The Book of Job - Essay Example

Analyze the end of the book of Job. In what way do the Lord's speeches answer Job's complaint, and what does Job repent of in the end In the Book of Job a pious Jewish man is punished by the Lord despite not having sinned, speaks to three friends of his ruin and its injustice and, in the final chapters of the Book, comes face to face with the Lord speaking "out of the storm" (38:1). It is "a complex wisdom writing that uses a blend of prose and poetry in dramatic form to explore the perennial problem of innocent suffering and God's justice" (Eaton Illustrated Dictionary). This dramatic form also allows the wisdom it seeks to impart to take work dialectically on the reader. I will argue that the wisdom imparted by the Book of Job does not, as it is often argued, support the notion of a moral universe; one that is just but whose justice man can never hope to know. That God appears to Job in the conclusion seems to point against the idea that the author of Job wishes us to understand God as unknowable. Equally, I do not believe that the Book supports a notion of a moral or just God. Quite the opposite, in fact, as it seems to reject the premise that God can be seen in the realm of justice at all. As such, the Lord does not provide an answer to Job's complaint (certainly not in the judicial senses of these words) but merely a rebuff to the notion that he might be called to answer. Equally, Job's repentance is not one based on a greater understanding of the moral framework of his punishment, but merely a bowing to the ultimate power of the Lord's might. Before we analyze the Lord's speeches in the latter part of the book, we must first characterize precisely what Job is complaining of. Job, by his own account, was a pillar of the community he "went to the gate of the city / and took my seat in the public square, / the young men saw me and stepped aside / and the old men rose to their feet" (29:7-8). Job knew the things that were expected of him by virtue and by his God, and he has performed them with diligence and care (see his description in Chapter 31). We are even told that it was considered by the Lord himself that there "is no-one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil." Indeed, it is precisely Job's inherent goodness that leads him to be singled out for the painful wrath that Satan1, with the Lord's express approval, rains down upon his head. As such, Job's complaint, though it is modulated throughout the thirty or so chapters that take up the central part of the Book, is simply this: I am innocent, so why has the Lord treated me so badly These are precisely the terms on which the debate between Job and his three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, take place. Job says is that he is innocent of crimes, therefore he should not be punished. He goes further and seems to suggest that there must be some mistake on the Lord's part, that if he were able to bring his case before the Lord, "he would not press charges against me" (23:6). Job even reaches the extreme (much to his friends amazement and fear) of suggesting that the Lord has absented the realms of justice entirely, "surely God lives, who has denied me justice" (27:2). Though his three friends argue against Job, they do so from the same standpoint, i.e. the Lord's punishment would only be just if he punished the wicked. However, they work from the opposite direction; assuming that the Lord must be just, and therefore, if he is punishing Job, Job must be worthy of punishment. They take the inverse view of the relationship of just punishment to sinful behavior - if a man is as afflicted as Job then "Surely such is the dwelling of an evil man; / such is the place of one who knows not God." There is some evidence in the text that, at the time of writing, this conception of divine justice was the prevalent one. Job even says to his friends admonishments, "Who does not know all these things" I will argue that the Lord's answer to Job overturns such a conception. To do so it must also overturn the characterization, prevalent in both Job's arguments and the arguments of his three friends, of God as a judge. Such a characterization begins very early on in the Book and runs throughout it. Job asks of God, "How then can I dispute with him / How can I find words to argue with him" In Chapter 23 he explicitly uses judicial language, "I would state my case before him / and fill my mouth with arguments... No he would not press charges against me. / There an upright man could present his case before him, / and I would be delivered for ever of my judge" (4-7). In using terms suited to the legal sphere, he is equating the Lord's justice with worldly justice. He does so to such an extent that he seems surprised when there is no worldly court he can run to so as to exonerate himself, "But if I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him." (23:8). As such, when the Lord's answer does come (in the closing part of the Book's theophony), it entirely overturns the notion of God-as-judge, or even that justice is at stake in the theological argument at all. He does not suggest that Job has been sinful, nor that he has made a mistake by punishing him (and there is no mention either, of the test that was spoken of in the Book's prologue). If we are to ask how the Lord answers Job's complaint, we must probably answer, not at all. The first thing that the Lord says to Job when he appears from the storm is: "Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge" (38:2). The Lord tells Job that, in the first place, he does not have the knowledge with which to enter in to a discourse with God. The rest of the Lord's response, the first of two, is a series of questions that, whilst discussing things at what we might call a 'God's-eye-view' ("Have you entered the storehouses of the snow / or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble..." (38:22-3)), only serve to impress upon Job that the distance between his humanly view and God's divine one is insurmountable. Robert Gordis has suggested that the long review of nature that makes up the first of God's responses is not merely a reprimand to Job for his pretension, but also a demonstration of the rectitude of God's moral order: The vivid and joyous description of nature is not an end in itself: it underscores the insight that nature is not merely a mystery, but is also a miracle, a cosmos, a thing of beauty. From this flows the basic conclusion at which the poet has arrived: just as there is order and harmony in the natural world, though imperfectly grasped by man, so there is order and meaning in the moral sphere, though often incomprehensible to man (Gordis, 133). However optimistic this view of the passage might be, it does not stand up to a more thorough scrutiny of the text. The exemplars taken from nature are included less to demonstrate moral harmony than to emphasize that Job has been cast out of the natural world. The Lord repeats rhetorical questions that take the form "Will the..." (for example, "Will the ox consent to serve you" (39:9); more often than not the implication is that the answer is no . Equally, it can hardly be said that God is describing 'a miracle, a cosmos, a thing of beauty' when he speaks of the Ostrich, who lays her eggs on the ground where they might be stepped on and "treats her young harshly, as if they were not hers" (39:16). If Job is being identified here with the Ostrich (which seems a distinct possibility) then the example is brought forward only to underline Job's insufficient knowledge, "God did not endow her with wisdom or give her a share of good sense" (39:17). Far from saying that there is a moral plan (whether it is 'incomprehensible to man' or not) the Lord's response to Job seems to suggest that he has no power to act, or think as part of the world. This theme is built upon in the second response, in which it is Job's powerlessness that is emphasized. The Lord says to him, "Would you discredit my justice / Would you condemn me to justify yourself" (40:8). Again, we see that the Lord does not even approach the matter of moral rectitude (not 'I am just', but 'how dare you question my justness'). Once more he draws attention to Job's lack of power when stood before him, saying that if his is "an arm like God's" then Job should "adorn yourself with glory and splendor, and clothe yourself in honor and majesty" (40:9-10). Here the theophony does not characterize the relationship between Job and himself as one between the judge and the man in the dock (in which both are bound to the law, one to interpret it, the other to suffer the consequences of that interpretation), but rather as the King (who is the law) and an attempted usurper. The royal robes of kingdom characterize God as the monarch, he who acts with force and might, not with justice. This, as Mitchell quite rightly says, "ought to give a healthy shock to those who believe in a moral God." (xxiv). It is also noticeable in this second that the images of nature give way to two mythical creatures, the Behemoth and the Leviathan, both cruel and powerful creatures. And it is tempting to see them as, not only one more representative of Job's powerlessness ("can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook..." (41:1)), but also as representing the might of God. It is noticeable that God comes into some comparative contact with the beast in Chapter 41, verse 10: "No-one is fierce enough to rouse him. / Who then is able to stand against me" (41:10). Of what, then, does Job repent in the final Chapter of the Book He himself does not tell us, he says merely "My ears have heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes." That is, Job's repentance comes about through a visceral, non-rational response to God's presence, there is no feeling that he has been won over in anyway by God's arguments - he sees, therefore he repents. It is difficult, therefore, to agree with Stump when she says, "In seeing the face of a loving God, Job has an answer to his question about why God has afflicted him... It lets Job see that God allows his suffering for his own spiritual or psychological good..." (Stump, 246). What good has Job's suffering done for him It seems, very little. Rather, it would be more fair to say that Job has seen the face of the Leviathan, and has backed away in fear of its awful presence. It is not the case that he has reached an 'understanding' of anything about God's purpose, least of all the moral or improving reason behind it. Job says himself, "Surely I spoke of things I did not understand / things too wonderful for me to know" (42:3). Rather, he remains in the dark about the nature of God, reprimanded for thinking that he might see the light. One more piece of evidence that the Book's message is that man should not attempt to understand the ways of God is the Lord's anger at Eliphaz and Job's other two friends (despite the fact they spoke in support of God). The implication is that any rationalization of God's moral nature is sinful, not merely a rationalization that is critical of him. To summarize, then. The Lord's answer to Job's complaint is no answer at all (at least not in the sense a plaintiff might answer a complainant in a court of law). Rather, it is an assertion of might, and an assertion of Job's helplessness before that might. It does not posit a moral code, nor does Job come to an understanding of his punishment. If Job repents of a sin it is the sin not of reproaching God, but of even attempting to approach him at all. His punishment is lifted precisely when he no longer attempts to understand his Lord or his punishment and resigns himself to God's will. Works Cited Gordis, Robert. The Book of God and Man: A Study of Job. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965. Holy Bible: New International Version. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1990. Mitchell, Stephen. The Book of Job. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1987. Stump, Eleanore. 'The Mirror of Evil'. God and the Philosophers. Thomas V. Morris, ed. Chicago: Oxford, 1994. "The Book of Job". Eaton Illustrated Dictionary. Quoted by The BELIEVE Project. Read More