Bible Commentary - Job Introduction

Having just completed the book of Esther, we now move on to the book of Job.

This is a big change.  The previous 12 books (from Joshua through Esther) were all written in a historical narrative style, and all represent a fairly continuous linear history of Israel from their first entrance to the promised land through the Babylonian exile and a brief period after their return from the exile to Jerusalem.  This historical narrative section is sometimes called “the historical books” or in other places “the former prophets”.  On the other hand, Job is assigned to what is usually called “the wisdom literature” or by the Jews it is called “the writings” (Hebrew: Ketuvim).  My point here is not to get into all the details of how these categories are segmented or defined but rather to emphasize that Esther and Job fall into different categories, and this is manifestly evident in the writing style and topic of the two respective books.

Some of my readers may be wondering why this is relevant.  One of the most important principles for proper bible reading and interpretation is to understand the intent of the author, and I believe the literary style is an inseparable reflection of the author’s intent.  In fact, I would go further and say that one of the most common misinterpretations of the bible is to take a poetic book and interpret it literally.  For instance, you could take nearly any popular song and it will have some lyric like “I can’t live without you.”  If interpreted literally, this actually has grave consequences for the songwriter who might die after their next breakup. Most people will realize this is an absurd deduction and that “I can’t live without you” is just a figure of speech.

And yet people make these kinds of interpretation errors with the bible all the time, for instance taking obscure verses from the Psalms as evidence for flat earth theology.  I wish I could say I’m joking but I really have seen people write essays about the theological contradictions in Psalms or like bad scientific claims in the Psalms because they are taking what are literally song lyrics and interpreting them as scientific claims.  To the surprise of everyone, poetry often contains non-scientific claims.

Let me say it again: Job is part of the wisdom literature.  It is not a historical narrative, and it is not intended to be a historical narrative.  It is part of the same category as Psalms and Proverbs, not Kings or Judges.  Once must exercise caution when attempting to derive a theological framework from Job because the book is arguably much more of an allegory than a literal history.

I think for most of my readers, a sensible and intuitive understanding will flow naturally so I don’t expect this to be a big problem, but I also think it’s important for my readers to be looking for the right things as we go through this book.

I’ve been spending a lot of time talking about what Job is not, so now I would like to talk about what Job is.  At its heart, Job is grappling with the central question of what causes human suffering, and how should we respond to suffering.  It is a book of philosophy, and not stories.  The book has four main actors: Job and his three friends.  There is also a variety of minor actors such as a fourth friend who shows up later, Job’s wife, God and the devil.  Job is the subject of his book and the various actors do not as much represent distinct people as they represent different opinions about that central question of suffering.  As a brief aside, this is very close to the rabbinical tradition that developed later in Jewish history as represented in the Talmud.  Both the Mishnah and the Gamarah (the two main books of the Talmud) are structured as dialogues or debates between various rabbis.  Without going into all the details, using possibly-fictional characters to represent different perspectives in a philosophical debate is part of the Jewish literary tradition.

What do we know about the origin and authorship of the book?  Some people regard Job as the oldest book in the OT, both because of language features as well as the literary structure and relatively undeveloped theology.  There are many things that are striking in their absence from this book: the temple, the priesthood, the nation of Israel or even the land of Israel, the covenant, and nearly any aspect of the redemptive arc of sin and God’s forgiveness.  Many critics regard these omissions to indicate an early and possibly non-Jewish origin for the story of Job.  That said, it was almost certainly written down by a Jew, but we don’t know who and we also don’t know when.  It does not make reference to any verifiable historical events, so attempts to date Job typically depend on linguistic analysis, which is not precise and sometimes also unreliable.

The book of Job is structured as follows: it has a two chapter introduction, roughly one chapter conclusion, and 39 chapters in the middle of people talking.  There is so much talking it’s like Deuteronomy on steroids.  In my experience, it’s a very difficult book to read, especially the first time, because the dialogue can be boring and difficult to follow.  I personally found it very boring the first time I read it and more interesting every time I went through it again.

The story opens with Job suffering a catastrophe.  His children all die in accidents, his property is destroyed and all his livestock are stolen by bandits, amongst other things, and his three friends go to comfort him.  The comfort doesn’t last long as they eventually get into a disagreement regarding why Job is suffering (but all of them implicitly assume it is God’s punishment).  Towards the end, God appears and rebukes all four of them for their mistaken opinions.  God resolves the question of suffering by asserting his supremacy over human understanding and that some things are too mysterious and complex for us to fully grasp in this time.  Job admits that God is great and that understanding the true reasons and wisdom of God is beyond his capabilities.

In the conclusion, Job’s family and wealth are restored and he lives happily ever after.  Life turns out well for Job, but there have been many times in my life when I’ve questioned whether God’s response is satisfactory.  Frankly, it feels evasive to me; in a sense God is answering the question, but in another very literal sense he is refusing to answer the question on the grounds that he is beyond human reasoning.  I think it’s a very challenging answer.  To me it seems like another way of saying, “trust me”.  God is saying that his answer is beyond our understanding and we have to simply trust him and trust that human suffering is somehow part of his redemptive plan.  We must be satisfied to know that a reason exists, even if we do not know it.  I don’t know if I’ve attained that kind of satisfaction, but I believe it is God’s challenge to us.