The Call of Abraham: Essays on the Election of Israel in Honor of Jon D. Levenson

Chapter 5: Job as Prototype of Dying and Rising Israel

90 c H a P T e r 5 R Job as Prototype of Dying and rising Israel k a t h r y n s c h i f f e r d e c k e r The election of Israel is a theme that pervades the hebrew bible, occasioning consternation on the part of many a modern reader. In the Pentateuch course that I teach nearly every semester (a required course for all first-year students at my seminary), we encounter the scandal of election first in the story of Cain and abel. why, my students wonder, would God choose abel’s sacrifice over Cain’s? why would God—the God who created everyone in the divine image—play favorites? The perceived problem is only amplified when we get to the election of abram just a few chapters later in Gen 12. In this story the “problem” of election is mitigated somewhat by the closing statement of God’s call to the patriarch: “Through you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Gen 12:3b).1 abraham, in a phrase popular in american Christian circles, is “blessed to be a blessing.” he is indeed Job as Prototype of Dying and rising Israel 91 chosen by God, but his election is primarily for the purpose of being a conduit of blessing for the entire world. Such an understanding of abraham’s election serves to moderate the scandal of election for my students, and there is indeed biblical warrant for such an understanding .2 abraham and Israel have a special responsibility to be bearers of God’s blessings to the world. as other scholars have argued, however, abraham’s (and Israel’s) election cannot be reduced simply to its instrumental function. Jon levenson puts it this way: There is, then, a duality in the bible’s concept of election. on the one hand, election is at times articulated in terms of larger purposes that it is to serve, and, of necessity, those purposes extend beyond the confines of the chosen people. on the other hand, God bears with Israel even when it fails in its mission . . . The specialness of Israel is neither altogether self-sufficient nor altogether instrumental.3 In other words, to say that abraham (or Israel) is “blessed to be a blessing ” is most certainly true, but it is not the whole story.There is something irreducibly distinctive about the election of Israel, something that has more to do with God’s love for Israel than with Israel’s role vis-à-vis other nations.4 of course, as one travels through Genesis the “problem” of election becomes more acute. why Isaac and not Ishmael? why Jacob and not esau? why is Joseph singled out for special favor by his father and by God? what do we (self-proclaimed enlightened and egalitarian) readers do with these texts? even as my students struggle with these questions, they also begin to notice something else about these stories; that is, they notice that it is not an easy thing to be one of the elect. In fact, it may not even be, on the face of it, a desirable thing to be one of the elect. The examples abound, beginning in Genesis: abel is killed by his own brother; abraham and Sarah all but give up hope of having a child; Isaac is nearly sacrificed by his God-fearing father; Jacob is in exile for twenty years from his homeland and suffers the loss of his beloved son; Joseph himself is sold into slavery by his jealous brothers and is in exile for all his adult life. and none of the patriarchs ever really possess the land promised to abraham in Gen 12. These stories of the patriarchs 92 Kathryn Schifferdecker and matriarchs of Israel adumbrate what the people of Israel themselves will go through: slavery, hostility from the nonelect, exile, and diaspora. It is not an easy thing to be chosen. These stories in Genesis participate in what levenson describes as “the ancient, protean, and strangely resilient story of the death and resurrection of the beloved son.”5 each of the beloved sons in Genesis— abel,Isaac,Jacob,Joseph—goes through a near death and resurrection.6 being the beloved, chosen son is not an easy thing: “The beloved son is marked for both exaltation and humiliation. In his life the two are seldom far apart...