Job, Suffering, and God's purposes

God submits his policies to the test, and Job's suffering begins. At this point, Job offers a policy criticism of his own; blessing the righteous may be ethically counterproductive, but allowing them to suffer is theologically counterintuitive. Nonetheless, if Job succeeds in forcing God to account for himself and explain his actions in terms of cause, the adversary will win the case; in doing so, God would be forced to admit that the world fundamentally operates in terms of the retribution principle and that deviations from its tenets are bad policy or poor execution on the part of God. God never gives such an account in the book of Job; if we wish to represent God properly, we should not rush to give account on his behalf, either. God’s wisdom, not God’s justice, forms the basis of God’s activity in the world. Faith trusts that God is wise and that therefore his purposes are good, even if they don’t seem that way to any system we can understand. God does not need to be defended; he wants to be trusted.— The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest, 35

<idle musing>
You need to underline, frame, highlight, whatever it takes to keep this in mind: "God does not need to be defended; he wants to be trusted."

Seems people are always rushing to defend God. He's perfectly capable of taking care of himself! After all, he's been doing it since before the creation of the world!

Now, if you believe that God is good and loving, that comes more naturally. But, if your god is vengeful and angry, I urge you to read the Gospels, or Hosea (especially). That God isn't vengeful; he loves us and is wooing us to himself to heal us and set us free.
</idle musing>

Vindication!

However we evaluate the details of the epilogue, it is clear that Job’s response to God at the end of the second speech involves a retraction of his earlier abased silence (along with his lawsuit against YHWH) because he has come to understand that God values this human dialogue partner, especially for his honest, abrasive, unsubdued speech. And Job is appropriately consoled or comforted over this. A careful reading of the book of Job thus suggests a fundamental coherence between God’s intent in the speeches from the whirlwind, on the one hand, and God’s explicit approval of Job in the prose epilogue, on the other.

The book of Job thus suggests that between the extremes of blessing God explicitly (which is, of course, appropriate speech and which Job does at the outset) and cursing God (which is clearly folly, and which Job therefore avoids), there is the viable option of honest, forthright challenge to God in prayer, which God (as Creator) both wants and expects of those made in the divine image—and this is right speech too.—Abraham's Silence, 128

Job's sufferings

One final consideration in this category that highlights a difference between Israel and the rest of the ancient Near East concerns the issue of disinterested righteousness. If ethical behavior has an exterior foundation, a person behaves ethically because of the consequences—rewards or punishments—that are built into the system, whether by society or by the gods. This is the “Great Symbiosis” that we have identified. Disinterested righteousness is precisely the opposite of the Great Symbiosis. The adversary’s question in Job asked whether Job served God for nothing. Though ]ob’s friends encourage him to take the Mesopotamian path of appeasement (confess anything to restore favor with deity), Job maintains his integrity (see his conclusion in Job 27:2–6); demonstrating that he did possess an abstract interiorized standard of righteousness apart from a system of consequences.

None of the Mesopotamian literature that deals with the pious sufferer shows this dimension of thinking. These individuals can only claim that they have done everything they know to do in terms of ritual and ethical responsibility. They have no basis to proclaim their innocence, only their ignorance and confusion. They make no attempt to call deity into legal disputation—they only plead for mercy. The book of Job therefore stands as stark testimony to the differences in perception between Israel and the ancient Near East as it seeks to demonstrate that there is such a thing as disinterested righteousness.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., pages 119, 126–27

But I want easy answers!

"The role of Job serves as paradigm for a righteous man faced with the human condition. As often noted, Job protests against easy answers, but the power of these protests derives from the many ways in which Job makes his point by challenging accepted wisdom and traditional teachings. In a very real way, Job takes on religious orthodoxy as an insufficient means to express the complexity of life. Job protests against the reduction of tradition into simplistic cause and effect theology."—James D. Nogalski, “Job and Joel: Divergent Voices on a Common Theme,” in Reading Job Intertextually, ed. Katharine J. Dell and Will Kynes, LHBOTS 574 (London: T&T Clark, 2013), 137

The end of the journey

At the end of his journey, Job returns to a place that is strangely similar to his departure point, the point from which his entire drama started. He stands in front of us as the exemplary pious individual who performs sacrifices for others. Just as he was concerned for his children, he now concerns himself with his friends (1:5 // 42:8). Job’s fate is restored (42:10–17)—his possessions and his blessings, his children and his social standing are not merely returned; they are doubled. The end result seems like the beginning. And yet everything is different. No one walks away from an encounter with illness and death and remains unchanged. Once the very foundations of our existence have been shaken, we no longer take things for granted; life appears in a new light. We only learn true human greatness and maturity through the encounter with the dark sides of human existence. The fact that the burden of Job’s journey did not break him is a sign of God’s guidance and merciful care.— Job's Journey, page 101

<idle musing>
And that's the end of our journey through the book. It's a short little book that definitely is worth your time reading. Highly recommended!
</idle musing>

Turnabout!

Job has been led on a long path toward conversion; he has realized that he himself was wrong. All of a sudden, however, and in a completely unexpected turn of events, God speaks once more to Job’s friends and confronts Eliphaz with this statement:

My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. (42:7)

This unreservedly positive evaluation of Job as the “servant of God” stands in glaring contradiction to all that has been said before: Job has been judged from all sides— the three friends, Elihu, God, and even by himself—only to have God pronounce him correct in the end? This phenomenon is difficult to comprehend; it is the biggest surprise in the book of Job and demands that the interpreter bring his entire exegetical virtuosity into play.— Job's Journey, page 85

Everything? Yes, everything!

God forces Job to realize that the horizon within which he acts as creator is much larger than the horizon of human culture. The creative acts of God extend way beyond the human sphere. This becomes clear in the list of animals in 38:39–39:30 as well as in the cosmology of the first speech (38:4–38). God leads Job through the underworld, the uninhabited desert, and the region of the stars and weather. The third speech, finally, deals with Behemoth and Leviathan. Job is told that God made Behemoth, “just as I made you” (40:15), and that God plays with Leviathan (40:29). God thus operates in a world that is also occupied by gigantic forces alien and dangerous to human life. God is the lord over all spheres of creation. Job probably never dreamed of the fact that God also cares for the creatures that symbolize chaos. There is no dualism consisting of God and (human) culture on the one hand and animals and chaos on the other. The first commandment is applied radically to everything: God is lord over everything.— Job's Journey, pages 80–81

But it says very plainly...or does it?

It is not surprising that past research has left us with the impression that scholars tend to read more of their own theological opinions into the divine speeches than extract meaning from them.—Job's Journey, page 74

<idle musing>
A continual struggle, isn't it? The most we can hope for is that we remain aware that we bring our own presuppositions and pray that the Holy Spirit will break through them and give us fresh insight. And, of course, hold any opinions lightly, not tightly
</idle musing>

Job doesn't get an answer

Is this complex answer even an answer? Job had asked why God allowed him to suffer so greatly. Why him? Is this not a sign of indiscriminate use of power? Instead of an answer, Job receives two hours of natural history lessons, a little bit of astronomy, a little meteorology—and tons of zoology, as one scholar sarcastically commented. We would expect something utterly different as an explanation for Job’s suffering: information on the wager between God and the satan, for instance; or the description of a larger context of human history that might make Job’s suffering seem meaningful in the end; or at least a plausible reflection on the purpose of Job’s suffering in the course of his own life, as was presented by Elihu is his speeches. Christian readers might expect a statement of God’s com-passion and his solidarity with Job’s suffering. None of this is mentioned. Job’s suffering is not explained in terms of its necessity for the course of human history or even Job’s own psychological journey. There is no sentimental numbing of suffering as an “earthly delight in God”; no word is mentioned of God’s compassion. The mystery of Job’s suffering is not resolved. It seems as if God’s speech is anything but a response to Job. Instead, God pushes aside all of Job’s questions in an arrogant and narcissistic display of superiority. The human world is surprisingly not mentioned at all.— Job's Journey, page 70 (emphasis original)

<idle musing>
Maddening, isn't it!?
</idle musing>

The use of metaphor

The Old Testament makes use of a host of metaphorical images to describe God’s presence in the world indirectly. The most important of these “anti-anthropomorphisms” are: “Name of God,” “Glory of God,” “Spirit of God,” “Word of God,” and “Angel of God.” The specific power of these theological metaphors lies in their ability to open an imaginative space without setting clear boundaries. This intentional openness when speaking about God reveals and obscures at the same time. It allows us to sense something without knowing it. As a coincidentia oppositorum, it opens a reality to us that transcends logical bipolarity and can only be described in metaphor. The necessity of metaphorical speech—transcending the boundaries of what can be said and still give expression to the unspeakable—is a special sign of the logic of theology. An impressive image for this logic is God’s revelation to Moses in Exodus 33, where God passes him by, but also covers the eyes of the greatest of all prophets until he is gone. Appropriate theological language remains in the realm of faith and does not fall into the illusion of actually seeing.— Job's Journey, pages 55–56 (emphasis original)

<idle musing>
I like!
</idle musing>

It's beyond that even!

“Nothing earthly is able to envision appropriately God, resulting in the paradox that the God of the Old Testament is not invisible, but is also unconceivable” [“Reicht nichts Weltliches aus, Gott zu vergegenwärtigen, so ergibt sich das Paradox, dass der Gott des Alten Testaments zwar nicht unsichtbar, aber auch nicht vorstellbar ist”], W. H. Schmidt, A. Graupner, and H. Delkurt, Die Zehn Gebote im Rahmen alttestamentlicher Ethik (EdF 281; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1993) 73.— Job's Journey, page 55 n. 1

Entitlement thinking

Job does make one theological mistake, however: from his own high ethical standing, he concludes that he is entitled to a certain treatment by God. This conclusion is presumptuous on two levels. For one—this is what Job’s friends tried to show—even the best of lives falls short of the radical demands of God’s holiness and remains dependent on God’s grace. Second, Job’s arguments imply that he did not act righteously for the sake of righteousness but only with the silent expectation that he was entitled to some kind of reward. In this manner, his ethical reflection turns into hypocritical sin; it mutates into boastful pride. God reacts to Job’s ambitions of demanding his happiness on the basis of what he supposedly deserves with silence and contributes to the counseling of Job with wordless judgment.— Job's Journey, page 54 (emphasis original)

Ignore the text, then

The concept that God educates human beings through suffering, that Job’s illness is a constructive didactic measure, has moved to the center of much recent scholarship on Job. Yet there is much that speaks against advocating such pedagogy of suffering. Even if the Greek proverb that opens Goethe’s autobiography states that only a tried and tested individual can become a truly educated individual, the idea that God deliberately brings about suffering so that certain individuals may grow in maturity is more masochistic than sarcastic, nor is it justified by the text.— Job's Journey, page 36

<idle musing>
<sarcasm>Well, then just import it via your theology. Don't let the text get in your way! </sarcasm>

I know, when you state it that baldly, it's obvious, right? But how often do we import assumptions into our exegesis? Right. Continually. That's why we need the inbreaking power of the Holy Spirit, continually knocking down our presuppositions, expanding our horizons, and generally making us uncomfortable with our present interpretations of pet scriptures and pet doctrines. Semper reformandum, as the Reformers said (some say it actually goes back to Augustine [reference, please, before I believe it]). Continually being reformed; I agree, and would go further, continually being made anew, experiencing more completely the new person I am (and you are) in Christ.
</idle musing>

To whom do you speak?

The frequent passages in which Job addresses God as “you” (see 7:12–21; 9:28– 32; 10:2–18; 13:22–27; 14:13–20) are of high theological importance. This is exactly what Job is praised for in the end. Human beings can and should voice their lament to God.— Job's Journey, page 30

<idle musing>
I agree whole-heartedly! Addressing God is the beginning of theology : )
</idle musing>

Lament

As much as the idea of disputare de deo is rejected, the book of Job continues to advocate a form of speech transformed through suffering: lament as speech to God. Instead of speculation about God, the book advocates existential and authentic speech to God.— Job's Journey, page 25 n. 83

<idle musing>
Note the pronouns! about God, versus to God. That's huge! You can whine to God—the prophets do it all the time! Or you can whine about God, like the Israelites did in the wilderness with devastating results.

It's all a matter of the heart...
</idle musing>

Theology or Pseudo-Theology?

The book of Job does not promote silence about God because we cannot say anything about him. Otherwise, this book would never have been written. But the book of Job does bid farewell to certain types of theology—and we do not have to bemoan their loss: theology as the wisdom of the world projected into heaven; theology as pious reflection on a higher being that then mistakes traditional or innovative ideas about God entirely for God himself; theology that purports to communicate direct revelation from God. The book of Job distrusts and disbelieves all this to its core. Instead, it states clearly that this is not God; these are only graven images. Such fundamental criticism of all pseudo-theology is—and here we can only agree with the book of Job—not the end but the very beginning of theology.— Job's Journey, pages 24–25 (emphasis original)

God is...

Within the context of the Hebrew Bible, the book of Job thus primarily contradicts the God of justice as presented by the prophets: God, as Job shows us, can destroy us without reason. It also contradicts the merciful God of Priestly literature: we must accept God not only as the present God; he is also the absent God. Finally, the book of Job also provides, in some of its parts, a parody on the piety of the Psalms: Job’s situation transcends the options for reaching God provided by the Psalms.

For the book of Job, God is not just or merciful, yet he is also not unjust or cruel; instead God is—God. In the context of these various biblical positions, this statement is more than mere tautology, it is a critical position all its own. It is a striking statement, because it shows us that speaking of God was no easier in antiquity, with its mythically charged worldview, than it is for modern times.— Job's Journey, page 24

<idle musing>
Amen and amen! Maybe the primary reason for including Job in the canon was to let people know that God is bigger than our concepts of him?
</idle musing>

About that prologue...

The prologue of the book of Job is shaped like a fairy tale in order to prevent us from using it as the Archimedean point from which to set the book in motion and speculate on God and the world. The fairy-tale quality is not merely there as a container of content, but the form itself signals theological criticism of what is presented: the unreal perspective embodied in the prologue remains fictional and the prologue is very aware of this.

What do these thoughts imply for the theology of the book Job? We gain the impression that the book of Job, read from the perspective of the prologue, embodies all the characteristics of negative theology. All affirmative speech about God is called into question by the prologue. The prologue suspends the logic of the friends’ theology in the dialogues, it suspends the finality of the divine speeches, and it even suspends its own logic to a certain degree. The prologue thus successively lays out all possible solutions to the reason for Job’s suffering: theological speculation as contained in the dialogues, divine revelation as contained in the monologues of God, even metaphysical constructions as presented in the prologue. All these options must be discarded as solutions to the Job problem.

By using a sophisticated system of literary checks and balances between the prologue, the dialogues and the divine speeches, the book of Job does not answer the problem that stands at its center. Instead, by criticizing each of its own answers, it thrusts the problem back at its readers. This process of giving back the problem is a process of theological education that is designed to reject any objectified speech about God, which turns God into an object of reflection or projection. Who or what God may be is outside of human grasp—this is the message of the book of Job.— Job's Journey, page 23 (emphasis original)

<idle musing>
Wow! That's a mouthful. I'm still digesting what he's saying here, but the one thing that stands out more than anything else is the danger of making God an object instead of a being. Easy to do in academic settings, isn't it? It's a continual temptation to me, at least.

This is a great little book! I'm loving it. What about you?
</idle musing>

Nobody mentions that...

Whatever thoughts the friends entertain may be part of a usual repertoire of theological insights into the Job problem, but the prologue states in rebuttal: all this has nothing to do with what is actually happening. The logic of heaven is completely different than that used by the friends. It is so different that no one would even think of it unless they were given insight into heaven itself. In the light of the prologue, the friends’ theology is reduced to nothing more than speculation about God that has nothing to do with God himself.— Job's Journey, pages 16–17

That's too harsh!

I believe that we can make a strong and much more plausible case for the opposite hypothesis: the combination of the proleptic solution to the Job problem in the prologue with the later solutions in the rest of the book stands as the center of the theology of the author of the book of Job.

The following considerations provide explanation for this statement: first of all, the readers are given a unique perspective from which to evaluate the friends’ explanations for Job’s suffering, which appear from chapter three on. The friends move through almost the entire spectrum of possible explanations for the Job problem. Perhaps Job refuses to admit he has sinned, or he has sinned unconsciously. Perhaps he has to suffer because he—like all other human beings—is guilty by nature und must be educated in a certain manner. The friends argue back and forth within these possibilities. Job, however, rebels against all of these explanations, and the readers of the book know that he is right!

Job’s suffering cannot be explained by anything Job has done against God, nor is it the result of the fact that humans cannot be justified in the eyes of God. Even the idea of divine pedagogy is not correct. The reason for Job’s suffering lies solely in a cruel heavenly test, to which God and the satan have subjected Job. The prologue makes this absolutely clear.— Job's Journey, page 16

<idle musing>
Sounds harsh, doesn't it? But it does make sense of the evidence...what does it say about the character of God, though? I'm wrestling with that...
</idle musing>