Pathways through the Bible: Classic Selections from the Tanakh (Third Edition)

Job

Job Cc One of the serious questions we often ask is: Why do good people suffer misfortunes—like sickness, or poverty, or the death of dear ones? Have you ever asked yourself why it is that good people you know are often unhappy? Do you sometimes wonder whether God is always fair and just? People have long been troubled by such questions; our ancestors, too, were puzzled by them. One of them, whose name we do not know, wrote the Book of Job to explore those very questions. Many consider it the most wonderful as well as the most beautifully written book in the Bible. The Book of Job is a drama whose chief character is a man named Job. It has a prologue; three cycles of acts, consisting of dialogues about what happened to Job; and an epilogue. Its plot is simple. The opening scene takes place in heaven, before God’s throne, where the divine messengers—the angels—report what is happening throughout the world. Among the angels is the Adversary (Hebrew: ha-satan), who is like a prosecuting attorney. The Adversary is asked about Job, a righteous and good man. When the angel doubts that Job is really faithful to God, God grants the Adversary permission to put Job to the test to prove his steadfastness. The scene of the drama then moves to the earth. Calamity after calamity befalls Job. His children die and he loses all his possessions. Yet he remains faithful to God. Then he himself is stricken with a painful and horrible disease. As he sits alone, forsaken, in anguish of body and mind, three friends visit him. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar— who have heard about his misfortune—sit in silence with him for many days; then they begin to converse with Job. During that long period of silence, Job has been brooding over his sickness, his suffering, and his misfortunes. His self-control breaks down and he speaks first. He curses the day of his birth and prays for death to relieve him. ■ 429 ■ All through the play, Job insists that he does not know why he is suffering, for he is innocent of having done anything wrong. His friends, however, are certain that he must have sinned, knowingly or unknowingly. For God—being just—would not make Job suffer if he were not guilty. After much discussion back and forth, God appears and speaks out of the whirlwind. God asks whether humans really understand these dark things. Suffering is as difficult to understand as the mysteries of nature; like the heavens, or electricity, or life itself. What do humans know of the meaning of the shining, blue expanse of the heavens? Do we understand the mystery of electricity? When we put a tiny seed in the earth and it grows into a tree, can we say that we really understand the secret of life and growth? In a word, the whole world about us is a dark and strange and puzzling mystery. God created nature—its heavens, its exhaustless energies , and its wonders of life and growth. From the little we know about them, we believe that God—who created a useful and beautiful world for us to live in—is good. There is much that we do not know and understand, but from what we do know and possess we should be grateful to God, and we should have faith in divine goodness and justice even in those matters that are beyond our understanding. The Book of Job teaches us that God’s ways are beyond the complete understanding of our little minds. Like Job, we must believe that God, who places us in this world, knows what is best for us. Such faith in the goodness of God, even though we cannot altogether understand it, brings us strength and confidence to face our calamities and sorrows and sufferings. The Book of Job is one of the most profoundly religious books ever written by a human hand. CHARACTERS IN THE DRAMA God Third Messenger The Adversary Job’s Wife The Children of Job Eliphaz the Temanite Job of Uz Bildad the Shuhite First Messenger Zophar the Naamathite Second Messenger Elihu, a youth Voice out of the Tempest 430 ■ Pathways Through the Bible Prologue Job Was Upright and Prosperous There was a man in the land of Uz named Job. That man was blameless and upright; he revered God...