Eliphaz is scandalized. Job has clearly gone off the rails. How can Job so defiantly proclaim his righteousness and innocence? If anything, Job’s pride constitutes a major sin. Essentially he reiterates the same view with, at best, a subtle new insight. Job has noted that even the innocent suffer catastrophe and misfortune, Eliphaz’s response seems to be that even the most innocent human is still imperfect and therefore worthy of any suffering inflicted by god.
Why has your heart carried you away, and why do your eyes flash, when you turn your rage against God and allow such words to escape from your mouth? What is man that he should be pure, or one born of woman, that he should be righteous? If God places no trust in his holy ones, if even the heavens are not pure in his eyes, how much less man, who is abominable and corrupt, who drinks in evil like water!
He is not the first to suggest the universally corrupt nature of humanity, and will not be the last.
His response to Job’s challenge of their collective belief is worth noting. First he identifies Job’s heresy in verses 2-6. He then points out Job’s inability to give a full response to his own questions in verses 7-9
Were you the first man ever born? Were you brought forth before the hills? Do you listen in on God’s secret council? Do you limit wisdom to yourself? What do you know that we don’t know? What do you understand that we don’t understand?
My reading of these verses is that Eliphaz is essentially arguing that the fact Job himself admits his ignorance of the answers to the questions he is posing about the nature and purpose of suffering somehow invalidates them.
The gray-haired and the aged are on our side, men far older than your father. Are God’s consolations too trivial for you, or a word spoken in gentleness to you?
We see an explicit connection in Eliphaz’s mind that traditional wisdom is in fact divine knowledge. Also, his argument takes the form of a fallacious appeal to ignorance. Job cannot offer definitive proof to contradict his point of view therefore Job is wrong.
I feel like this exchange is an excellent example of a typical human response to having entrenched core beliefs challenged. Initially Eliphaz presents a simple delineation between the righteous and the wicked, and when Job points out contradictory evidence, Eliphaz doesn’t pause to rethink or examine his belief, he seems to be quick with an ad hoc justification for this new information. Fallacious arguments and emotional responses don’t mean Eliphaz is wrong or a bad person, they mark him as human. I feel like there’s a reasonable body of evidence that demonstrates this pattern is typical, if not universal among our species.
If you’re interested in modern explorations of this tendency, Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence, Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind, and Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow all present syntheses of neurological, psychological, and sociological data supporting this point of view.
As I grow older I’m consistently impressed with how astutely ancient cultures identified human traits absent the methods of modern inquiry and quantification. I’m pretty convinced those composing these dialogues had a sophisticated grasp not only of drama, but rhetoric and logic. That is to say they possessed a more sophisticated grasp than I, which isn’t actually saying much. I’m convinced the nuances and flaws in these arguments aren’t there by accident.
Job is not impressed by this counterargument.
I have heard many things like these before. What miserable comforters are you all! Will there be an end to your windy words? Or what provokes you that you answer? I also could speak like you, if you were in my place; I could pile up words against you, and I could shake my head at you. But I would strengthen you with my words; comfort from my lips would bring you relief
Job, if he wasn’t already, is well versed in these ideas, and circles back to the assertion that they aren’t offering any support for him as a friend. I can appreciate Job’s point of view here, yet I’m a bit skeptical. He is correct that a genuine friend can and should be expected to offer comfort and consolation. Job’s friends have accused him, and his dead children of sin and being the sources of their own misery. Understandably, Job has lashed out and there have been plenty of insults hurled in both directions. With everyone’s emotions running this high, in a situation where people’s sympathetic (fight or flight) responses are clearly activated, is it reasonable to expect anything but an argument? Would Job, if the tables were turned, really be in a caring mood offering comfort and consolation? How many times have you accidentally provoked an argument that made the situation worse when you were only trying to help? I do it all the time. Sometimes I feel like it’s my trademark move as a husband and father. How many times have you lashed out at someone who may have been trying to help? I’ve definitely been there and done that too. How often does persevering in such behavior lead to a peaceful, amicable outcome? The fact that Job and his friends pass through three rounds of swirling arguments with so much repetition may feel like monotony if you read this as an instructive text, but read as drama it makes perfect sense.
Dovetailing on this idea of the lack of benefits from perseveration, Job goes on to say “But if I speak, my pain is not relieved, and if I refrain from speaking, how much of it goes away?”. Job identifies that remaining silent, his initial response, didn’t relieve his suffering, and repeating his complaint hasn’t either. The feeling of abject helplessness and futility plague him. In moments like these we all need help and support from somewhere. Job hoped for, and perhaps expected it from his neighbors and friends, but reports
You have devastated my entire household. You have seized me, and it has become a witness; my leanness has risen up against me and testifies against me… People have opened their mouths against me; they have struck my cheek in scorn; they unite together against me. God abandons me to evil men, and throws me into the hands of wicked men
His sense of betrayal is profound. He feels both abandoned and attacked by his friends and God. Placed in Job’s shoes I think most of us would be in a pretty bad place, maybe angry enough to lash out, maybe angry enough to shake our fists at the heavens.
Job may be questioning the conventional wisdom vis a vis transgression, punishment, and suffering, but his faith in God is unshaken.
Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high. My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God; and he contends with God on behalf of man as a man pleads for his friend. For the years that lie ahead are few, and then I will go on the way of no return
An audience familiar with the concept of Christian atonement will see an obvious confirmation that Job believes in something similar here. Jumping out of my self-imposed framing of this text; chapters 1&2 feature a divine council at which beings discuss the affairs of Earth with God. Chapter one introduces satan, which I’m told by students of ancient Hebrew, simply means adversary. It’s easy for us to read this as “Satan” a personal adversary to God and all mankind, the devil, Lucifer, which actually means light bringer, but it is my understanding, and to a believer I think it is actually far less troubling, to read this as a being who held something like a prosecuting attorney (DA) type role on this council. If there’s a prosecutor then it stands to reason there would have been something like a public defender there as well with God sitting as judge. That, or maybe Job knew all about a redemptive Messiah. I don’t know and I’m not gonna worry about it. There’s a few very strong declarations of faith in the text. I think they serve the purpose of showing that despite his genuine search for new understanding Job hasn’t entirely abandoned his relationship with the divine. Maybe they serve to expose an ancient understanding of modern Christian belief, and maybe there’s a different belief implied here that is not a part of most modern faith traditions.
Finally, Job adds an interesting observation about how people react to his afflictions and situation.
He has made me a byword to people; I am the one in whose face they spit. My eyes have grown dim with grief; my whole frame is but a shadow. Upright men are appalled at this; the innocent man is troubled with the godless. But the righteous man holds to his way, and the one with clean hands grows stronger.
I think this statement expresses an idea similar to what my friend Tyler asked me early on in our conversations about Job, “Theodicy tends to evoke passion in one of four audiences. Atheists who reject the existence of God or who charge believers in God with being irrational on the grounds that the above is illogical. “Moral” atheists who find the notion of God repugnant because of the amount of evil and suffering. Theists who are troubled by the above 2 audiences. And finally people who suffer. Which one are you?”.
Wrestling with the idea that good behavior doesn’t necessarily protect us from calamity, and that the wicked may go unpunished should be uncomfortable. Humans are very good at recognizing patterns. We naturally organize observations and patterns into beliefs, as models of reality. The belief that behaviors produce outcomes that follow moral laws provides a sense of order in a chaotic world, and I think it has validity. We’ve all experienced the good or bad consequences of our choices, and observed the same in others. There’s a reason these beliefs are so pervasive. The question Job wrestles with is exactly how true are these assumptions? Are they genuine “laws” in the way we think about gravity and chemistry? Or are they heuristics, mental shortcuts, that are useful, but with limited applicability?
When we witness something appalling how do we react? I think there’s a profound observation in Job’s words. Upright and innocent people are troubled. The righteous keep to themselves and stay the course (hold to their way). Maybe they offer thoughts and prayers? Those with clean hands grow stronger. These statements seem contradictory. Maybe they are. Maybe it’s nonsense. Maybe after a period of shock the genuine do-gooders get to work helping? Maybe the innocent stand clear of the godless, while those with truly clean hands get down and dirty to offer strength? Maybe he’s pointing out the difference between personal rectitude and genuine righteousness? It is my understanding the word often translated as righteousness in the Old testament can also be translated as justice. Perhaps there’s a difference between maintaining personal rectitude and providing justice? Perhaps there’s a difference between innocence and having clean hands?
We used to have arguments about handwashing with my oldest child. We’d ask him to wash his hands. They would be visibly soiled, and he would go into the bathroom, run the water, sometimes for a full minute, and emerge with visibly soiled hands. We would inform him his efforts were inadequate, and he’d angrily respond “But I washed my hands for a full minute!”
I’d tell him, “washing your hands isn’t about how long you stand at the sink with the water running, it’s about doing what it takes to get your hands clean, and your hands are still dirty”. It took awhile, but eventually he got it. We still have this debate about cleaning the bathroom, mopping, etc. He can be a little obtuse, but he’s a smart kid and eventually he’ll get it. The point is having clean hands has more to do with what you do, than with what you don’t do. In a post- Covid lockdown world I think we can all appreciate clean hands metaphors a bit more.
Another 3 chapters in under 3 pages. We’re nearly halfway there.
Bildad doesn’t offer anything but accusation in his response to Job. He doesn’t offer any answers to Job’s questions nor does he acknowledge Job’s critique in any way. It appears that in his mind the evidence is clear; Job is a prideful sinner refusing correction, making his situation worse through his unreasoning anger.
Why should we be regarded as beasts, and considered stupid in your sight? You who tear yourself to pieces in your anger, will the earth be abandoned for your sake?
He points out how Job’s reported afflictions align with the known punishments for the wicked.
Terrors frighten him on all sides and dog his every step. Calamity is hungry for him, and misfortune is ready at his side. It eats away parts of his skin; the most terrible death devours his limbs…. Fire resides in his tent; over his residence burning sulfur is scattered. Below his roots dry up, and his branches wither above. His memory perishes from the earth; he has no name in the land. He is driven from light into darkness and is banished from the world. He has neither children nor descendants among his people, no survivor in those places he once stayed
Once again Bildad isn’t messing around when it comes to twisting the knife.
It appears I misspoke. Bildad addresses Job’s claim that the righteous are appalled by his condition. His interpretation as to why this occurs is somewhat different.
People of the west are appalled at his fate; people of the east are seized with horror, saying, ‘Surely such is the residence of an evil man; and this is the place of one who has not known God
Yes, Job, everyone is shocked by your condition. They’re shocked by what a clearly evil man you must be. Is Bildad that unfeeling of a guy? Maybe he’s right? By my count there are three witnesses against Job. Perhaps they are cold and uncompromising because the situation is so clear. When you’ve seen someone who is clearly in the wrong, do you empathize with them, or do you call out their error? Do you cite specific examples of how their errors have led to their current misery? Isn’t telling someone the truth genuine friendship?
When you “call someone out” how does that generally work out? How does it work out in political discourse in the modern world? How useful are “discussions” on social media? If you find this situation at all believable and reminiscent of your experience perhaps there is a lesson here?
Job’s reply once again underscores the pain inflicted by the social response to his situation.
My kinsmen have failed me; my friends have forgotten me. My guests and my servant girls consider me a stranger; I am a foreigner in their eyes. I summon my servant, but he does not respond, even though I implore him with my own mouth. My breath is repulsive to my wife; I am loathsome to my brothers. Even youngsters have scorned me; when I get up, they scoff at me. All my closest friends detest me; and those whom I love have turned against me. My bones stick to my skin and my flesh; I have escaped alive with only the skin of my teeth. Have pity on me, my friends, have pity on me, for the hand of God has struck me. Why do you pursue me like God does? Will you never be satiated with my flesh?
The message I get from this lament is that it’s not so much the poverty, death of his children, or even his health that really gets to Job, but the lack of understanding and empathy. He makes a passing mention of his disease, but doesn’t mention his wealth and children at all. His list of grievances is composed of people, of every relationship type and social strata, rejecting him. Combine these circumstances with a lack of understanding about why this is happening and of course you have a recipe for frustration and anger.
For some reason I’m reminded of the contrasting character arcs of Jean Valjean of Les Miserables and Edmond Dantes of The Count of Monte Cristo. One act of empathy and charity alters the course of many lives as Jean Valjean’s sphere of care and influence expands. Edmond Dantes is beset by misery and confusion when he is falsely accused and imprisoned, and his vengeance, while poetic, fails to satisfy him. Job’s relationships seem to be nudging, or shoving him toward a Count of Monte Cristo arc when he says, “If you say, ‘How we will pursue him, since the root of the trouble is found in him!’ Fear the sword yourselves, for wrath brings the punishment by the sword, so that you may know that there is judgment”.
While external influences push Job pretty clearly in one direction, in his heart there is hope,
As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that as the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God, whom I will see for myself, and whom my own eyes will behold, and not another
As a child I was taught this is Job testifying of an eventual resurrection and redemption at the hands of a Messianic Redeemer. For a modern Christian this is inspiring and faith affirming. It may be true. However, in the context of the rest of The Book of Job and Old Testament I think another interpretation is also valid. Job is expressing confidence that his request to experience a personal encounter and accounting with God will happen. He expects an answer. Why then would he use the term redeemer? I think it reasonable this epithet would be used for the deity that delivered an entire nation from slavery. A deity that accompanied them through the desert and helped them secure a homeland. Depending on when the text was consolidated or finalized this deity may have brought them back to that homeland after being taken away by a conquering army. Basically, I think a God fearing Israelite not well versed in Christian theology might still have reasonably described his God as Redeemer.
Anyway, I think the important thing here is that despite his intense personal losses, the confusion, the accusation, and his doubts, Job has something he holds on to that informs his sense of self and guides his choices. It turns out sincere questions that seriously undermine a person’s worldview don’t have to be destructive. At the risk of getting too personal, I feel like I’ve seen both sides of this divide. I think it natural for a person or community to have a sense of threat when a friend openly questions or challenges the foundations of shared belief. Relationships are built on shared understanding. The word relate means connection and shared identity. If one party changes, the relationship will necessarily change. We navigate changes of age, and status regularly. These changes can be challenging. Have you encountered tension between you and your parents and or children as all parties reach adulthood? These changes are inevitable, and we face them because we must, and hopefully because we want lives full of loving support that good relationships provide. However when change comes as a choice, and it challenges a previously shared, entrenched, core belief it understandably makes one wonder about what this means for “us” collectively and as individual parties. Is it any wonder families and friendships can be stressed by these types of changes? On the one hand Job’s friends perceive his questions as threats and have responded with accusation and defensiveness. This response engenders resentment. On the other hand Job has faith that despite his perceived punishment and his challenge to God himself he is still not fully rejected. There is great power in simple acts of acknowledgement, empathy, and acceptance of those who struggle with changing belief and identity.
Chapter 20 is interesting in that Zophar doesn’t address Job, his claims, or concerns in any way. It reads like a pretty standard wisdom text warning of the short term gains of ill advised behavior. I believe I suggested one read this chapter in isolation way back at the beginning of act 1. If you didn’t know all the back and forth of the last 16 chapters would you be nodding in agreement as Zophar speaks? Perhaps he is genuinely flabbergasted or flummoxed and doesn’t know what to say except to say what he knows and believes. He testifies. All things considered it feels like a step in the right direction.
Maybe this has a calming effect on Job, his response isn’t an attack, but a plea for his friends to really listen to what he is saying. It definitely doesn’t silence him, nor does it dispel his concerns. In fact he launches into a more comprehensive challenge to the assumption that good is universally rewarded and evil always punished.
Why do the wicked go on living, grow old, even increase in power? Their children are firmly established in their presence, their offspring before their eyes. Their houses are safe and without fear; and no rod of punishment from God is upon them. Their bulls breed without fail; their cows calve and do not miscarry. They allow their children to run like a flock; their little ones dance about. They sing to the accompaniment of tambourine and harp, and make merry to the sound of the flute. They live out their years in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace
Job directly challenges the thesis underpinning the advice he’s just been given. The wicked often enjoy prosperity until the day they die. Not only do they often prosper , but the punishments described by his friends aren’t always forthcoming either.
How often is the lamp of the wicked extinguished? How often does their misfortune come upon them? How often does God apportion pain to them in his anger? How often are they like straw before the wind and like chaff swept away by a whirlwind?
He appeals not to proverbs, and conventional wisdom of how things should be, but what they all know from the news,
Have you never questioned those who travel the roads? Do you not recognize their accounts that the evil man is spared from the day of his misfortune, that he is delivered from the day of God’s wrath? No one denounces his conduct to his face; no one repays him for what he has done. And when he is carried to the tombs and watch is kept over the funeral mound, the clods of the torrent valley are sweet to him; behind him everybody follows in procession, and before him goes a countless throng. So how can you console me with your futile words?
In act 1 Job’s focus was on himself and whether or not his situation was justifiable. Job had enunciated a concept of justice as punishment or reward from on high. This idea was not supported by his observations, and now Job is revising his opinion. Job has transitioned to an interrogation of what constitutes genuine righteousness and justice.
Similar to his first speech, Eliphaz redirects Job’s focus. Job has wondered how someone who worships God like he has can be punished so profoundly? Job has wondered why, if God is powerful, does he chastise man so aggressively? Job has noticed the wicked aren’t always punished for their transgressions, and there’s a lot of human misery that derives from the behavior of other humans, not necessarily from divine judgment.
In response Eliphaz asks
Is it to God that a strong man is of benefit? Is it to him that even a wise man is profitable? Is it of any special benefit to the Almighty that you should be righteous, or is it any gain to him that you make your ways blameless?
For you took pledges from your brothers for no reason, and you stripped the clothing from the naked. You gave the weary no water to drink and from the hungry you withheld food. Although you were a powerful man, owning land, an honored man living on it, you sent widows away empty-handed, and the arms of the orphans you crushed.
The implication of the series of questions Eliphaz asks followed by his accusations is that God doesn’t care about Job’s allegiance and sacrifices to him, God’s focus is on how we behave toward those over whom we can exercise power. How do we treat widows and orphans, the hungry and homeless? Again, to anyone familiar with the accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth this isn’t a new or radical concept. Would a transcendent deity worry about how many steps you take on a Saturday, or if you have a ham and cheese sandwich, or even if we worship it at all? A god worthy of worship would hopefully have broader, more benevolent goals for life and creation. Eliphaz, is saying that Job is in fact onto something, and he’s conveniently overlooking his own acts of oppression that God genuinely despises.
According to Eliphaz, Job is the exact sort of oppressor that Job has described as going through life unpunished. Boom. Roasted. This is the most explicit and direct counter narrative to Job’s insistence that his afflictions represent a travesty worthy of reappraising his conception of God and divine justice offered thus far. Maybe Job isn’t innocent? Maybe it’s not his concepts of God and justice that need to be challenged, but his self-righteousness? Maybe Job is a genuinely bad guy?
Allow me to backtrack here and drag another bit of the exposition I previously asked you to ignore back into frame. When Job was described as a perfect and upright man in chapter 1 the evidence offered by the text was that when his children would have family parties Job would offer intercessory sacrifices on their behalf on the chance that they had cursed God during their revelry. Perhaps this is me over-reading the situation, but based on that anecdote, and the nature and content of the first round of arguments that Job primarily conceived of his relationship with deity as not only transactional, but somehow independent of any context within the world. Job’s defense has always been something like, “I’m faultless before God”, he doesn’t catalog service, kindness, acts of love, and sympathy. He doesn’t talk about his relationships in the world, he’s fixated on his relationship with God. I think his initial defense and discourse only make sense if we note this specific lack of typical markers of social good in the beginning so that we can observe his growth and transformation as he and his friends debate. I’m sure Job knew that he should treat others in a way we would recognize as kind and charitable, and I know that later he offers testimony that he did, but I think that his rationale and motivation for doing so might have been different in the past. I think this matters because I suspect the shift in both the tone, and content of Job’s dialogue is meant to highlight this transition and offers an exploration of one of the fundamental tensions of religious moral thought.
It is my perception that there is a consistent tension in religion between the focus on awe and submission to the divine and the dictates of moral belief toward our fellow humans. In theory these ideas aren’t contradictory, and can and should be deeply intertwined. One expression of this synergy comes when Jesus answers a question about the greatest commandments and offers the parable of the Good Samaritan. There’s also Matthew 25:40 “And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Obviously these ideas are not isolated to the New Testament and Christianity, but those were the first two examples that popped into my mind. The Old Testament is full of injunctions to help the poor and marginalized as well. Deuteronomy, and Isaiah spring to mind. There is clearly a thread of what we call social justice in Abrahamic religion. Some would argue this is the main thread. However it is clearly not the only thread.
The Old Testament is full of rules about separating the clean from the unclean. Adam and Eve were cast out of God’s presence for disobedience. Noah reportedly took more of each “clean” animal (7), on the arc than “unclean” (2). Abraham’s descendants were encouraged to avoid marriage with their neighbors the Canaanites. Leviticus is full of specific conditions that demand that a person be separated from society. Leprosy, and menstruation are well known examples. The New Testament has parables about separating the wheat from the tares, the prepared virgins with oil in their lamps are welcomed to the wedding feast while the unprepared are turned away, and a commonly held belief of many modern forms of Christianity is the destruction of the wicked and protection of the righteous in a apocalyptic cleansing act. All these ideas turn the believer’s mind to their personal cleanliness and relationship with the divine as the prime directive of religion. There’s a reason we have the stories of people being shocked by Jesus’s choice to affiliate with “publicans and sinners”. Personal rectitude and purity serve as obvious markers of belief and obedience.
We may not be able to make a discernible impact on the state of the world through charitable living, so the evidence of our faith may be difficult or impossible to identify by this metric (We can’t all be George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life), but the way we behave and conduct our public lives is on display at all times. I think it’s pretty natural for our attention to focus on ourselves and things we can control that have observable outcomes, but at the end of the day we also recognize there is a world beyond ourselves that is worthy of our attention and effort. This tension isn’t new. It’s not a marker of hypocrisy. It’s who we are. In one of his previous speeches Job mentioned how the innocent are appalled by his condition and I tried to develop the idea that perhaps he was distinguishing between personal rectitude and righteousness manifested as healing others. Who has clean hands? Those who abstain from interaction with the impure, or those who roll up their sleeves and do the work of washing? The implication here is that maybe Job was among the former group; his personal conduct and the manner and frequency of his devotional sacrifices may have been impeccable, perhaps his conduct toward those around him was less than ideal. That’s someone I can understand. Someone who grows beyond that point is someone worthy of attention and study.
Differing schools of eschatological thought exist: some espouse the idea that the world as we know it ends in a fiery judgment unleashed by a God no longer willing to tolerate disobedience, while some understand a paradisiacal utopia created by righteous believers manifesting their unity and charity resulting in a society where there are no poor among them because resources are voluntarily shared. Some believe the former paves the way for the latter.
Some may conceive that the virtues of care, fairness, and liberty are all subordinate to loyalty and sanctity as acts of devotion to the authority and power of God. Others may see that sanctity and loyalty to divine authority are only manifested to the extent that oppression is limited, and liberty operates within a context of ensuring care and fairness for all. Neither point of view is morally deficient, but I think one can easily see how these perspectives could animate contention of people who nominally claim the same ideology, philosophy, or religion. This is interesting in the abstract, but I think the interactions between Job and his friends illustrate how the conflicts engendered by these varying perspectives can manifest in our relationships. Initially, Eliphaz leans on “punishment from contradicting divine authority and judgment“ arguments, and when Job defends himself and points out flaws in that approach Eliphaz switches to something like a “failure to manifest divine love” argument. Both arguments are used to condemn Job. Use of moral reasoning to defend a position or condemn wrongful action is nothing new. The willingness to change point of view in the face of new, contradictory evidence may even be admirable. However, I’ll admit I find it difficult to take Eliphaz’s new critique as a show of genuine concern for manifesting divinity through care of the vulnerable when he goes on to say,
The righteous see their destruction and rejoice; the innocent mock them scornfully, saying, ‘Surely our enemies are destroyed, and fire consumes their wealth.
As a citizen of a country that celebrates our independence from tyrannical oppression as our national origin story I can certainly empathize with the idea of celebrating freedom from oppressors. I’m not certain that someone genuinely concerned with manifesting divine love would use such colorful imagery when describing the downfall of the wicked to a friend who has repeatedly discussed his depression and his not entirely passive wish to die.
It feels like Eliphaz is adapting whichever paradigm allows him to summon the righteous indignation needed to condemn his adversary. Is this another manifestation of how terrible Job’s “friends” are? Is this business of ad-hoc moralism unique to this dialogue? Have you ever been in an argument where someone just kept redefining their position so that they couldn’t be proven wrong? Have you ever moved the goalposts on someone else? Job’s friends may not feel like genuine friends in this drama, but I don’t think they’re simply strawman caricatures that can be safely ignored. When we employ arguments about the divine do we use them to encourage and inspire? Do we use them to soften hearts and focus effort? Do we use them to defend? Are we defending the decisions and actions of powerful leaders and institutions? Are we using them to defend those most at risk of exploitation? Are we using them to condemn? Ideas, words and actions are tools: are we using our tools to beat plowshares into swords, or are we beating swords into plowshares?
Job’s response to these accusations is indirect. He addresses them directly in his final soliloquy, but for now Job focuses primarily on rebutting the idea that, in general, the idea that the wicked are consistently, divinely punished, and that physical and mental affliction represents divine judgment. In chapter 23 Job reasserts the fact that he doesn’t reject the power and authority of God, but fears his judgment.
In chapter 24 Job puts forth a litany of the ways people oppress without suffering divine judgment.
Men move boundary stones; they seize the flock and pasture them. They drive away the orphan’s donkey; they take the widow’s ox as a pledge. They turn the needy from the pathway, and the poor of the land hide themselves together. Like wild donkeys in the wilderness, they go out to their labor seeking diligently for food; the arid rift valley provides food for them and for their children. They reap fodder in the field and glean in the vineyard of the wicked. They spend the night naked because they lack clothing; they have no covering against the cold. They are soaked by mountain rains and huddle in the rocks because they lack shelter. The fatherless child is snatched from the breast; the infant of the poor is taken as a pledge. They go about naked, without clothing, and go hungry while they carry the sheaves. They press out the olive oil between the rows of olive trees; they tread the winepresses while they are thirsty. From the city the dying groan, and the wounded cry out for help, but God charges no one with wrongdoing.
He goes on to paint a picture that contrasts his own reported fear of God and terror of night and darkness with those who embrace the cover of night to terrorize those around them,
For all of them, the morning is to them like deep darkness; they are friends with the terrors of darkness.
He closes with what, to me, reads like a sarcastic retelling of what his friends has said many times over,
You say, He is foam on the face of the waters; their portion of the land is cursed so that no one goes to their vineyard. The drought as well as the heat snatch up the melted snow; so the grave snatches up the sinner
Maybe Job is deflecting Eliphaz’s accusations? Hoping to draw attention away from himself, and back to his questions and accusations against them? Maybe they’re still talking past one another? Maybe, having seen past his own situation for a moment, Job is attempting to stay focused on something he perceives, but doesn’t yet understand, and he’s unwilling to get right back into the weeds of the interpersonal conflict that has developed with his friends?
Job has revealed that a major portion of his emotional suffering is feeling rejected and alone and perseverating on that sense of isolation didn’t seem to have much therapeutic value for him. Identifying a potential flaw in his outlook, and maybe reframing his experience holds some promise for him. When he saw his experience as a unique exception to the rule that only the wicked suffer he was distressed, now he perceives that he is not alone in experiencing calamity as an externality of the behavior of others or plain bad luck, and he seems to be heading in a very different direction.
Toddlers and young children identify elements of “fairness” and justice. How many parents have been stymied and lack the words to explain to a child that life isn’t fair? My mother repeated the same two, interconnected, pieces of wisdom so often that more than a decade after her death I can hear her voice saying, “nobody ever said life was fair,” and “you can’t always get what you want”, as clearly in my brain now than if she were standing right in front of me. At some point we tend to come around to understanding and accepting the truth that, indeed, life isn’t fair. Perhaps I’m an outlier here, but there’s still a part of me that is a little sad, frustrated, disappointed, shocked, and appalled when I witness travesties of justice. I suspect there’s a reason fairness is one of the moral foundations we share. One can accept a thing as true without being resigned to doing nothing about it. Job seems to be accepting that he is not alone, and that suffering and injustice are universal. He accepts a new story about the nature of life. What does he do with this belief? Will his friends accept it? How do they update their own beliefs?
Bildad has an interesting explanation for why injustice and suffering are so widespread.
Dominion and awesome might belong to God; he establishes peace in his heights. Can his armies be numbered? On whom does his light not rise? How then can a human being be righteous before God? How can one born of a woman be pure? If even the moon is not bright, and the stars are not pure as far as he is concerned, how much less a mortal man, who is but a maggot— a son of man, who is only a worm!
Record scratch. Enter the maggots and worms theory of human suffering. In a way the logic is airtight. God is great, and all humans are imperfect, maybe even born with a bit of sin or predisposition to evil, it may be our nature to be enemies to God, so it stands to reason that by virtue of our imperfection we all deserve punishment like disgusting maggots and worms.
I’m no expert on doctrinal development in the ancient world, but I suspect this text pre-dates the promulgation of the formal dogma of original sin. But, many creation myths feature stories highlighting the imperfection of human beings. Zeus, with the help of his good friend the titan Prometheus, created several generations of proto-humans: there were humanoids made of gold and iron before the ones made out of clay got out of hand. Prometheus’s brother Epimetheus was charged with handing out attributes and gifts to Zeus’s creations, and unfortunately man was an afterthought, such is one’s lot in life when your name literally means hindsight or afterthought, and no gifts were left to bestow on humans. We don’t have thick hides, we’re not particularly fast, no sharp claws, or fangs. Prometheus, whose name means forethought, really should have seen this coming. He really enjoyed humans and despite Zeus’ strict injunction against doing so, he stole a bit of fire from Mt Olympus and brought it down to mankind as a gift to make up for the fact Epimetheus left us in the lurch. This version of Lucifer, the light bringer, was sentenced not to serpenthood, but to have his liver pecked out by eagles daily while he remained chained on the slopes of Mt Olympus. With the light of fire the humans had the potential to get real uppity and neglect the gods, and Zeus just loved the sweet smell of barbecued beef. In response, Pandora, the first human woman, was created by Haefaestus, and she was gifted a sealed pot, and instructed to admire, but not open it. Eventually curiosity got the better of her, some would say curiosity beguiled her, and when she opened it, depending upon the telling, either she released all the evils humans suffer into the world, or she released all the virtues we espouse and that would make life pleasant if we could only possess them. Either way after almost everything else escaped only hope remained in the jar. It’s interesting to think that hope could be characterized as both a virtue or plague. All this to say that the forbidden fruit, and even the expulsion from Eden aren’t the only stories which cast human nature and suffering as an inherent part of human existence and as a manifestation of divine judgment for human disobedience.
The question we have to ask ourselves: is it true? Do we deserve punishment simply because we exist as flawed creatures? Are we all just maggots and worms before the majesty and perfection of the divine?
Job rejects the maggot and worm theory of human suffering. You can hear the sarcasm dripping as he proclaims
How you have helped the powerless! How you have saved the person who has no strength! How you have advised the one without wisdom, and abundantly revealed your insight! To whom did you utter these words? And whose spirit has come forth from your mouth?
At the risk of sounding anti-religious I find this rejection both obvious and breathtakingly subversive. Obvious because, if you’ve just been told by one “friend” that your punishment is due to your specific failure to help the oppressed and needy, and then told by a different friend that the universal suffering and apparent injustice in the world actually represents the divinely distributed retributive justice we all deserve by virtue of our imperfect nature, then you might find those two ideas totally uninspiring as well. Think about it. God is punishing you for failing to fix the miserable lives that are created by his divine punishment? To borrow a phrase from the 1990’s: Say What?!? That’s totally bonkers. That seems to fit the definition of a Catch-22. What sort of being would perpetuate a system like that? Modern Christians have a doctrine to address this concern, but they haven’t actually abandoned the idea. As a teenager I was asked to memorize a passage of scripture that starts “For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever”. The verse goes on to give a rather precise formula for rectifying the situation, but the ideas of human brokenness and resulting justifiable condemnation are baked into the idea of Christian atonement. This is where Job feels very subversive. He rejects these ideas. He sarcastically mocks them.
There are several different ways for a believer to tackle this challenge, and if you’re in that group you certainly don’t need my assistance here. I would suggest that anyone who may read this stop, and give that conflict due reflection. Does it make sense? Does a theology based on assumptions about divine punishment and condemnation genuinely inspire? Are there other ways of interpreting our situation that account for human imperfection, but don’t require condemning people for being human? Is there a way of prioritizing the restoration of, and maximizing of human dignity without threatening punishment for failure to be perfect? Would Christian Atonement lose any of its power if it weren’t about suffering punishment for your sins, but exclusively about empowering the Messiah to comfort and heal any and all in need? I’m not proposing this as a doctrinal change anyone should adopt. I don’t fancy myself a Christian theologian, but a few years back I decided this was a far more inspiring view on the matter. Maybe don’t do it if you don’t want to end up like me?
To be 100% honest I’m not certain of how to account for chapter 27. It seems incongruous with Job’s recent arguments. The only way I can reconcile it is if he is once again mocking his friends’ certainty by quoting their repeated proverbial wisdom. He opens with a declaration of his own certainty, then verses 7-11, and 13-23 read like Job quoting back to his friends what they’ve said to him, with Job offering commentary in verse 12, “If you yourselves have all seen this, Why in the world do you continue this meaningless talk?”. I think he’s pointing out that the “Maggots and Worms Theory” basically undercuts every argument offered up until this moment. The entire thesis of their arguments that he specifically has done something terrible and is therefore worthy of his punishment lacks meaning if EVERYONE deserves such punishment, but punishment appears to fall unevenly on the overtly just and unjust. To preserve the idea that punishment represents perfectly distributed divine justice, all sense of meaning and proportion need to be abandoned. Yeah, I think that fits.
Chapter 28 marks another inflection in Job’s discourse. He has clearly displayed denial of guilt, anger at perceived injustice, bargaining for an audience with God, and depression over his social rejection. It’s almost as if ancient writers were astute observers of the human condition and knew the stages of grief long before Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, and David Kessler named them. Does Job reconcile with his reality? His Friends? His God? How?
Job launches into an extended metaphor about how humans put forth great effort and have well developed techniques and tools for extracting resources and wealth from our physical environment, but we have no genuine parallel for developing wisdom. Across history and culture there runs a thread of humans observing that there exists some set of shared attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs that foster group cohesion and cooperation allowing communities to flourish. There are many variations, but they all seem to have mechanisms to encourage and reward reciprocal altruism, and accountability for transgression of shared values. That is to say there is a way we as a species have learned to do things. We try to codify this way with myth, law, philosophy, and religion. We try to teach it with story, song, and scripture. All of these attempts to conceptualize and define this collective wisdom have merit, but do any of them, collectively or individually, perfectly define the whole?
In The Book of Genesis there’s a story where Jacob, scared to face his brother upon returning to Canaan, wrestles with The Angel of The Lord all night in hopes of extracting a blessing. Eventually he gets what he desires, but the price seems to be that ever after his hip is out of joint. How often do we humans feel the need to wrestle a concept into submission? To name it, claim it, and put it in a box as a tool for our own use? Don’t get me wrong I am firmly on the side that the human mind and humankind thrive on our ability to conceptualize and operationalize information abstracted from our world, but I think we should be weary of the belief that our concepts and ideas are correct and complete representations of the way things are.
The First Chapter of the Dao De Jing says:
The Dao that can be understood cannot be the primal, or cosmic, Dao.
An idea that can be expressed in words cannot be the infinite idea.
This ineffable Dao was the source of all spirit and matter,
And being expressed was the mother of all created things.
Therefore not to desire the things of sense is to know the freedom of spirituality.
To desire is to learn the limitation of matter.
These two things spirit and matter, so different in nature, have the same origin.
This unity of origin is the mystery of mysteries, but it is the gateway to spirituality
Translated by Dwight Goddard and Henri Borel, 1919
Alternatively
The Tao that can be followed is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the origin of heaven and earth
While naming is the origin of the myriad things.
Therefore, always desireless, you see the mystery
Ever desiring, you see the manifestations.
These two are the same–
When they appear they are named differently.
Their sameness is the mystery,
Mystery within mystery;
The door to all marvels.
Translated by Charles Muller, 1891
One translation for “The Dao” is The Way. See what they did there?
I don’t think it a coincidence that the Dao De Jing has so many translations, a quick google search can find hundreds on a single website. Basically I think the primary message of this chapter is that we should be weary of the idea that we completely understand a thing. Whenever we wall off an idea we inevitably miss something, or include something that isn’t true. Perhaps, with a bit of curiosity and humility our hearts and minds may open to see and understand something new?
It seems to me Job continues to verbalize his journey of reconsidering his own beliefs and the collective wisdom that shape his actions and perspective. He recognizes inconsistencies, limitations, and ignorance, but doesn’t throw up his hands in total despair. [Insert Pokemon Gif] Is this acceptance? Did I do that right?
Job concludes his analysis of human ignorance with a statement of belief about divine wisdom.
Then he (God) looked at wisdom and assessed its value; he established it and examined it closely. And he said to mankind, ‘The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.
Record Scratch. Wait, wasn’t your contention that Job was questioning his beliefs? Are you full of crap Mark? Maybe. Have you ever gone on a journey, and ended up right back where you started, but with a different perspective? I have. I suspect Job has as well. I suspect “The fear of the Lord” is a cultural idiom that carried more water 3000 years ago, seriously do quick google search and read the first paragraph of the Hammurabi Code, and I think we can get a good feel for what Job means when he says this, and I am of the opinion there are clues that Job has a new lease on his faith. Here at the end of Act 2 Job has gone on an intellectual, spiritual, and emotional journey and has gained new insights. I find his parting words powerful, and hopefully you’ll find them worth the wait.
MaximumKungFu 