1“There is a mine for silver
and a place where gold is refined.
2Iron is taken from the earth,
and copper is smelted from ore.
3Man puts an end to the darkness;
he searches the farthest recesses
for ore in the blackest darkness.
4Far from where people dwell he cuts a shaft,
in places forgotten by the foot of man;
far from men he dangles and sways.
5The earth, from which food comes,
is transformed below as by fire;
6sapphires come from its rocks,
and its dust contains nuggets of gold.
7No bird of prey knows that hidden path,
no falcon’s eye has seen it.
8Proud beasts do not set foot on it,
and no lion prowls there.
9Man’s hand assaults the flinty rock
and lays bare the roots of the mountains.
10He tunnels through the rock;
his eyes see all its treasures.
11He searches the sources of the rivers
and brings hidden things to light.
12“But where can wisdom be found?
Where does understanding dwell?
13Man does not comprehend its worth;
it cannot be found in the land of the living.
14The deep says, ‘It is not in me’;
the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’
15It cannot be bought with the finest gold,
nor can its price be weighed in silver.
16It cannot be bought with the gold of Ophir,
with precious onyx or sapphires.
17Neither gold nor crystal can compare with it,
nor can it be had for jewels of gold.
18Coral and jasper are not worthy of mention;
the price of wisdom is beyond rubies.
19The topaz of Cush cannot compare with it;
it cannot be bought with pure gold.
20“Where then does wisdom come from?
Where does understanding dwell?
21It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing,
concealed even from the birds of the air.
22Destruction and Death say,
‘Only a rumor of it has reached our ears.’
23God understands the way to it
and he alone knows where it dwells,
24for he views the ends of the earth
and sees everything under the heavens.
25When he established the force of the wind
and measured out the waters,
26when he made a decree for the rain
and a path for the thunderstorm,
27then he looked at wisdom and appraised it;
he confirmed it and tested it.
28And he said to man,
‘The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom,
and to shun evil is understanding.’ ”
Original Meaning
THE WISDOM HYMN FOUND in this chapter can be divided into three major sections. Verses 1–11 begins with an extended discussion of mining that serves as an introductory image in the consideration of the difficulty in discovering wisdom. Humankind exerts great effort to draw precious metals from the remote depths of the earth. In verses 12–19 two parallel rhetorical questions turn attention explicitly to something even more precious and more inaccessible: wisdom. This section expands beyond the confines of the opening metaphor, for wisdom is not merely difficult to find but appears utterly inaccessible. Verses 20–28 are also introduced by two parallel rhetorical questions, and these verses provide an answer: God provides the pathway to wisdom, and the fear of the Lord is the foundation on which wisdom is built. It is the key that opens the door to the path of wisdom.
MINING WAS AN IMPORTANT industry in the ancient world.1 Mined materials were imported and the products were used in a wide variety of practical and aesthetic undertakings. These materials served as the foundation for technological advancement, production of art, and accumulation of wealth. The discovery of mineral deposits, the technology for extracting them from the earth, and the techniques for refining them were all considered somewhat esoteric, evoking awe and wonder. As the passage outlines, mining requires deep delving in dark, obscure places and produces stunning products (sapphire/lapis lazuli, gold) from what looks common (dust, rock). These aspects will be applied to the search for wisdom; the last line, “brings hidden things to light,” provides a summary and transition to the topic of wisdom.
Two issues that arise in this section require some attention. (1) We might ask what significance there is to mentioning the birds and beasts in 28:7–8. The reference to the birds of prey is understandable within the context, since they are known for having keen eyesight, and the surrounding verses concern places that are dark and undetectable. Lions, however, do not typically prowl around in such places. Of the numerous Hebrew words for “lion,” the one used here is among the least common (seven total occurrences). It is often used in parallel with other words for lion, but in Psalm 91:13 it parallels words for serpent. Furthermore, the phrase at the beginning of Job 28:8 (“proud beasts”) is used elsewhere only to refer to Leviathan, who is king of the proud beasts (41:34). These three observations have led to the suggestion that this word for lion could refer to a composite creature: part lion, part serpent.2 While the suggestion is interesting and has advantages, the data are insufficient to establish the case.
(2) What is the significance of the sources of the rivers in 28:11? In Ugaritic literature the high god El dwells at the source of the two rivers.3 This is not to say that Job 28:11 is referring to seeking out the dwelling place of deity. Rather, the Ugaritic text confirms that the sources of rivers were commonly considered to be places of cosmic significance. Even Genesis 2 speaks of the source of four rivers being located in sacred space (Eden). The end of this section, therefore, brings the reader to the ultimate cosmic mystery. The core issue of the book of Job is concerned with how the cosmos works. The mining illustration speaks of human attempts to understand the inner workings of the cosmos. But the importance of the material cosmos diminishes in light of the question concerning the role of deep wisdom in the cosmos.
Elusive Wisdom (28:12–19)
ONE CAN SEARCH FOR precious metals and find them, given sufficient technology and knowledge. Likewise, though it is difficult, it is possible to explore and discover the sources of rivers. In contrast, wisdom cannot be found and cannot be purchased. It is inaccessible from a human vantage point and beyond value.
To say that wisdom “cannot be found in the land of the living” (28:13) is a bold statement and seems to be contradicted by the concluding statement in 28:28. The examples given in 28:14, however, suggest that 28:13 is an “under the sun” type of statement, similar to those common phrases found in Ecclesiastes. “Deep” and “Sea” are the most inaccessible places in the land of the living, and they confess that they do not harbor wisdom in their depths. The acquisition of wisdom is a human desire that is not attainable by human effort. This quest will not be fulfilled in the human realm by human ingenuity.
The references to “Deep” (tehom) and “Sea” (yam) are personifications (thus my capitalization here), but there is no reason to consider them deities. These two primary representatives of the cosmic waters were generally believed to have been the first primordial inhabitants of creation, which makes them logical sources for information about wisdom. As always, the author reflects on the cosmos in terms that are familiar to him and his world. The section concludes with a listing of the most precious metals and gems from exotic places. None of these is sufficient to purchase wisdom as if it were a commodity.
Source of Wisdom (28:19–28)
JOB 28:20 REITERATES 28:12 with a change in the verb (“Where can wisdom be found” in v. 12 and “Where then does wisdom come from” in v. 20). This crucial adjustment distinguishes the message of verses 12–19, in which wisdom cannot be “found,” from verses 20–28, which suggests that wisdom “comes from” God. The first concerns a search—ultimately unsuccessful; the second concerns a source. In 28:14 it was the Deep and the Sea who answered; in 28:22 it is Destruction and Death who answer. The distinction is again an important one. In 28:12–19 the quest focused on the land of the living, where Deep and Sea are located. In 28:20–28, the quest is extended. Since wisdom is hidden from every living thing, Destruction and Death are consulted. They have word of it, but they confess that wisdom is not to be found in their realm either. One does not achieve wisdom by moving into the next realm. Sheol offers no heightened levels of awareness.
The word translated “Destruction” is ʾabaddon and “Death” is the familiar mawet. As with Deep and Sea in the last section, these are personified but not deified (though in Ugaritic mythology Mot/Death [cf. mawet] is a deity who contends with Baal). Abaddon occurs only five times in the Old Testament.4 In intertestamental literature (1 En. 20:2) it takes on the persona of an angel, also evidenced in the New Testament (Rev. 9:11) where its Greek name is Apollyon. Despite those later developments, in the Old Testament Abaddon is a place name, sometimes personified as here, not a demonic creature. Demonology is largely absent in the Old Testament; it developed in Hellenistic Judaism under the influence of the ancient Near Eastern and Persian worldviews (see Introduction, p. 36).
Finally the poem begins moving to its conclusion with the first reference to God in 28:23, who then becomes the subject of the remainder of the sentences. Previously the path to wisdom and its place of dwelling were unknown; now the poem affirms that God knows both path and place. God’s relationship to wisdom is elaborated in 28:24–27. We will now evaluate these important theological affirmations one at a time.
28:24. “He views the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens.” The closest statement made to this in the rest of the Old Testament is in Isaiah 40:28, where Yahweh is the Creator of the ends of the earth. In ancient Near Eastern literature it is typically the sun god from his vantage point in the heavens who is able to see the ends of the earth. From Mesopotamia, a Hymn to Shamash, the sun god, makes affirmations of a similar nature:
19 Your splendor covers the vast mountains,
20 Your fierce light fills the lands to their limits.
21 You climb to the mountains surveying the earth,
22 You suspend from the heavens the circle of the lands.
27 Regularly and without cease you traverse the heavens,
28 Every day you pass over the broad earth.
43 To unknown distant regions and for uncounted leagues
44 You press on, Shamash, going by day and returning by night.5
In earlier Sumerian literature, Enlil was praised for the extent of his power:
Lord, as far as the edge of heaven, lord as far as the edge of the earth,
From the mountain of sunrise to the mountain of sunset.
In the mountain/land, no (other) lord resides, you exercise lordship.6
Egyptian hymns express similar praises:
Primeval One (Amun) who created himself,
Who oversees all his creation, alone,
Who reaches the ends of the earth each day
In the sight of all those who walk on it;
Who shines from the sky, whose visible form is the sun.7
The sun god Aten is also praised in these terms:
You are beautiful, great, dazzling, exalted above each land,
Yet your rays encompass the lands
To the limits of all which you have created;
There in the Sun, you reach to their boundaries8
Even though Yahweh is not viewed specifically as the sun god, his attributes include those associated with sun gods in the rest of the ancient Near East.9 As Clines and many others observe, however, the Wisdom poem here in Job does not identify the gaze of God as a daily occurrence (as it is with the sun gods) but as having taken place in the primordial past and serving as the basis for his creative work.10 Consequently this statement does not offer a reconsideration of 28:13. Though the path to and the place of wisdom are indeed in the land of the living (the ends of the earth and that which is under heaven), ultimately the inaccessibility of wisdom is most related to its place in time rather than its place in space. Wisdom is to be found in the decisions made in the original arrangement of the cosmos, for wisdom is to be found in the ordering of the components of the cosmos. Order is not readily observable in daily operations, but it was instrumental in the foundation of creation and is inherent in the ongoing operations. That primordial perspective is inaccessible to humans.
This is an important statement for the case the book of Job is making. Job and his friends think that they know how the cosmos is ordered (the RP with justice as the foundation). God will eventually demonstrate that their model is flawed. God’s perspective on the foundation of the cosmos is based on causes (all instigated by him), not on effects (what humans experience). There is no foundational principle that runs the cosmos. The cosmos runs by God’s continuous and ongoing activity. It is dynamic because he is dynamic; this is why he acts according to circumstance and not by a rigid set of strictures. This is why modern empirical science (which is based on constancy and laws) has to remove God from the equation before it can do anything.
28:25–26. “When he established the force of the wind and measured out the waters, when he made a decree for the rain and a path for the thunderstorm.” The lead word “when” informs the reader of the point in time at which God was viewing the ends of the earth. He had the whole of the cosmos in mind as he undertook creation. The elements of the cosmos mentioned here are those that have the most impact, both positively and negatively, on human survival and existence, and Yahweh will return to these in his speech (38:8–11, 22–30). Obviously these statements do not embrace every aspect of the creation of the cosmos. By focusing on those forces whose effects too often appear to work independently of justice, justice and wisdom are juxtaposed.
28:27. “Then he looked at wisdom and appraised it; he confirmed it and tested it.” Here God approves creation by the criterion of wisdom—not justice. In other words, when God surveyed the breadth and width of the cosmos and the way that the wind, waters, rain, and thunderstorm had been set up, he concluded that the operations as ordered were characterized by wisdom. This is similar to the Genesis 1 assessment that each aspect of creation was good. In this sense the cosmos was an assertion of his wisdom, and the execution of his creative work successfully reflected his wisdom.
Again it must be noted that this assessment stands in contrast to what Job, his friends, and most of the other people in their world expected. They expected that God would have appraised the cosmos in light of justice because that is what they valued above all else.
28:28. “And he said to man, ‘The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.” Here the poem reaches its climax and conclusion. Commentators have considered this verse trite, clichéd, contradictory, and anticlimactic, or they have dismissed it as a later addition. Such reactions are unnecessary, as I will seek to demonstrate below. Also of interest is the fact that the protagonists we have met so far (Job’s friends) all have reputations as being among the wisest that the world has to offer; yet somehow the “fear of the Lord” has not figured prominently in their discussions.11
Some observations need to be made about the wording of the verse. First, the conclusion is presented as an instruction to humankind (ʾadam); second, it refers to the “fear of Adonai” rather than “fear of Yahweh”; third, unlike the similar saying in Proverbs where fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, here the fear of the Lord is wisdom; and finally, the phrase “fear of the Lord” is paralleled with an ethical exhortation to shun evil. Each of these requires some consideration.
(1) Instruction. Sea, Deep, Destruction, and Death have all had their “say” in which they confessed to knowing little to nothing about wisdom. Now God has his “say,” clarifying what humans need to know. Syntactically the instruction can be seen as a result clause following the assessment of wisdom. That is, having appraised and tested wisdom, the result is that he instructs humans to fear Adonai. Fearing the Lord means to take him seriously as opposed to:
• thinking him detached (therefore to be ignored)
• thinking him incompetent (therefore to be treated with disdain)
• thinking him limited or impotent (therefore to be scorned)
• thinking him corrupt (therefore to be admonished)
• thinking him shortsighted (therefore to be advised)
• thinking him petty (therefore to be resented)
Were Job and his friends taking God seriously? Job is identified as one fearing God in the introduction to the book, but his fear of God demonstrated itself at the level of meticulous ritual and conscientious submission. The dialogues, however, show his perception of God to be lacking key components. He is unwilling to give God the benefit of the doubt and inclined to think that God is deficient in some way. The fear of God involves more than recognition that he has the power to act for or against people.
Of course God has power, but this context suggests that an issue of trust is involved. The fact that wisdom is inaccessible to humans except through God requires that we trust him—and this aspect of trust is therefore included in his instruction to “fear the Lord.” We trust that he is not detached, incompetent, impotent, corrupt, shortsighted, or petty. Thus we can rest assured in the information that our wisdom is codependent on his and derived from it. This reality has not been expressed in the dialogues between Job and his friends, but it is an essential element for making further progress in the discussion.
(2) Adonai. As previously mentioned, the name Yahweh occurs only in the frame narrative and the Yahweh speeches (Job 1–2; 38–42) with the arguable exception of 12:9 (see p. 177 for discussion), so we would not necessarily expect this poem to speak of the fear of Yahweh. What we might expect is that it would refer to the fear of God (ʾelohim) (as in 1:1, 8, 9; 2:3). Adonai is a much vaguer term since it can also refer to human authorities. This is also the only occurrence of Adonai in the book. Furthermore, it is put in the mouth of God (i.e., it is the instruction he is giving); nowhere else in the Old Testament does God refer to himself simply by the title Adonai. This usage is therefore noteworthy and unique on several counts.
Job has already been identified as one who fears God, so to reiterate that concept here only serves to loop the reader back to the opening description of Job. “Fear of Yahweh” would anticipate Yahweh’s forthcoming speeches at the end of the book, but Job has not yet encountered Yahweh and that would preempt the book’s conclusion. It should be noted that the instruction is not addressed to Job but to humankind, and thus to the reader. For the Israelite reader, the term Adonai moves toward the name Yahweh (from the more general ʾelohim), yet still retains some ambiguity. Somewhere between piety (fear of God) and Yahwism (fear of Yahweh) is the recognition of one’s submission to deity. This is what Job lacks, and the book will move to address this deficit. The title Adonai, “lord, master,” draws out this element of submission.
(3) Is Wisdom. In the previous references to wisdom in the chapter (vv. 12, 20), the noun has a definite article: the Wisdom, indicating that it is both fundamental and transcendent. Here in verse 28 there is no definite article. These references must therefore be distinguished. Fear of Adonai is not then being identified as the Wisdom to which God understands the way and that is inaccessible to humans in the land of the living. Fearing Adonai will not give people that Wisdom; it is an act of wisdom as it opens up the path to the Wisdom. Furthermore, when people respond to God with the assumption that he is wise, they will enact the fear of Adonai. It is wise to trust God as the path to the Wisdom.
(4) Ethical exhortation. What comprises the wise fear of Adonai? Here it is equated with turning away from evil. That sounds obvious enough to us, but we have to think in terms of the ancient world. We might recall that Job’s fear of God in the first chapter expressed itself in dutiful and conscientious ritual observance (1:4–5). This was a common reflex in the ancient world. God’s assessment of him, however, asserted that Job was a man who had also turned away from evil (1:8—the same vocabulary as used here in 28:28). If Job is already one who fits the criteria cited here, what is the point?
The most reasonable explanation is that this serves as an affirmation and vindication of the stance that Job has adopted as he withstands the assault of his friends. The argument in the dialogues concerns whether Job is going to make a principled stand on his righteousness (this is the integrity that he defended in 27:1–6) or whether he will accede to the advice of his friends and admit to offenses in a strategy designed to recover his prosperity. Fear of Adonai is expressed in righteous behavior—turning away from evil, but not in appeasement of deity presumed to respond to people based on the ways they meet his needs. In this way of thinking, fear of Adonai does not look for patronizing a needy god so that he will leave you alone (inherent in the Great Symbiosis); fear of Adonai looks for upright behavior—true ethical righteousness as Job has insisted.
Bridging Contexts
IN THE INTRODUCTION TO this commentary (pp. 29–31) I have already discussed the difficulties surrounding the identification of the speaker in this Wisdom poem. For the reasons indicated there I am not persuaded that the speaker is Job, Zophar, or Elihu, as others have suggested. I believe that this chapter is best understood as a return to the compiler, the true author of the book whose voice we hear in the prose introduction and conclusion.
Role in the book. In this scenario, this Wisdom poem serves as a transition from the section of the book that has presented the case of the three friends, who in turn have been unwittingly pressing the case of the Challenger. Job has stood firmly against their pressure to pursue a path of regaining his prosperity. Consequently the Challenger’s contention that he was motivated by desire for reward has been shown false—Job’s is a disinterested righteousness.12
Nevertheless, this still leaves Job’s complaint unaddressed. The Challenger had contended it was bad policy for the righteous to prosper because such a policy would corrupt their motives. Job has contended that it is bad policy for the righteous to suffer because that would undermine God’s justice. The “wisdom” of the friends has not been wisdom at all, and Job himself has been groping to understand his experiences and how God and the world work.
This poem ultimately affirms that the friends are wrong and Job is right in the sense that wisdom is found in a fear of God that depends on a righteousness that turns away from evil, rather than on one that relies on piety and appeasement and results in divine favor and prosperity. Having concluded the consideration of the case argued by the friends and Challenger, the author turns attention to the contention of Job. The question in the first part of the book was: “Is Job’s righteousness disinterested?” In the second part of the book, the question turns to: “Can there be coherence when righteous people suffer?” Real wisdom has not yet been brought to light, and doing so is not an easy task, as chapter 28 indicates.
Job 28 and its view of wisdom. Job and his friends have been assuming that there is a wisdom that humans can acquire that understands life’s experiences as an expression of God’s justice (the wisdom expressed in the RP). This wisdom that they seek will presumably bring coherency by providing an understanding of how justice is done both in general and in Job’s specific situation.
Though wisdom is the key to this understanding, Job and his friends seek a wisdom that is inaccessible and will not fulfill their expectations. “Whatever Job thinks he is doing, his mistake is in presuming that human rationality can grasp and hold the structures of the world in intelligibility.”13
The poem shifts the book from a search for justice to a search for wisdom. God should be viewed as a purveyor of wisdom rather than a simple purveyor of justice. This offers an alternative model by which to account for reality. C. Newsom captures this with the observation that Job is involved in “the search for something that is not only more precious than gold but beyond all other values. What he seeks, though he may not employ the term ḥokmah [wisdom] for it, is a point of coherency, a vantage point from which God, the world, and his own experience make sense.”14
God and wisdom. The term used predominantly in Job 28 for wise/wisdom is ḥakam/ḥokmah. A study of the root ḥkm throughout the Old Testament turns up some surprising results. The Old Testament rarely suggests that God is wise.15 The noun (ḥokmah) refers to that which belongs to God (Job 12:13) and which is given by God (1 Kings 3:28; 10:24; Prov. 2:6; Eccl. 2:26). God operates in wisdom (Ps. 104:24; Prov. 3:19). God is the one who brought wisdom forth (Prov. 8:22). M. Fox observes about Proverbs 8 that “God acquired/created wisdom as the first of his deeds. Wisdom was ‘born’ (vv. 24, 25) at that time. She did not exist from eternity. Wisdom is therefore an accidental attribute of the godhead, not an essential or inherent one.”16
Wisdom should be understood as that which brings order and coherence. Since before there was creation there was only God, there was nothing for God to provide coherence for and no one to seek coherence. Order implies a relationship of things and there was nothing else. God is the author of order and the foundation for coherence, but one would not speak of God himself, alone, as coherent or orderly. Only as creation was put in place could God envision order and inculcate it into the cosmos. One can then say that God was exercising wisdom to do so, but to say that God is wise understates God’s nature. Affirmations such as “God is wise,” “God is good,” or “God is holy” are misleading and ultimately reductionistic, though the Bible makes such statements legitimately. The adjectives themselves find their definition in God, so one may as well say “God is God”—a philosophically meaningless tautology. Humans can only approach wisdom, goodness, or holiness by being like God—not because he is wise, but because any wisdom we might find has its foundations in him.
These observations help us to begin to understand the point being made in Job 28. The cosmos is permeated with wisdom because God made it that way. The poem does not suggest that God is wisdom or that he has wisdom. Certainly God understands and knows wisdom because it finds its source in him. One can only perceive order and coherence if one takes seriously that those qualities of wisdom emanate from God; thus fearing the Lord is wisdom. We are used to the saying, “All truth is God’s truth.” The variation of that saying that emerges from this discussion is “All order is God’s order.”
How does the presentation of God in 28:24–27 contrast with the picture of God given previously in the book? Through this point in the book Job has been seeking wisdom (a coherent understanding of his situation), and his friends have been offering the wisdom that they reputedly and presumably have. Job has a reputation as a wise man, but now he is stumped. His default understanding of coherence is not working, and he finds the suggestions of his friends inadequate.
The introduction indicates that Job fears God (1:8). This is demonstrated by his pious attention to ritual and his turning away from evil. But there are other areas in which to express fear of the Lord. Does Job consider God to be the author of coherence? Fearing God in that manner would be demonstrated in giving him the benefit of the doubt even in the midst of perceived incoherence. For Job, coherence can only be found in justice. It would seem that if Job is unable to identify a coherence associated with justice, God becomes suspect and should be called to account. In this sense, Job at least tacitly believes that he knows the path to wisdom and the shape that it needs to take. Job’s friends suffer the same overconfidence.
Job 28 therefore serves an important function at this juncture in the book. It serves notice that Job is not in the position of control and that his expectations should not dictate the direction in which the situation proceeds. It also serves notice that the friends’ perception of coherence is flawed and simplistic.
Contemporary Significance
OUR DISCUSSION OF THE contemporary significance of this chapter can proceed differently than it has in the previous chapters. Throughout the dialogues we were well aware that the text was presenting flawed views rather than authoritative biblical teaching. Our strategy was therefore to interact with those views, identify them in our own responses, and critique them.
If I am right in reading this speech as from the mouth of the narrator, however, we here have biblical teaching on the proper way to think. In fact, this chapter offers some of the fundamental insights on which I base my interpretation of the book and its teaching. These insights challenge our own inclinations when we face suffering and suggest new models for thinking.
Role of Wisdom in the Cosmos
PAST NOT PRESENT. WHEN life goes wrong, we look for reasons. Where do we expect to find them? This poem suggests that the wisdom for finding such explanations is not available. We should not expect that we will ever deduce or receive a rationalization that justifies our suffering.17 Consequently it is futile to spend time and energy trying to decipher the situation.
Our circumstances find their roots in the past, not in the present. In other words, our circumstances, for good or ill, are based in God’s ordering of the cosmos of creation. Perhaps a mundane illustration will help. We can say that God created gravity at the beginning. God’s wisdom is inherent in gravity. When any of us do something intentional or accidental that results in us leaving the ground, gravity will become evident. God’s wisdom is not to be sought in every individual expression of gravity, though we dare not say that it operates without him (one form of deism). He could theoretically disengage it in a particular moment or instance, but we should not expect it. The explanation for gravity would therefore be sought at the beginning of time, not in the present expression of it. One could ask endlessly why gravity expressed itself in a particular situation, but such answers are inaccessible and reflect a wrongheaded question.
Are our questions about our suffering really any different? When God made gravity, it became inevitable that some people would fall, resulting in death or injury. When God created our nervous systems, it became inevitable that there would be pain. Each experience of pain finds its ultimate explanation in how the system was initially constructed. When we move from the question, “Why do I experience pain?” (nervous system) to “Why did this particular pain-causing experience happen to me?” we should not expect to discern an answer.
When I trip and experience gravity, I don’t ask, “What did I do that resulted in God causing me to trip?” God did not cause me to trip, nor did he foreordain me to trip. In the same way, when I experience pain or suffering, it is fruitless to ask, “What did I do that resulted in God causing this pain and suffering for me?” This is what the text is addressing when it indicates that answers to those questions are not to be found in the land of the living. Some explanations may be found in relation to the way that God ordered the cosmos. In such cases, the answers are systemic, not personal—just as gravity is systemic, not personal.18 We must resist, however, adopting this course of logic as a replacement system, for it too easily becomes reductionistic. Deism is not an alternative Scripture allows.
We might then wonder why God has set things up in such a way that suffering could happen. This is a better question and has a different sort of answer. It is different in that it is theological and focuses on the systems inherent in the cosmos instead of on my specific experiences. Instead of asking questions about whether I or a loved one deserves to suffer (situational justice), it asks whether it was wise or just for God to set up such a system so that these things could happen. The poem in Job 28 talks about God’s wisdom as inherent in the causes that he initiated, and we cannot confidently trace those to the effects that can be observed day by day.
Wisdom and justice. The next question, then, becomes whether justice was the central element in God’s creation of the cosmos. That is, did he set up the system so that justice would always be done? Again, using gravity as an illustration, God did not make gravity discerning. Gravity does not choose the path of justice. It makes no decision about whether it engages and is not based on any person’s nature or circumstances. Furthermore, God does not micromanage the application of gravity to individual circumstances. In his wisdom he constructed the system, without justice in mind or as the criteria in its operation. That does not mean that justice is perverted (in the system’s operation/creation) or that God is not just. If God had set up the cosmos so that justice would be the default, a fallen world could not exist. As it stands, however, there is more to the world than justice, and we should be glad of this reality. Otherwise none of us would exist.
We should not seek an explanation for our personal circumstances, and we should not seek an understanding of how the larger issue of justice is served in our suffering. Instead we should understand that we have experienced one of the consequences of the way that God organized the cosmos as well as the consequence of the fall and the curse. We should seek out the wisdom of the cosmos rather than seek out the justice behind our circumstances. We should not assume that there is justice, but we should assume that there is wisdom.
A. MacLeish, in the Pulitzer Prize–winning play, J.B., tries to put the pieces together:
God is God or we are nothing—
Mayflies that leave their husks behind—
Our tiny lives ridiculous—a suffering
Not even sad that Someone Somewhere
Laughs at as we laugh at apes.
We have no choice but to be guilty.
God is unthinkable if we are innocent.19
Can we agree with this assessment and the reasoning that underlies it? The first five lines identify the philosophical problem in what I believe would be accurate terms. But the final two lines are theologically shortsighted. Yes, of course, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; but MacLeish’s reasoning still has the shortcoming of turning suffering into punishment for our generalized guilt. Like Job and his friends, his only and final foundation is justice. Rather than thinking of God’s presumed injustice making him “unthinkable,” we should turn our attention to his wisdom, which is beyond our knowledge or imagination. This is only possible as it is facilitated by the “fear of the Lord” to which we now turn.
Fear of the Lord
IN THE POP-CULTURE NOVEL Memnoch the Devil: The Vampire Chronicles by Ann Rice, a remarkable 150-page section offers Memnoch’s (Satan’s) perspective on his fall in self-justifying terms. In the course of that lengthy conversation is the following reflection from those in Sheol:
We accept that our lives have been wondrous experiences and worth the pain and the suffering, and we cherish now the joy we knew, and the moments of harmony, and we have forgiven Him for not ever explaining it all to us, for not justifying it, not punishing the bad or rewarding the good, or whatever else it is that all these souls, living and dead, expect of Him. We forgive Him. We don’t know, but we suspect that maybe he knows a great secret about how all this pain could come to pass and still be good. And if He doesn’t want to tell, well, He is God. But whatever, we forgive Him and we Love Him in our forgiveness, even though we know He may never care about any of us, any more than He cares for the pebbles on the beach below.20
We could contest the theology on many points here, but I quote it for its expression of one implication of the fear of the Lord. I would not agree with the concept of forgiving God, for that implies some offense on his part. What is important here is the ability—or perhaps the decision—to look beyond our perceptions of justice and our demands for answers. I don’t think that it is a matter of his having a “great secret” that turns every devastating experience into good. The key, not a secret at all, is that God can take all of the pain and devastation that might occur in our lives and bring good from it. That does not make the pain and devastation good. Rather than thinking in terms of forgiving him, we should think in terms of trusting his wisdom and loving him. He does care for us more than for the pebbles on the beach and experiences our pain along with us.
Can we acquire an understanding of the wisdom that underlies the cosmic system? Job 28 says no. We are not able to understand it and we are not asked to understand it. It is no surprise that we are curious, but we should not expect that curiosity to be satisfied.
The alternative that the text offers is that we partake of the wisdom that is expressed in fearing the Lord. This is different from the fruitless search described (28:20–21) in that it requires we believe that God has set up and sustains the cosmos in wisdom, even if we cannot receive an explanation that makes sense to us. It is wise for us to believe that he is wise. This becomes a matter of trust rather than understanding. Adopting such a posture does not require us to affirm that “there is a reason even though I don’t know what it is.” Instead it asks us to move beyond reasons. Our confidence is not that there is an explanation. We trust that God has established the cosmos wisely and that whatever comes our way is reconcilable with his wisdom.
This should not be confused with deism. God did not just initiate creation and then leave everything to work by itself. But many aspects of the cosmos have been firmly established since the foundation of the world. In these God’s wisdom was manifest, but justice was not the sole basis for its design. Furthermore, God does not tinker with it situation by situation even though he is thoroughly engaged in the operation of the cosmos moment by moment (but if he wants to tinker, he can). In him all things cohere, and without his sustaining hand all would cease to exist.
Power and trust. Some people might say that we fear God because he has the power to do us harm. This is illustrated in the comment made by one of the characters in the TV show House: “People pray so that God does not squash them like bugs.” It is true that he has the power to do us harm, and it is true that we risk his powerful wrath when we spurn him in our thoughts or actions. But our fear of the Lord is not supposed to either begin or end with his power. The power of a powerful being is expressed most in his or her ability to refrain from using that power in inappropriate ways. Such restraint results in trust.
We express our fear of the Lord when we trust him with our circumstances—as uncomfortable or confusing as they may be. We trust him enough to accept that there need not be an explanation. We trust that his just nature is unassailable even though there is no identifiable justice in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. We trust that he has set up the system in the very best (= wisest) way possible even when we are suffering the consequences of a system broken by the fall.21 We trust his love for us, and we trust that even in our difficulties, he can show his love and strengthen us through the trials.22
Ethics and ritual. What does God expect of us? Once we accept that the fear of the Lord (trusting him) is wisdom, what implications does that have for us? It is not unusual for Christians to have a response similar to what we called the Great Symbiosis in the ancient world. When the people in the ancient Near East experienced uncomfortable circumstances, they sought explanations. Since human obligation was to serve the gods by providing for their needs, the conclusion was generally reached that deity had been offended by some ritual trespass (since rituals addressed the needs of the gods). To summarize the logic:
• They suffered because deity was angry.
• Deity was angry because of ritual failure.
• Divine wrath needed to be appeased.
• Appropriate ritual acts would hopefully accomplish appeasement and restoration.
Do Christians follow a similar train of thought? In many ways, yes. The following questions will help you test your “Great Symbiosis Quotient”:
1. Have sins caused your suffering?
2. Does God have “reasons”?
3. Did God do these things to you?
4. Does God “allow” suffering and disaster?
If your answer to each question was an unqualified yes, your GSQ is high and you have a lot in common with the Babylonians. Let’s take a look at each question.
1. Have sins caused your suffering?
Sin can result in suffering because God does take the punishment of sin seriously and suffering is one possible punishment. Examples can be found throughout the Bible: the people groups whom God exterminated in the Old Testament (Canaanites, Amorites, Amalekites); the unfaithful Israelites; individuals committing offenses (Achan, Uzzah, Ahab; and in New Testament Ananias and Sapphira) p. 105; plus many others.23 Nevertheless, we also learn from Scripture that not all suffering is punishment for evil (note esp. 1 Peter 4:12–19). If not all personal suffering is caused by personal sin, one cannot confidently conclude that any particular suffering is punishment for sin, unless there is clear evidence to the contrary. We can say that sin in the world causes suffering in the world, but is your particular suffering the result of your personal sin? Probably not.
2. Does God have “reasons”?
It would be incorrect to think of God as acting in arbitrary, capricious, or selfish ways. We have proposed that God acts in wisdom. When we seek reasons, we are generally seeking explanations that will reveal the justice underlying our situations—that is, we are looking for particular sorts of reasons, reasons rooted in our behavior, for our particular circumstances. That is the flaw that exposes our Great Symbiosis thinking. While we would never want to presume so much knowledge of God that we would claim he has no reasons, at the same time we should think neither that there must be reasons nor that we could ever discern them when there are. If God has reasons, and they are important for us to know, his Spirit is perfectly capable of revealing them to us. But we should not be manufacturing them to satisfy our desire for coherency and closure.
3. Did God do these things to you?
It would be to our theological peril to think that anything that happens to us is outside of God’s realm of activity and involvement. All that happens is under his supervision and providence and nothing happens that we could claim he did not do. So regarding anything that happens, he “did” it in the same sense that he causes you to stay on the ground rather than float away with each step you take. But when we think of God doing things to us, we usually think of him acting with reasons stimulated by our behavior, and that if we acted differently, he would act differently. Therein lies the Great Symbiosis thinking.
In H. Kushner’s popular book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, he offers the choice he has made at horrible cost: “I can worship a God who hates suffering but cannot eliminate it, more easily than I can worship a God who chooses to make children suffer and die, for whatever exalted reason.”24 This is a false dichotomy. God is neither incapable nor cruel for a higher good. Trusting in his wisdom does not make him the efficient cause of all that we experience.
4. Does God “allow” suffering and disaster?
Undoubtedly yes, but that is not an answer because if God is all-powerful, everything must be allowed by him in some sense. This cannot be treated as a question that is simply asking whether God is all-powerful. Instead, it is generally a question about whether God allows things with reasons. The idea some people have seems to be that arbitrary circumstances come to God’s desk, as it were, on which he decides whether there is sufficient cause or benefit to let it through or not. If there is, then he “approves” it and it transpires. This supposedly has the advantage of removing God from “cause” but maintaining his providence and sovereignty and preserving accountability for humans who may have had a culpable role.
This reasoning contains three potential theological flaws in that it assumes (1) a broad range of independently operating causation that could lead to viewing God as contingent; (2) an overly simplistic “approval process”; and (3) the necessity of “reasons.” None of these assumptions is sustainable. Both prosperity and adversity come from the hand of God (Eccl. 7:11–14).
Greg Boyd legitimately (I think) critiques what he calls the “blueprint view”—that God ordains or at least allows every tragedy with reasons in mind.25 He questions this view as he considers examples of disease or tragedy on the personal level, and terrorism and war on a global scope. He concludes that God is not to be held responsible, but that these are reflections of warfare against people by the enemies of God. I think he has overstated the role of the enemies of God, but I do adopt the same sort of conclusion he does. We should not look for enemy explanations any more than we should look for God’s reasons. Instead, we settle for no explanation and trust God’s wisdom in how the world was constructed and how it is run. We cannot say that there are reasons or that there are not. At the same time, we should not view God as constrained by the cosmos that he made—it is constructed in his wisdom and he is not contingent on it.
Returning to the matter of ethical behavior, we can now assert that God does expect ethical behavior to result from fear of the Lord, but this is not part of a Great Symbiosis equation. We are neither to seek to appease some imagined wrath of God with ritual, nor are we to think that we can earn reward through good behavior. We deserve neither the suffering that comes our way nor the prosperity that some enjoy. The various times of life come as they will and are part of life under the sun, as Ecclesiastes tells us (Eccl. 3).
Seeking coherency. So how should we make sense of God, the world, and our experience? Perhaps there is a prior question: Is coherency to be expected? My reading of Ecclesiastes would suggest that we should not expect coherency. God, despite the fact that he has revealed himself to us, remains mysterious and paradoxical. The world, though under the control of God, is fallen, and as it awaits redemption it is often more chaotic than coherent. Our experiences in this world, given what was just said about God and the world, will evade our vain attempts to be harnessed into some sustained and consistent coherence.
Path to Wisdom
IN CONCLUSION WE MUST take seriously the claim of the poem that the path to Wisdom is not open to us: “[God] alone knows where it dwells” (28:23). Though that ultimate Wisdom is not accessible to us (even in the Bible), God has made a wise course of action available to us as we fear him, submit to his wisdom, and turn aside from evil.
What does this path look like when life is going terribly wrong?
1. Trust God rather than blame him or make demands of him for explanations.
2. Trust God for strength to endure.
3. Don’t expect it all to make sense.
4. Channel resentment toward the fallenness of the world, not the God who has given all to initiate its redemption.
5. Resist succumbing to the temptation to believe that you could run this world better than God does.
6. Above all, trust that he is wise.
Kelly’s Story26
IT IS ONE THING to construct a bullet-point list of theoretical strategies and advice as that just given, but an entirely different matter to consider its merits when life is a mess. Does it really work? I wanted to get Kelly’s perspective on it.
JHW: Kelly, as you read Job 28 and the present chapter and reflect on the list above, what makes sense and what doesn’t? Have any of these worked for you as you have tried to struggle through your circumstances? We would even like to know specifically which ones work and maybe which ones don’t.
Kelly: After reading Job 28 and meditating on the meaning of the text and then reading the list above, I think to myself there is so much depth and truth in each point on the list, but how do I convey to the reader the magnitude of each step without appearing clichéd? I guess I can start with stating that when I look at this list, I think every point is a great step on the path towards wisdom, but so many of these points seem almost impossible without God’s power.
I know if I had looked at this list in the spring of 2009 or even after the recent disappointing trip to California, I would want to trust God and have strength, not demand an explanation, or not have resentment, but I would feel helpless and feel as though I did not have the power to do so. When you are in a place of brokenness, you desire to feel close to God, to trust him and his will, but so many times the cycle of destructive thoughts wins the battle and brings you back to a place of frustration. Well, I shouldn’t say frustration, because I was once told that “frustration” is a secondary emotion to either anger or sadness. So I guess it is more accurate to state that when destructive thoughts won the battle over wisdom, it brought me back to a place of sadness. So I think a key component to following these points as you seek wisdom is first and foremost to pray and ask God to help you each step of the way. Now as clichéd as that might sound, the power of prayer is vital, especially during a period of great suffering.
I remember distinctly when I started to heal and get back on my own two feet, while still dealing with the same trials and pain, I had to let go fully of any type of control, which also relates to point 5, because it was not going to be by my strength or power that I was going to get through this. So if you are angry with God, turn to him and start approaching him—even in your anger. Start spending time in the Word and making time for the Lord, to get to a place where you can reach the goal of point 4, “Channel resentment toward the fallenness of the world, not the God who has given all to initiate its redemption.” So I think what makes sense to me is making point 4 the first point on the list. I say this because in my experience, I don’t believe that you can get to a place of fully trusting God if you have not first dealt with your anger and resentment toward him. After getting to a place where you have realized that your anger needs to be channeled toward the fallenness in our world, you can begin the process of fully trusting him.
So the process of pursuing wisdom in light of my trials started with praying for the power to do so: praying for the power to trust God and for the strength to endure, to let go of control, and to realize you can’t run the world; and praying for faith and trusting that he is wise.
For me, when I am in this process of struggling with my circumstances and trying to trust God, I have had a hard time with the second part of point 1, to not “make demands of him for explanations.” We know God can bring good from our suffering, but it is important to differentiate between having hope that God has a reason and purpose, and being content not knowing what it is. This is the process of simply trusting that God is good and wise rather than demanding the reason, or manufacturing a reason to “satisfy our desire for coherency.”
When our focus is solely on the pain and “figuring out” the trial we are in, our prayer life can become a desperate plea for an escape. We can get consumed by praying for God to remove this thorn from our life instead of praying and trusting God for the strength to endure it.
So I would say each point makes sense and is one that I have wrestled with throughout the process, and I think that it is important to recognize that it is a process. It is not a “six easy steps to wisdom” crash course. It is a continual struggle, but God does reward you with wisdom and perspective the more time you spend meditating on those things.
JHW: Is there anything you can add to the list?
Kelly: After thinking about my struggle to follow the path of wisdom while in the fire, I decided that a couple more points or additions might be helpful for some. I would add a second part to point 3. “Don’t expect it to all make sense, and pray for a heavenly perspective.” Oftentimes when we are in a hardship, as I mentioned before, it consumes us and our thoughts. All we see, think, or feel is related to the pain or struggle we are in. We need to take a step back and look at this experience from a wider view angle. When we come to terms with the fact that we cannot expect everything to make sense, we need to pray for a heavenly perspective to be at peace with that uncertainty, which also relates back to trusting God and his will.
The one other point I would add is to be sure to stay connected and spend time with godly people and/or mentors in your life. In times of hard trials it is easy to isolate yourself, and that is usually when your darkest thoughts and doubts fill your mind. When my left arm was losing feeling and strength daily, I went through a period where I did not want to be around my friends, mentors, or community, and it was in that period that I felt the weakest. When we are alone, we can dwell on the pain that we are experiencing and often get into a dark downhill spiral of thoughts. God can use those people to remind you of truth and help you get out of an unhealthy thought pattern. But as we learned in Job, your friends do not always offer the best advice or encouragement, so be wise with the people you chose to play that role in your life.