In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. 2He had seven sons and three daughters, 3and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.
4His sons used to take turns holding feasts in their homes, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would send and have them purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular custom.
6One day the angels came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them. 7The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”
Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.”
8Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”
9“Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. 10“Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. 11But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
12The LORD said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.”
Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.
13One day when Job’s sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, 14a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, 15and the Sabeans attacked and carried them off. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
16While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “The fire of God fell from the sky and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
17While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “The Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on your camels and carried them off. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
18While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, “Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, 19when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
20At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship 21and said:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
may the name of the LORD be praised.”
22In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.
Original Meaning
Job’s Profile (1:1–5)
UZ. JOB’S HOMELAND HAS yet to be positively identified. Weiss points out that Uz is a region, not a city, and that “the East” is associated with the Syrian Desert stretching from Mesopotamia to Arabia.1 In biblical genealogies, Uz is sometimes connected with Aram (Gen. 10:23; 22:21; 1 Chron. 1:17)2 and at other times with Edom (Gen. 36:21, 28; 1 Chron. 1:42; Lam. 4:21; probably Jer. 25:20). Edom has been preferred over Aram, based on Edom’s reputation for wisdom and Eliphaz the Temanite’s origin from the area of Edom. In an appendix to the book of Job, the LXX locates Edom between Idumea and Arabia; thus, the earliest analysis situates it in the south.3
Regardless of its location, this detail is significant because it indicates that Job is not an Israelite. His non-Israelite status explains the absence of many key theological elements in the book, including law, covenant, temple, and references to Yahweh.4 Intriguingly, however, the book frequently evidences an Israelite perspective,5 which suggests that the story of the non-Israelite Job has actually been given its literary shape by an Israelite author for an Israelite audience. This secondary context gives the book a voice in the context of Israelite ideas about God and his expectations.6
Job’s qualities. Weiss suggests that “blameless” (tam) refers to Job’s character and “upright” (yašar) to his actions.7 When we look at the use of the terminology elsewhere in the book of Job, we find that the opposites of tam are “proclaimed guilty” (ʿqš, 9:20) and “wicked” (rašaʿ, 9:22). This verbal stem of ʿqš occurs only four other times (Prov. 10:9; 28:18, both in contrast to tam; Isa. 59:8; Mic. 3:9, both in contrast to “justice,” mišpaṭ) and specifically refers to something twisted or perverse. The noun rašaʿ is, in contrast, common (26x in Job), and refers generally to the wicked. The word tam denotes integrity and the resulting absence of blame or guilt. Tam is an appropriate description for people characterized by integrity when measured by general human standards. Note, for example, Abimelech, who asserts that he took Sarah in integrity of heart (NIV: “with a clear conscience” Gen. 20:5), and that God confirmed this assessment (20:6).
Second, Job is identified as “upright” (yašar), a term commonly used to describe people who behave according to God’s expectations—specifically, kings faithful to Yahweh (e.g., Joash, 2 Chron. 24:2). An upright person gains God’s favor (Deut. 6:18). God himself is upright (Deut. 32:4), and he made humankind upright (Eccl. 7:29), but people have gone in search of schemes. The Israelites each did what was (up)right in their own eyes (Judg. 17:6; 21:25) because they had no king and they were departing from faithfulness to God.
Tam and yašar are desirable accolades, but they are achievable for humans who seek steadfastly to order their ways according to customary conceptions of godliness. But these terms do not describe people who live lives of sinless perfection; rather, they describe those who have found favor in the eyes of God and other humans (cf. Prov. 3:4).
Job is also described as one who “fears God” (ʾelohim). As we would expect in Job, the author does not identify him as one who “fears Yahweh” specifically. We can again turn to the description of the non-Israelite Abimelech and his people and the premature assessment made of them by Abraham (Gen 20:11).8 In common Old Testament usage, to fear the Lord/God is to take God seriously. That can mean different things depending on what one knows of God. For the sailors in Jonah, fearing the Lord entailed a different response than the Israelites, who “feared the LORD” in response to the covenant. In a non-Israelite context, fearing God could refer to being ritually or ethically conscientious, and the context of Job requires nothing more than this definition. In sum, Job is a paragon of devotion and integrity.
Job’s possessions and status. In verses 2 and 3 Job’s prosperity is described in terms of his family and his possessions. The numbers all give indication of representing idealizations or stereotypes, but this is no evidence that they are contrived. Truth is stranger than fiction. Nevertheless, as suggested in the introduction, the book as wisdom literature would be expected to be the result of literary shaping. Everything about Job is ideal, which has the purpose of portraying him as the ultimate example of a person who is beyond reproach and who has achieved success by the highest standards.
Job’s piety. A number of questions emerge from the short vignette in verses 4–6. One might first question why these feasts are the setting for the potential offense of cursing God. Note that these are not cultic feasts because the word used here usually denotes special celebratory occasions; other terminology designates a cultic feast. From a literary standpoint these feasts have significance because they provide the setting in which Job’s sons and daughters eventually meet their demise (1:18–19).
This group setting might seem unnecessary at first glance since Job expresses his concern that they may have cursed God “in their hearts.” Although this phrase often refers to the private thoughts of an individual, when a group of people are part of the scene, it can refer to corporate thinking shared confidentially (cf. Deut. 8:17; 18:21; Ps. 78:18). Tangentially, since just such a feast was taking place when Job’s family was destroyed, one might ask whether their behavior at the feast may have somehow brought this judgment on them (note that Bildad suggests exactly that in 8:4). In such a case, the death of his family could be interpreted by observers not as action against Job, but as action against his children. But the information here about Job’s scrupulous purifying rituals argue against that suggestion.
Second, why does Job even imagine that his family might curse God in their private conversations at these feasts? Again, a first glance can be misleading. It would appear that this is an extreme offense that would be unlikely of this pious family, where we might expect an illustration that shows more subtlety. But that initial impression evaporates under scrutiny.
Strange as it may seem, the word translated “cursed” is the normal Hebrew word for “bless” (barak). The general consensus among interpreters is that the use of the opposite word is euphemistic so that the uncomfortable concept of cursing God is circumnavigated.9 This unusual interplay between cursing and blessing becomes significant in the early sections of this book. In 1:11 (also 2:5) the Challenger suggests that Job will “bless” (= “curse”) God to his face (in contrast to the fears Job had that his children might bless/curse God in their hearts). Instead, Job truly does “bless” God (1:21, same verb). Job’s wife urges him to “bless” (= “curse”) God blatantly and die (2:9). Job does not respond with blessing God after the second round, but neither does he curse God. Instead, he curses the day of his birth.10
Beyond this specific use of the terms in establishing a literary motif, we must also consider the underlying narrative framework. In the narrative God has blessed Job with children and possessions (1:10). But on the larger scale one could also say that God has orally blessed Job by praising him to the Challenger (sometimes blessing is accomplished by praise). As it turns out, the very nature of that oral blessing becomes a curse as it is made the basis for the challenge that leads to the loss of the material blessing. Eventually God restores and multiplies the material blessing (42:12). So the curse/bless antithesis stands as a significant motif in the book. Yet as important as this motif is, it fails to answer the question that we are pursuing.
The next level of investigation concerns what sort of statement would constitute “cursing God.” In the Old Testament the matter of cursing (qll) God is discussed explicitly in Leviticus 24:10–16 (see also the passing reference in Ex. 22:28 [27] and Isa. 8:21).11 The offense is extreme (it carries the death penalty) and could be committed in a wide variety of ways. Cursing God could involve using God’s name in a frivolous oath,12 using God’s name along with illicit words of power (e.g., hex),13 using words of power against God, or speaking in a denigrating, contemptuous, or slanderous way about God—basically insulting God.14 The last is the most likely in this context as most befitting the situation. We can identify some examples of this offense by moving beyond the actual occurrence of the term “curse” to exploring some of the offensive words people speak against God “in their hearts” in other passages:
• taking credit for what God has done (cf. Deut. 8:17)
• misjudging God’s motives (Deut. 9:4)
• thinking that God will not act (Deut. 29:19 [18]; Isa. 47:8; Zeph. 1:12)
• expressing one’s ambitions against God (Isa. 14:13)
• expressing one’s arrogance (Isa. 47:10)
• stating that there is no God (Pss. 14:1; 53:1)
These examples all hold God in contempt by stating implicitly or explicitly that he is powerless to act, that God is corrupt in his actions or motives, that God has needs, or that God can be manipulated. These sorts of claims would constitute cursing God as they make God to be less than God. We thus discover that “cursing God” may not be as blatant and obvious an offense as first thought.
The way Job might curse God in response to his suffering would be to show contempt for God by suggesting that God is corrupt, irrational, or capricious. But it is unlikely that this is how his sons and daughters might curse God. They might be more inclined in their revelry to think that their success has been achieved by their own hand and so fail to give God credit for the blessings they enjoy. Other possibilities exist, and we need not try to resolve this question, but it is important to realize the range of statements that could conceivably be considered “cursing God.”
Nothing in the general wording here would indicate specifically either an Israelite or ancient Near Eastern way of thinking. Blasphemy is a recognized offense in either cultural setting. “Sins of the tongue” in Akkadian texts included making frivolous oaths and blasphemy (Akkad. šillatu).15 The same verb could also be used of slander, insult, and insolence—in short, a wide variety of offensive speech.16 It was considered a serious offense and sometimes identified as a possible cause of illness in medical diagnostic texts.17
With this information about the feast setting and the broad scope of what could entail “cursing God,” we are finally in a position to ask and address the most important third question: Why does the author choose this sort of example to illustrate Job’s piety? It is true that it offers a literary connection both to the death of his family (at such a feast) and to the option held out to Job to curse God. Perhaps that is sufficient reason, but it remains intriguing that the example of Job’s blamelessness is not chosen from some of the areas that we might expect: e.g., how he used his wealth, how he protected the vulnerable classes, how he treated with respect those under his authority, or how he maintained ethical propriety. The text does not indicate that he loved God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. The example that the book gives is ritual in nature. Perhaps the intention is merely to indicate that among all of his other qualities, Job did not neglect ritual observance. But if that were the case, we would expect an illustration that focused on a minor point of ritual concerning a gray area of expectation. At first sight, “cursing God” seems the most blatant of acts, but as we have seen in the above study, a wide variety of statements could be so construed.
Could someone be accused of “cursing God” when they had no such intention at all? How sensitive will God be about categorizing what someone has said as “cursing God”? When we interact with someone whom we know to be sensitive, we will be careful about what we say. This is especially so if that person has some authority or power over us. We use the expression “walking on eggshells” to express how we seek to avoid offense with such people—perhaps a boss who is insecure. The question this example of Job’s ritual fastidiousness raises is, “What does it say about Job’s concept of God?” The example is not used to show what Job thought about his children; it is brought out to pose a question concerning what he thought about God. Job’s repeated rituals do not suggest that he considered his children to be closet apostates hurling drunken insults heavenward. Instead, he considered that anytime such revelry occurred, the possibility existed that unguarded statements could be made that deity would take offense at despite the innocent intentions of the speaker.
In the ancient world outside of Israel the gods were considered to be unrealistic and almost childish in taking offense. For example, a Neo-Assyrian prayer expresses an individual’s confusion over all that is going wrong in the author’s life.18 He begins listing all the unintentional ways that he might have offended some deity or other: Did he accidentally step on sacred space of some known or unknown god? Or did he perhaps eat some food forbidden by a known or unknown god? Is Job perhaps thinking of God in these terms?
In the ancient world, religious duty was more concerned with ritual than with ethics. In this view one could not really know what would please the gods, so people gave them gifts to keep them happy. This appeasement mentality carried with it the idea that deity was inclined toward irrational behavior. The gods had needs, and one tried to keep the gods content by meeting those needs (ritually).19 Ethical behavior was not neglected, but it was not among the primary religious responsibilities. This question is important here because the chosen example clouds the issue of whether Job’s behavior demonstrates an appeasement mentality toward an overly sensitive deity. In this way of thinking, God might suddenly get upset about someone committing some ritual offense in ignorance. The gods were often suspected of taking offense where none was intended. When Job begins to suffer, we see that he does consider that his troubles might be due to an overly attentive deity (7:17–21).
We can see, then, that the description of Job leaves no doubt that he is righteous. But the chosen example does not clarify his motives for being righteous and leaves unresolved what his picture of God is. Once we see the issue in this light, we can see how these two verses lead directly to the challenge posed by the Challenger, which was precisely on that point. If Job is engaged in the appeasement mentality of the Great Symbiosis, then it would be legitimate to question whether “Job serves God for nothing.” If sacrilege can be inadvertent and if ritual is a shot in the dark in trying to appease any inadvertent word that deity may have taken offense at, deity has no integrity and the Great Symbiosis is the result. No motivation remains for righteousness except to reap benefits from a patronized god.
It is Job’s fastidious ritual conduct that gives the opportunity for the question to be raised by the Challenger. We will find as we continue our analysis of this book that the Challenger’s question has indeed identified a fundamental issue. It is not just how we act that is important; it is why we act that way. And our motives can only be sorted out in relationship to our concept of God and what we believe drives his policies on earth. The stage is set for the Challenger to raise the issue of Job’s motives and through them to raise questions about God’s policies.
First Conversation (1:6–12)
SONS OF GOD. THIS phrase (bene ʾelohim) does not occur often in Scripture (Gen. 6:2, 4; Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7),20 but our understanding can be augmented by usage outside of the Old Testament (mostly the Ugaritic texts).21 The designation relates to the idea of a divine council, where “the sons of God” are the functionaries who make up the council. This divine council meets to give reports and make decisions; it is where the business of heaven is done. In the ancient Near Eastern polytheistic cultures, this council was populated by the chief gods. Divine authority was distributed among these gods, and each had their area of jurisdiction.
In Old Testament monotheism this concept is revised but not eliminated. It is true that in biblical theology Yahweh needs no advice or consultants (Isa. 40:13–14), but it is his prerogative to discuss his plans with others as he wills and to delegate responsibility at his discretion. It is common today for the use of the divine plurals in Genesis 1:26; 3:22; and 11:7 to be explained as indicating involvement of the council.22 Isaiah 6:8 also presents a view of the divine council in session. The most obvious passage portraying the divine council at work is 1 Kings 22. In these contexts, the council is not populated by other gods, but by the next lower tier of heavenly functionaries. We ought not call them “angels” because angels have a messenger function, not an administrative function. These administrative functionaries possess no independent divine authority, but they have delegated roles in the administration of Yahweh’s authority.23 In Psalm 82 the assembly is where God presides, and it is made up of ʾelohim (Ps. 82:1), but the psalmist makes clear that these ʾelohim are the “sons of the Most High” (bene ʿelyon, 82:6). Other responsibilities of these sons of God apparently include representing the nations (Deut. 32:8).24
On the basis of this biblical and ancient Near Eastern background, we can conclude that Job 1 features a gathering of the divine council as the sons of God come together to give their reports and to do the work of heaven. Whether the conversation that follows with the Challenger takes place in session or not is of little concern, but the language suggests that he has come to give a report when Yahweh is holding open court. The thrust of the question is “What brings you here”? (2:2).25
The Challenger (haśśaṭan).26 Because the Challenger comes among the sons of God, there has been some discussion as to whether he comes as a full-fledged member or as an interlocutor crashing the meeting.27 The former would be supported by the casual way in which Yahweh engages him in conversation, asking from where he has come; God’s question is an invitation to report, which suggests the Challenger has come to give just such a report. The verb that communicates the reason for his presence is also applied to the sons of God (“present themselves,” Heb. hityaṣṣeb), which suggests that he is there in an official capacity, as courtier. We need not infer from Yahweh’s question that he is ignorant of what the Challenger’s activities have been; it is simply a prompt to report.
So what can be said about this Challenger? The Hebrew word śaṭan has traditionally been transliterated with capitalization as the proper name “Satan”; most translations follow tradition. This decision, in turn, leads casual readers to associate this Challenger with the devil, named as Satan in the New Testament. This conclusion is not necessarily valid and must be investigated closely.
The most important initial observation is that every time this word occurs in Job, it is preceded by the definite article (haśśaṭan). This is strong evidence that śaṭan is not a personal name, because Hebrew does not put a definite article in front of personal names. We might alternatively understand the word to indicate the office or function of the individual so designated. Therefore, we must conclude that the individual in Job 1–2 (and Zech. 3:1–2, where the article is also used) should be identified as “the Challenger” (description of function) rather than as “Satan” (proper name).28 P. L. Day has demonstrated that the clear shift to using Satan as a proper name does not occur until the second century BC.29
Consequently, we must next consider what this designation conveys about the role of the Challenger. In the Old Testament, the word is used both as a verb and a noun. As a verb, it means generally “to oppose as an adversary” or “to accuse.”30 As a noun, it can be applied to a human being, thus designating him a challenger.31 Finally, in the category of most interest to this study, the noun is applied to celestial beings.32 This should lead us to revisit an assumption that is often carried blindly into the Old Testament, namely, that the technical term always applies to the same supernatural being, a single śaṭan. Such an assumption is easily refuted by the fact that Numbers 22:22 and 32 refer to the angel of the Lord serving as a śaṭan. So unless we posit that the Challenger in Job is the angel of the Lord, we must conclude that a variety of beings can serve this function. This means that the appearance of an individual with this function does not give us a specific identification of the individual.33
Job 1:6 would lead us to understand that a certain divine being whose precise identity is unimportant and who has the current and perhaps temporary status of Challenger is being introduced into the narrative. This interpretation is preferable because it is consistent with known Israelite (and Mesopotamian) legal practice, in that “Challenger” was a legal status that various people temporarily acquired in the appropriate circumstances, as opposed to a post or office.34
I conclude from the above description of this function that śaṭan refers to one who challenges. He might challenge someone by accusing them of a perceived wrongdoing. Alternatively, he might challenge as an adversary in court, in politics, or on the field of battle; he could challenge someone’s status or someone’s policies. Such a challenge could be made legitimately or presumptuously, with positive or negative intent, and it could be designed to preserve a system through accountability or to destabilize a kingdom.
Consequently, not only must we identify śaṭan here as a functional designation, we must now consider the possibility that, as a function, it is not intrinsically evil.35 If we had no name for this individual (which, of course, we do not) and had to build his profile from the text of Job alone, what conclusions could we draw? It should be noted that the Challenger does not initiate the discussion about Job; he merely offers an alternative explanation of Job’s righteous behavior. Though interpreters commonly portray the Challenger as one who seeks out human failings,36 God’s policies are the true focus of the challenge.37 Job’s character is only the test case. In this case, the Challenger serves as a “watchdog agency,” meant to raise questions of accountability. The challenges issued are intended to promote the general good by putting potentially questionable policies and decisions under scrutiny.
The Challenger, therefore, does not necessarily imply some flaw in God or in Job. Some infer that the Challenger relishes the opportunity to strike at Job. The text does not attribute to God or to the Challenger any personal emotional response to Job’s tragedy; God carries more responsibility for striking Job than the Challenger (implied in 1:12 and 2:3),38 and both lack any sympathetic response. It is arbitrary, therefore, to assume that the Challenger enjoys Job’s suffering, while God sadly endures it. There is no expression of glee; there is no diabolical chuckle. Nothing personal, Job … there is a major philosophical issue on the line that supersedes individual circumstances.
Weiss concludes that nothing intrinsically evil emerges in the author’s portrayal of the Challenger in Job. Certainly what he does has negative consequences for Job, a righteous man, but the text makes it clear that God is at least equally responsible for what happens to Job, thus freeing the actions from implicit evil.39 There is no tempting, corrupting, depraving, or possessing.
The result of this profile is that we are not in a position to claim that the Challenger in Job should be identified with Satan as we know him in the New Testament. One cannot make the claim that they act the same way. In fact, there is little if any overlap between their two profiles. This does not prove that they are not the same individual; it merely reduces (if not eliminates) the basis for claiming that they must be equated. The profile of the Hebrew śaṭan in the book of Job does not answer to the same description as the Christian view of Satan in the New Testament. While the pictures are not contradictory, and they may even be complementary, we cannot consider them homogeneous.
Accolade. Yahweh praises Job (1:8), using the same language that the narrator has used in 1:1; everyone agrees that Job’s conduct is impeccable. Furthermore, he prefaces his remarks with the assessment that Job stands as the most outstanding example of this righteous behavior among people on earth, a point we will explore further in Bridging Contexts. Most curious, however, is that Yahweh does not mention Job’s ritual routines detailed in 1:5.
Challenge. We have suggested above that the challenge posed is not against Job per se, but against God’s policies. In that vein, the existence of disinterested righteousness and the effect of a reward system on a person’s motives are both legitimate issues. God does not scoff at the challenge or discount the legitimacy of the question. The Challenger is questioning God’s blueprint for divine-human relations—the validity of a moral order in which the righteous unfailingly prosper, or what we have called the Retribution Principle (RP). The test of true righteousness would be fear of God without the promise of reward or the threat of punishment.40 The Challenger has no evidence for accusing Job of acting righteously only for reward. His point is that, given the system that Yahweh has set up, one cannot tell (notice all the second person subjects in 1:10, which show that God’s policies are the target of accusations). Prospering the righteous, in the Challenger’s view, is a questionable policy because it fosters corrupt motives. By pointing out all that Yahweh has done to bless and prosper Job, he raises the point that Job’s motives are open to question: Is he truly righteous or just acting in ways that will gain him benefits?
As we have mentioned in the discussion of Job’s fastidious ritual customs, not only is Job’s motivation for righteous behavior subject to investigation, but his concept of God is open to question as well. The RP exposes God to criticism in that it could lead people to think that the world is founded on justice, that they can therefore expect predicted results to their behavior, and that when they experience anomalous or conflicting results, God’s character may be misconstrued and his reputation compromised. It is difficult to fault the logic of this challenge. In fact, we find that Job does draw false conclusions about God’s character and the nature of his operations of the world. God recognizes the legitimacy of the challenge and authorizes action against Job. It is important for God to clarify his character and the way he runs the world.
Curse/bless. In 1:11, as in 1:5, the word “bless” (barak) is again used euphemistically for “curse.” In contrast to Job’s sons and daughters, who might curse God privately, the Challenger expresses his pessimistic assessment that Job will curse God “to his face.” The phrase used here typically refers to something that is done in the presence of another—not behind their back, covertly, privately or confidentially.41 In contrast to the range of possibilities for Job’s children (from subtle to blatant, inadvertent to rebellious contempt), this anticipated act of Job would be unambiguous and forthright.
It must be emphasized that the Challenger has no foreknowledge and can have no certainty. His claim stems not from some identified flaw in Job, but from his experience with human nature. He has no specific evidence that would impugn Job’s character, though perhaps Job’s ritual customs betray some crack in the façade. If he really had any evidence, the whole challenge would be invalid and fruitless. The Challenger’s confidence is that God’s policy is misguided and ill-advised, not wicked or corrupt. His confidence is that Job’s motives are suspect and that Job’s concept of God is vulnerable. There is no reason to believe that he takes delight in Job’s ruin. If Job is as righteous as he appears, the Challenger is wrong, in which case the prosperity doesn’t matter anyway. If righteousness is all that Job ultimately values, that cannot be taken away from him.
As a side note, we must remember that this is a thought experiment in a literary scenario. It is pointless to wring our hands over the sad fate of Job’s innocent family, for the challenge does not focus on his family and their innocence, but on God’s work in the world. The children simply represent the blessing of God, like Job’s cattle. This is not to suggest they are no better than cattle; rather, it warns us that we are losing our way if we decide to advocate their cause and press a complaint against God on their behalf. Their fate is part of the challenge to God’s policies, but not its focus.
Devastation of Job (1:13–22)
SABEANS AND CHALDEANS, FIRE of God and mighty wind. We can see that the Challenger uses all the resources at God’s disposal—human foes, divine judgment from heaven, and “natural” disaster. These calamities occur in rapid succession, which thus dramatizes the literary scenario. The identification of the human foes is problematic. Verse 15 is usually translated as a reference to the Sabeans, though the lead consonant is šin, not sin; consequently, the raiders are from Sheba. In biblical and other literature from the ancient world, there was a Sheba in the south (same spelling; vicinity of modern Yemen, from where the Queen of Sheba traveled to learn of Solomon), but some have suggested a northern Sheba in the region of Edom. This suggestion is probable, given the towns listed in connection with Sheba and the improbability of raiders coming from a thousand miles away.42
The Chaldeans (Heb. kaśdim) represent a different problem. In Jeremiah and Ezekiel, they inhabit Babylonia and in fact are the ethnic group from which the Babylonian rulers, such as Nebuchadnezzar, are derived. These Chaldeans first appear in ninth-century Assyrian inscriptions.43 Some have offered a second millennium identification of kaśdim in relationship to keśed in the area of Aram Naharaim among Abraham’s relatives (Gen. 22:22),44 but this seems too distant from Job’s home territory.
As to the reference to divine judgment, the exact construction “fire of God” appears only in this passage. Other references to God sending fire from heaven make it clear that these are viewed as direct acts of judgment (Sodom, Gen. 19:24; Aaron’s sons, Lev. 10:2; rebellious Israelites, Num. 11:1; 16:35; and king’s messengers sent to take Elijah captive, 2 Kings 1:12).
Finally, a “mighty wind” destroys the house where Job’s children had gathered and causes their death (1:19). Such destructive wind is elsewhere referred to in 1 Kings 19:11. Though nothing in the ancient world was perceived as “natural” (notice Hos. 13:15; Jon. 4:8), this mighty wind would be a meteorological phenomenon, which is not necessarily the case for the “fire of God.” The point is that, even though all of these disasters come from the hand of God (notice Job 2:3), they fit into different categories—another way of showing the totality of the devastation.
One additional observation is that an Israelite audience would readily recognize all the disasters that overtake Job because they are among those delineated in the covenant curses for disobedience (Deut. 28:31–35).45 This recognition would heighten the poignancy for the Israelite reader and would also evoke further connections with retribution theology—here on the corporate level.
Job’s response. Job’s initial response reflects the normal customs of mourning (tearing one’s robe and shaving one’s head, 1:20). Falling to the ground prostrate, however, is nowhere else included in mourning activities (for the closest, see 2 Sam. 1:2). Perhaps that is why the NIV has chosen to render the verb as “worship.” When an act of worship is in view, however, the text generally specifies bowing down “before the LORD.” The fact that Job does not address God in the succeeding lines argues against taking his prostration as an act of worship. Specifically, the verb refers to an act of prostration that may or may not be associated with worship; as often as not, someone is prostrating oneself before someone of authority or higher rank.46 Nevertheless, in any of these situations, the context typically specifies a person or group before whom one prostrates oneself. If this gesture does not signify mourning, deference, or worship, what are other alternatives?
We can gain some insight into Job’s action from four other passages that use this verb (ḥawah) without designating an object. Genesis 47:31 and 1 Kings 1:47 are deathbed scenes (Jacob and David respectively), in which the subjects realize and acknowledge a significant act of God. Exodus 4:31 and 12:27 are scenes in which the Israelites have heard that God intends to deliver them from Egypt. None of these four contexts indicate that the subjects prostrate themselves before the Lord or engage in acts of worship. In each one, the prostration is a response to something remarkable that God has done and represents acknowledgment and acceptance.
In the same way, Job acknowledges by his prostration that God has performed a remarkable act, and Job accepts it as such; he abases himself in response to the great power that God has demonstrated. Presumably from his prostrate position, he utters his acceptance of God’s actions. By ending his short speech with the invocation of blessing on the name of Yahweh, he has done exactly what the Challenger said he would and the exact opposite. The Challenger said he would “bless” (= euphemism for “curse”) God to his face. Job does “bless” God to his face, but here, we must conclude, with no euphemistic connotation. Nevertheless, the multivalence and thus ambiguity of the term “bless” in these chapters keeps the reader alert to potential subtle nuances.47
The narrator concludes that Job does not attribute wrongdoing to God. The Hebrew word translated “wrongdoing” (tiplah) is used only two other times. In Job 24:12, we read that God had not held anyone accountable in that context of persecution. Jeremiah 23:13 uses it to refer to a travesty—prophets of Baal leading the Israelites astray. With so few uses of this word, certainty concerning its meaning is not possible, but the word appears in contexts where a person should be held accountable for wrongdoing. When this word is used of Job’s response, it indicates that Job is not calling God to accountability; this accords with Job’s words in verse 21: Whether God gives or takes away, he should be praised—God owes us nothing. This is not Job’s final posture, but his reflection at this stage; we will later see that Job does call God to account. We will also see that all experiences cannot be accounted for as reflecting God’s giving or taking away—that is too simplistic.
THE BRIDGING CONTEXTS SECTIONS of this commentary series have three specific functions. The first task is to discuss how the section under consideration fits into the argument of the book as a whole—that is, the rhetorical strategy. As the rhetorical strategy unfolds, it also leads to the message of the book—in this case, the answers that it offers regarding God’s policies in this world and a proposed perspective on suffering. So, for example, below we will discuss the role of the prologue.
Second, in this section we can discuss the theological issues that arise in the book (whether or not the book intends to teach on that subject). So, for example, we will encounter material in Job that will lead us to examine theological concepts of creation or afterlife. We will try to address these issues throughout each unit.
Third, and most important, the Bridging Contexts section serves to identify the message that comprises the authoritative teaching of the text. Here, we would normally seek to identify the teaching of the book that applies to all audiences throughout time. This is problematic in Job because the book does not carry such a teaching in all its passages. Both Job and his friends are groping for answers and coming up short. In many of the sections of the book, there is no authoritative message, for eventually the book will reject the positions taken by the parties whose words have been offered. Consequently, we will often have to omit this discussion.
Rhetorical Strategy48
PURPOSE OF PROLOGUE. THE scene in heaven sets up a number of important issues in the book. First, it clearly indicates that Job is indeed innocent of wrongdoing.49 This immediately eliminates the usual answers offered in the ancient Near East, in which there really is an offense of which the sufferer was unaware, or that God is simply capricious. This cleans the slate of tradition to make room for new explanations.
A second important point is that by acclaiming Job’s righteousness from the beginning, the author makes clear, as we have noted, that Job is not on trial. This feature allows the book to focus on God’s policy regarding the treatment of the righteous. Notice in the process that the book thus tackles the more difficult side of the retribution equation, for it is much easier to discuss why the wicked prosper. By indicating that there is no one on earth like Job, the author also establishes the stark contrast between the height of his stature and the depth of his fall.
Third, the prologue reveals important information that is crucial to our understanding of the book. Because the conversation in heaven is never revealed to Job or his friends, they understandably misjudge precisely what is at stake. This hidden information is especially poignant because, as Job argues his case before God, he believes that he can “win” if he can force God into court to account for himself, to give an explanation for his actions. In reality, Job has nothing to win because he is not on trial. If, however, God were to give Job an explanation for his suffering—reasons why he acted the way that he did in the prologue—Job’s challenge to God’s policies (that it is bad policy for righteous people to suffer, see Introduction, p. 23) would be validated. In other words, if Job “wins” the case that he thinks he is in, God loses the case that the prologue sets up. If all suffering can be explained by the RP and the world operates on the foundation of God’s justice, then it is bad policy or flawed execution when righteous people suffer.
Finally, the scene in heaven shows that, despite the role of the Challenger, God both initiated the discussion and approved the course of action.50 This again avoids the easy solution that insulates God by inserting an independently wicked intermediary power. The book would be toothless without this introduction; it would be reduced to philosophical speculation, unable to rise above its contemporaries. In the same way, to view the prologue as suggesting that the book is the story of how a good man suffered because of a bet between God and Satan misses the point entirely.51
Theological Issues
THE GOD JOB FEARS.52 The primary names used for God in the book of Job are El,53 Eloah,54 Elohim,55 and Shaddai.56 The characters in the book leave no room for the distribution of divine powers among a variety of entities, though the speakers refer to other known divine entities in a variety of places.57 These indicate that Job inhabits the world of the ancient Near East, with all its mythologies, but he does not share the polytheistic worldview common to the region. Neither Job nor his friends specifically discuss Yahweh in their speeches to one another.58 What is the significance of this? We have noted that Job is a paradox. The region of his home and the practices of his family clearly show his setting to be non-Israelite. This non-Israelite setting would find support in the use of divine names other than Yahweh. Yet, at the same time, Job is notably Israelite-like in his beliefs (see Introduction, p. 38). With the Prologue and Epilogue featuring Yahweh, an additional Israelite component is recognizable, but there is no attempt to insert Yahweh throughout the work.
Is Job being assessed in Israelite or non-Israelite terms? Again, there is a paradox that creates some tension in the book: a non-Israelite polytheist could theoretically be described using the terms applied to Job by Yahweh (“blameless,” “upright,” “fearing God,” “turning away from evil”), but it would be highly unusual for such a one to have risen above the Great Symbiosis (see explanation on p. 33–38), as must be the case if God’s policies are to be vindicated.
This paradox also extends to the way that the divine names are used in the book. Loyalty to Yahweh (as in the covenant) is not the issue under discussion; yet the divine epithets (as opposed to specific names of other gods) in the book allow no hint that Job worships another god. He uses all legitimate epithets for Israel’s God. One of the issues particularly at stake in the book is whether Job’s concept of God accords with the ancient Near Eastern models or with the ideal Israelite models. The ambiguity inherent in the use of divine names allows this tension to extend throughout the book.
The Challenger (haśśaṭan). In the Original Meaning section, we adopted the following conclusions about the Challenger:
• He is one of the “sons of God” (a member of the divine council).
• He serves as a policy watchdog.
• He uses the ambiguity of Job’s motives and concept of God to challenge God’s policies.
• He does not act independently.
• He is not inherently evil.
• He cannot confidently be identified with Satan in the New Testament.
In this section, then, we must discuss where this leaves us on two counts. (1) What is the theology surrounding the Challenger in the larger Old Testament context? (2) Does our doctrine of Satan need modification?
As indicated earlier, several Old Testament passages outside of Job use the noun śaṭan to refer to nonhuman beings, including Zechariah 3:1–2 and 1 Chronicles 21:1.59 As in Job, Zechariah 3 also features the definite article; here the Challenger questions Joshua’s right to play the role he has been given because he is covered with the stains of his and his people’s guilt.60 God responds by purifying him for the task. In Job, the policy of rewarding the righteous is questioned; in Zechariah, the policy of forgiveness and restoration is questioned.61
In 1 Chronicles 21 there is no definite article. This could mean that śaṭan is being used as a personal name, but it also could mean that it is simply indefinite (i.e., a śaṭan).62 The role of the śaṭan here is somewhat different because the śaṭan is not challenging God’s policies; rather, he is inciting David to take a census. In Job and Zechariah, the śaṭan acts in relation to God by challenging God’s policies. In Chronicles (but also in Numbers) the śaṭan functions in relation to humans. As we consider 1 Chronicles 21, it is important to note that the parallel passage in 2 Samuel 24 gives no role to śaṭan; there the anger of God incites David to take a census.63 This falls short of suggesting that God initiated the census; the passage makes no statement about agency.
In one possible scenario, God’s anger against Israel would have been evidenced in some fashion (cf., e.g., 2 Sam. 21:1), and David may have been seeking to appease that anger by means of a census (which would eventuate in a head tax paid to the temple, “buying off” God, as it were). God takes offense at this pagan view of appeasement, and the subsequent plague is a further expression of his anger—both the original anger toward Israel and the unacceptable solution attempted by David.64 The passage does not require that David’s sin is the only object of punishment.
In this interpretation of the Chronicles passage, then, the role attributed to śaṭan is not filled by God in the 2 Samuel 24 account. Rather, in Samuel the role is left unmentioned. Satan is now posited by the Chronicler as the intermediary responsible for David’s decision to pursue the course of action he chose. The anger of the Lord created the circumstance; śaṭan is responsible for instigating the decision. In this way, his role is similar to that of the unnamed spirit in 1 Kings 22:19–23. It is interesting to note that in the Kings passage, though the course of action instigated by the spirit is punishable, the action is not urged to defy God; it is in fact approved by him.
How shall we view Chronicles’ presentation of śaṭan as one who actively instigates the punishable behavior of human beings?65 We should first notice that this is not the only passage where the anger of the Lord leads to the involvement of a śaṭan. First Kings 11:9–14 shows the Lord’s raising up Hadad the Edomite as a human śaṭan against Solomon, when God becomes angry with him. Likewise, the angel of the Lord functions as śaṭan against Balaam, when the Lord becomes angry with him (Num 22:22). The pattern can now be seen as follows:
Passage | Agent of God’s anger | Object of God’s anger | Result of God’s anger |
1 Kings 11 | Hadad the Edomite (a śaṭan) | Solomon | Rebellion |
Num. 22 | Angel of the Lord (a śaṭan) | Balaam | Near execution |
1 Kings 22 | Unnamed spirit working through false prophets | Ahab | Death in battle |
2 Sam. 24/1 Chron. 21 | a śaṭan working through David | Israel | Plague |
The anger of the Lord is explicitly stated in each of these passages, with the exception of 1 Kings 22, though there the entire sequence of narratives has been emphasizing God’s displeasure with Ahab. It is also noteworthy that, with the exception of 1 Kings 11, the immediate passage does not clarify what has caused God’s anger.
The agents all function in the same way: They are instruments of God’s punishment. In 1 Kings 11, the agent is human and described as a śaṭan; in Numbers 22 the agent is supernatural and likewise described as a śaṭan. The supernatural agent in the other two passages works indirectly by affecting a human agent who unwittingly initiates the punishment. We can observe here the parallel roles played by the unnamed spirit in 1 Kings 22 and the unnamed śaṭan in 1 Chronicles 21; in each case, the action instigated by the agent is something in itself displeasing to God (false prophecy and the census).
Though the profiles in Job/Zechariah and Chronicles may differ from one another, for our purposes it is important to note how different both profiles are from that of the New Testament Satan. The New Testament profile reflects the development of thought that took place throughout the intertestamental period. J. B. Russell summarizes the development:
Satan, Azazel, Belial, and Mastema were none of them in their origins a principle of evil, but in the apocalyptic literature they converge in that direction. What is important is the development of the concept of the principle of evil, with which the name of Satan was linked more closely than any other.66
Even though we do not view the literature of this period as inspired, it evidences some of the progression in theological thinking that is later affirmed by the New Testament. H. Ringgren summarizes those features as follows:
In the pseudepigraphic literature—and therefore primarily in the realm of apocalyptic—the development continues. As author and representative of evil we find here a prince of the evil spirits, who bears various names: Satan, Mastema (only in the Book of Jubilees), Belial or Beliar (“worthlessness”; primarily in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Qumran documents), and, in Greek, diabolos (“slanderer”). He, together with his angels and powers, constitutes the realm of evil, and seeks to lead men to destruction and ruin. It was he who tempted the first human beings to sin; it was he who aided the Egyptians before and during the exodus of the Israelites; it is he who causes all evil and all sins. Through him death entered the world (Wisd. Sol. 2:24). He is the prince of lawlessness, the ruler of this world (Mart. Isa. 2.4); he stands in complete antithesis to God. At the end of the world, he will be conquered, bound, and destroyed by God.67
By the New Testament, much of this has been accumulated into the profile of the being called Satan, the diabolical enemy leading the forces of evil.
The New Testament Devil is a tempter, a liar, a murderer, the cause of death, sorcery, and idolatry; he hurts people physically, and he blocks and obstructs the teaching of the Kingdom of God wherever he can, assaulting us, possessing us spiritually, and tempting us to sin. In all this he is the enemy of the Kingdom of God.68
This sinister being has been viewed in many different ways throughout history. In some Jewish writings, he is the personification of the evil impulse in all of us. The more dualistic offshoots of Christianity (e.g., Manichaeism) understood him as the hypostasis of the dark side of God. Another variation, perhaps the most popular view in contemporary Christianity, posits him as the apotheosis of evil from within the world of demons.69 This latter profile portrays Satan as a fallen angel. The Old Testament passages that mention śaṭan (discussed above) do not portray him as a fallen being (though neither do they explicitly deny his fallenness).
Two significant passages in the Old Testament that have been traditionally associated with the fall of Satan in Christian doctrine: Isaiah 14:12–15 and Ezekiel 28:12–19.70 If Satan is truly a fallen being, this fact would significantly expand the possibilities for the interpretation of the Challenger in Job. Consequently, we must turn our attention to the tradition of the fall of Satan in these two passages.
Isaiah 14:12–15. From a contextual standpoint, this pericope concerns the king of Babylon and, accordingly, is placed among the oracles against the nations. It takes the form of a taunt (v. 5) anticipating the tyrant’s imminent demise. His descent to the netherworld (vv. 9–11) is described with relish. Verses 12–15 refer to his downfall, despite his aspirations to divine grandeur.
Throughout most of church history, these verses have been applied to Satan. The earliest appearance of this association can be found in the writings of Origen.71 Satan’s fall had been discussed earlier by Tertullian and Justin Martyr, but with no obvious references to Isaiah 14. This is not surprising since Satan is mentioned nowhere in the passage. Jewish writings (cf. 2 En. 29.4–5) had stories of the fall of Satan, but there is no evidence that Isaiah 14 was interpreted in relation to that fall.
The doctrine of Satan’s fall and its association with Isaiah 14 passed into the mainstream of Christian theology through Moralia 34 by Pope Gregory the Great in the seventh century. Once part of popular belief, it easily passed into the great pieces of literature, such as Milton’s Paradise Lost, which sustained its place in theology. The doctrine was also solidified by the way Isaiah 14 was handled in translation. Jerome, interpreting the difficult Hebrew term helel in v. 12 (NIV: “morning star”) as a reference to Venus, used a Latin term for Venus, luciferos, to translate it. As the interpretation of the passage as a reference to Satan became popularized in the centuries following, Lucifer was adopted as a variant name for Satan—because that was what Satan was called in this passage!
Tertullian and other fathers, Gregory the Great, and the scholastic commentators, regarding Luke x.18 as an explanation of this verse, apply it to the fall of Satan, from which has arisen the popular perversion of the beautiful name Lucifer to signify the Devil.72
By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the major English translations were being produced, the interpretation was so ingrained that “Lucifer” was retained, even in the KJV. This reinforced to the lay English reader that the passage explicitly concerned Satan.73
Despite the wide popular support for this interpretation, there was no lack of opposition. Neither Calvin nor Luther supports the idea that Isaiah 14 refers to the fall of Satan. Calvin is particularly undiplomatic as his heaps scorn on those who adopt such a noncontextual intrusion.
The exposition of this passage, which some have given, as if it should refer to Satan, has arisen from ignorance; for the context plainly shows that these statements must be understood in reference to the king of the Babylonians. But when passages of Scripture are taken up at random, and no attention is paid to the context, we need not wonder that mistakes of this kind frequently arise. Yet it was an instance of very gross ignorance to imagine that Lucifer was the king of the devils, and that the prophet gave him this name. But as these inventions have no probability whatever, let us pass by them as useless fables.74
From a hermeneutical standpoint one could hardly claim that Isaiah was intentionally addressing the issue of Satan’s fall. Aside from not mentioning Satan, we have already seen how little the Israelite view of Satan would have accommodated such an understanding. Given our knowledge about what the Israelite audience knew (or did not know) about Satan, we would have no reason to assume that Isaiah would consider his audience automatically able to relate the information about the king of Babylon to Satan or his fall.
Lacking support in the author’s intention, we would be equally hard pressed to sustain the suggestion that the passage refers to Satan, even though the author knew nothing of that association. Some have attempted this by invoking a sensus plenior related to a divine intention, much like the concept used to understand prophecy and fulfillment. However, we have no later revelation to support a connection between Isaiah 14 and the fall of Satan, so claiming “divine intention” is difficult. Those who seek to attach a sensus plenior, such as that invoked for other prophecy, face the difficulty that sensus plenior is only applied to future fulfillment and not to past events, such as the purported primeval fall of Satan. This is a different category altogether.
Those who continue to interpret Isaiah 14 as a reference to the fall of Satan base their beliefs on the statements made in vv. 13–14. They typically maintain that no human being could make such statements or seriously entertain such possibilities. Such assessments sadly underestimate the inclinations of rulers in the ancient world to make grandiose statements that would mock the label hyperbole as a vast understatement. One need not even read the inscriptional literature (though that would be instructive),75 for ample evidence of royal hubris is even provided in biblical records such as Isaiah 47:8, where Babylon claims for itself, “I am, and there is none besides me!” (cf. Zeph. 2:15).
Moreover, we do not need to view Isaiah 14:13–14 as statements the king would actually make, for here the prophet is drawing a caricature, perhaps referencing well-known mythical material. This king, who takes his own mythology too seriously and even supposes himself capable of grandiose accomplishments like those sometimes enshrined in myth, will find himself instead in a similar situation to that portrayed in other mythology: the outcast, would-be usurper.
Ezekiel 28:12–19. In contrast to Isaiah 14, this passage has more obvious references to a primeval situation. Although it refers contextually to the king of Tyre, mention of the “garden of God” (v. 13) and the “cherub” (v. 14) have given interpreters sufficient basis to move beyond the stated context. Admittedly, it is within the function of metaphor to point to something outside itself; yet the interpreter must still ask what the author intends the metaphor to relate to in this particular context.
Commentators have traditionally stated three reasons to support their claim that the king of Tyre should be understood as Satan: (1) the king is in the garden; (2) the king is identified as the cherub; and (3) the passage alludes to a fall from a blameless condition. As we examine each of these in light of Old Testament theology, however, the interpretation becomes increasingly difficult to maintain.
With regard to the first point, we must recognize that there is no indication in the Old Testament that the Israelites believed Satan was in the garden of Eden. No Old Testament passage either equates or relates the serpent and Satan, whether in Genesis or elsewhere (see below for further discussion). If Ezekiel 28 were phrased as instruction, suggesting that such an equation should be made, it would be another matter, but the Satan interpretation suggests that this passage refers to the fall of Satan metaphorically. For such a metaphor to work, it must make reference to well-known information. There is no evidence that Israel would have known that the serpent in Genesis 3 was a tool or representation of Satan. That being the case, they would not have placed Satan in the garden.
As to the second point, does any Scripture suggest that Satan was ever a cherub?76 The cherubim are a specialized class of supernatural beings with specific functions. There is no basis for the speculation that Satan was once among their number, and certainly no reason to suggest that the Israelite audience would have recognized such a metaphorical allusion.
Finally, as suggested at the beginning of our discussion of Isaiah 14, the Old Testament nowhere portrays Satan as a fallen being.77 Therefore, the fact that Ezekiel 28 refers to a fall would not suggest to the Israelite reader that the author was metaphorically invoking the fall of Satan for comparison to the fate of the king of Tyre.
Is there, then, any single datum in Ezekiel 28 that parallels information known about Satan in the Old Testament? I see none. If this is so, how can we possibly understand Ezekiel as making use of the account of the fall of Satan as a metaphor to describe the impending fall of the king of Tyre?
But, the objection would arise, to whom else could the passage refer? What would we make of a story of a cherub in the garden who was created blameless but then rebelled? It must be some sort of metaphor, because no one suggests that Ezekiel thought the king of Tyre actually was a cherub in the garden.
One popular suggestion has been that verse 14 should be read as noting that this individual was with the cherub, but was not a cherub himself.78 Such a reading opens up the possibility that the king of Tyre is being compared to primeval man, Adam.79 This suggestion is problematic because, in the Genesis account, Adam is never with the cherub in the garden; the cherub is only stationed there after Adam and Eve were expelled. Those who maintain this identification are therefore obliged to posit a variant form of the Eden tradition in Ezekiel.
While the passage presents difficulties to all interpreters, scholars have made important progress on it in recent years. H. J. van Dijk and I. Goldberg have both noticed that verses 12b–15a feature very close parallelism:80
| vv. 12b–13 | vv. 14–15a |
Identification | You were the seal | You were … a cherub |
Description | of perfection full of wisdom perfect in beauty | anointed as a guardian ordained |
Residence | You were in Eden, the garden of God | On the holy mount of God you walked |
Position | every precious stone | among the fiery stones |
Intrinsic quality | Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared | You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created |
Given these parallels, two suggestions can be made. (1) There are two parallel metaphors in the passage rather than one single metaphor, as the other interpretations have assumed; (2) the metaphors do not extend to the fall but only refer to the high station of the individual. The king of Tyre enjoyed a lofty status because of all that was entrusted to him; he was the guardian of extensive natural resources, just as the individuals in the two metaphors were.81 Unfortunately, he was corrupted by them and was found to be treacherous and irresponsible. The metaphor ends where the parallelism ends, and from verses 15b–19 the king’s conduct and punishment are addressed (though the end of v. 16 refers back to the metaphor). Thus, there is no reason to reach beyond the context and its metaphors for a sensible interpretation of the passage.
Conclusions regarding the fall of Satan. Some have contended that even though Satan is not mentioned in these passages, we know that they refer to Satan because they fit with everything else we are told about his fall. Without Isaiah 14 or Ezekiel 28, however, what do we know about his fall that would enable us to contend that it correlates with the information of these passages? Where do we receive inspired information about the cause of his fall or his status prior to the fall?
The New Testament information on the fall of Satan is extremely limited. In Luke 10:18, Christ remarks, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” It must be noted, however, that this is his response to the seventy-two’s successful ministry, of which they observed, “Even the demons submit to us in your name” (10:17). It is therefore a possibility, if not a probability, that Christ is referring not to the primeval past, but to the recent triumphs of the seventy-two (cf. John 12:31), though he may be doing it through allusion to the distant past.
Revelation 12:9 is often invoked on the matter of Satan’s fall, but here the reference is to the events of John’s vision, which were still to take place in the future (whether our future or only his). Therefore, they offer no insight into occurrences of the past, such as a fall, though it is not improbable that parallels were seen to exist between a primeval fall (which would have been known through other contemporary literature, as noted above) and the future total defeat portrayed here.
In 2 Corinthians 11:14, Paul observes that Satan masquerades as an angel of light, but makes no suggestion that he once was an angel of light or, in fact, any other sort of angel. It is true that the New Testament authors show awareness of the existence of fallen angels (e.g., 2 Peter 2:4), but nowhere do they suggest that Satan was once among them, much less the leader of the rebellion.
Finally, 1 Timothy 3:6 indicates that “the devil” has fallen under judgment because of his conceit. This is the most information that any passage offers, and we can see that it is scant. In addition to conceit, John 8:44 acknowledges Satan as the father of lies, but neither of these offenses is specifically identified as the sin that led to his fall.
In conclusion, the New Testament offers few details about the circumstances of Satan’s fall or about his status prior to the fall.82 Most of the details brought to bear on our theological discussion of the fall find their source in pseudepigraphic literature of the intertestamental period and the allegorical interpretation of the early church fathers, following the theories of Justin, Tertullian, Irenaeus, and Origen.83
Satan and the serpent. As mentioned in the discussion of Ezekiel 28, there is no hint in the Old Testament that the serpent of Genesis 2–3 was either identified as Satan or was thought to be inspired by Satan.84 The earliest extant reference to any association is found in the Wisdom of Solomon 2:23–24 (1st cent. BC):
For God created man for immortality,
and made him the image of his own eternity,
But through the devil’s envy death came into the world,
And those who belong to his party experience it.85
Even here, the devil is not given the name Satan and, in fact, was variously named in early literature.
This figure normally became Sammael in the Targum and in rabbinic tradition, but in a text known as the Apocalypse of Abraham, preserved only in Slavonic translation but datable to the same period that inspired the Syriac Baruch and the Apocalypse of Ezra, the seductive angel is called Azazel.86
Throughout the ancient world, the serpent was endowed with divine or semidivine qualities; it was venerated as an emblem of health, fertility, immortality, occult wisdom, and chaotic evil and was often worshiped. The serpent played a significant role in the mythology, the religious symbolism, and the cults of the ancient Near East.87 In the context of Genesis, however, the serpent is merely one of the creatures God created. It is shrewd but not sinister. Unlike Christian theology, in Israel there was no inclination to embody all evil in a central figure or trace its cause to a single historical event.88 Therefore, the Israelites were quite willing to recognize the serpent as representing an evil influence, without attempting to associate it with a being who was the ultimate source or cause of evil.
In fact, it would appear that the author of Genesis is intentionally underplaying the role or identification of the serpent; this would correlate with the other polemical elements of the early chapters of Genesis. It is important to remember that, in the ancient world, most cosmological models were built around a god taming or defeating the chaotic forces, often represented in the sea.89 In Canaanite literature, this role of chaos was played by the serpentine Leviathan/Lotan. In contrast, the biblical narrative asserts that the great sea creature was simply another of the beasts God created (1:21). This demythologizing polemic may explain why the author avoids explaining the existence of evil with any conspiratorial uprisings theory.
We must therefore avoid importing into the Old Testament texts the idea that Satan was to be equated with the serpent. Likewise, we cannot rely on the narrative of Genesis 3 to enhance or inform our understanding of the Old Testament view of Satan. At the same time we can recognize that the New Testament eventually does offer some basis for connecting the serpent and Satan in Romans 16:20 and Revelation 12:9; 20:2.
In conclusion, the established occurrences of śaṭan in the Old Testament do not show the profile that we find developed in the intertestamental period and that reach full expression in the New Testament. None of these Old Testament passages attest to the fall of a being known as Satan; when we see a being who exercises the function of śaṭan, the text gives no indication that the śaṭan is intrinsically evil. The Old Testament theology surrounding the Challenger must be developed using only those passages in the Old Testament that make reference to this role. If we do this, we will find a far different profile than the one the New Testament or the church fathers would have brought. This new profile will then have significant impact on how we understand Job 1.
In terms of our doctrine of Satan, the study here is only the beginning of a much-needed investigation, including a renewed assessment of the ontology and nature of Satan. Is it possible that more of the Old Testament profile needs to be adopted as the backdrop for the New Testament profile? Is Satan less an immoral opponent of God and more an amoral agent, an instrument of God in a fallen world?90 How much of Satan’s portrayal in the ancient world accommodates Greco-Roman cultural views? How much were the church fathers influenced by intertestamental literature and the demonology of Hellenistic Judaism, imported from Assyria and Babylonian rather than from the Old Testament? These await careful study by those who maintain a strong doctrine of Scripture but are willing to reexamine traditions that may have insufficient scriptural basis.
Contemporary Significance
IN THIS COMMENTARY SERIES, we have intentionally sought to draw out the contemporary significance of a passage from that which, in our best judgment, the author of the biblical text intends to teach. In other words, the method has been to move from the meaning of the text (determined by what the words mean and the sentences say = Original Meaning), to the universalized teaching of the text that comes with the authority of Scripture (= Bridging Contexts), to the identification of how we ought to believe and live in light of this teaching.
As I mentioned in the introduction to the Bridging Contexts section, this is problematic for the book of Job. Since not every pericope of the book has an authoritative teaching, not every pericope will have a contemporary significance that shows how that teaching ought to be lived out. The speeches of Job’s friends, or even of Job himself, reflect flawed thinking and cannot be used as the foundation for scriptural teaching.
For this reason, I have decided to do Contemporary Significance in a different way. Many Christians experience significant suffering in their lives. In the end, the book of Job will help us sort out how we should think about suffering, but it will take a while for us to get there. In the meantime, before we begin to unfold some of the answers offered by the book, we can use the book of Job to consider our own experiences of suffering. The fact is, as we go through periods of suffering, we encounter many dead ends—well-meaning people whose counsel brings doubt and despair, our own struggles with doubt, and our questions about God. While many of us may be reluctant to think we have suffered as greatly as Job or to consider ourselves as righteous as Job, we can still see something of our own lives in Job’s experiences.
Because I cannot claim to have suffered much in my life, it would be impossible for me to empathize with many readers whose life experiences have brought them pain. I have therefore recruited a friend for some help.
Kelly’s Story
I FIRST ENCOUNTERED KELLY several years ago in my class on Old Testament Literature and Interpretation (a general education requirement for all students at Wheaton that introduces them to the Old Testament). I immediately saw that she had some disability related to her arm, but it took some time for me to hear her whole story—an inspiring one that helped bring the book of Job alive for me. In my course, I have the students choose a book of the Old Testament and write five short papers on that book, approaching it from different directions. Kelly chose the book of Job, and I have benefited from interacting with her over the book throughout the semester as she worked at applying the teaching of the book to her perspectives about her own situation.
Throughout the Contemporary Significance sections in this commentary, Kelly has agreed to share her story and her thoughts about suffering with the readers. Though she would strongly reject the idea that she was a modern-day Job (righteous in every way and wealth beyond imagining), through her eyes and experiences we will encounter the questions and doubts that Job encountered, along with all those since him who have suffered. This will help to draw us into the issues with which the book grapples.
In this chapter Kelly will begin by sharing her story: from the accident that disabled her arm to the medications, the surgeries, and the therapies that have characterized her life ever since, as doctors have sought to improve her quality of life.
JHW: Tell us what happened that day Kelly.
Kelly: July 29, 2000, has left a permanent mark—that day changed my life forever. I was an active twelve-year-old kid from Colorado, who loved theater and snowboarding and couldn’t wait to start seventh grade. That summer I traveled with my family quite a bit, mostly to Sawyer, Michigan, to a small Christian community called Bethany Beach; I had spent time every summer of my life at this community. Our trip was coming to a close, and we needed to prepare for our long drive back home to Avon, Colorado. While we were packing up the car, we found out that the air conditioning was broken. This posed a significant problem for my mom, who was about to start a twenty-hour drive with three kids and trailer in the blasting heat and humidity of summer. We decided to sleep during the day and start our drive at night, when it was cooler. So we left at about 8:00 p.m. on July 28, 2000.
My sister, Jamie, my brother, J.D., and my mom, Heather, took shifts to split up the long drive. We had been driving through the whole night, and as the sun rose over the plains, we had driven midway through Nebraska. Jamie, 17, and I were sleeping in the back. I was lying down behind the passenger seat, with pillows, blankets, and a mini-TV to entertain us during the long drive. We had just stopped for gas and switched drivers, so my mom was in the passenger seat and J.D., 15, was driving. He had recently gotten his permit and needed more hours to get his license, so my mom told him that he could drive when we reached Nebraska, since we would be on Interstate 80 for hours and it was a straight shot home. J.D. and I were anxious to get back because we both had gotten good parts in the community theater musical Guys and Dolls, and rehearsal started at the beginning of August.
JHW: But then the unimaginable happened. What do you remember?
Kelly: Before getting back on the road I faintly remember J.D. asking, “Hey, do you guys want to stop for breakfast?” to which we mumbled, “Not yet, let’s wait an hour or two.” Jamie and I quickly drifted back to sleep. Suddenly I woke up to the most horrifying sound of my brother screaming and yelling profanities that I had never heard from his mouth. I sat up just in time to see the guardrail in front of me, and then everything went black. I woke up to the sound of sirens, with the world spinning around me, and seven paramedics hovering two feet above my face. When they noticed I had regained consciousness, they shouted, “She’s awake!” “Can you feel your toes? Can you feel your fingers? How many fingers am I holding up?” In utter confusion, I screamed, “I don’t care about my toes! What happened?! Who are you? Where is my family!?” One paramedic lowered his voice and said, “Kelly, everyone is alive. Everyone survived.” “Survived! Survived what?!” I shouted using the only energy I had left. “Your family was in a serious car accident, but everyone is okay.”
My mom is such a strong woman. As she came over to me, I could see her fighting back the tears and trying to keep her voice calm, “Kelly … I am here. Can you feel your legs, honey?” I replied, “Yes, but mom, where is my arm? Where is it? I can’t feel my arm! I can’t move it! Is it attached?” Her voice began to crack as she looked at my arm, “Kelly, you just have a deep wound in your arm, and it probably hit a nerve, but don’t worry—you’ll be able to move it really soon.” She did not know at the time that I would never again have a functioning right arm. I remember my mom’s eyes watering as she said, “Kelly, you get to go on a helicopter ride! Isn’t that cool?” As they hoisted me onto the gurney to be lifted into the Flight for Life helicopter, I fell back asleep.
JHW: So when you were finally able to reconstruct the event—what happened?
Kelly: We had been on the straight and monotonous Midwest roads for hours. Thirty minutes into J.D.’s driving shift, he began daydreaming about snowboarding, and two seconds later the Land Cruiser went off the road, down into the ditch. He turned the wheel with all his strength, but the weight of the trailer was too much. The car collided with the guardrail going 80 mph, hitting the passenger side door; the car flipped over the guardrail and rolled five times before it slid to a stop in the cornfield. At point of impact, my body shot out the side window, with my head breaking through the glass, and my body wrapped around the guardrail. As my head went through the window, the frame of the car smashed against my right shoulder on my way out, shattering the collarbone into dust and causing all five main nerves, also known as the brachial plexus (which controls that fourth of my body) to snap from the spinal cord. My right arm was torn at the armpit, causing significant blood loss. The paramedics, noticing the dangerously large amount of blood being lost for a young girl, called the Flight for Life helicopter. The accident broke my left collarbone (in addition to shattering the right), punctured my liver and spleen, broke all the bones in the left side of my face, and paralyzed one fourth of my body.
JHW: What about the rest of the family?
Kelly: That car accident on the morning of July 29, 2000, should have taken my life. It should have taken my sister’s life. Jamie was ejected from the car after the third roll and thrown into the cornfield. She broke her neck in numerous places, but by God’s grace, she recovered without any permanent damage outside of occasional neck pain. J.D. walked away with a cut on his shoulder. Miraculously, my mom saw the impact coming, brought her right leg to her chest, took the pillow from behind her head and put it in front of her—this act saved her right leg. She only sprained her ankle and broke three ribs. My family and I experienced a miracle that day; we learned how incredibly fragile is the gift of life.
JHW: But that was the beginning rather than the end. You now faced multiple surgeries. Can you tell us about them?
Kelly: I underwent my first surgery within hours of the accident. I had a deep wound on my arm because the glass went so deep; the bone and muscle were visible, so they grafted skin from my right hip to put over the hole so that it could heal. They were planning to operate on my punctured organs, but doctors were amazed to find that the organs were healing at an incredible pace, so that no surgery was needed—this was one of the blessings I received from the Lord. I was in the Intensive Care Unit in Nebraska for five days before they transferred me to Denver Children’s Hospital, where I received numerous other surgeries. Since my right collarbone was shattered in the accident, the doctors wanted to operate immediately to try to rebuild my shoulder. They placed a metal plate over my collarbone and used screws to put the bone back together.
A couple of weeks after the surgery, we went to a neurologist to test the nerves in my right arm to see the damage that was done and what could be regained. As the doctor poked at different nerves and was moving certain muscles, he would ask, “Can you move this finger, Kelly? Really try hard.” I tried with all my brainpower, but nothing moved. Not one muscle or nerve came out positive. “I am trying, but I can’t! It won’t move,” I snapped. I stared down at my limp right arm and began to sob as I was hit with the gravity of my injury. The doctor shook his head and gave us the diagnosis. From my sternum to my shoulder all the way down to my pinky, my right side was completely paralyzed, which meant that all the nerves that control that fourth of the body were not just severed, but snapped from the brain stem. He explained that there was no way they could reattach the nerves because of the damage done to my spinal cord, and that only a serious nerve transplant could possibly restore any function or feeling.
My mom and I flew down to Texas, and on September 11, 2000, I underwent a thirteen-hour nerve transplant with the top brachial plexus specialist in the country. They took out two nerves in my legs that they told me were not completely necessary, then took out one nerve on the left side of my spinal cord and attached two nerves to that one socket. They threaded the nerves across my chest and into my armpit, where they attached them to other nerves in my right arm. When I woke up from surgery, I had never felt so much excruciating pain in my life; I remember sincerely and earnestly praying to God that he would take me home. Yet the Lord had a different plan in mind.
The doctor who grafted the two nerves said he hoped I would regain most of the feeling in the right arm and would be able to move my shoulder, biceps, triceps, wrist, and three fingers. Nerves regenerate a millimeter per month, so after the surgery, I would simply have to wait five years to see how my body would respond, hoping the muscles would work again before they completely atrophied. Since my muscles had no electrical stimulation from the brain, they would begin to atrophy and shrink, so we flew to Canada for my next surgery: to receive two electrical implants that would send stimulation to my biceps and triceps, in order to preserve the muscles until the nerve regenerated.
JHW: Beyond losing the use of your right arm, however, you had significant pain to deal with, as well as numerous surgeries intended to address those problems. How did that go?
Kelly: Adjusting to life without my right and dominant arm was not easy, but the chronic nerve pain that comes with paralysis is torturous. I began to realize that the nerve pain was seriously impacting all areas of my life. The pain can be so intense that my body will shut down, whether by collapsing to the ground in a classroom or going into convulsions. So my mom and I decided to go to a pain management clinic, where they suggested that I implant an electrical machine that would send signals throughout my right arm to override and weaken the pain. The first surgery was not too invasive, but it failed. The doctors scheduled another neck surgery, where they opened up my vertebrae to place the electrodes along the spinal cord, and then threaded wires down my back to attach to the battery they placed in my lower back. This surgery failed as well.
After I had undergone two failed surgeries and after months of wearing a neck brace, the doctors still insisted on a third surgery, where they would break apart my vertebrae and insert a small plate to hold the wires along my spinal cord. After spending thousands of dollars, wearing a neck brace for practically my whole sophomore year of high school, receiving scars all down my back, and suffering the pain from the surgeries, the device did nothing. The third surgery failed as well. The year that followed I went abroad to study in Ecuador and was happy to be away from the medical stress and numerous surgeries looming ahead. That same year I regained use of my back and chest, but it became clear that my arm was permanently paralyzed.
I took a couple years off from the operating room, hoping that time would bring some relief or even improvement; this reprieve lasted until November 2007, when I met with the brachial plexus specialist who had performed my nerve transplant seven years earlier. He was stopping in Chicago to speak with patients, and I jumped on the opportunity to meet with him, since he was incredibly difficult to contact. He only had time to meet with me for twelve minutes. My mind raced as I tried to think of all the questions I had—I didn’t want to waste a minute. I told him I was considering amputation. He interrupted me and said:
“No, don’t do that yet. Kelly, it is not your paralyzed arm that cripples you … it’s your nerve pain. You will have this pain for life. Normally the nerve pain fades within the first three to four years, but there are some patients for whom, because of the way the nerves were snapped from the brain stem, the pain becomes permanent. You have lived with the pain for seven years and it has not faded at all. I can see it in your eyes right now that you are trying to maintain your life in spite of the excruciating pain, and I’m telling you now that it will not go away. The surgeries you had never would have worked for your condition—those doctors should have known that. You need to have a spinal cord/brain stem surgery, take six months off from college, and then have numerous muscle transplants, moving muscles from your back and legs to your right arm. I’ll call to schedule you for the spinal cord surgery in about three weeks, okay?”
I sat there in shock, trying to process all the information and began to cry. He sat there, surprised by my reaction and was confused as to why I was upset. He continued, “Kelly, I want you to sit here and picture a life without nerve pain. Nerve pain is one of the most painful things the human body can endure. Can you remember what it feels like to live without excruciating pain?” I shook my head. “Now the surgery has an 85 percent success rate for patients with your condition. Some wake up completely pain free and off their pain medication. Others wake up with significantly reduced pain, where the medication dose was cut in half. But there is a smaller percentage where it does not help with the pain, and it remains the same, but I think it is worth the shot.”
After studying, analyzing, and praying for months, I decided to go ahead with the spinal cord surgery; I felt a life without pain was worth the risk. I just did not know how much I was risking. So on May 29, 2008, I reentered the operating room, more scared than I had ever been. The surgery entailed cutting five of my vertebrae in half and removing them, tearing the muscles around them in order to expose the spinal cord and brainstem. The surgeons drilled holes into the spinal cord and lasered the nerve endings and the right side of the spinal cord to create scar tissue, so that the pain signal from the brain would be blocked. After they finished the laser, they screwed my vertebrae back together and sealed up the eight-inch scar down my neck.
Six hours later I woke up and was in more pain than I had experienced in eight years since my nerve transplant. The nerve pain was horrifying; I curled into a ball on my hospital bed and sobbed; the pain was more intense than ever before. They told me that patients usually see results within the first two weeks. I went back for my checkup appointment only to find out that the doctor was not going to be there for the appointment or the appointment after that. I was so angry that the doctor could not take the time to spend a couple of minutes with me to explain what had happened to my body in the spinal cord surgery that he performed. So I met with his nurse and told her what I was experiencing and that my nerve pain was far worse than it was before the surgery. She tried to sound hopeful, but then explained softly, “You would have felt it by now if the operation was successful. I think you have memorized pain, which means that after your brain sends a pain signal for such a long time, the brain remembers it. No matter what operations you have to fix it, if your brain has memorized that signal and believes it is still there, there is nothing you can do.” So the spinal cord surgery was a complete failure. It was not just that it did not help; rather, burning and lasering the nerve endings made my nerve pain worse permanently, so we had to double my medication dose to try to manage this new level of pain. Angry and confused, I tried to move on.
JHW: At this point you must have been feeling, like Job, that God had painted a target on your back. But it wasn’t over yet, was it?
Kelly: Unfortunately, no. Three months later I left to study abroad in Spain for the fall semester of my junior year of college. Near the end of the semester I began to notice that my left hand was going numb for hours at a time. By the time I returned home to Colorado in December, my left hand was going numb for eight hours a day. I distinctly remember, as I was working as a snowboard instructor, that at the end of the day I was not able to check out my students because I could not pick up a pen; I stared at my limp left hand and the fingers would not respond. I assumed it had to be the cold temperatures, because I did not want to entertain the thought of what it might be. When I got home I jumped in the shower to warm up my body; as I raised my left arm to wash my hair, the arm lost all function—it flopped on my head and then fell to my side. I slid down the wall of the shower, sobbing. I had no idea what was causing this, but my left hand, the only hand I could use, was becoming paralyzed … or so it seemed.
When I came back to Wheaton College for my spring semester, I immediately sought out medical help from a chiropractor; he was eager and willing to assist me, and I consider him a gift from the Lord. We discovered that I had a spinal disc injury, in which the disc was sliding out of place and puncturing a nerve against the vertebrae. The injury was at my C6 and C7 vertebrae, meaning I was losing feeling in my whole hand and had already lost fine motor skills in my fingers as well as the strength in my forearm and triceps.
Over the course of my treatments (two to three visits every week for five months), we tried to address the problem with chiropractic, massage, and physical therapy. Throughout the semester there would be days I could not perform basic functions like typing, writing, buttoning my pants—which made my academic career at a rigorous college very difficult. Months later, by the Lord’s grace, three out of five fingers began gaining strength and feeling, but my ring and pinky fingers were still not responding. The doctor realized that there was another injury that we had not detected before. During my final exam week I went to the hospital to get an MRI of my elbow. Sure enough, I had cubital tunnel, an injury where the ulnar nerve is entrapped by the surrounding tissues, cutting off connection to the brain. So my spinal disc injury caused my thumb, pointer finger, and middle finger to lose feeling and motor skills, while the cubital tunnel caused me to lose use of my ring and pinky finger.
When I went home for the summer, I saw an elbow specialist, who told me the injuries were completely unrelated, but their occurrence at the same time explained why I lost function in all five fingers. The specialist did not find a cause for the cubital tunnel and said, “Some people can get it randomly. You just really have bad luck.” So on June 12, 2009, I was in the operating room once again, this time for my left arm. They decompressed the nerve by slicing the tissues surrounding the nerve, although they said that, because of the damage done to the nerve, it will take six months to two years to regain full motion and feeling in those fingers.
Over the next year I continued physical therapy trying to regain strength, but it is amazing how fast a muscle can atrophy when it loses connection to the brain for eight months. It was humbling, being an active girl from Colorado, to be lifting two-pound weights at the gym, especially since my left arm used to be so strong—the only arm that I used. I was grateful that for once, the medical situation was appropriately diagnosed and successfully treated.
After graduating from Wheaton College with my degrees in Spanish and Fine Art Photography, I moved back home to Colorado in May 2010. I had come to the conclusion that I would not try anything else medically because, as we had seen from my track record, it was doing more harm than good. About a year later, I began seeing a neurologist, and the topic of my nerve pain kept coming up. We tried new medications and varied the dosage, but I did not see any results. He finally said, “Kelly, I really want you to consider going to a nerve pain relief specialist in California. I really think he could do great things for you. He has the cutting-edge technology, and the sole purpose of his practice is to relieve chronic nerve pain.” I was stubborn, but at every appointment he kept asking me, “What do you have to lose? He could be the one that finally makes a breakthrough and relieves you of this pain. No one should have to live with this pain the rest of their lives.”
I finally decided that I would at least look into it, despite my weariness. I would wrestle back and forth between the thoughts, “I was told the same thing about the spinal cord surgery. I was told it would help my pain in amazing ways, but what did that do for me? It nearly paralyzed my left arm!” and “But what if this guy really is the best nerve pain relief specialist? That means he sees patients like me daily, right? What if he does have a treatment that works? Life without pain seems unimaginable.”
After much prayer, I decided to call and see if they had an appointment available. I didn’t want to drive out there alone, so I thought that I’d try to go the week of my husband Agustin’s (fiancé at the time) spring break from grad school. They told me that this doctor is booked six months out and there is no way I can see him in a month. I put the decision on the back burner until I got a call saying they had a miraculous opening in the schedule, which happened to be the week of Agustin’s spring break. Soon we were on the road to L.A. to see this nerve pain specialist.
After taking MRI images of my nerves and meeting with him, we talked about the damage done to the nerves and the possible solutions. He told me that my pain could either be coming from scar tissue build-up that was irritating the nerves under my collarbone or the pain source was in my brain, which means there was almost nothing we could do. He outlined a procedure that would give me the answer once and for all so I wouldn’t have to keep trying treatments that were not addressing the actual problem. He said, “Why continue to have surgeries on the spinal cord if the pain source is the brain? That’s a waste of time and money, and causes unnecessary pain.” This test would detect the source of the pain by temporarily paralyzing my arm and all the nerves surrounding the initial spinal cord injury. Once medically anesthetized, if I did not have nerve pain, we would know the pain source was within the nerves that were paralyzed. But if I still had pain for that fifteen-hour trial period, we could conclude the pain source was in the brain.
The catch was that this test would cost $11,000. My jaw dropped when I heard the price. Since I had just graduated from a private Christian college and was planning my wedding, we would have to take a loan or set up a payment plan to even consider being able to pay that amount of money. Agustin and I discussed it. We decided that I had not taken a week off work and driven all the way to California to hear the suggestion and then turn it down. Plus, the amount of money that I have spent on surgeries that all failed surpasses that price. If we knew once and for all the source of the pain, we wouldn’t have to consider treatment options that involved the spinal cord because we would know the source was in the brain—or vice versa. So we went ahead with the procedure.
Nothing happened. The medication given in the procedure to paralyze all the nerves failed. He said he gave me enough medication to paralyze a normal person’s body almost entirely, and the medication had no effect. I still had the same feeling and motion. When I spoke with the doctor, they were still going to charge us the full $11,000. He also said that even though the test did not give us the result we were hoping for, we would go ahead and do the surgery. The nerves that were damaged in the car accident are encased in scar tissue. The surgery would remove scar tissue in hopes that the nerves would be able to breathe more and reduce nerve pain significantly. He strongly encouraged me to do the surgery, even though there was only a 50/50 chance that it would do anything for me at all.
I asked the doctor, “If the nerves are encased in scar tissue, is that possibly what holds them together? If we tear the scar tissue out, isn’t there a risk it could tear the nerve too, causing me to lose the feeling and motion I gained?”
He recognized the risk but felt it was still worth it to move forward. The amount of pressure to move forward with the surgery, despite the lack of test results to detect the source of the pain, was unsettling. The surgery would cost us another $15,000. We decided not to do the surgery, and after a long stressful week of tests, a failed procedure, and countless hours of waiting to speak with the doctor, we decided to go home with a big stack of bills and no results. To say the trip was discouraging is a huge understatement. We found out weeks later that we were charged three times the amount that other doctors in that area charge for the same procedure. So we are currently trying to negotiate to lower the costs, for a procedure that did absolutely nothing, but we haven’t had much success. In the end, we simply added one more procedure (that was guaranteed to work) which did nothing but add medical bills we will be paying for years.
JHW: That brings us up to the time of this writing, but let’s backtrack a little. You were a Christian at the time of the accident; had yours been a faith embraced in early childhood?
Kelly: I would say it was. I grew up believing Christianity to be true, but I remember going to a worship concert in fifth grade and rededicating my life to Christ. I think that was when I really decided to make my faith my own, and I started to develop my own personal relationship with God.
JHW: Would you say that you had considered yourself a good person, an obedient girl (even if not in Joban proportions)?
Kelly: I would say I was a good kid, but maybe I should ask my mother. I had my bratty moments, but overall I think I considered myself a good person. I wanted to do the right thing, get good grades, and be nice. As I got older, around the age of ten, I started learning that good fruit only comes from my love for Christ; at that point I decided to intentionally pursue him.
JHW: How did your faith react in the aftermath of the accident? Were your responses anything like Job’s (1:21; 2:10)?
Kelly: Immediately after the accident my response was not like Job’s. I was not angry, but I wasn’t praising the Lord for the event either. I was more confused than anything else. I knew the truth in the Scriptures that told me the Lord would bring good from the trials, but I just could not see it; nevertheless, I had to rest my faith on that truth. After about three years, my perspective began to change and I started to see the work that God was doing in me through the situation. I finally came to the point where I could praise him for his faithfulness in the events that took place.
We will follow Kelly’s story from chapter to chapter and see more of her struggles trying to understand what God was doing in her life.
Before we conclude this contemporary significance section, however, we may also consider how the book of Job exposes unhelpful or untruthful thoughts concerning suffering. We expect to find some of these because the book functions, in part, to expose false thinking.
A reason for suffering? Many readers are disturbed by the discussion that occurs between Yahweh and the Challenger in the opening chapter. Does the text imply that such discussions occur frequently?91 Might we find an explanation for our own suffering in such a scenario? I contend that we cannot. We must recall that the scene is not even given to Job as an explanation for his suffering. He never learns of it. If it does not serve as explanation for his suffering, we certainly should not entertain it as an explanation for our own.
One of the major points of this book is that we do not get any explanation for suffering; to expect such an explanation is folly. Explanations are not possible. How strange if we seized upon this scene to provide just that! Furthermore, the scene in heaven does not provide a reason for Job’s suffering. There is no philosophical cause or reason for his suffering—just as there is none for ours. A scenario is not the same as a reason. This is not the same as inscrutability—a view that claims there is a reason, that it is just beyond our ability to understand.
A role model for response to suffering? A second thought might occur to the casual reader of Job 1: Should we understand Job 1:21–22 as an example of how to respond to suffering? Is Job supposed to be a role model for us? We might note two commendable aspects of Job’s response. First, Job recognizes God’s right either to give or to take; second, Job praises God instead of throwing accusations at him. Undeniably, these would be appropriate responses to catastrophes that might come upon us, but the text cannot be upholding Job as a model response, because not all of his responses are commendable, and the text does not differentiate between what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. The text simply reports, as narratives often do.
Therefore, we should not conclude that the text is providing us with a biblically authorized response to suffering in the character of Job; we must maintain the distinction between description and prescription. Undoubtedly, God was pleased with Job’s response (indicated by his repeated praise of Job in 2:3; see also Ezek. 14:14), but a variety of other responses may have been just as acceptable. This part of the book is not designed to detail “the” right response to suffering.
Questioning character. Finally, in the book of Job we find that suffering often results in someone questioning the character of someone else.92 Job begins by offering sacrifices because he questions the character of his children; the Challenger questions the character of God and the motives of Job; Job’s friends question his character; and Job questions the character of God. These questions reveal certain assumptions about character, and we will find the same is true in our consideration of suffering today. We might easily make unwarranted assumptions about the character of God, the character of those who suffer, or even about our own character when we suffer. Such doubts derive from our assumptions about the world and God’s operation of the world, both often reflecting variations of the RP. As we proceed further into the book, we ought to suspend all such assumptions about character and open our minds that we might reconsider how much we truly know about God’s administration of the world.