Job 4–14

Eliphaz

1Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:

2“If someone ventures a word with you, will you be impatient?

But who can keep from speaking?

3Think how you have instructed many,

how you have strengthened feeble hands.

4Your words have supported those who stumbled;

you have strengthened faltering knees.

5But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged;

it strikes you, and you are dismayed.

6Should not your piety be your confidence

and your blameless ways your hope?

7“Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished?

Where were the upright ever destroyed?

8As I have observed, those who plow evil

and those who sow trouble reap it.

9At the breath of God they are destroyed;

at the blast of his anger they perish.

10The lions may roar and growl,

yet the teeth of the great lions are broken.

11The lion perishes for lack of prey,

and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.

12“A word was secretly brought to me,

my ears caught a whisper of it.

13Amid disquieting dreams in the night,

when deep sleep falls on men,

14fear and trembling seized me

and made all my bones shake.

15A spirit glided past my face,

and the hair on my body stood on end.

16It stopped,

but I could not tell what it was.

A form stood before my eyes,

and I heard a hushed voice:

17‘Can a mortal be more righteous than God?

Can a man be more pure than his Maker?

18If God places no trust in his servants,

if he charges his angels with error,

19how much more those who live in houses of clay,

whose foundations are in the dust,

who are crushed more readily than a moth!

20Between dawn and dusk they are broken to pieces;

unnoticed, they perish forever.

21Are not the cords of their tent pulled up,

so that they die without wisdom?’

5:1“Call if you will, but who will answer you?

To which of the holy ones will you turn?

2Resentment kills a fool,

and envy slays the simple.

3I myself have seen a fool taking root,

but suddenly his house was cursed.

4His children are far from safety,

crushed in court without a defender.

5The hungry consume his harvest,

taking it even from among thorns,

and the thirsty pant after his wealth.

6For hardship does not spring from the soil,

nor does trouble sprout from the ground.

7Yet man is born to trouble

as surely as sparks fly upward.

8“But if it were I, I would appeal to God;

I would lay my cause before him.

9He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed,

miracles that cannot be counted.

10He bestows rain on the earth;

he sends water upon the countryside.

11The lowly he sets on high,

and those who mourn are lifted to safety.

12He thwarts the plans of the crafty,

so that their hands achieve no success.

13He catches the wise in their craftiness,

and the schemes of the wily are swept away.

14Darkness comes upon them in the daytime;

at noon they grope as in the night.

15He saves the needy from the sword in their mouth;

he saves them from the clutches of the powerful.

16So the poor have hope,

and injustice shuts its mouth.

17“Blessed is the man whom God corrects;

so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.

18For he wounds, but he also binds up;

he injures, but his hands also heal.

19From six calamities he will rescue you;

in seven no harm will befall you.

20In famine he will ransom you from death,

and in battle from the stroke of the sword.

21You will be protected from the lash of the tongue,

and need not fear when destruction comes.

22You will laugh at destruction and famine,

and need not fear the beasts of the earth.

23For you will have a covenant with the stones of the field,

and the wild animals will be at peace with you.

24You will know that your tent is secure;

you will take stock of your property and find nothing missing.

25You will know that your children will be many,

and your descendants like the grass of the earth.

26You will come to the grave in full vigor,

like sheaves gathered in season.

27“We have examined this, and it is true.

So hear it and apply it to yourself.”

Job

6:1Then Job replied:

2“If only my anguish could be weighed

and all my misery be placed on the scales!

3It would surely outweigh the sand of the seas—

no wonder my words have been impetuous.

4The arrows of the Almighty are in me,

my spirit drinks in their poison;

God’s terrors are marshaled against me.

5Does a wild donkey bray when it has grass,

or an ox bellow when it has fodder?

6Is tasteless food eaten without salt,

or is there flavor in the white of an egg?

7I refuse to touch it;

such food makes me ill.

8“Oh, that I might have my request,

that God would grant what I hope for,

9that God would be willing to crush me,

to let loose his hand and cut me off!

10Then I would still have this consolation—

my joy in unrelenting pain—

that I had not denied the words of the Holy One.

11“What strength do I have, that I should still hope?

What prospects, that I should be patient?

12Do I have the strength of stone?

Is my flesh bronze?

13Do I have any power to help myself,

now that success has been driven from me?

14“A despairing man should have the devotion of his friends,

even though he forsakes the fear of the Almighty.

15But my brothers are as undependable as intermittent streams,

as the streams that overflow

16when darkened by thawing ice

and swollen with melting snow,

17but that cease to flow in the dry season,

and in the heat vanish from their channels.

18Caravans turn aside from their routes;

they go up into the wasteland and perish.

19The caravans of Tema look for water,

the traveling merchants of Sheba look in hope.

20They are distressed, because they had been confident;

they arrive there, only to be disappointed.

21Now you too have proved to be of no help;

you see something dreadful and are afraid.

22Have I ever said, ‘Give something on my behalf,

pay a ransom for me from your wealth,

23deliver me from the hand of the enemy,

ransom me from the clutches of the ruthless’?

24“Teach me, and I will be quiet;

show me where I have been wrong.

25How painful are honest words!

But what do your arguments prove?

26Do you mean to correct what I say,

and treat the words of a despairing man as wind?

27You would even cast lots for the fatherless

and barter away your friend.

28“But now be so kind as to look at me.

Would I lie to your face?

29Relent, do not be unjust;

reconsider, for my integrity is at stake.

30Is there any wickedness on my lips?

Can my mouth not discern malice?

7:1“Does not man have hard service on earth?

Are not his days like those of a hired man?

2Like a slave longing for the evening shadows,

or a hired man waiting eagerly for his wages,

3so I have been allotted months of futility,

and nights of misery have been assigned to me.

4When I lie down I think, ‘How long before I get up?’

The night drags on, and I toss till dawn.

5My body is clothed with worms and scabs,

my skin is broken and festering.

6“My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,

and they come to an end without hope.

7Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath;

my eyes will never see happiness again.

8The eye that now sees me will see me no longer;

you will look for me, but I will be no more.

9As a cloud vanishes and is gone,

so he who goes down to the grave does not return.

10He will never come to his house again;

his place will know him no more.

11“Therefore I will not keep silent;

I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit,

I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

12Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep,

that you put me under guard?

13When I think my bed will comfort me

and my couch will ease my complaint,

14even then you frighten me with dreams

and terrify me with visions,

15so that I prefer strangling and death,

rather than this body of mine.

16I despise my life; I would not live forever.

Let me alone; my days have no meaning.

17“What is man that you make so much of him,

that you give him so much attention,

18that you examine him every morning

and test him every moment?

19Will you never look away from me,

or let me alone even for an instant?

20If I have sinned, what have I done to you,

O watcher of men?

Why have you made me your target?

Have I become a burden to you?

21Why do you not pardon my offenses

and forgive my sins?

For I will soon lie down in the dust;

you will search for me, but I will be no more.”

Bildad

8:1Then Bildad the Shuhite replied:

2“How long will you say such things?

Your words are a blustering wind.

3Does God pervert justice?

Does the Almighty pervert what is right?

4When your children sinned against him,

he gave them over to the penalty of their sin.

5But if you will look to God

and plead with the Almighty,

6if you are pure and upright,

even now he will rouse himself on your behalf

and restore you to your rightful place.

7Your beginnings will seem humble,

so prosperous will your future be.

8“Ask the former generations

and find out what their fathers learned,

9for we were born only yesterday and know nothing,

and our days on earth are but a shadow.

10Will they not instruct you and tell you?

Will they not bring forth words from their understanding?

11Can papyrus grow tall where there is no marsh?

Can reeds thrive without water?

12While still growing and uncut,

they wither more quickly than grass.

13Such is the destiny of all who forget God;

so perishes the hope of the godless.

14What he trusts in is fragile;

what he relies on is a spider’s web.

15He leans on his web, but it gives way;

he clings to it, but it does not hold.

16He is like a well-watered plant in the sunshine,

spreading its shoots over the garden;

17it entwines its roots around a pile of rocks

and looks for a place among the stones.

18But when it is torn from its spot,

that place disowns it and says, ‘I never saw you.’

19Surely its life withers away,

and from the soil other plants grow.

20“Surely God does not reject a blameless man

or strengthen the hands of evildoers.

21He will yet fill your mouth with laughter

and your lips with shouts of joy.

22Your enemies will be clothed in shame,

and the tents of the wicked will be no more.”

Job

9:1Then Job replied:

2“Indeed, I know that this is true.

But how can a mortal be righteous before God?

3Though one wished to dispute with him,

he could not answer him one time out of a thousand.

4His wisdom is profound, his power is vast.

Who has resisted him and come out unscathed?

5He moves mountains without their knowing it

and overturns them in his anger.

6He shakes the earth from its place

and makes its pillars tremble.

7He speaks to the sun and it does not shine;

he seals off the light of the stars.

8He alone stretches out the heavens

and treads on the waves of the sea.

9He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion,

the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.

10He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed,

miracles that cannot be counted.

11When he passes me, I cannot see him;

when he goes by, I cannot perceive him.

12If he snatches away, who can stop him?

Who can say to him, ‘What are you doing?’

13God does not restrain his anger;

even the cohorts of Rahab cowered at his feet.

14“How then can I dispute with him?

How can I find words to argue with him?

15Though I were innocent, I could not answer him;

I could only plead with my Judge for mercy.

16Even if I summoned him and he responded,

I do not believe he would give me a hearing.

17He would crush me with a storm

and multiply my wounds for no reason.

18He would not let me regain my breath

but would overwhelm me with misery.

19If it is a matter of strength, he is mighty!

And if it is a matter of justice, who will summon him?

20Even if I were innocent, my mouth would condemn me;

if I were blameless, it would pronounce me guilty.

21“Although I am blameless,

I have no concern for myself;

I despise my own life.

22It is all the same; that is why I say,

‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’

23When a scourge brings sudden death,

he mocks the despair of the innocent.

24When a land falls into the hands of the wicked,

he blindfolds its judges.

If it is not he, then who is it?

25“My days are swifter than a runner;

they fly away without a glimpse of joy.

26They skim past like boats of papyrus,

like eagles swooping down on their prey.

27If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint,

I will change my expression, and smile,’

28I still dread all my sufferings,

for I know you will not hold me innocent.

29Since I am already found guilty,

why should I struggle in vain?

30Even if I washed myself with soap

and my hands with washing soda,

31you would plunge me into a slime pit

so that even my clothes would detest me.

32“He is not a man like me that I might answer him,

that we might confront each other in court.

33If only there were someone to arbitrate between us,

to lay his hand upon us both,

34someone to remove God’s rod from me,

so that his terror would frighten me no more.

35Then I would speak up without fear of him,

but as it now stands with me, I cannot.

10:1“I loathe my very life;

therefore I will give free rein to my complaint

and speak out in the bitterness of my soul.

2I will say to God: Do not condemn me,

but tell me what charges you have against me.

3Does it please you to oppress me,

to spurn the work of your hands,

while you smile on the schemes of the wicked?

4Do you have eyes of flesh?

Do you see as a mortal sees?

5Are your days like those of a mortal

or your years like those of a man,

6that you must search out my faults

and probe after my sin—

7though you know that I am not guilty

and that no one can rescue me from your hand?

8“Your hands shaped me and made me.

Will you now turn and destroy me?

9Remember that you molded me like clay.

Will you now turn me to dust again?

10Did you not pour me out like milk

and curdle me like cheese,

11clothe me with skin and flesh

and knit me together with bones and sinews?

12You gave me life and showed me kindness,

and in your providence watched over my spirit.

13“But this is what you concealed in your heart,

and I know that this was in your mind:

14If I sinned, you would be watching me

and would not let my offense go unpunished.

15If I am guilty—woe to me!

Even if I am innocent, I cannot lift my head,

for I am full of shame

and drowned in my affliction.

16If I hold my head high, you stalk me like a lion

and again display your awesome power against me.

17You bring new witnesses against me

and increase your anger toward me;

your forces come against me wave upon wave.

18“Why then did you bring me out of the womb?

I wish I had died before any eye saw me.

19If only I had never come into being,

or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave!

20Are not my few days almost over?

Turn away from me so I can have a moment’s joy

21before I go to the place of no return,

to the land of gloom and deep shadow,

22to the land of deepest night,

of deep shadow and disorder,

where even the light is like darkness.”

Zophar

11:1Then Zophar the Naamathite replied:

2“Are all these words to go unanswered?

Is this talker to be vindicated?

3Will your idle talk reduce men to silence?

Will no one rebuke you when you mock?

4You say to God, ‘My beliefs are flawless

and I am pure in your sight.’

5Oh, how I wish that God would speak,

that he would open his lips against you

6and disclose to you the secrets of wisdom,

for true wisdom has two sides.

Know this: God has even forgotten some of your sin.

7“Can you fathom the mysteries of God?

Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?

8They are higher than the heavens—what can you do?

They are deeper than the depths of the grave—what can you know?

9Their measure is longer than the earth

and wider than the sea.

10“If he comes along and confines you in prison

and convenes a court, who can oppose him?

11Surely he recognizes deceitful men;

and when he sees evil, does he not take note?

12But a witless man can no more become wise

than a wild donkey’s colt can be born a man.

13“Yet if you devote your heart to him

and stretch out your hands to him,

14if you put away the sin that is in your hand

and allow no evil to dwell in your tent,

15then you will lift up your face without shame;

you will stand firm and without fear.

16You will surely forget your trouble,

recalling it only as waters gone by.

17Life will be brighter than noonday,

and darkness will become like morning.

18You will be secure, because there is hope;

you will look about you and take your rest in safety.

19You will lie down, with no one to make you afraid,

and many will court your favor.

20But the eyes of the wicked will fail,

and escape will elude them;

their hope will become a dying gasp.”

Job

12:1Then Job replied:

2“Doubtless you are the people,

and wisdom will die with you!

3But I have a mind as well as you;

I am not inferior to you.

Who does not know all these things?

4“I have become a laughingstock to my friends,

though I called upon God and he answered—

a mere laughingstock, though righteous and blameless!

5Men at ease have contempt for misfortune

as the fate of those whose feet are slipping.

6The tents of marauders are undisturbed,

and those who provoke God are secure—

those who carry their god in their hands.

7“But ask the animals, and they will teach you,

or the birds of the air, and they will tell you;

8or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,

or let the fish of the sea inform you.

9Which of all these does not know

that the hand of the LORD has done this?

10In his hand is the life of every creature

and the breath of all mankind.

11Does not the ear test words

as the tongue tastes food?

12Is not wisdom found among the aged?

Does not long life bring understanding?

13“To God belong wisdom and power;

counsel and understanding are his.

14What he tears down cannot be rebuilt;

the man he imprisons cannot be released.

15If he holds back the waters, there is drought;

if he lets them loose, they devastate the land.

16To him belong strength and victory;

both deceived and deceiver are his.

17He leads counselors away stripped

and makes fools of judges.

18He takes off the shackles put on by kings

and ties a loincloth around their waist.

19He leads priests away stripped

and overthrows men long established.

20He silences the lips of trusted advisers

and takes away the discernment of elders.

21He pours contempt on nobles

and disarms the mighty.

22He reveals the deep things of darkness

and brings deep shadows into the light.

23He makes nations great, and destroys them;

he enlarges nations, and disperses them.

24He deprives the leaders of the earth of their reason;

he sends them wandering through a trackless waste.

25They grope in darkness with no light;

he makes them stagger like drunkards.

13:1“My eyes have seen all this,

my ears have heard and understood it.

2What you know, I also know;

I am not inferior to you.

3But I desire to speak to the Almighty

and to argue my case with God.

4You, however, smear me with lies;

you are worthless physicians, all of you!

5If only you would be altogether silent!

For you, that would be wisdom.

6Hear now my argument;

listen to the plea of my lips.

7Will you speak wickedly on God’s behalf?

Will you speak deceitfully for him?

8Will you show him partiality?

Will you argue the case for God?

9Would it turn out well if he examined you?

Could you deceive him as you might deceive men?

10He would surely rebuke you

if you secretly showed partiality.

11Would not his splendor terrify you?

Would not the dread of him fall on you?

12Your maxims are proverbs of ashes;

your defenses are defenses of clay.

13“Keep silent and let me speak;

then let come to me what may.

14Why do I put myself in jeopardy

and take my life in my hands?

15Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him;

I will surely defend my ways to his face.

16Indeed, this will turn out for my deliverance,

for no godless man would dare come before him!

17Listen carefully to my words;

let your ears take in what I say.

18Now that I have prepared my case,

I know I will be vindicated.

19Can anyone bring charges against me?

If so, I will be silent and die.

20“Only grant me these two things, O God,

and then I will not hide from you:

21Withdraw your hand far from me,

and stop frightening me with your terrors.

22Then summon me and I will answer,

or let me speak, and you reply.

23How many wrongs and sins have I committed?

Show me my offense and my sin.

24Why do you hide your face

and consider me your enemy?

25Will you torment a windblown leaf?

Will you chase after dry chaff?

26For you write down bitter things against me

and make me inherit the sins of my youth.

27You fasten my feet in shackles;

you keep close watch on all my paths

by putting marks on the soles of my feet.

28“So man wastes away like something rotten,

like a garment eaten by moths.

14:1“Man born of woman

is of few days and full of trouble.

2He springs up like a flower and withers away;

like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.

3Do you fix your eye on such a one?

Will you bring him before you for judgment?

4Who can bring what is pure from the impure?

No one!

5Man’s days are determined;

you have decreed the number of his months

and have set limits he cannot exceed.

6So look away from him and let him alone,

till he has put in his time like a hired man.

7“At least there is hope for a tree:

If it is cut down, it will sprout again,

and its new shoots will not fail.

8Its roots may grow old in the ground

and its stump die in the soil,

9yet at the scent of water it will bud

and put forth shoots like a plant.

10But man dies and is laid low;

he breathes his last and is no more.

11As water disappears from the sea

or a riverbed becomes parched and dry,

12so man lies down and does not rise;

till the heavens are no more, men will not awake

or be roused from their sleep.

13“If only you would hide me in the grave

and conceal me till your anger has passed!

If only you would set me a time

and then remember me!

14If a man dies, will he live again?

All the days of my hard service

I will wait for my renewal to come.

15You will call and I will answer you;

you will long for the creature your hands have made.

16Surely then you will count my steps

but not keep track of my sin.

17My offenses will be sealed up in a bag;

you will cover over my sin.

18“But as a mountain erodes and crumbles

and as a rock is moved from its place,

19as water wears away stones

and torrents wash away the soil,

so you destroy man’s hope.

20You overpower him once for all, and he is gone;

you change his countenance and send him away.

21If his sons are honored, he does not know it;

if they are brought low, he does not see it.

22He feels but the pain of his own body

and mourns only for himself.”

Original Meaning

Eliphaz (Job 4–5)

ELIPHAZ’S FIRST EXHORTATION FOR Job occurs in the problematic verse 4:6, which the NIV renders, “Should not your piety be your confidence and your blameless ways your hope?” The syntax is complex, as we commonly find in Job, but even the words themselves present some challenges. The word translated “confidence” (kislah) is often rendered “folly,” both for this form (Ps. 85:8[9]) and in a variety of derivative forms. When the root is contextually associated with trust, it is usually a vain or foolish trust (Job 8:14; 31:24; Ps. 49:13[14]; Eccl. 7:25). The only occurrences that suggest a different connotation are Psalm 78:7 and Proverbs 3:26; because God is the object of trust, the speaker cannot be foolish or vain.

We might account for this range of meaning by understanding the word as a designation of irrational trust, either because the object is not worthy of the trust (e.g., oneself, one’s riches) or because it is born of faith with little or no supporting logic. If this is so, Eliphaz identifies Job’s fear of God as an irrational confidence, since all the evidence now indicates that he lacks the requisite fear of God. Given Eliphaz’s observations in verses 7–11, he seems to be accusing Job of denial in verse 6. In this interpretation, the translation should not be “Should not …,” but something more like, “Is not your [self-proclaimed] piety the basis for this irrational confidence? Is your only hope really in the [presumed] blamelessness of your ways?” In Eliphaz’s view, the incontestable RP (4:7–11) gives the lie to Job’s delusion of righteousness and exposes his hope as vain.

Eliphaz’s mystical experience (4:12–21) occurs in a vision (NIV “dreams”). This word (ḥizzayon) identifies prophetic visions (e.g., 2 Sam. 7:17; Joel 2:28; Zech. 13:4) as well as terrifying nightmares (Job 7:14) and sometimes both (Isa. 22:1, 5). Dreams and visions in the ancient world were not simply psychological experiences; they originated in the divine realm. The literature from Mesopotamia describes what people believed about dreams and their interpretation.1 Job 33:15 also refers to visions derived from deep sleep (see also Abram’s vision from a deep sleep in Gen. 15:12–21). The texts associates Zaqiqu, the dream god (also Ziqiqu) with the merest breath of wind (cf. the use of ruaḥ, spirit/wind, in 4:15).2 In Ludlul bel nemeqi (one of the pious suffering pieces), the sufferer indicates that he appealed to a zaqiqu, “but he did not enlighten me.”3 Just as Eliphaz identifies a “form” that stood before him (4:16), “a remarkable young man of outstanding physique” brings the sufferer in Ludlul a message of imminent recovery.4 Eliphaz is claiming revelation; in effect he says, “God gave me a message for you, Job.”

The NIV renders 4:17 in the traditional way: “Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can a man be more pure than his Maker?” This is a grammatically defensible interpretation, since the Hebrew uses a finite stative verb with the comparative min. This construction usually prefers an adjective rather than a finite verb, but the latter is attested (1 Sam. 10:23; Nah. 3:8).5 Nevertheless, we should reject this translation on both lexical and rhetorical grounds. Lexically, it is not possible to compare a human’s purity to God’s because this term (ṭhr) is never used to describe God. It refers to a clean condition achieved from an unclean state—but because God cannot be unclean, God also cannot be designated as clean.

Rhetorically, many commentators have noted that if we follow the traditional rendering of this verse, Eliphaz has overplayed his case.6 Would anyone need to be told that no one is more righteous than God? Certainly Eliphaz would need no mystical revelation to make such a point. Has Job implied that he is superior to God in these ways? In fact, the two verbs used here7 have not yet been applied to Job’s behavior; Job has not claimed these attributes for himself, neither has anyone attributed them to Job. A number of commentators have recognized this problem and translated the min preformative as “before” rather than as the comparative “better than,”8 but the supporting evidence is weak; the Hebrew idiom would normally use the preposition lipnê to achieve that result rather than min (see Ps. 143:2).

We find a solution in other comparable syntactical arrangements, most importantly Psalm 139:12: “Even the darkness is not dark to you.”9 This verse clearly does not say that the darkness is not darker than God; rather, the darkness is not dark from God’s perspective. This is still a comparative use of min, but the comparison is to God’s perspective rather than to God himself. On the strength of this example, we may now confidently propose the reading of Job 4:17 as: “Can a mortal be righteous in God’s perspective? Can a man be clean in the perspective of his Maker?” The rhetorical thrust is not much different from those who have translated, “Can a mortal be righteous before God,” but the nuance is subtly different: meeting God’s minimal standards for ritual acceptability (“before” God) versus meeting God’s maximum standards in the broader moral/ethical realm (“in God’s perspective”). The latter relegates Job’s confidence to vanity. This interpretation is also confirmed by the “how much more …” argument in 4:18–19, that even the angels cannot meet his standards.

We may note here that the angels charged with error need not refer to some great cosmic event; God commonly holds his messengers accountable and corrects them. Psalm 82 refers to just such an occasion, but Job 4:18 warrants close attention because it likely conveys Eliphaz’s perspective of Job’s situation. The combination of this verb (Hiph. of ʾmn) with the preposition b- (which here introduces the direct object [cf. Num. 20:12; Jon. 3:5]) indicates that God does not believe what his servants say. This does not suggest that God never believes them, but that he does not do so routinely without scrutiny. The second line is more difficult since the word NIV renders “error” (tahalah) occurs only here in the Old Testament. The verb + preposition in the sentence means to bring a formal charge; thus, this obscure noun may designate the charge that God brings against a person when he does not accept their account. This would then constitute Eliphaz’s subtle accusation of Job.

Many scholars believe that the noun tahalah derives from a root hll.10 Ecclesiastes uses other derivative forms of this root several times as synonyms for folly.11 Of particular importance is Ecclesiastes 7:25, where the noun parallels the by-forms of the root ksl, which was used in Job 4:6 to describe Job’s misplaced confidence. On this admittedly fragile basis, I tentatively suggest the following logical connections:

• In 4:18a God does not trust his servants unconditionally or accept their perspectives at face value.

• Instead, in 4:18b God does not hesitate to evaluate their assessments and conclusions as misguided or even foolish.

• By these observations, Eliphaz tacitly accuses Job of assessing his own situation dishonestly (the thrust of 4:17)…

• Which parallels Eliphaz’s incredulity concerning (in his mind) Job’s irrational confidence in 4:6.

Eliphaz’s main point in 4:12–21 reflects ancient Near Eastern beliefs—namely, that the gods have far more regulations than humans know or recognize; there are so many ways one might offend the gods in one’s ritual performance, one can never claim not to deserve what deity has sent. Such confidence would truly be irrational.

In 5:1 Eliphaz speaks of “the holy ones,” another way of referring to members of the divine council (i.e., the “sons of God”). This is highly ironic, since the prologue has informed us that a member of the divine council initiated Job’s current situation. Consequently, Eliphaz is more correct than he knows, for no appeal to the divine council will resolve this before its time. This is also the first suggestion of Job initiating legal action: the verbs “call” (qrʾ) and “answer” (ʿnh) are legal terms used for an official court summons and the appearance before the judging body in response to such a summons.12 Job will later take up this idea of legal action and begin to call for an advocate to take up his case. Eliphaz, however, implies that summoning one of the council would be fruitless; perhaps his conviction goes back to 4:18, with his less-than-positive portrayal of God’s servants.

Instead, Eliphaz counsels Job to appeal directly to God (5:8). The verb used for this appeal (drš) is used elsewhere of seeking an oracle. Sufferers often consulted oracles in an attempt to identify their offense or to discover a pathway to appeasement. For example, in the Babylonian piece Ludlul bel nemeqi, after the onset of the pious man’s suffering, he says:

My omens were confused, they were contradictory every day.

The prognostication of diviner and dream interpreter could not explain what I was undergoing.13

After some time has passed, his situation has not improved and he laments:

I called to my god, he did not show his face,

I prayed to my goddess, she did not raise her head.

The diviner with his inspection did not get to the bottom of it,

Nor did the dream interpreter with his incense clear up my case.

I beseeched a dream spirit, but it did not enlighten me,

The exorcist with his ritual did not appease divine wrath.14

Job has an entirely different idea in mind when he appeals to God, for rather than seeking an oracle from God to identify his offense, a path to appeasement, and restoration, he plans to appeal to God for a court appearance and ultimately vindication. He is not going to throw himself on the mercy of the court; instead, he is going to demand a hearing.

Eliphaz also points out that Job should look on his situation as the disciplinary correction of God (5:17). The verb that NIV translates “corrects” (Hiph. ykḥ) can refer to general reproof, but it is also a legal term for accusation.15 Even more specifically, it can refer to the outcome of an accusation, the adjudication of a lawsuit that finds the defendant guilty as charged.16 Again, Eliphaz obviously considers Job guilty, though he claims no insight into the nature of his offense. He counts Job among the fortunate because, having received God’s attention in a negative way, Job can now have some confidence that God will also respond to Job’s repentance and bring restoration. The rest of Eliphaz’s speech anticipates this restoration (5:18–27); the climactic conclusion shows that Eliphaz sees restoration as the end goal, whereas Job ultimately desires vindication. If Job listens to Eliphaz and friends and seeks only restoration at any cost, he will confirm the Challenger’s suspicions—that only prosperity is important, not righteousness itself. If, by contrast, he continues to pursue vindication, he shows that his righteous reputation is foremost in his thoughts.

Job (Job 6–7)

AFTER JOB AGAIN CALLS for his own death (6:8–9), he evaluates his stance, in which he takes consolation (6:10). This verse is pivotal but also difficult to understand. The NIV follows the LXX (as do most translations and commentaries), rendering the last clause, “denied the words of the Holy One.” Unfortunately, the verb used here never elsewhere means “deny,” and the expression “words of the Holy One” is opaque. We will briefly consider each in turn, beginning with the latter.

The phrase the NIV renders “words of the Holy One” (ʾimrê qadoš) occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament. The singular form of the substantive (adjective/noun) for “holy” appears only here in Job; the plural is used twice, both times to speak of entities (5:1; 15:15). For this reason, the translators of the NIV chose to suggest an entity in their translation. The LXX and several translations, however, preferred to treat the word as an adjective and render the phrase “holy words,” which I believe is preferable here, since no holy one has spoken. The holy words would refer to the traditional teachings of the fathers, frequently referred to in this book by other descriptions (e.g., 8:8; 15:18).

The verb in the clause (Piel of kḥd) is likewise problematic. Everywhere else this verb means “to conceal,”17 but most interpreters find that meaning ill-fitting to this context. A careful analysis of the synchronic18 data, however, yields promising results. In the fifteen occurrences of the verb in the Piel, the contexts always concern communication of words or feelings; these are all negated contexts—that is, indicating that words should not be concealed. A large percentage either state or clearly imply the person from whom words should not be concealed. Certainly one way to conceal words is to remain silent and not communicate at all, but these contexts illustrate that the choice is not between communication and silence, but how straightforwardly or guardedly one communicates.

People can hide words behind vague communication. We speak of full disclosure, not mincing words, telling it like it is, not beating around the bush, giving uncensored comments, laying the facts on the table—all of these are part of not hiding words. Rechecking all the uses shows that this nuance of the word fits perfectly. For example, Eli tells Samuel not to mince words as he demands to hear God’s message (1 Sam. 3:17–18). David asks the woman of Tekoa to level with him and speak plainly about who sent her (2 Sam. 14:18). In Job 27:11, Job contrasts his own forthright words with the meaningless speeches of his friends (27:12); he then articulates his case with painful honesty. All of the examples fit.

Consequently, I offer the following interpretation of 6:10: Job consoles himself that he has not softened the blow of holy words (= traditional teaching) as Eliphaz did when he suggested that “everything’s going to be OK” (5:18–27). Job is at least prepared to “face the facts” and wishes for death (both in his lament in ch. 3 and in his request in 6:8–9). As he expresses the misery of his condition, Job finds consolation only in his refusal to accept a sugar-coated view of reality (6:10). He is free to express himself without reservation because he views his situation as hopeless (6:11–13).

From this point, Job launches into his first full-scale verbal assault on his friends (6:14–30). He challenges them to cease their platitudes and reveal his specific offense (6:24). The word for offense (šgh) refers to an inadvertent or unintentional straying from the path of correct behavior (ritually or ethically). Not content with deduction (that Job must be guilty), Job wants his friends to identify definitive misdemeanor; by using this Hebrew word, Job implies his confidence that any such offense is unknown to him.

Job considers this important because his integrity is at stake (6:29). Job’s demand of his friends is a bit stronger than the “relent/reconsider” of the NIV; he wants them to “take back”19 their malicious words20 because his “integrity is at stake” (NIV). This is Job’s first claim to be righteous (ṣdq), a claim that he maintains to the end of the dialogue (cf. 27:6). Job in effect accuses his friends of slander. His righteousness describes his impeccable reputation for conscientious behavior in all things, and their barrage fails to gainsay it.

After another lament concerning his condition, Job finally—and for the first time—turns his attention and remarks directly to God (7:7–21). His words in verses 7–10 remind us of Ecclesiastes as he addresses the transience of life. These observations give him the confidence to complain boldly and lay out his case before God in one of the most poignant speeches in the book.

Job primarily accuses God of being overattentive and unrealistic in his expectations. Some in the ancient world might have viewed God as a distant being, such that trouble came on a person because of divine neglect. In contrast, Job claims that God scrutinizes him too closely. High-level scrutiny would be understandable for “the sea, or the monster of the deep” (7:12). The Hebrew word for “sea” (yam) is also the name of the personified Sea (Yamm), a chaos creature in Ugaritic mythological texts. Since this word is paralleled by another chaos creature (tannin, see Gen. 1:21), we should view both of these as creatures21 that God keeps under watch as he maintains the orderly system. Job claims that, unlike the chaos creatures, he is no threat to order and therefore doesn’t warrant constant attention. This concept is consistent with Old Testament theology expressed in passages where evil has come to God’s attention (e.g., Sodom and Gomorrah, Gen. 18:20–21; Nineveh, Jon. 1:2).

Job continues in this vein as he asks, “What is man that you make so much of him?” (7:17). The reader immediately recalls Psalm 8, “What is man that you are mindful of him?” The only difference is the verb: in Psalm 8 God is “taking note” (Qal of zkr) of frail humanity; in Job 7 God is “considering him to be significant” (Piel of gdl). The verb in Psalm 8 conveys the marvelous and positive concept of God’s care for humanity; the verse in Job 7 conveys the terrifying and negative prospect of God’s singling out humanity as a whole—or worse still, a single person.

Job labels God a “watcher of men” (7:20, noṣer haʾadam). A class of beings known as the Watchers gained prominence in intertestamental literature, particularly in the book of Enoch. These were often fallen angels, but the term is also used for the archangels.22 The designation occurs only once in the Old Testament (Dan. 4:13). But all of this is unrelated. Job does not use the same terminology and he is referring to God, not some group of angels, fallen or otherwise. Job uses a term that often bears a positive connotation, indicating care and protection, but, as so often in this speech, he ironically turns this positive language upside down.

Before we move from Job’s first speech, we must consider whether Job continues to consider himself innocent of wrongdoing. While 6:29 suggests that he does, two statements at the end of this speech then become problematic. In 7:20, when he says, “If I have sinned …,” we must note that there is no “if” in the Hebrew text—scholars generally contend that the “if” is implied. But in 7:21, what is Job then referring to when he asks why God does not pardon his offenses? Job’s posture regarding his status hinges on these verses. Job uses the same terminology in 13:23 to demand that God show him his offenses; his statements here are probably of the same sort.

Commentators have understood “offense” (pšʿ) as “an act that breaks relationship with God”;23 it occurs as an object of the verb “pardon” (nśʾ) seven other times.24 The noun in legal literature refers to an indictable act that results in a trial. The phrase “forgive my sins” (taʿabir ʾet-ʿawonî) uses a verb + noun combination that occurs only two other times (2 Sam. 24:10; Zech. 3:4). The reference in Zechariah 3:4 is of particular interest because it speaks of an imputed offense for which one potentially stands subject to accusation.

We can therefore explain the language in both clauses of 7:21 under the circumstances that Job views himself already in a trial and already undergoing punishment. The verse is a request for God to cease and desist his actions, which have presumed a trial and a guilty verdict. Job does not own up to such offenses, but he wants God to give up the prosecution of this court action. The thrust of 7:20 is then, “I have sinned (= have somehow fallen out of favor), whatever I might have done to you.”25 Then 7:21 follows up with, “Why won’t you pardon whatever I have done that you have judged as indictable and forgive whatever sin you have imputed to me, for which you are punishing me?” Job uses somewhat patronizing language toward this overattentive God.

Bildad (Job 8)

BILDAD SEES CLEARLY THE implication of Job’s words and therefore launches into a speech of his own, a speech filled with rhetorical questions designed to affirm that God upholds justice. In these statements he denies that God would “pervert” (Piel of ʿwt) justice (mišpaṭ) and righteousness (ṣedeq) (8:3). The verb used in this sentence occurs only rarely;26 it involves bending, twisting, or distorting, so “perverting” is a good translation. Elihu later echoes Bildad’s claim that God does not pervert justice (34:12). In the second round of speeches, Job places God as the subject of this verb, but rather than the object being “justice” or “righteousness,” it is Job himself (19:6; NIV: “God has wronged me” paralleled in the next verse when Job cries “violence!”).

Is Bildad justified in his tacit accusation of Job, or is he caricaturing Job through hyperbole? Job has not charged God with perverting justice (yet), but in Bildad’s view of the world, that would be the only logical conclusion if Job can sustain his claim of innocence (recall the triangle from the Introduction, pp. 42–44). Bildad is therefore confronting Job with the ultimate destination of the dangerous path he has taken.

Bildad clearly doubts Job’s claims of innocence, reflected here in his words, “If you are pure and upright….” We have already encountered the word for upright (yašar, 1:1), but this is the first occurrence of the word for “pure” (zak; it is not the same as the adjective in 4:17).27 The adjective occurs eleven times and the related verb form (zkh) another eight.28 The uses in the Pentateuch refer to unadulterated or highest quality products (e.g., oil). In Job it is used as an adjective to describe teaching (11:4), prayer (16:7), and Job (33:9, parallel to “without sin”). Again, each occurrence refers to untainted or flawless behavior. The verb occurs in Job where both Eliphaz and Bildad question whether any human could be so characterized (15:14; 25:4). Consequently here we find Bildad holding forth the possibility that God will restore Job, should Job show himself to be untainted; a few speeches later, however, Bildad reveals that no one can claim to be untainted. This shows that Bildad is simply patronizing Job in 8:6.

Bildad also has his own implied accusations as he unwraps the implications of the RP: “Surely God does not reject a blameless man or strengthen the hands of evildoers” (8:20). These convictions lead him to characterize Job implicitly as “godless” (ḥanep) and one who forgets God (8:13)—two ways to describe those who have departed from God’s ways to follow their own.

Job (Job 9–10)

JOB IMMEDIATELY LATCHES ON to the idea of entering into legal action with God. This context compels us to understand his opening question differently than the NIV has rendered it. Job would not ask whether a mortal could be righteous because he believes that he is (29:14); rather, he is using the verb in its alternate sense of being declared righteous in a court of law—that is, being vindicated (see 13:18 for same verb in a clear context). Given God’s power, he is now understandably worried about facing God in a courtroom setting.

Job’s hymn (9:5–13) is an aside to explain why Job trembles at the thought of opposing God in court. Notice how Job’s statements would flow smoothly from 9:4 directly to 9:14, but the introduction of God’s superiority to the wise and the mighty warrants elaboration in the hymn.29 These fascinating verses give a good sense of how Job thinks about the world and God’s role in it.

Cosmic geography (9:5–9). The cosmic geography of the ancient world is generally founded on observation and experience, making one wonder what the author has in mind as he describes moving or overturning mountains (9:5). Close analysis reveals that the translation should go a different direction. The verb that NIV translates “moves” (Hiph. of ʿtq) only occurs a few times; in Genesis it refers to the movement of the patriarchs from place to place (Gen. 12:8; 26:22). The Hiphil is often, though not always, a causative verbal form—but the use of this verb in the Hiphil in Genesis is not. Therefore, we would not translate Job 9:5 as “God causes mountains to move” (implied in NIV translation), but “God traverses the mountains.”30 This would parallel his treading on the seas in verse 8.

The next problem is to identify the subject of the verb “to know” (“He traverses mountains and they do not know,” pers. trans.). Mountains are not sentient; likely the subject is those who resisted him in the previous verse. These resisters do not emerge unscathed, for God traverses the difficult passes of the mountains without his enemies’ knowledge and thus overthrows them (the resisters, not the mountains).

The first clause of verse 6 contains terminology commonly used for earthquakes, but the second clause is more obscure. It begins with a reference to “the pillars” of the earth (cf. also Ps. 75:3[4]). Ancient peoples believed that the earth was a flat disk upheld by pillars; such a cosmic geography is portrayed on a boundary stone from the late second millennium. It is more difficult to understand what the pillars are doing, since the verb used (Hithpael of plṣ) occurs only here,31 but the context gives us some confidence based on the parallel between the two lines. The earthquake continues the theme of punishment against those who resist.

The punishment theme moves heavenward in verse 7. In the first line, the sun is not simply obscured by an eclipse—it does not rise (Heb. zrḥ). Here Job returns to the concept first discussed in 3:8: God orders the cosmos day-by-day, not once for all. God’s command causes the sun to rise or not to rise. This view is to be differentiated from Egyptian mythology in which the sun and the sun god are indistinguishable. In that view deity does not call forth the sun; rather, he rises as the sun, and chaos causes the sun to darken. This distinction provides additional evidence that Job’s own thinking is more Israelite than not.

Job recognizes God as the one who seals off the stars in the second phrase of verse 7. Verbs of shutting, when used with the preposition beʿad, mean to lock something in. The seal would be affixed to a closed door to make sure that what is inside is not disturbed. The ancients believed that the stars were engraved on the underside of the solid, rotating firmament,32 and they moved along paths (in Akkadian literature, the paths of Anu, Enlil, and Ea).33 To seal the stars would not be to inscribe them but to establish their paths so that they could not change. Such would be an act of creation, bringing order to the cosmos. Alternatively, we might understand the phrase as parallel to the first part of the verse—hence order is disrupted. Sealing the stars would refer to shutting them out so they could not enter the paths to shine in the heavens. In Isaiah 40:26, God leads forth the stars (cf. 45:12, where he commands their appearance); he does not do so here, but he keeps them shut behind sealed doors. We can read verse 7 as a continuation of God’s cosmic judgment against those who resist him (9:4).

As translated by the NIV, verse 8 appears to concern God’s creation, but close attention to the words shows otherwise. The two actions in the verse are related to theophanies in which God judges his enemies or his sinful people. Consider:

• Psalm 144:5–6: “Part [nṭh] your heavens, O LORD, and come down [yrd]; touch the mountains, so that they smoke. Send forth lightning and scatter the enemies, shoot your arrows and rout them.”

• Psalm 18:9/2 Samuel 22:10: “He parted [nṭh] the heavens and came down [yrd]; dark clouds were under his feet.”

• Micah 1:3: “Look! The LORD is coming from his dwelling place; he comes down [yrd] and treads [drk] the high places [bomotey] of the earth.”

• Job 9:8: “He alone stretches out [nṭh] the heavens and treads [drk] the waves [bamotey] of the sea.”

When we weave these overlapping verses together, we get the following composite profile for a judgment theophany: God “raises up” (nṭh) (the corner of) the heavens, comes down (yrd), and treads (drk) the heights (bomotey) of some part of the cosmos (earth, sea, clouds). Neither earth nor clouds are chaos creatures, so we would conclude that “sea” is not intended in that way either.

The first act refers not so much to stretching out the heavens, but to lifting them up. Two of the most common direct objects of the verb (nṭh) are “tent” and “hand/arm.” Psalm 104:2 and Isaiah 40:22 make the metaphor explicit: “He pitched the heavens like a tent.” In both cases the action is “lifting up” (note NIV translation of “pitch” one’s tent, Gen. 12:8; 26:25; 33:19; etc. and of “upraised” hand, Isa. 9:12[11], 17[16], 21[20]). When the object is “heavens,” as in the passage quoted above, we can see the idea of “lifting up” as God raises up the corner to step in under it.

The second half of verse 8 has been the subject of much discussion. The verb is clear enough, but the object is obscure; NIV translates “he treads on the waves of the sea.” The phrase translated “waves of the sea” is bamotey yam.34 Clines takes the line as a reference to Semitic mythology, where the deity treads on the back of Yamm (the sea god).35 He supports this interpretation with the reference to stepping on the back (bamah) of one’s enemies as a symbol of conquest (Deut. 33:29). Amos 4:13 refers to treading on the high places (Heb. bamot) of the earth—not places for worship, but the hills and mountains (cf. Hab. 3:19). Andersen and Freedman identify the form as a reference to the “rumpled surface of the earth consisting of both hills and valleys.”36 This understanding makes it logical that when the sea is the object, it would refer to the waves.37 The famous Baal stele from Ugarit displayed in the Louvre shows the storm god walking on the waves of the sea as he strides forth with his lightning bolts in hand.

To interpret verse 9 we need a better understanding of constellations in the ancient world. Celestial omens from the ancient world are well-known; several sets of tablets give detailed information about the stars and constellations. There are many constellations, but three of the most prominent (judging by their place in the lists and the omens connected to them) are Pleiades (Akkad. zappu; Heb. kimah), Orion (Akkad. šitadallu, Heb. kesil), and Taurus (Akkad. alû, Bull of Heaven). We can identify these, along with the many other constellations in Akkadian and Sumerian texts, because of the technical information they include about the times of their rising and setting and their positions in the sky at various times during the year.

In contrast, we have much less information to determine the names of the Hebrew constellations; the Old Testament refers to constellations in only three contexts (here; 38:31–32; Amos 5:8). Scholars offer guesses concerning the identity of these constellations from commentary to commentary, based on comparative Semitic etymology38 or the renderings of the earliest translations (e.g., Greek).

Regardless of which constellations Job 9 refers to, the more important question is why the constellations are brought into the discussion. Amos 5:8 mentions the making of the constellations in a context of cosmic judgment. Similarly, scholars consistently agree that Job 9:5–8 refers to cosmic acts of judgment against those who resist God. If verse 9 simply expresses wonder over God’s creative power, it is entirely inconsistent with the context; therefore, we should consider possible alternatives. As it turns out, constellations often are the subject of omens (for good or ill) in Akkadian literature. For example: “If Leo is dark: lions and wolves will rage and cut off traffic with the Westland.”39 Since God is the one who makes the constellations, he is the one who uses them to portend ominous events that are understood as acts of judgment.

The last two words of verse 9 continue the conundrum. The NIV translates them “constellations of the south,” but the first word of that pair (ḥdr) usually refers to a room or chamber.40 In Job 37:9 and 38:22 it refers to the storehouses from which the storm, snow, and hail issue. These are also used for judgment. The second word, teman, is also used in Psalm 78:26 as a reference for the destructive south wind.

Based on all of the analysis above, I would offer the following expansive translation for Job 9:5–9 after Job has posed the rhetorical question in 9:4, “Who can resist him and survive?”

5He [God] traverses the mountains, but his enemies do not detect him;

then he comes upon them [his enemies] in his anger and overthrows them.

6He causes the earth to tremble in its place

and makes its pillars sway.

7He speaks to the sun and it does not shine [for them],

and he seals off the stars [from giving them light].

8He raises the corner of the heavens by himself

[and comes down on them in judgment], treading the waves of the sea.

9He is the one who makes the constellations [as ominous signs against them];

he makes the [destructive] south wind come from its chambers.

The point of the section is that God uses all of the cosmos as a weapon against those who would oppose him. Job sums this up in 9:10, giving the impression that those wonders that he has named are only the beginning of what God can do. Though Job anticipates facing God in court rather than in combat, Job is justified in feeling apprehensive. In Job’s perception, God’s ways are imperceptible (10:11); he is accountable to none (10:12). The latter is again ironic in that God is allowing the Challenger to hold his policies accountable.

Even Rahab’s consorts cower beneath God in verse 13. Rahab is another of the enemies of order generally connected to the sea (see Job 26:12; Ps. 89:11[10]; Isa. 51:9) and is historicized as a metaphor for Egypt (Ps. 87:4; Isa. 30:7).41 In the Babylonian Creation Epic, Tiamat, the chaos creature associated with the sea, rebels against the gods with the aid of her consorts; Yamm also has a cohort in Ugaritic literature. This section shows God handily defeating even the most fearsome chaos creatures; if that is so, what chance does a human have in confronting God at any level?

This mode of thinking continues Job’s characteristically deficient view of God, evident almost since the beginning of the book. He has viewed God as petty and overattentive, and now as one who is likely to abuse his power. Notice in 9:16, he does not believe that God will give him a fair hearing (perhaps no hearing at all); he worries that God will crush him even more without cause (9:17).42 Not only does he see God as aloof in his power and lack of accountability; he even believes that God will twist Job’s own words against him (9:20).

Job’s rhetoric escalates as he throws caution to the winds (9:21) and makes his baldest statement yet: “He destroys both the blameless and the wicked” (9:22). We find a similar statement in Akkadian literature of the Erra Epic, where a violent, uncontrollable god boasts: “Like one who plunders a country, I do not distinguish just from unjust, I fell (them both).”43 This kind of statement leads to God’s rebuke of Job at the book’s end (40:8). In one sense, his assertion here follows the train of thought already expressed in 2:10: God is the source of both good and bad. As he observes in 9:24, who else could it be? We will explore the theological implications of this train of thought under Bridging Contexts.

Though Job identifies God as the source of destruction for all, he still believes there is a justice system, even if it is broken. This is evident in his contrasting statements in 9:21 and 9:29. In 9:21 he states, “I am innocent” (tam); yet in 9:29 he says, “I am guilty” (ʾeršaʿ). The latter, however, does not reflect his own conviction about himself but expresses the state in which he finds himself (cf. 10:7). The fact that he can consider himself to be tried and found guilty (9:29) and that a courtroom scenario is possible (9:32) shows that there is still a justice system; Job has not claimed there is no justice—only that God is the sole target of his complaint. Job makes no allowance for the work of demons or other gods or a free agent (Satan).

Job requests a courtroom scenario in which an arbitrator will serve on his behalf (9:33) though he is not hopeful for such an exigency. This is Job’s first reference to such a role, but this position becomes important in the remaining chapters of the book. Job uses a legal term (mokiaḥ) that refers to one who argues a case and negotiates on behalf of another.44 We will discuss this more fully in 16:19–21 and consider what sort of individual Job has in mind.

Chapter 10 shows us that Job continues to think the world ought to operate according to the RP (cf. 10:3). God as judge does not need to gather information like a human judge. Job questions God’s omniscience as part of his defense. The psalmist presents this same sort of argument in Psalm 139:1–6, but an omniscient God cannot be lacking in the information needed to judge a case rightly.

In 10:8–12 Job wonders why God bothered making him at all if he only intends to destroy him. He uses language typical of the ancient world to describe his making: molded like clay (10:9a, ḥomer). Genesis 2:7 tells us that humankind was formed from dust (ʿapar) and will return to the same upon death (Gen. 3:19, the same word used in Job 10:9b). Ancient Near Eastern accounts of human creation refer to clay more commonly than to dust:45

• Sumerian: Song of the Hoe (made in brickmold); Enki and Ninmaḫ

• Akkadian: Atraḫasis (made of clay mixed with the flesh and blood of a slain deity)

• Egyptian: Coffin Texts (fashioned on the potter’s wheel by Khnum)

The biblical and ancient Near Eastern accounts demonstrate the view that it was not just the first human who was made of dust/clay; every human is so made. Every human is molded by deity and every human returns to dust. We find this archetypal view throughout the ancient world.

Just when it seemed that Job could not get any bolder, he stunningly claims to know the mind of God (10:13). This brash and arrogant declaration shows once again Job’s deficient view of God. God’s statement about Job in 42:7–8 has inclined us to exonerate Job totally and consider his view of God to be accurate and appropriate, but how can we reconcile this inclination with the near blasphemous accusations he hurls against God in this chapter?

God’s assessment of Job in 42:7–8 concerns speaking what is right to/about/on behalf of God (dibber + neconah, Niph. fem. ptc. of kwn). Rather than sorting out this language at the end of the commentary, we need to address it here so that we can rightly understand Job’s position as we proceed. How did the friends speak what was not “right” and how did Job’s statements differ? The adjective neconah has a variety of connotations, including describing something that is “appropriate” (Ex. 8:26[22]), and even a roof being supported by pillars (Judg. 16:26, 29). When the verb concerns something that is expressed or discovered, it connotes that what is said is sensible, logical, or able to be confirmed or verified. The message of Pharaoh’s dream was valid because it came in two forms (Gen. 41:32). An accusation is investigated and born out by the evidence (Deut. 13:14 [15]). Saul asked the Ziphites to verify the location of David’s hiding places (1 Sam. 23:23), and David confirmed the evidence that Saul had arrived (26:4). In these examples something is considered definite insofar as it can be investigated and supported by evidence. In other cases, a thing is declared definite by the consistency of the observable evidence, such as the rising of the sun (Hos. 6:3). The negation expresses that nothing can be verified or proven (Ps. 5:9[10]), as with the speech of the psalmist’s deceitful enemies.

Bringing this evidence to Job 42, we conclude that Job has spoken on behalf of God that which was verifiable by experience and borne out by evidence: Job was drawing logical conclusions based on what had happened to him. In contrast to his friends, who were spouting unsubstantiable accusations based on theory (that God was punishing Job for his sins), Job describes the situation faithfully. Job believes that God is afflicting him without cause (9:17), a belief that God affirms is true (2:3); in contrast, Job’s friends claim that God is afflicting Job with cause and press Job to confess his supposed crimes. This does not mean that Job’s concept of God is unobjectionable or that all that he says of God is correct, but it does mean that Job has drawn logical conclusions, even if they don’t happen to be true ones in this case.

We can understand this issue by looking at 2 Samuel 16:5–14. As David flees Jerusalem, driven from his capital city by his son Absalom, he is confronted by Shimei, a descendant of Saul’s. Shimei throw rocks at David and curses him because he believes that David is getting what he deserves: punishment from God because of bloodshed against Saul’s household. David’s entourage takes offense and Abishai offers to execute the obnoxious opportunist for his presumptuous accusations. David’s response is most interesting:

“If he is cursing because the LORD said to him, ‘Curse David,’ who can ask, ‘Why do you do this?’ ”

David then said to Abishai and all his officials, “My son, who is my own flesh, is trying to take my life. How much more then this Benjamite! Leave him alone; let him curse, for the LORD has told him to.” (2 Sam. 16:10–11)

David legitimizes Shimei’s cursing, for Shimei has arrived at the most logical conclusion; given the circumstances, anyone would agree. In the same way God legitimizes Job’s words because Job has arrived at the most logical conclusion. In this way, his words are considered verifiable. The conclusions of Job’s friends were not born out by the evidence. Job’s conclusions differed because they were.

However, we must make another important point. David does not believe that Shimei’s assessment (however logical it may seem) will win out once time has run its course. He agrees that Shimei’s logic legitimizes his chosen course of action, but he disagrees with Shimei’s assessment of his character. In the same way, given the circumstances that Job is living through, God considers Job’s conclusions legitimate, while those of his friends are not. Yet God is not content with Job’s assessment of his character. Job’s conclusions are understandable, but not correct. Just as Shimei’s view of David is deficient despite the logic of his conclusions, Job’s view of God is deficient despite the logic of his assessment. In both cases, only time will bring out the truth. The truth dawns on Job after the speeches of God—he then admits that he spoke of things that he did not understand (42:3).

Job finishes his speech of despair (over getting a fair trial) by wishing again for death (10:18–22), a reprise of his lament in chapter 3. Again we see his view of the netherworld with some clarity:

Before I go to a place of no return,

to the land of gloom and deep shadow,

to the land of deepest night,

of deep shadow and disorder,

where even the light is like darkness. (10:21–22)

The most interesting word is the one translated by the NIV as “disorder” (negated sedarim), which occurs only here in the Old Testament but is common in later biblical Hebrew, including the Dead Sea Scrolls.46 The ancients commonly characterized the created world as “ordered.” I have demonstrated elsewhere that “bringing order” is the most basic of creative activities in ancient literature, including the Old Testament.47 In the created (= ordered) cosmos, there remain patches of disorder or chaos that are sometimes considered “nonexistent.”48 If “disorder” is an appropriate translation of the negated word sedarim in 10:22, it would suggest that the Israelites considered the netherworld a place untouched by the creative activity that brought order to the world of the living. This also explains the absence of light in Sheol.

Zophar (Job 11)

ZOPHAR ACCUSES JOB OF “idle talk” (11:3, baddim). This Hebrew word appears five other times in the Old Testament, always in the plural;49 here it corresponds to the word translated “mock” (lʿg). Job has accused God of mocking the innocent (9:23); according to the psalmist, God also mocks those who conspire against him (Ps. 2:4, NIV “scoff”). The innocent mock the wicked when the latter are punished (Job 22:19), and victims are mocked by their persecutors (Ps. 22:7[8]). We might then conclude that Zophar is characterizing Job’s stance about his innocence as a farcical travesty.

When a politician gets caught abusing his power, extorting money from those desiring to work for the government, giving favors to relatives, and engaging in endless other crimes; or when the district attorney finally delivers the indictment, supported by wiretaps, dozens of witnesses, taped conversations, and boxes of incriminating documents, we are amazed to hear the politician claim his total innocence—with a straight face, as if he believes it: “The truth will come out in the trial” (cf. the words that Zophar puts in Job’s mouth in v. 4). We can only sadly shake our heads at how such arrogance and presumption make mockery of justice. That is how Zophar characterizes Job: “We all know you are guilty Job. It’s obvious! Why keep the charade going?”

As he wishes for God to address this subject, Zophar observes that “true wisdom has two sides” (11:6, kiplayim letušiyyah). The word tušiyyah occurs in 5:12 as “success” and in 26:3 as “insight” (parallel to “advice”). M. Fox defines it as “an inner resource, not specifically intellectual or moral, that can help one deal with a crisis.”50 He translates it “competence” or “resourcefulness” in Proverbs 3:21, a sense that works well in all its contexts.51 The other word in the phrase, kiplayim (from the root kpl), occurs five times as a verb and three as the derivative noun. The root concerns doubling something (e.g., Ex. 26:9), and here uses a dual form typically applied to things that occur intrinsically in pairs. The combination is obscure, but working with what we do know of the words and analyzing them in the context of Zophar’s conclusion (Job 11:6c), I would suggest an interpretation something like: “Competent, responsible thinking has to consider the other side of the equation; think of how much worse it could be if God decided to punish all your sins.”

Zophar argues for God’s inscrutability in 11:7–12. He thinks that Job takes too much on himself in supposing that he can match God in court. In one sense this anticipates part of what God will say when he appears in chapter 38: Job does not comprehend the vastness of God’s wisdom. This again illustrates that the words of the friends are not utter foolishness. Their arguments derive power from the accepted, sound thinking on which they are based. The problem is often not a theology that is entirely wrong, but in drawing wrongheaded conclusions in a flawed assemblage of ideas or the intermixture of presuppositions that are not essential.

Zophar lays out his recommended course of action in 11:13–20. His advice in 11:13 is difficult to argue against—all followers of God should do such things. His assumption in 11:14, however, begins to show the deviation, and verses 15–20 reveal Zophar’s perception of the goal. He assumes that Job has indeed sinned and so brought this punishment down on himself—a flawed conclusion. The goal he holds out for Job is restoration of prosperity.

Job (Job 12–14)

DESPITE ZOPHAR’S CLAIM THAT Job is getting off easy (11:6), Job is not willing to look at his case in isolation; God should be concerned about those who are wicked and hold them in contempt (12:5–6). This observation rests on the premise that justice should be proportional and relative. The last phrase of 12:6 is somewhat difficult: What does it mean to “carry their god in their hands”? The most important grammatical question in this clause is whether “god/God” is the object or subject of the verb. The NIV presents an alternate: “To whom God brings by his hand.” This rendering is preferable because the men referred to in 12:5–6 are represented in plural forms, while the verb and pronoun in 12:6c are masculine singular. If God is not the subject, there is no masculine singular subject available in the context. Job is therefore observing that even though these people provoke God, they are secure and continue to receive prosperity from him.

We may note in passing that 12:9 makes the only reference to Yahweh outside of the narrative frame and the Yahweh speeches in 38–41. Some manuscripts have “God” (ʾeloah), apparently concluding that Yahweh was a later scribe’s slip. Nevertheless, those who make text critical decisions often prefer the unlikely reading. Since no interpretive matter hinges on the wording, we can leave it for now as a simple curiosity.

The hymnic section (12:10–24) expresses God’s authority to revoke the power of corrupt or repressive leaders.

In chapter 13, Job turns his attention back to his desired court case, beginning with a rebuke to the friends (including his classic reference to them as “worthless physicians,” v. 4). The more stinging complaint against them, however, comes as he accuses them of “speaking wickedly on God’s behalf” (13:7). This wording will eventually find a partial echo in God’s indictment of the friends (42:7). The preposition used here (l-; in 42:7, ʾel is generally considered to be equivalent and interchangeable) requires clarification. Do the friends speak ill about God, to God, or on behalf of God? The key to the decision is in the object of the verb describing what they speak, here “wickedness” (ʿawlah). This abstract noun occurs nine times in Job and other derivative forms occur six more times. Of particular significance are those occurrences that refer to speech in a court setting (Job 6:30; 27:4; Isa. 59:3).

• Job 6:30—Job asks rhetorically whether there is ʿawlah on his tongue in the context of whether he is lying about his integrity.

• Job 27:4—Job indicates that he would be speaking ʿawlah if he were to admit that his friends were right about his sinfulness.

• Isaiah 59:3—Israel has sinned because their tongues have spoken ʿawlah; this use parallels perjury in those who lack integrity (Isa. 59:4).

All of these refer to the crime of misrepresenting a case in court: offering as true testimony what is false. In 13:7 the friends are not giving testimony to God because they are not on trial; they are not giving false testimony about God, because they are not giving bad theology; they are, however, giving false testimony on behalf of God when they presume to represent God’s testimony about Job and his supposed sin. The second clause of 13:8 confirms this interpretation when the same preposition questions whether the friends have the right to argue a case “for” (“on behalf of”) God. Our conclusion will carry over to 42:7, where God accuses the friends of not speaking that which was verifiable on his behalf. “Verifiable” (nekonah; NIV “right”) is the opposite of the misrepresentation (ʿawlah) here.

The next textual puzzle to solve is in the famous statement of Job in 13:15, “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him.” Unfortunately the most familiar and popular sections in Job are often among the most difficult; this verse is no exception, as a survey of translations and commentaries shows:

• NIV, NASB, KJV, Dhorme, Andersen, Hebrew Qere:52 “Though he slay me, I will hope in him.”

• RSV, Hebrew Ketiv: “Behold, he will slay me, I have no hope.”

• Hartley: “If he were to slay me, I would have no hope.”

• Gordis, Habel, Smick: “Yes, though he slay me, I will not wait [in silence].”

Does the last word (yḥl) describe “hoping” or “waiting”? The impetus for interpreting the verb as “waiting in silence” concerns Elihu (Job 32:11, 16), who waited while the others spoke; the usage of the verb throughout Job confirms such an interpretation. The meaning of hope only comes in secondarily as those who are suffering often wait with hope for God to bring relief. I would therefore translate, “Even though he may slay me,53 I will not wait [in silence]”—that is, Job is going to continue pressing for the court appearance. The next line follows that same train of thought. This reading makes more sense than the traditional interpretation, both in terms of lexical semantics and in terms of the rhetorical and theological sense of the passage. As we have seen a number of times already and will encounter again, Job has no hope in the afterlife. In contrast, as we see in 13:18–19, Job does expect to receive vindication before he dies, though we need not think that he harbors any hope for a fair trial.

After concluding his plea for a legitimate hearing, he shifts to a discussion of human mortality and frailty (13:28–14). In 14:7–14 we find the strongest statements in the book about Job’s beliefs concerning the afterlife, beliefs that prove bleak. Like everyone in the ancient world, Job believes that life continues after death, but such a belief offers little hope if life in the netherworld is dreary drudgery. Trees can resprout (14:7–9), but humans have no such prospects (14:10, 12)—they are more like the riverbed that simply dries up (14:11). Job wishes it were otherwise, that he could take refuge in the grave and then be brought back to life (14:13), but he realizes that such an option does not exist.

We must examine 14:14 closely to see how it fits in this sequence of thought. The rhetorical question in the first line expects a negative answer (as he has already indicated in 14:10). During the Old Testament period, the Israelites had no theologically formulated hope of resurrection; yet the end of the verse indicates that Job is waiting (same verb as in 13:15) for something, expressed in the words “for my renewal [ḥalipati] to come” (NIV). The word in question is a noun derived from a Hiphil verbal form of the root ḥlp.54 The abstract noun (ḥalipah) appears twelve times in the Old Testament, eight as a reference to changes of clothes. Of the four remaining occurrences, one speaks of sending a troop of soldiers to relieve those in service (1 Kings 5:15[28]); the other (Job 10:17) speaks of one company of witnesses who are always ready to relieve the former set. The noun thus refers to someone or something coming to replace or relieve another; this suggests that in 14:14, Job is hoping that his turn will come. Job is the one replacing another (who theoretically is having his case heard).55 This leads seamlessly into 14:15, where God will summon Job and Job will have the chance he has been looking for to have his case heard. As Job dreams of this new day, we should observe that his objective is restored relationship (14:15–17), not restored benefits. This continues to be the most important aspect of Job’s posture.

We need to clarify what Job is saying in 14:16–17 about his sins and transgressions. Is he now admitting to some? Some observations to begin:

• God’s counting of one’s steps is usually a negative sign of overattention.

• Not keeping track of one’s sin (šmr + ḥaṭṭaʾt) is an act of mercy (Job 10:14).

• Sealing sins in a bundle or bag56 reserves them for future punishment (Deut. 32:34–35; Hos. 13:12)—again, an operation of grace.

• Covering (ṭpl) over refers to smearing something with plaster or whitewash to hide it; when applied to sin, this act puts the sin out of sight.

All of these are still part of Job’s dream for renewed relationship. In this new imagined setting, the offenses are all hypothetical. By “relationship” I do not refer to the Christian idea of relationship with God through Christ; that was neither available to Job nor was it present in his conceptual framework. I also do not refer to the relationship that Israel had with God through the covenant. Despite the fact that the audience of this book is the covenant people, Israel, Job is a non-Israelite, so that would not be fitting to apply to him. Finally, relationship cannot be thought of in ancient Near Eastern terms where it is framed by the Great Symbiosis. If relationship only meant restored favor, it could be mistaken for a desire for privileged status that would inevitably result in benefits. We have seen that Job is not motivated by this.

When Job thinks of restored relationship with God, he envisions a coming day after his reconciliation with God when he will be given the benefit of the doubt and will receive mercy based on a track record of good behavior, even if God is dogging his steps. His symbiosis with God is not driven by ritual performance and divine need (as in the ancient Near East); it is not driven by covenant stipulations and the torah (as in Israel); and it is not based on grace received by faith (as in Christian theology). Job’s symbiosis with God is based on the idea that he will conduct himself in righteousness and that in so doing, he will gain the approval of God. That relationship would be encapsulated in the opening accolades in Job 1 in which God praised Job to the Challenger.

Bridging Contexts

Rhetorical Issues

IN EACH OF THE three cycles of dialogue, the friend’s speeches are interspersed with Job’s replies. For the first cycle, the layout is as follows:

Eliphaz: chs. 4–5	Job: chs. 6–7
Bildad: ch. 8	Job: chs. 9–10
Zophar: ch. 11	Job: chs. 12–14

The friends’ comments in the first dialogue cycle are comprised mostly of advice to Job: generalized statements accompanied by exhortations. Below I have summarized each speech and then focus in on a couple of important issues.

Eliphaz: You have counseled many in similar circumstances and you should take your own advice: Trust in your piety—the Retribution Principle will hold; it is the wicked who perish. Yet from God’s perspective no mortal is righteous; appeal to God and accept his discipline.

Job: The extent of my misery justifies my outcry. I wish that he would put me to death; then I would die with the consolation that at least I had assessed the situation realistically. I feel so helpless, I am not sure I can continue, and my friends are of no help. I would be delighted if God could show me what I have done wrong. My miserable days will soon come to an end, so I may as well speak my mind: Why, O God, have you targeted me for such attention—no one could bear such scrutiny. Can’t you show some tolerance before it is too late?

Eliphaz’s first speech is restrained. Its central element is the mystical revelation that he claims (4:12–21). Imbedded in the heart of that revelation is the core of his argument in 4:17—the ancient Near Eastern view that no one can be righteous from God’s perspective. Most of the platitudes that he offers are theologically defensible, but we must also notice his reasoning: “Should not your piety be your confidence and your blameless ways your hope?” (4:6). What is the “confidence” and “hope” to which Eliphaz refers? It appears from the comments that follow that he is saying: “If you really have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about.” The hope to which he refers must be an expectation for vindication (as a result of his appeal to God, 5:8). Circumstantial prosperity is the only measure they have for vindication. From Eliphaz’s perspective, Job’s absolution would evidence itself in Job’s recovery from illness and a restoration of his goods (5:17–26).

Job, however, wants vindication in the form of God asserting that he has done nothing to deserve his circumstances. This is a key difference because it hinges on the claims made by the Challenger. To have one’s prosperity restored represents a different value than to have one’s righteousness acknowledged. Though the former could be considered tacit evidence of the latter, we can see that Job draws a line of distinction between them. He never asks for God to return his prosperity or heal his illness; he wants God to declare him innocent and righteous.

Eliphaz begins lawsuit language (5:8). There has been a lot of discussion about whether Job is positioned as a defendant or a plaintiff.57 I would propose that Job and his friends think that Job is a defendant in a criminal trial. Job launches a countersuit in an attempt to take the role of plaintiff. None of the characters know that Job is actually the star witness for the defense in the trial of God’s policies.

Eliphaz’s main statement (4:17) is not based on something like a Christian concept of human fallenness and a sin nature; his assertion concerns God more than humankind. No one can be righteous from God’s perspective, not because people are inherently sinful, but because deity is noncommunicative about his expectations and his standards are too complex for anyone to meet. This proclaimed inscrutability is the same sentiment expressed by the sufferer in Ludlul bel nemeqi (see p. 25): “When have mortals ever learnt the ways of a god?”

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Eliphaz: Appeal to God and admit your offense.

Job: Stop treating me as guilty. Rather than appeal to God with false humility and trumped-up offenses, I will confront him with demands for vindication.

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Bildad: How dare you suggest that God perverts justice! Your children undoubtedly sinned. Face the facts and come clean—then all will go smoothly for you. Traditional wisdom gives you all the information you need: the Retribution Principle. The wicked perish, but God does not reject a righteous man.

Job: How could anyone ever establish his righteousness before God? You can’t argue with him and expect to win. Challenging him would be disastrous; he is too strong to overpower and he is beyond being called to account. I have nothing left to live for, so I may as well say it outright: He is not just—both the blameless and the wicked are destroyed. I wish I had an advocate to speak on my behalf. Nothing makes any sense; I can’t win. I wish God would just let me die.

In 8:5 Bildad continues the negotiation language that Eliphaz introduced. If Job lays out his case before God and if he is pure and upright (8:6), his plea will result in restoration (8:6–7). As always, the friends see this as the ultimate objective. Job, in contrast, sees acquittal as the paramount goal. Like Eliphaz, Bildad does not directly accuse Job of wrongdoing, but the wisdom observations that dominate his speech reek of implication that is far from subtle. Job, nevertheless, refuses to take the bait. He returns almost immediately to the issue of his court case with God and its prospects for success. Those who resist God are doomed, and if his cleverness does not overwhelm, his power can crush.

Job’s statements drift among several postures:

1. I demand a hearing.

2. Any court case is doomed from the start.

3. Whatever else, I know I am innocent.

4. God is unjust (9:22–24).

5. I need an arbitrator.

6. Death is inevitable and desirable.

Bildad: Take the traditional Retribution Principle seriously and recognize the inevitable conclusion.

Job: I know the traditions are true, but I am not ready to admit the conclusions are inevitable. Yet I am without recourse.

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Zophar: What arrogance! You think you are so pure! Well, you haven’t even begun to get what you deserve. Your understanding is miniscule compared to God. Give it up and repent of your sin so that all may go well for you.

Job: You, my friends, mock me; if you would only show your wisdom by being silent. You offer no comfort in counsel and speak presumptuously and ignorantly on God’s behalf. I suffer while the wicked escape scot-free. God is the fount of all wisdom and power. If only I could bring my case before him—I think I would have an airtight defense. I would request, however, that he cease and desist with the torment and terrors until the matter is settled. Given such a moratorium, I could concentrate on my case. Show me the evidence of my wrongdoing. This life is all I have, so I want to get this settled before it is too late.

Zophar takes offense at Job’s claims and indignantly unleashes invectives against him. He considers Job to be foolish for thinking that he can stand up, look God in the face, and confront him with the details of the case. He does not actually refer to Job’s desire for a hearing; instead, he expresses his wish that God will simply decide the matter and show Job his folly. In this speech Zophar makes the most forthright claim yet concerning Job’s offense: “Put away the sin that is in your hand” (11:14). As this series of speeches reaches its conclusion, the gloves are off and subtle innuendo gives way to stark accusation. The summary conclusion again emphasizes restoration (11:15–20), which the friends see as the ultimate objective and which the Challenger contended was Job’s primary motivation for righteous behavior.

Job likewise becomes more caustic as he replies with indignant sarcasm and appears to engage in wisdom one-upmanship. Then he returns to the issue of the hearing and accuses Zophar of speaking falsely on God’s behalf. Job claims that it is not he but Zophar who deserves God’s rebuke (13:9–10). Just as Zophar forthrightly accused Job of wrongdoing, Job replies that if anyone can bring specific charges, he will be silent and die (13:19). As he turns his attention away from Zophar toward God, we can see him move to the next level of thinking. In chapters 9–10 he was still worrying about the prospect of facing God in court. In 13:18 he declares that his case is ready and its outcome is sure. Before, litigation was the obstacle; now time is the obstacle. In contrast to the conclusion of the friends’ speeches, where Zophar paints a lovely picture of Job’s benefits being restored, Job concludes his series with first a beautiful dream of troubles being past and relationship with God restored (14:13–17) with his integrity being recognized and substantiated, but then the despair of his situation (14:18–22).

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Zophar: Devote your heart to God and put away sin.

Job: You are badly misrepresenting God and me. I hope I can get my hearing and restore my relationship with God before I die.

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Having addressed the rhetorical role of each of the speeches, we can now turn our attention to the rhetorical role of the series as a whole. Since the first half of the book is arranged in three series of dialogues (chs. 4–14; 15–21; 22–27), it is logical to assume that each series accomplishes something.58 This conclusion derives from the belief that the book is designed carefully and intentionally. Consequently, as we assess the rhetorical strategy of each series, we should attempt to understand what the philosophical point is for the series and what the resolution is that closes that series and leads to the next.

In this first series, each friend’s speech ends with painting a rosy picture of the benefits of righteousness (Eliphaz, 5:17–27; Bildad, 8:20–22; Zophar, 11:13–19). The main focus of this series is that the friends appeal to Job to think about getting his benefits back and doing whatever is necessary to accomplish that. The series comes to a conclusion when Job makes it clear that he has no hope for restoration and is not motivated by the desire that his friends have placed as the highest value (14:18–22). Once Job has refuted this argument and resisted this advice, the series comes to an end and the book moves on to the next philosophical issue.

Now we can turn our attention to the posture that Job adopts in this set and what its significance is in the scenario that the book unfolds. In the Introduction we described briefly Tsevat’s triangle of claims as a way of understanding the characters’ positions (pp. 42–43). The triangle illustrates the tension between three concepts that everyone in the book has ample reason to affirm: The Retribution Principle, God’s Justice, and Job’s Righteousness. Given Job’s calamities, however, one of the three concepts has to be discarded. We noted in the discussion of Job 2 that the friends defended the corner represented by the RP and questioned Job’s righteousness (p. 108). Their speeches in this first cycle repeatedly demonstrate this position as each one eloquently expounds on the judgment that comes to the wicked and the prosperity that comes to the righteous.

Job’s place on the triangle is easy to discern: He defends his own righteousness (e.g., 9:20)—a position that forces him to choose between the RP and the justice of God. One of them has to go. Though he does not elaborate much on the RP in this set of speeches, his demand for a hearing carries the assumption that righteousness and suffering do not belong together. He also grants the RP as an acceptable premise (9:1) and does not argue its merits with his friends. Unfortunately this means that for Job, God’s justice occupies the weak corner of the triangle, as we see in 9:17–24, most noticeably in Job’s blunt statement: “He destroys both the blameless and the wicked” (9:22; see also 7:20–21; 10:3, 7).

By positioning himself in this way, he articulates the second aspect of the challenge to God’s policies, as addressed in the Introduction (pp. 21–22). The Challenger suggested that bringing prosperity to righteous people was bad policy because it would eventually corrupt their motives and cause them to do right only to gain reward. This policy undermines and subverts true righteousness. The advice of Job’s friends unwittingly would, if followed, prove the Challenger’s point: If Job acknowledges his (fictional) sins with the ultimate goal of restoration, he will prove the Challenger’s point.

Job’s challenge of God is that it is bad policy for him to bring suffering to righteous people because that would undermine God’s justice (as it has in Job’s thinking). When we recall that the book is ultimately about God and his policies, not about Job and his suffering, we can see that all the pieces are in place. As the Challenger and Job both call God to account (to establish respectively true righteousness and true justice), the friends misrepresent God in their assessment of the situation.

What would Job, the star witness for the defense, have to do for God to lose this challenge? God would lose the case pressed by the Challenger if Job followed the advice of his wife or his friends. If Job were to follow either, he would demonstrate that he was only interested in restoration of benefits and that even his motives were corrupt. God could also lose the case pressed by Job if he were to give Job reasons for his suffering and thereby accept the cause-effect matrix of the unqualified RP. If God agrees to a court case to defend himself (theodicy) and offers Job an explanation, he tacitly admits that the system operates by justice, at which point he would have to admit that Job had not received justice in accordance with the parameters of the RP.

We must then evaluate how Job is doing. Has he cursed God? For us to maintain the proposed premise of the book, we must conclude that Job has not cursed God and that he never does curse God. Job has his best chance to curse God to his face when God comes to him in Job 38.59 By that point the characters have exhausted all debate, and it seems that nothing is going to change; however, Job does not utter any formal curse against God in conclusion—in fact, he retracts (42:6). In the treatment of Job 1, I concluded that cursing God would entail speaking in a denigrating, contemptuous, or slanderous way about God (pp. 58–61). We considered examples such as taking credit for what God has done or attributing to God wrong motives; in general, suggestions that God is corrupt or powerless, or that God has needs or can be manipulated, qualify. Job has not suggested any of these. The Great Symbiosis operates on the premise that God’s favor can be bought: If we do good for him, he will do good for us. Job does not believe God is powerless (exactly the opposite; God is the one acting), and he does not believe that God is corrupt (i.e., that his favors can be bought).60

Job has, however, called God’s justice into question. Why does calling God’s justice into question not constitute cursing God? The answer is to be found, I suggest, by investigating how and why he is questioning God’s justice. Job does not doubt God’s justice because he has lost his benefits, but rather because his own righteousness has been mitigated. His speeches have demonstrated that he cares little for restoration but greatly about righteousness. Job’s priorities argue against the Challenger, who claimed there was no such thing as one who was concerned with righteousness apart from its connection with benefits. In fact, Job cares so much about his innocence and so little about his benefits that he is willing to risk all that remains to him (even life itself, which the Challenger is prevented from taking) in his suit against God. F. R. Magdalene has built a good case that Job sues God for abuse of power.61

Job remembers the loving response of Yahweh. He therefore believes that God should call to him with loving-kindness instead of summoning him before a court. God should let him answer out of devotion instead of demanding a legal answer. God should look the other way when he commits infractions instead of expecting scrupulous conduct because such infractions could only have been unwitting, minor, or done in the folly of youth (6:24b; 13:26; and 19:4). God should treat him as the creature of God that he is (10:8a, 9–12; 12:9–10; 30:19; and 31:15) instead of treating him like a legal adversary worthy of inspection and destruction (13:24; cf. 10:8b). As Job understands it, God owes him a duty of care because he is God’s creature; God is breaching that duty.62

As far as Job’s stance goes, in the end there is little theological distinction between “both good and bad come from God” (2:10), and “he destroys both the blameless and the wicked” (9:22). God must be the one who destroys both the blameless and the wicked, for, in Job’s mind, no one else can be held accountable for such destruction. In Genesis 18:25 Abraham objects to the Lord: “Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous [ṣaddiq] with the wicked [rašaʿ], treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge [šopeṭ] of all the earth do right [mišpaṭ]?” If we juxtapose Job 9:22 and Genesis 18:25 and set up a syllogism, we would have to conclude that Job is at least insinuating that God does not do right (mišpaṭ). Indeed, God’s rebuke of Job in Job 40:8 suggests that it is precisely God’s mišpaṭ that Job has questioned (cf. Job’s claim in 19:7 that there is no mišpaṭ and his assertion in 27:2 that God has withheld mišpaṭ from him, cf. 34:5).63

All of these observations bring an important point to our attention. We are used to reading the book of Job to find encouragement from Job’s exemplary response to suffering. We consider his patience, longsuffering, faithfulness, righteousness, and integrity all to make him an admirable character.64 In our desire to preserve this pristine role model, we are perhaps sometimes too eager to eliminate or neglect anything that might compromise his stellar performance. This approach reads against the grain of the book’s rhetorical strategy. The book is not trying to prove that Job’s response to his situation is irreproachable; he is not held up as a paragon of virtue showing us how we ought to respond in suffering (though some of his responses are certainly admirable). The book is teaching us about God and his policies, not offering Job as a biblical paradigm for how to approach suffering. We will uncover the authoritative teaching of Scripture by unfolding its rhetorical strategy, not by imitating its characters. To say this another way, we will learn more about surviving crises by understanding God than by imitating Job.

Therefore we ought to be more discerning and allow Job his weaknesses: a flawed theology and a deficient view of God.65 Such allowance is essential because we often share these shortcomings. Only one thing is required of Job in order for the book to accomplish its purpose: he must value his righteousness above his benefits. The Challenger has questioned whether God’s policies allow anyone to preserve their integrity; God’s policies will be vindicated as long as Job maintains that one conviction. It is not even important whether or not Job actually maintains his righteousness throughout the trial period—only that he values his righteousness above his benefits. The book is not trying to save Job’s reputation, and we ought not to read the book as if Job is the subject rather than God. Bad theology and a deficient view of God are not the same as cursing God. Questioning God’s justice is not related to valuing righteousness over reward.

Theological Issues

IN THE LAST SECTION we actually already transitioned from rhetorical to theological issues since they inevitably overlap. I have chosen to examine three theological issues that arise in this series of speeches: (1) viewing God as petty; (2) accusing God based on logical conclusions about the system; and (3) understanding God’s role in the cosmos. Again, from a methodological standpoint I want to emphasize that the book is not trying to teach us about these issues. The authoritative teaching of the text derives from its overall message; these are simply topics that command our attention as the book unfolds.

Viewing God as petty (7:17–21; 14:3–6). Job cannot consider his plight apart from the RP; nevertheless, the magnitude of his suffering cannot be explained by any observable behavior. His understanding at this point does not allow for flaw or inadequacy in the RP; he also confidently repudiates his friends’ suggestions that he is guilty of great sins. Job is left to conclude that the standards of God’s justice are too exacting. God has apparently lost all sense of proportion and forgotten how frail is the humanity that he himself created (cf. 10:4–8). Like the policeman who gives a ticket to the driver going 56 mph in a 55 mph zone, God appears to have too much time on his hands—maybe he should consider a hobby?

This trap in which Job has fallen is common enough today: God demands too much! Job has neglected or at least underestimated grace. By this I am not suggesting that Job should have seen how God’s grace was evident in his circumstances. Instead, I refer to the necessity of understanding that God’s actions are always infused with grace. In Job’s view, justice is a runaway train and grace was left stranded at the station. Such thinking seriously misrepresents God’s character. Unfortunately, many people have concluded that this petty, judgmental God dominates the Old Testament and that the God of grace and love only appears in the New Testament, in the person of Christ. This is dangerous theology. God knows our weaknesses. The God of the Old Testament is the very God that became incarnate in Jesus and is the very God whom Christ called people to follow.

The Old Testament is full of God’s grace. Grace preserved humanity after the fall; grace led God to forge a covenant with Abraham as a means of revealing his plan to reconcile with sinful humanity. Grace provided the revelation of God’s holiness in the law and allowed Israel a glimpse of how they could be holy. Grace characterized God’s interaction with Israel through centuries of rebellion and apostasy. Grace sent the prophets with warning and instruction. Grace prompted God to reveal himself in the Scriptures so that we might know him. We can then agree with the hymn writer: “’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.”

We have a deficient view of God, as Job did, if we believe that his attributes are manifested disproportionately or inappropriately. Mercy does not trump justice. Holiness does not trump grace. We cannot claim that love is the first and foremost of God’s attributes; rather, it is one alongside of the rest that manifests itself in its proper place. We make the same mistake Job did when we fail to examine other options and prematurely cast a judgmental eye toward God, which leads us into the next topic.

Accusing God based on logical conclusions about the system. Job articulates his worst suspicions about God in 10:3. Job has allowed his beliefs about the world’s operations to undermine his beliefs about the nature of God. He understands the RP as the foundation for God’s involvement in the world: All experience must be explained by its tenets. He believes that if that is not so, God cannot be just. At the same time he believes that if the RP does not hold up, God’s justice is open to question. The series of propositions goes like this:

1. If God is just, the RP is true.

2. If the RP is true, it is the foundation of how the world works.

3. If the RP is the foundation, one’s experiences will be consistent with the RP.

4. If experience is not consistent with the RP, the RP is not the foundation.

5. If the RP is not the foundation, the RP is not true.

6. If the RP is not true, God is not just.

Here one’s presuppositions about the way the world does or should work hold priority over one’s understanding of God. Philosophy is valued above theology; experience is valued above revelation. The alternative is for faith to be the foundation of reason.

This problem evidences itself today in many people’s beliefs. We commonly hear someone say, “I can’t accept a God who would allow so much suffering in the world” (whether the topic is cancer or AIDS; hunger or poverty; war or terrorism). The question is whether we are prepared to let revelation and theology change our philosophy and shape our understanding of experience. Are we willing to give God the benefit of the doubt and question our own presuppositions instead of his character? This poignant question flows through the book of Job—we will encounter it time and again.

God’s role in the cosmos. The poetic description of the cosmos in Job 9:5–14 accords with Old World Science; we also see a theological understanding of God’s pervasive role in the universe. His wisdom and power govern the cosmos moment by moment. Everything that happens is the work of God.

Unfortunately, our worldview, with its emphasis on empirical science, predisposes us to such a high interest in the mechanics and the processes of the universe that we easily neglect the one responsible for it all. The result of this is a practical deism that sees God as only remotely involved in the physical world. We think that he has set up “natural laws” and then flipped the switch to let them run. This is not the view suggested by Job in 9:7. We might claim that we are not bound by Job’s theology, but we will find the whole of Scripture repeatedly affirm that same theology of cosmic operations.

In the ancient (and biblical) worldview, there was no divide between natural and supernatural.66 One could not speak of “natural laws”; what we identify as natural laws only take on their “lawlike” quality because God acts so consistently in the operations of the cosmos. He has made the cosmos intelligible and has given us minds that can penetrate some of its mysteries.

Psalm 139:13 shows us the distinction. The psalmist declares to God: “You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” This act of creation is not instantaneous; it involves a process. Yet it is the work of God. The process is well understood by science: In the process of fertilization, conception, implantation, fetal development, and birth, scientists find that which is explainable, predictable, and regular. The field of science called embryology offers a complex sequence of naturalistic cause and effect for the development of a child; yet this blossoming of a life, which the Bible affirms as the work of God, remains full of mystery.

The activities of deity pervaded the ancient world; nothing happened apart from deity (or other beings outside the human realm such as demons or ghosts). In the minds of the ancients, the gods did not “intervene” because such thinking would assume a realm of activity apart from them, which they could step into and out of. The Israelites, along with everyone else in the ancient world, believed instead that every event was the act of deity; every plant that grew, every baby born, every drop of rain, and every climatic disaster was an act of God. No “natural” laws governed the cosmos; deity ran the cosmos or was inherent in it. There were no “miracles” (in the sense of events deviating from that which was “natural”), only signs of the deity’s activity (sometimes favorable, sometimes not). There is nothing “natural” about the world. Our theology needs to adjust to this alternative way of thinking in order for us to recover an appreciation of an active God.

Contemporary Significance

THE NIV’S TRANSLATION OF Job 4:17 accurately represents my interpretation of Eliphaz’s viewpoint, as discussed in Original Meaning: “Can a mortal be righteous in God’s perspective? Can a man be clean in the perspective of his Maker?” This is good New Testament theology (cf. Rom 3:23), but even so, we must realize that it does not provide the answer to the sufferer’s conundrum. We need the work of Christ to cleanse us from sin because we all stand guilty before God. Eliphaz, however, is not dealing with our need for redemption; he is offering an explanation for suffering. This is a good example of sound theology improperly applied, resulting in false conclusions.

We suffer because we are a part of a fallen world that God, in his wisdom, has allowed to exist. The world is fallen because no one meets God’s standard of righteousness;67 suffering is an inherent consequence of the fall, not divine retribution for a list of tallied offenses.

This means suffering should not lead us to look back on our behavior in search of a cause; rarely is there any identifiable one-to-one correspondence. Occasionally there might be (someone embezzles funds and finds themselves caught and imprisoned; a man and a woman get entangled in an affair and ruin two families), but such cases are obvious and don’t require any guesswork.

Those who speculatively link behavior to suffering often conclude that God is petty. Such thinking may constitute a motivation for legalism. While some adopt legalism in order to earn salvation or grace, others see it as a means of maintaining God’s favor, believing that God requires minute observance of obscure demands. Ancient Near Eastern thought closely corresponds to this view, as people believed that God has many unknown, untold, unidentifiable requirements that he holds people responsible to observe.

I was a business-economics major in college; my introductory accounting courses were taught by an adjunct with his own accounting firm. He was a friendly and competent professor, but we students were all stunned when he drew test after test from the CPA qualifying examination. We were just beginning students! How could he hold us to such high criteria? It was no surprise that average scores were in the 20–30 percent range. The professor did not do this to be mean, vindictive, or unfair; he simply believed that even budding accountants needed to be responsible for this material. However, there was no way he could communicate the necessary knowledge to us students. Thus, we were left to struggle with material that was beyond our capacity to understand.

Nietzsche viewed God much as we students viewed our accounting professor; his criticisms have been accepted by many today, whether in their formal philosophical form or their more popular permutations. He discusses this view under the question of God’s honesty.

A god who is all-knowing and all-powerful and who does not even make sure that his creatures understand this intention—could that be a god of goodness? Who allows countless doubts and dubieties to persist, for thousands of years, as though the salvation of mankind were unaffected by them, and who on the other hand holds out the prospect of frightful consequences if any mistake is made as to the nature of the truth? Would he not be a cruel god if he possessed the truth and could behold mankind miserably tormenting itself over the truth?… Must he not then endure almost the torments of Hell to have to see his creatures suffer so … for the sake of knowledge of him, and not be able to help and counsel them, except in the manner of a deaf-and-dumb man making all kinds of ambiguous signs when the most fearful danger is about to fall on his child or his dog?68

A similar view of God appears in classic literature as John Milton crafts the word of the serpent’s temptation of Eve in Paradise Lost:

Or will God incense his ire

For such a petty Trespass, and not praise

Rather your dauntless vertue, whom the pain

Of Death denounc’t, whatever thing Death be,

Deterrd not from atchieving what might leade

To happier life, knowledge of Good and Evil;

Of good, how just? of evil, if what is evil

Be real, why not known, since easier shunnd?

God therefore cannot hurt ye, and be just;

Not just, not God; not feard then, nor obeyd:

Your feare it self of Death removes the feare.

Why then was this forbid? Why but to awe,

Why but to keep ye low and ignorant,

His worshippers.69

Nevertheless, this view is not limited to godless philosophers and literary constructs of Satan. People in our world and in our lives share this same opinion. We reveal it any time we respond to misfortune by seeking out some small, insignificant lapse to blame for our circumstance, as if God were keeping close account of our every activity, then assigning demerits for the minutest peccadillo. Yes, God knows the number of hairs on our head and our every thought, but, in his grace, he also recognizes our frailty.

People whose lives are full of tragedy and suffering often may find themselves accusing and finally rejecting God. Such a scenario provides the basis of the novel Till We Have Faces, in which C. S. Lewis tells the story of Orual, queen of Glome. The novel depends most prominently on the Greek myth of Psyche and Cupid, but certain aspects also depend on the story of Job, in that Lewis frames the book as a letter of complaint to the gods. Orual knows only the mysterious god Ungit, who lives in the dark and devours human blood. The queen complains of many things, but most especially the trauma of being born with disarmingly grotesque facial features, and the impact of a wise Greek slave who taught her to distrust the gods. Her life of loneliness and disappointment is relieved only by her beautiful and kind younger half sister, Psyche, who loves her. Orual complains most virulently when the gods take away her beloved Psyche.

As Orual bitterly recounts her experiences in the pages of her book to the gods, she yearns, as Job does, for the opportunity to look the gods in the face and throw her accusations at their feet, to receive an accounting of their actions. She feels justified in her anger and self-righteously vilifies the god’s motives. At the end of the book she, like Job, finally finds herself in the presence of the deity with the opportunity to file her complaint. Her closing arguments summarize her grievance:

You stole her [Psyche] to make her happy, did you? Why, every wheedling, smiling, cat-foot rogue who lures away another man’s wife or slave or dog might say the same. Dog, now. That’s very much to the purpose. I’ll thank you to let me feed my own; it needed no tidbits from your table. Did you ever remember whose the girl was? She was mine. Mine. Do you not know what the word means? Mine! You’re thieves, seducers. That’s my wrong. I’ll not complain (not now) that you’re blood-drinkers and man-eaters. I’m past that.70

At this point Orual is interrupted and realizes that she has been repeating her complaint over and over. But she also realizes that the voice that read it was strange to her—it was her real voice. And in the silence of the court she found the answer.

The complaint was the answer. To have heard myself making it was to be answered. Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. Often when he was teaching me to write in Greek the Fox [her tutor] would say, “Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that’s the whole art and joy of words.” A glib saying. When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you’ll not talk about joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean?71

Orual’s specific accusation against the motives of deity have little connection with Job, but her situation finds resolution in the same way that Job’s eventually will. That resolution is found in her next sentence, the one that gives us the title of the book: “How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?”

Like Orual, we have our complaints that, though they reflect real suffering, fail to account adequately for the true nature of God. We are the ones who have misconstrued him, preferring to think of him as less than he is. We are the ones who have imagined him with human motives and appetites. We are the ones who have created the word “Mine” and then rage against him for stealing away that to which we thought we had a right or believed we owned. If God seems petty to us, it is because we have chosen to create a false picture of him in our minds rather than to adopt by faith the picture given in the Bible. Like Job and Orual, perhaps we have persuaded ourselves that only this picture of a flawed God makes sense, but such a persuasion only shows how little sense we are capable of making. Orual and Job both needed to find a face before they could meaningfully meet God face to face—and we are no different.

Kelly’s Story72

JHW: I AM SURE that you have encountered many people who offered encouragement and advice—perhaps, like Job’s friends, meaning well, but in the end detrimental. Can you tell us about some of those?

Kelly: I have an outward trial, a trial that I wear on my sleeve and that is exposed and vulnerable for everyone to see whether I want that or not. Some people simply offer their encouragement, support, or prayers, which I deeply appreciate. Yet I am actually surprised by how many encounters I have had in which people try to explain my “life of suffering,” with good intentions, and all too quickly offer advice or the remedy to my ailment.

The first year after my accident I went to a prayer service, where people were discussing healings and God’s will for the lives of Christians. After the short message, two women approached me and said, “We believe that you are supposed to be healed today … there is a demon inside of you paralyzing your right arm and giving you this nerve pain!” They proceeded to pat my back forcefully, encouraging me to cough out this demon … I began to sob. Nothing happened, and there was an awkward silence. They looked at me and said, “Kelly, you need to believe that God can heal you, and with Jesus’ power remove this demon from your body.” What a horrifying experience for a twelve-year-old girl who was already wrestling with confusion about God’s involvement in the trials that were taking place.

Over the next few years, periodically someone would tell me that I needed to strengthen my faith, but I had never had so many encounters as in the spring semester of 2009, when I was in the midst of a very hard trial period when I was losing control of my left arm. I came back to Wheaton after being away for eight months for my semester abroad, and I returned to campus in a dire state. My nerve pain had radically increased, they were worried about the lack of calcium in my bones due to my recent diagnosis of Osteopenia, and out of the blue my left arm started paralyzing itself. People around me began to feel extremely uncomfortable, confused, and nervous as my situation got worse every day.

During that semester I had seven separate encounters with people who spoke with the right intentions, yet their words were hurtful and detrimental. A woman heard my story and told me that I had a demon of adversity that was attacking my life, because there was no other explanation of why everything in my life would go so wrong. She told me that God wants to bless the children that follow him, so I must be under the attack of a demon. I also encountered numerous situations where people would see my right arm in a brace and ask if they could pray with me. They would usually start by saying that they strongly believed that I was supposed to be fully healed in that moment. So they would pray over me, and nothing would happen and they would respond frustrated with me that I was keeping this miracle from happening that they so strongly felt was supposed to happen at that moment through their prayers. Throughout the semester I had numerous encounters like these, and the effects were frustrating, confusing, and hurtful rather than encouraging or challenging. They would cause me to question my faith, God’s involvement, and myself.

JHW: Eliphaz claims in effect that God has given him a message for Job. People who are going through difficult circumstances will often find those ready to share their “message from God.” Did you encounter some of that?

Kelly: Yes, a few of the people who have approached me have done so from that perspective. I have experienced people who come to me saying, “Kelly, I have been praying for you diligently, and I truly believe that God has told me to share with you that you are going to be healed today, so have faith and trust in his power that the message is true!” Others have communicated their thoughts in the forms of messages from God, such as the conversations when they gently tell me that it is my lack of faith that is holding me in this place and that God so eagerly wants me to be freed of these trials, but he is waiting for me to really trust him. It would sadden me when the people did not get the outcome they had wanted. I wanted to encourage them to pray and to be seeking God’s voice, but first acknowledge that his power is only manifested in his divine will. So in that spring semester in particular, I began praying for wisdom and patience in how to respond in those situations, since I know that many times their intentions were pure.

JHW: Job’s friends continually held out false hopes. How do you deal with false hopes?

Kelly: False hope is a difficult subject and is an area in which I still struggle. When people pray over me, telling me to believe that God will heal me, my emotions are so torn, because at times I allow my mind to think, “Maybe he does want to heal me. Maybe I do need to believe.” Yet every time, nothing happens. It is really hard to enter the emotional rollercoaster. My thoughts become conflicted, and I start thinking that maybe they are right and I could be healed. False hopes then lead to entertaining the thought of how amazing it would be to live a day without pain, yet when nothing changes I am left feeling disappointed and dumb for allowing myself to think that maybe God’s plan was different from what I had thought.

This struggle does not only apply to miraculous healings, but also ones in the advanced medical field. Understandably, people would encourage me that without a doubt God would allow a surgery to be successful in reducing my pain, and every surgery has failed, even if there was only a 2 percent chance of failure. So if I am honest, it has come to the point where I no longer listen to false hopes, because I do not want to risk the pain of being reminded of the outcome. I feel that God has given his answer in my pursuit to remove the excruciating nerve pain from my body; that answer is no. I do not even pray for my right arm anymore. At times I’ll still pray concerning my nerve pain or my left hand, but I pray with caution. I don’t doubt that God has the power to work; I just think he has already given his answer.

So those are my raw thoughts and feelings regarding false hopes, yet I see the flaws in this way of thinking. God has told us to pray the cries of our heart, but should we continue to pray even after God has so evidently given his answer? Perhaps that is a larger question for another time. I know I need to grow in this area, but I believe my heart has become guarded and has decided that if I have low expectations, there is less of a chance that I will get hurt or disappointed.

In conclusion, the book of Job forces us to consider what values motivate our faith. Kelly has struggled with those constant suggestions that healing is the reward of faith. She has struggled as well to sustain a strong faith even when healing was not forthcoming. Job’s friends similarly placed the highest value on material reward, and the Challenger’s contention was that this exigency was the inevitable result of God’s policies of blessing righteous people. Job has succeeded thus far in maintaining righteousness as his highest value as he hopes for renewed relationship with God rather than a restoration of his possessions.

Can there be true righteousness without the promise of reward? Or, in Kelly’s case, can there be true faith without the reward of healing? Are we able to look beyond a consideration of what is in it for me to an unqualified desire for righteous lives that will bring us into close relationship with God? How can we tell what our motivations are?

Plato considered this question of how true righteousness could be identified. In the Republic the question concerning what motivates justice is posed by Glaucon to Socrates considering what would characterize a man who was superlatively just:

A simple and noble man, who, in the phrase of Aeschylus does not wish to seem but be good. Then we must deprive him of the seeming. For if he is going to be thought just he will have honours and gifts because of that esteem. We cannot be sure in that case whether he is just for justice’ sake or for the sake of the gifts and honours. So we must strip him bare of everything but justice…. Though doing no wrong, he must have the repute of the greatest possible injustice, so that he may be put to the test as regards justice through not softening because of ill repute and the consequences thereof. But let him hold on his course unchangeable even unto death, seeming all his life to be unjust though being just…. Such being his disposition, the just man will have to endure the lash, the rack, chains, the branding iron in his eyes, and finally, after every extremity of suffering, he will be crucified; and so will learn his lesson that not to be but to seem just is what we ought to desire.73

In this view, true justice (or we might say righteousness) can only be detected if there is no reward for it. When all is taken away and death is the final result, true righteousness will show its true colors.

In the same way we must ask whether our faith can be sustained when our desires are not granted, when healing does not come, when broken homes are not restored, when the goals we pursue remain beyond our reach.

As Christians we must first conclude that being motivated by righteousness and faith rather than by benefits should be our goal. For some they never get there. They only think of Christianity as a benefits system, and if there is nothing in it for them, they lose all motivation. Yet Christ has told us that the cost of discipleship is high. We lose our lives, not gain them. Once this course is set, we must determine that righteous behavior earns us nothing and that even if it gains us nothing, God is worthy of this life response. He is a righteous God and has created us with the capacity to imitate him. It is in the imitation of him that we find relationship with him—our highest joy. Our faith and its accompanying righteousness ought not to be self-serving. Righteousness should have its desired end in relationship with God, not in gaining reward from God. This is the teaching of the book of Job, and it is a lesson we still desperately need to learn.