the various human speakers claim to know what God thinks about Job’s situation, but in chapter 38 God finally breaks his silence and speaks for himself. He addresses Job in 38:1–40:2, focusing on his design for the world (38:2), and then Job replies briefly in 40:3–5. God resumes speaking in 40:6–41:34, stressing his justice in the world (40:8), and then Job utters his final response in 42:1–6. These divine speeches are the rhetorical climax of the book as God speaks in vivid and brilliant poetry.

As the master teacher, God poses more than seventy unanswerable questions to Job. These questions are meant not to humiliate or intimidate Job but rather to disclose to him the many inexplicable wonders of God’s workings in the world (cf. Is 40:12–31). As Job comes to realize how much he does not comprehend about God’s world, he is willing to accept a humble position before God, who does know all things. God does not answer the questions that Job has been asking but instead points Job in an altogether different direction.

In Jb 38:1 God speaks out of a storm, as he does elsewhere in the OT. At times, a storm pictures divine wrath (Zch 9:14), but it can also suggest the arrival of the Lord as he speaks to his people (Ex 19:16–20:21).

A. The Lord (38:1–40:2). 38:1–3. In 31:35, Job challenged God to answer him, but then Elihu began speaking instead. Bypassing Elihu, who has been speaking for the previous six chapters, God now addresses Job directly (38:1). This very act of communication is in itself evidence that Job’s relationship with God is still intact. The Lord’s opening words, “Who is this . . . ?” (38:2), introduce the central theme of his speeches. God wants Job to understand who God is and who Job is. Job has been speaking beyond what he truly knows, because he, as a finite human, is in no position to speak accurately about God’s plans for the world or for him personally.

In chapter 31 Job thought that his legal strategy of negative confession would put God on the defensive and compel him to rule at least indirectly on Job’s innocence, but God will not be manipulated so easily. He takes the initiative by posing the questions and requiring Job to answer him (38:3). By this rigorous interrogation, God will demonstrate how inadequate Job’s understanding is.

38:4–11. God describes the moment of the creation of the earth, when the stars sang together and the angels shouted for joy (38:7). As Pr 8:22–31 states, wisdom was present at creation, but no human was there to observe it. Not even the first human was there to see how God constructed the earth, and certainly Job was not there. God presses Job in 38:5, compelling Job to admit what he does not know, but what God does know perfectly, and it implies that God is going to lead Job into new frontiers of understanding.

God uses the image of childbirth to picture the taming of the sea (38:8). In ancient Near Eastern thought, the sea was often the personification of chaos, but in the Bible the sea is securely under divine control (Gn 1:2; Rv 21:1). The Lord places firm limits on the sea (38:10–11; cf. Ps 104:5–9), with the sandy shore as its boundary (Jr 5:22). He paints a lovely word picture of using the clouds and darkness as the cloths with which he swaddles the sea (38:9).

38:12–21. In the creation narrative God says, “Let there be light,” and light comes into existence (Gn 1:3). With his light, God thwarts the malicious people who work their evil under the cover of darkness (cf. Jb 24:13–17). God’s question in 38:12–13 demands a negative answer from Job, even though Job has vainly attempted to curse the day in 3:3–10. As a human, Job cannot take on God’s prerogative to give orders to the morning.

In 3:16–19 and 14:13–15, Job expresses a longing for Sheol, but God’s questions in 38:16–18 indicate that Job does not truly understand death and the subterranean region, so his desire for the grave is born out of ignorance rather than knowledge.

38:22–30. God asks Job about meteorological phenomena that he can observe. Job can see the effects of God’s work, but he cannot understand how God accomplishes what he does in the weather. He has to admit that his knowledge of snow, hail, lightning, wind, rain, and ice is profoundly deficient. Even what Job experiences he cannot comprehend or explain.

In directing Job’s attention to the desert, God indicates that he sends rain to places where there are no humans to profit from it (38:26–27). Humans may perceive this as unnecessary or even a waste of resources, but God’s purposes for the earth go far beyond specifically human concerns. His ways are higher than the ways of humans, and his thoughts surpass human insight (cf. Is 55:8–9). From God’s perspective, the earth belongs to him, and though he causes it to function for human beings, it exists for his own divine purpose (Ps 24:1).

38:31–38. In 38:31–33, God asks about Job’s ability to control the celestial phenomena, which were often used for omens in the ancient Near East. Is Job able to direct the movements of the constellations and thus determine the course of history? Can he trace the laws that govern the movements of the heavenly bodies? The implied negative answers to these questions affirm that the stars are under God’s control (cf. Is 40:26) and far beyond Job’s grasp.

38:39–41. God now turns from asking about the nonliving physical world (38:4–38) to direct Job’s attention to the animal world (38:39–39:30), thus shifting the focus closer to Job himself. There are countless aspects of the zoological domain in which Job has to admit his lack of knowledge and control. Lions (38:39–40) and ravens, which feed on carrion (38:41), receive their food apart from human enablement (cf. Ps 147:9).

39:1–4. Chapter 39 continues the focus on the animal world. All the animals that God cites live beyond the control of humans. Most are totally wild, and even the warhorse (39:19–25) is tamed only partially. There is much going on in God’s world that escapes the notice of humans, so these aspects of his purpose do not hinge on human interests.

The “mountain goat” (39:1) is the ibex that today can be seen in the En-gedi area of Israel. It is an elusive animal that can be observed only from a distance, and it resists domestication. Until recent times little was known of its patterns of life. Job cannot detect even the gestation period for its offspring (39:2), in contrast to the knowledge he must have for his domesticated animals (1:3). Nevertheless, even though it is not bred by humans, the ibex is able to manage very well by the instinct that God has given it.

God challenges Job’s knowledge of the pregnancy and birth of “mountain goats” (Jb 39:1). The ibex is an elusive goat that lives in the mountains of the Middle East. Here an ibex is pictured with her young.

39:5–8. It is evident from God’s questions about the wild donkey that he has set this animal free from human control (39:5). It is skillful in surviving in the wasteland, even thriving where humans rarely venture (39:6). It avoids the commotion and confinement of town life, happy to keep away from humans (39:7). This independence comes at a cost, because the wild donkey must forage for food in the barren wilderness (39:8).

39:9–12. The wild ox, or aurochs, is now extinct, but in the OT it is a familiar image for strength (e.g., Dt 33:17; Ps 92:10). Its power and remoteness caused it to be the prize game for royal hunts in ancient Egypt. It might have been seen as a great potential resource for plowing and transportation, but it would not surrender its freedom for a life of domesticated labor (39:9–10). From the human perspective, this was a rich energy source going for naught, but that is how the aurochs functioned within God’s world (39:11–12). Once again, Job has to realize that life as God has designed it does not revolve around human concerns.

39:13–18. God’s description of the ostrich reveals a bird that seems so bent on inefficiency that it makes us laugh. The mother ostrich lays her eggs in the sand, which can place her young at risk (39:14–15; cf. Lm 4:3). She is easily distracted, so she appears to neglect her young (39:16), although this could also be construed as a strategy to draw predators away from them. The ostrich has not been given wisdom or good sense by God (39:17), for reasons that only he knows. It does, however, have great speed, which enables it to run away from a horse (39:18). The apparent inefficiency of the ostrich is a contrast to the tidy system of retribution theology, in which everything in life is explained in simple, logical terms.

39:19–25. God paints a magnificent word picture of an awesome warhorse. This is the one animal in this section that is not wild, but even it is terrifying to behold (39:20). In the heat of conflict, the warhorse is not completely mastered by its rider, because it can become reckless in its eagerness for battle (39:24–25; cf. Jr 8:6). Humans can harness only in part the power that God has given to this animal.

39:26–30. These verses features the hawk and the eagle, which soar far above the domain of humans. No human, like Job, has taught them to fly, but rather their superb ability comes from God (39:26). They live in inaccessible places that humans cannot approach (39:28), and no human can tell them when to fly or where to nest (39:27). They demonstrate that there is much in God’s design for the world that humans do not know or control.

40:1–2. After posing to Job numerous questions about his knowledge of the inanimate world and the animal domain (Jb 38–39), God asks if Job is qualified to instruct him (40:1–2). Job responds with a tentative and evasive answer (40:3–5). The question in 40:2 echoes God’s previous words to Job in 38:2. God refuses to be put on the defensive by replying to Job’s charges and complaints. Rather, he places the burden of proof on Job and asks if Job is qualified to instruct him. If Job cannot answer God’s questions, then he has no standing to reprove God.

B. Job (40:3–5). Interpreters have taken Job’s reply to God in 40:4–5 in two contrasting ways. Some view this as Job’s humble acknowledgment that he has been wrong. This rendering would imply that God agrees with the friends that Job has sinned. But in 42:7–9 God affirms Job as right against the friends, who are wrong. Other interpreters rightly contend that Job says that he is “insignificant” rather than that he has sinned, as the friends have insisted. This view sees Job as beginning to turn away from arguing against God and starting to accept what God has done in his life.

C. The Lord (40:6–41:34). Because Job’s answer is only tentative, God follows up with a second round of questions and observations in 40:6–41:34, which prompts Job’s final response in 42:1–6. Beginning in 40:6, God focuses on two creatures, Behemoth (chap. 40) and Leviathan (chap. 41). In God’s first set of questions, Job learned that he cannot comprehend God’s order in the world. As he considers Behemoth and Leviathan, Job comes to realize that God totally controls all threats to his order.

40:6–8. In 40:6–14, God challenges Job to listen again to him (cf. 38:3). This renewed interrogation will require every effort that Job can muster, as God has enrolled him in a graduate course in the divine school of wisdom. God exhorts Job to prepare himself for a formidable intellectual and theological challenge (40:7).

Job earlier said (27:2; cf. 9:24) that God had denied him justice, apparently arguing from the assumption of retribution theology that his innocence did not deserve the adversity he had received. God now calls into question the legitimacy of Job’s contention (40:8). If Job is innocent, is it necessarily the case that God has been unjust? Is there another alternative? God poses the central issue: does he have to be unjust in order for Job to be justified?

40:9–14. In Ex 15:16 and Ps 44:3, the arm of God (40:9) is an image for his power. God’s question here implies that Job can no more exercise moral judgment than control the natural world. Chapters 38 and 39 have already shown that Job is unable to understand or control the natural world. Now God challenges Job with commands that no human can fulfill. The logical conclusion is that Job is unqualified to fault God. Job is not God and cannot do what the sovereign Lord does. Assuming that Job cannot accomplish what the divine commands in 40:10–13 require, God concludes that he will not defer to Job (40:14). God alone is in control and has no intention of ceding his authority to Job or any other human.

40:15–24. God then directs Job’s attention to Behemoth as an especially amazing example of the divine creative work (40:15). “Behemoth” is the plural form for the generic Hebrew word for an animal. The plural likely has an intensive force, making it mean “great beast.” The description here of Behemoth parallels in many respects how literal animals are portrayed in Jb 38–39. Behemoth has powerful physical features (40:16–18), exercises dominion over other animals (40:19–22), and is fearless before raging rivers (40:23) and humans (40:24). It has often been taken to picture the hippopotamus, but other suggestions include the water buffalo, the elephant, or a mythological sea monster. Even though Behemoth cannot be controlled by humans, God made it and securely controls it, so it is no threat to the divine order in the world (40:19).

41:1–5. After God’s barrage of unanswerable questions, the final object lesson, his description of the sea creature Leviathan (chap. 41), wilts the remaining vestiges of Job’s resistance, so that he responds humbly in 42:1–6. Once again, God asks rhetorical questions that expect a negative answer from Job. Leviathan is not a trout or bass that can be caught with a hook and line (41:1–2). This fierce sea creature, featured in ancient Near Eastern mythological literature, is far too strong for any human to defeat.

God uses humor to reinforce in Job’s mind how ridiculous and futile it would be for any human to suppose that he could tame Leviathan. This powerful creature would not entreat Job to be gentle with it (41:3) or submit to being made a slave (41:4; cf. Ex 21:6). Would Job be so silly as to think that he could train it as a pet for a girl to lead on a leash (41:5)? No, Leviathan is much too powerful for a human like Job to control.

41:6–11. In 41:10 God argues from the lesser to the greater. No human can tame Leviathan (cf. 3:8), so how could anyone ever expect to compel God to act in a particular way? In chapter 31 Job laid out his legal defense and then he challenged God to answer him. God now states that no one is able to present a case against him in court (cf. 33:5), not even Job. As formidable as Leviathan is, it comes under God’s rule, because everything under heaven belongs to God (41:11; cf. Pss 24:1; 50:10). Job is unable to tame Leviathan (41:1–9), but God controls it completely. Clearly, then, Job is not God’s equal, so he will have to submit before the Lord of the whole world, just as Leviathan must.

41:12–21. God continues his description of Leviathan. In some respects, Leviathan appears like the crocodile, but other details suggest a more fantastic animal, like the fire-breathing dragons of myths. In 41:15–17, the scales of Leviathan are described as impenetrable, like a row of shields sealed together. No one can plunge a sword between the scales to kill it. Later, in verses 23–29, Leviathan is depicted as having no vulnerability that can be exploited as humans try to defeat it. Clearly, it takes supernatural power and skill to defeat this creature. Only God is up to this challenge.

The description of Leviathan as breathing fire is not suitable for any literal animal (41:18–21). For this reason, it seems better to view Leviathan as a literary allusion to a fantastic creature like a dragon. Such a creature would be completely beyond Job’s range of experience or control.

41:22–34. Just as the wild donkey laughs scornfully at the town (39:7) and the ostrich laughs at the horse and rider that seek to catch it (39:18), so Leviathan laughs at the warrior who tries to attack it (41:26–29). All human efforts to tame or defeat this animal are ineffectual and ludicrous. Leviathan is fearless because it has no predator or equal on earth (41:33). It is evident, then, that Job must be inferior to this powerful animal. Nevertheless, Leviathan is under the authority of God, its creator (41:11). If God is Lord over Leviathan, then he certainly is Lord over Job’s life as well.

D. Job (42:1–6). After God spoke to Job in chapters 38 and 39, Job replied tentatively in 40:3–5. God’s second round of questions, in 40:6–41:34, with his detailed descriptions of Behemoth and Leviathan, now evokes a more definitive response from Job in 42:1–6. In this second reply Job acknowledges that he has come to a more accurate understanding of who God is and of who he himself is as a finite mortal living under God’s authority.

42:1–4. In 42:2–3, Job five times uses terms that refer to knowledge, plans, and understanding, showing that he has come to an enlarged recognition of the wisdom and power of God as he has contemplated the questions God posed. He realizes that his adversity must fall within God’s purpose, which cannot be thwarted by any force (cf. Dn 4:35). In the sovereignty of God, he directs history to his own ends, which may well be inscrutable to humans (Pr 16:9; 20:24; 21:1).

In 42:3, Job restates God’s question to him in 38:2, but now he answers by admitting that in the past he spoke beyond what he truly understood. He does not confess that he has sinned, as the friends have insisted (cf. 11:13–15). Instead, he acknowledges that he spoke too confidently about matters that exceed the range of his knowledge. In 42:4, Job restates God’s words of cross-examination in 38:3 and 40:7.

42:5–6. Earlier Job expressed his desire to see God (19:25–27). Now, Job’s increased understanding of God’s superior knowledge has dramatically enhanced his perception of God, so Job says that his eyes have seen him (42:5). Everything Job knew before was just so much hearsay when compared with what he has come to know of God.

Job 42:6 is the key to understanding the entire book of Job. This cannot be Job’s repentance of sin, or the friends would be right in their assessment of him. Job repents in the sense of changing his mind as he comes to realize that he is just dust and ashes (cf. Gn 18:27), a mere human before the transcendent God, a finite creature limited in his knowledge. Because Job now recognizes how little he knows compared to the omniscient God, he retracts his insistence that God answer him (31:35). He submits to God, without any knowledge that God will restore blessing to him in the epilogue.

9. EPILOGUE (42:7–17)

In the epilogue, God brings resolution to Job’s situation. He affirms Job’s innocence against the charges of the friends, instructs them to ask Job to pray for them, and restores Job’s family and fortune. The epilogue contains many textual links back to the prologue (chaps. 1 and 2), so together they form the literary framework for the book. Job is not given an explanation for his adversity, and the dispute between God and the adversary is not disclosed to him. Even after his restoration, Job has to live within the bounds of this divine mystery.

42:7–9. In the epilogue God assesses each of the major characters except Elihu, whom he ignores. What he says about them is determinative for interpreting the book. The friends have tried to protect God’s reputation by insisting that Job must have sinned, but by extrapolating the retribution principle into an indictment of Job they have reduced God to a predictable deity confined by a fixed formula. God now calls on Job to reprise his role of a mediator and to intercede in prayer for his friends, who have angered God by not speaking the truth (42:7–8), just as previously he offered sacrifices for his own children in case they had sinned against God (1:5).

It may seem startling to hear God imply that Job has spoken the truth, in contrast to what the friends have said. Numerous times in his speeches Job asks hard questions about God’s justice and fairness, and he often complains that he has been mistreated by God. The Lord knows what is in the hearts of his people, and he has evaluated Job on that basis of perfect understanding.

42:10–17. The restored divine blessings (42:10) are not contingent on Job’s confession of his own sins (contrary to what Bildad predicted in 8:7) but are granted by God after Job obediently intercedes for his friends. In this, Job is not motivated by self-interest, as the adversary has wrongly charged (1:9–11). God has restored the relationship between Job and himself and has healed as well the relationships between Job and other people who were once close to him (42:11). During his time of need, Job’s family and closest friends abandoned him (19:13–19), but now they return to fellowship with him. His solitude and pain are replaced by community and rejoicing, as Job receives belated consolation and encouragement.

How Job addresses God can be compared with the lament psalms, in which the psalmists in their pain frequently express their doubts, fears, and questions to the Lord (e.g., Ps 13:1–2).

God doubles Job’s animals over what he had before his calamity (42:10, 12). He also gives Job seven more sons and three especially lovely daughters (42:13–15). Job goes on to live 140 years (double the typical life expectancy cited in Ps 90:10) and sees his great-grandchildren (42:16). With language that echoes the experiences of Abraham (Gn 25:8), Isaac (Gn 35:29), and David (1 Ch 29:28), Job is described as living out a very good and satisfying life. The long life he enjoys is one of the blessings offered by wisdom in Pr 3:2, 16; 4:10; 9:11; 10:27.