Episode 298: Pete Enns - Pete Ruins Job (REISSUE)
In this reissue of The Bible for Normal People Episode 133: The Book of Job, Pete takes us on a provocative journey through Job, challenging traditional interpretations of suffering, divine justice, and the nature of God. Rather than seeing Job as a lesson in patient endurance, Pete explores the book as a complex, layered critique of transactional theology—and even a possible parable of Israel’s exile. Join him as he asks the following questions:
What is the take-away from the book of Job?
How does the New Testament interpret Job?
What genre is the book of Job?
What are some troubling questions the book of Job brings up?
Was Job written all at one time or different times?
How should we understand Job’s friends?
What is the meaning of ha-satan?
How does Job connect with Isaiah 40?
What does Job teach us about theology?
What does Job have to do with the Babylonian exile?
Are there multiple ways to read Job?
What is challenging about the book of Job?
Quotables
“In a way, the familiarity we have with Job could be a hindrance to understanding this amazing and theologically risky and rich book of the Bible. Job is not a story about why people suffer. It's not even about why Job is suffering.” — Pete Enns
“Job endures while giving God a piece of his mind.” — Pete Enns
“The book as a whole doesn’t give us the option of simply accepting Elihu’s chastisement of Job as the final word.” — Pete Enns
“This book is a head-scratcher…It's a book that is worthy of our adult attention and one that we really need to pay attention to if we're serious about studying it. It's not an easy book to read.” — Pete Enns
“Accepting how God is portrayed here in the Book of Job, rather than explaining it away, might be crucial for understanding this book.” — Pete Enns
“Maybe the point of this book is not to give us an accurate portrait of God. Maybe the point of this book is to portray bad theology, a bad view of God. Maybe the point of this book is to argue against God as transactional or petty, [who] makes cosmic bets with your life in the balance. A God who's basically touchy and wants to silence your question. It's against this God that Job holds his ground and it is for holding his ground that Job is vindicated at the end.” — Pete Enns
“The shape of the Book of Job as a whole, the book that we have in our Bibles, is itself a product of ancient Jewish debate over time. The Book of Job grew over time, and we see within its pages evidence of different points of view, which means we need to be very careful about what parts of Job we take to be absolute truth.” — Pete Enns
“Maybe for us, as for the ancient Jews who produced this book, the point is in the dialogue, the debate, and maybe not the final answer we can stuff in our back pocket.” — Pete Enns
“Just like Israel questioned God about the exile, Job questions God throughout, [asking] whether all this suffering was really justified. I find reading Job as a parable very inviting. It makes a lot of sense. I don't think that's the only way to read it. In fact, I think there's more than one legitimate way to read the book of Job.” — Pete Enns
“[The Book of Job is] this rich, diverse text. Seeing it as a parable of Israel and exile changes entirely the question that the book is addressing: not personal suffering, but perhaps national suffering. It's definitely a literary and theological masterpiece that leaves few of us completely comfortable.” — Pete Enns
Mentioned in This Episode
Class: Mythbusting the Bible
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Pete: You're listening to The Bible for Normal People, the only God-ordained podcast on the internet. I'm Pete Enns.
Jared: And I’m Jared Byas. Hey folks. It's time to tell you about our May class called Mythbusting the Bible with Dan McClellan and Pete Enns. That's right. We're bringing in the heavyweights and they're going to invite you into a different kind of conversation about the Bible, one that's honest, curious, and unafraid to wrestle with tough questions.
Pete: Yeah. We're gonna share our own personal “aha” moments, things from the Bible that shifted our entire perspective. And if you're ready to discover a more thoughtful approach to the Bible, join Dan and me as we share about the experiences that open our eyes to a deeper, more nuanced way of reading scripture.
Jared: The live class and Q-&-A are happening Wednesday, May 28th, 2025 from 8 to 9:30 PM Eastern Time, followed by a SoNP exclusive Q-&-A. Don't worry if you can't make it, the link to the class recording with downloadable class slides will be made available. It's pay what you can until the class ends, then it'll cost $25 for the recording.
Pete: Sign up for the class at www.thebiblefornormalpeople.com/mythbustingthebible. Hope to see you there.
Pete: Hey folks, it's me, Pete. Today's “Pete Ruins” episode is a reissue of episode 133, The Book of Job, which originally aired in July of 2020. Now, I figured we'd continue “Pete Ruins” in the order of the biblical canon. So this time it's Job, and next time it'll be Psalms, which I'm really looking forward to. So even though this is a reissue, you can still get my extended side notes expanding on the episode in a segment called “Pete Ruins More Stuff,” which is available to members of the Society of Normal people.
And if you want to get that extra bonus segment, head to thebiblefornormalpeople.com/join All right, folks. With that said, I hope you enjoy this reissue episode.
Let's get to Job, shall we? All right. Job's pretty cool. The story of Job is, is one that many people are familiar with and you know, like other well-known stories of the Old Testament, you know, the Garden of Eden or the Exodus, things like that. Job's had a place in literature and films and you know, so if I say to most people, you know, I'm suffering like Job, more people will know what you're talking about than, you know, I feel like Ahaz contending with Rezin and Pekah.
Exactly. But in a way, the familiarity we have with Job, well that could be a hindrance to understanding this amazing and theologically risky and rich book of the Bible. Job is not, lemme just start with a, with what I think Job isn't. Okay. Job is not a story about why people suffer.
It's not even about why Job is suffering. We know why from the opening scene, which we'll get to, and it's not about how we should be patient in suffering like Job, because Job frankly isn't patient. Now, just if you're thinking of the New Testament, lemme just jump ahead here for a second, James 5:11 does refer to the endurance of Job, which is not exactly the same thing as patience.
You know, you can endure something without being patient, but even if James means something like, Job waited patiently for God to be merciful, and it does seem to be what James is saying, that still doesn't capture what the book of Job is about. Job endures while giving God a piece of his mind. James is interpreting Job and applying this character creatively as the New Testament writers are prone to do and interpreting this character creatively to a different context.
See, for James, it's the context of persecution by forces hostile to the gospel. The source of Job's suffering is, as we’ll see, God. A very different kind of context, so, so you know, we're not gonna go down that path with the New Testament. There's just no need to do that. But answering the question of why people suffer or seeing Job essentially as a model of patient suffering, those are common ways of thinking about Job, of sort of summarizing what the book's about.
And I don't think that the story itself can support that. So this podcast is about what I think Job is about. And I hope it goes without saying that I'm not winging it, but I am channeling others I've learned from, including people I might disagree with. And by the way, disagreement among interpreters of Job is something you'll have to get used to if you dig into this book.
But as I see it, rather than being about why they're suffering or being a pep talk for being patient in suffering, I think Job is about something else altogether. And I don't know how to do this apart from just walking through the book section by section. Okay. So let's begin with the really big picture.
First, Job is 42 chapters long. Most of it is poetry, except for the first two chapters and the last 11 verses, that's chapter 42 verses 7-17. The last 11 verses, that's prose or narrative, just like the first two chapters are. And the beginning and end are crucial to understanding the Book of Job as we have it.
And I say it that way because you know, biblical scholars see in Job signs that this book, like so much of the Old Testament, wasn't written at one time by one person. It's a story that seems to have been added to over time, and these narrative sections that I just mentioned are often considered to have been added.
At the end of this long process, and I'm not going to make a big deal of this here, mainly because we just don't have the time and tracing this, let's call it layered history, is the kind of thing that you really need a, like a slide rule in a decoder ring with Bibles open in order to see it. So for the most part, I'm not focusing on that at all.
But on the book, as we have it in front of us, the book we all read when we open up our Bibles, all 42 chapters, which is a lot of poetry sandwiched between a narrative beginning and end, and this narrative frame as it's called it, you know, frames the whole book beginning and end. That frame is central for understanding what the book of Job is doing.
Okay, so let's just start with chapter one. Okay. Job is introduced in chapter one with two characteristics. He's described in two ways, and both are central to understanding the meaning of the book. Don't skip over this. Job is first someone of great wealth and reputation, you might say. He is greatly blessed.
He's got, you know, ten kids who are just perfect, you know, all bound for the Ivy League or something. He's got cattle, he's got wealth. In fact, verse three tells us he's the greatest of all the people of the East. The East, 'cause that's where wise men come from. So Job is like a very wise character who's blessed.
And the other characteristic is that Job is pious, or as he's described here, he's blameless and upright. Now, in his day, Job's piety is shown by his faithfulness in offering sacrifices, and we read here in verse five that he even offered sacrifices for his ten children in case they sinned and privately cursed God as the textiles us.
And here's what some of us might call a, you know, super successful Christian, you know, who doesn't want his kids to be any less. So see already here, we're just in verse five, folks, we're confronted by the central question of the book of Job. We just don't know it yet. We have to keep reading, but I'm telling you, and the question is this: Are Job's blessings tied to his piety?
Right, and may put that, in other words, are the blessings of Job, are they God's reward for being so pious? And is that why he feels he needs to cover for his kids because their wellbeing is also tied to piety? See, this link between blessing and piety is the focus of what happens next in the story. And this is a, a pretty famous part of Job.
See, as the story goes, one day, while in sort of like a heavenly board meeting of the gods, that's usually called the Divine Council, but you know, the gods were all up there having a meeting of some sort. And Yahweh, that's the God of Israel, who's like the chairman of the board. And they're all there, and for some reason, Yahweh starts bragging about Job's piety to a figure called Ha-Satan.
Slight pause here. This is an important element, too, of this book to understand what's happening. Ha-Satan- this is usually translated in English as Satan. But the evil one, you know, the ruler of the underworld, et cetera. But that figure is not present here, nor frankly, anywhere in the Old Testament. Satan is a name, and that figure is known to us much later in Judaism.
Ha- Satan, however, is a title, and I pronounce it that way, to remind us of something very important, you know. To be a Satan, which is, by the way, spelled S-A-T-A-N, right? That's where we get the name Satan from. But to be a Satan means to be an adversary or an accuser of some sort. And Ha-Satan literally means the adversary or the accuser.
See this isn't Satan, who just, like, waltzers up to heaven and has a casual conversation with Yahweh. In fact, you know, just a side note here in numbers chapter 22, remember the story of Balam and the donkey. There, the angel of the Lord is a Satan. He is an adversary to Balaam. And you know, if you remember the story, he runs his donkey off the road, you know, after Balaam and the donkey have this sort of casual conversation. It's sort of an odd story, but even God can be a Satan.
So it's not, this is not the figure of evil. Think of Ha-Satan as maybe something like a prosecuting attorney. God makes a case, he makes a claim, and Ha-Satan is going to argue against him.
And here's what happens. And again, if you know this story, this is really familiar. God practically dares Ha-Satan to find fault with Job. Not once, but twice in these two chapters. You know, “Hey, have you considered my servant job? Isn't he awesome? You know, look how pious he is.” It's like bragging on your kid, right, who gets all A’s or something like that.
So again, this happens twice in chapter 1. In chapter 2, the first time, Ha-Satan tells God that the only reason Job is so pious is because he has a cushy life. So take it all away and you'll see what he's made of. He'll curse you to your face. Job's piety is superficial.
Job is pious, Ha-Satan claims, because of what he's getting out of the deal. God's a helicopter parent, making sure everything's okay with him because he's rewarding him for worshiping. God, right? But Ha-Satan says he's not worshiping you because you're God, just because of that, but because you are rewarding him.
And so God says, well, we'll see about that. And He allows Ha-Satan to do what he wants to Job only, you know, don't touch him personally. And so in short order, Job loses everything in one catastrophe after another. And all his possessions as well as his ten children. All gone. Now, so how does Job repent?
Well, he accepts this fate in, in famous words, these are some of the probably the best known words in the Book of Job and familiar, I think to a lot of people. This is where Job says, “naked I came from my mother's womb and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
See, he blesses God rather than curses God. Yay Job, Ha-Satan is wrong. So far, so good. Job's passed the test. But now we moved around to Ha-Satan is back. And God, who should just leave well enough alone, if you're asking me, brags about Job once again. And Ha-Satan says, “well, you see Job’s hanging in there because he himself hasn't been harmed. Harm him personally. Then we'll see where things stand.”
So God again tells Ha-Satan to have at it. Only he's got to spare his life. And the next thing we know, Job is covered with boils from head to toe, but here too, he seems to accept his fate. He tells his wife, for example, “shall we receive the good at the hand of God and not receive bad?”
That's in chapter two, verse 10. And then the narrator tells us that Job did not sin with his lips, which is really interesting and, and maybe a detail we shouldn't pass over too quickly. See, he didn't sin with his lips, with his lips, but frankly we're left wondering what Job was thinking in his mind. And that's gonna come out soon enough.
He's hanging in there, but very quickly he just loses it. But first, Job's friends hear about it and they come and sit down with him in silence for seven days. And, you know, they were respecting his pain. And this is, by the way, where the practice of sitting Shiva in Judaism comes from. Shiva means seven.
The point to emphasize here is that Job's friends are, they're really good friends. They're here to help him, not attack him. Yeah. And table that thought for a moment. It, it will come back to it soon enough. Trust me. Job's friends, whether they're attacking him or not. Okay? So after seven days, Job opens his mouth.
He gives his first speech in the book. This is chapter 3, and he basically wishes he were never born and he calls for all of creation to essentially fall back in on itself. Okay? He's clearly not doing well. Anyway, if you read this chapter, you'll see that Job is hardly patient. He's not trusting God to work it all out.
He's accusing God of doing something he does not deserve. God has, as Job puts it in verse 23 and in chapter 3, he says, God has fenced him in. You see, let's call it this lack of faith that Job has in God's goodness and God directing all things sovereignly and justly for everybody. This lack of faith is exactly what Job's friends are worried about and what they zero in on.
Now, okay. That's how the book's set up in the first three chapters. The bulk of the book, chapters 4, going all the way through 37 is for the most part, uh, Job's debate with his three friends named Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. And then later in chapter 32, they're joined by a rather mysterious, young, and apparently quite full of himself, character named Elihu, who reams Job out for six chapters.
And Elihu is a complicated figure, and, and we'll come back to him later, but we're not gonna spend a ton of time on him because, you know, we don't like four-hour podcasts, but anyway. Can't do everything, right? Can't do everything. It's the Bible. Do what we can. Okay, so here we go.
The argument of Job’s three friends that takes up so much of this book basically runs like this. “Job, you look like a wreck and you're clearly suffering mightily. And you know, as your friends, uh, we, we hate to ask, but we need to ask. And in fact, we're all wondering, what did you do? He must have done something. God wouldn't do this to you for no reason.”
And Job's response pretty much throughout is, “yeah. Well, I've been asking myself that same question and the fact is I didn't do anything” and his friends respond, “yes, you did.” Job answers. “No, I didn't. I didn't do anything.” And so back and forth it goes, this part at least goes through chapter 27.
Now at first blush, right? You read this and you might think that Job's friends are sort of out of their element, you know, claiming to know that Job's sufferings or punishment from God for Job's, sins, you know, and again, you know, we happen to know that Job is not suffering for that reason. Right. He's, his suffering is not God's punishment for sin.
He, he's actually suffering for a far worse reason that none of them know about, nor will they ever know about in this book. Job is suffering, in fact, 'cause he is too good. He's suffering because God wants to prove to Ha-Satan that Job is really worshiping him out of true piety and not because his life is cushy.
So we get to this section and we might find ourselves rooting for Job against the false accusations of his friends. But here's the thing, and, and this is one of those keys to the book and, and a very important moment here.
Biblically speaking, the friends and what they say, what did you do to deserve this? They are well within their, let's call it theological right, to assume that Job is suffering as punishment from God for his sin. See, that portrayal of God is all over the Old Testament. It's typically called a transactional view of God, which I'm sure is familiar to anyone who has skimmed the Bible, right?
If you obey, you will be blessed and rewarded. If you disobey, you'll be cursed, punished, plagued, something like that. See, there is a transaction happening. And that's called a transactional view of God. See Job's friends, think about it from their point of view. They have seen Job move from an obedient worshiper with a great life to someone who has lost everything and it's covered by boils.
That doesn't just happen. Job must have done something. There must be, as I hear Christian say, too often, there must be sin in his life to yield a consequence like this.
See, in other words, and try this on, for size. Job's, friends are actually, they're operating from a position of theological orthodoxy.
Nothing they say, really nothing they say in all their speeches that go on for twenty-something chapters, nothing they say is heretical. Right? You can back up a transactional God with chapter and verse in plenty of places in the Bible, not just here. In fact, you know, I've heard preachers preach the same kind of transactional God that we see in these dialogues.
God is, you know, cursing our country because we voted wrong on something. You know, that kind of thing. This is a very, very common way, or you know, you're suffering 'cause God's trying to get your attention because you have some sin that has to be cleared up. Very, very common. Maybe the easiest example is, maybe, TV preachers.
But again, not just them, it, it's part of the biblical fabric, this transactional God. And so I, I don't look at these friends as saying something that's absurd. It makes perfect sense. And Job's defense throughout, and again, this is a very important thing to get a handle on, Job's defense throughout, is that their theology, their transactional God does not match his experience.
And he refuses to accept their argument regardless of how much this is a part of their tradition, we might say today, regardless of how often we see this in the Bible. Now, that's a lot. I know, right? Let, let's get to the really big point here. And that's at the end of the book, that narrative section at the end in chapter 42, verses 7-17, how the book ends.
Here, Yahweh finally enters the discussion and He appears to Job and his friends, and God says, in no uncertain terms- think about this, right, in no uncertain terms. He says that He's on Job's side in this long debate. He, he turns to Eliphaz, God turns to Eliphaz, and he's the first of the three friends.
And you know, the first one mentions, so maybe he, like, represents all of them. I think so. He tells Eliphaz, quote here, this is chapter 42, verse 7. “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.” Hmm. Now we need to hit a few more parts of the book before we feel the full force of this sort of divine announcement here.
But for me, it is the most stunning passage in Job and one of the more thought-provoking passages in the entire Old Testament. God is siding with Job. He is the one who spoke of God. What is “right?” Job does not accept transactional theology, what we find in ample supply in say, for starters, Deuteronomy through 2 Kings, see any assessment of what the book of Job is about, what its point is, what its theology is, what its message is, needs to have a good handle on how the book begins and how it ends.
Okay. Let's circle back. A few brief comments about this long poetic dialogue section between Job and his three friends, which runs through Chapter 27. Each friend makes his case to Job three times, and each time Job responds. Those dialogues, they may seem actually to go on forever, but you know, those dialogues do have a structure to them.
The only thing, and this is more of a side note for you abnormal people out there, maybe you're interested. I don't know. Just gimme fifteen seconds here and, and a good study Bible will point this out, but at the end of the section in chapters 25 to 27, well, it's a bit of a mess. Friend number two, Bildad, his third speech seems to be cut off, and Zofar his friend, number three.
His third speech is entirely missing. And you know, normally each speaker is clearly announced when they begin speaking, but, but that's missing here with Zophar. But the thing that has really interested, careful readers of Job is that there are words in chapter 27 that are labeled as Job's words that many scholars think Job simply would not say.
And so they suggests that maybe Bildad and Zophar’s speeches somehow got mixed in with Job's in this third cycle. I mean, who knows? And you know, none of this affects the point of the book. I'm just throwing it in there to, to alert you that Job can be tricky to decipher in places. It's not an easy book.
There are a few minefields like this in Job, and you know, maybe that's what happens when a book has such a long history of layers being added to it. And you know, while we're on the subject, Job is also difficult to understand because the Hebrew has a lot of words in it that occur only, like, once or twice.
And again, good study Bibles will point out some of that And it's also very hard for several reasons to assign a specific period when the book was written. Usually scholars can take a pretty good stab at, you know, within a couple centuries or something, but, you know, Job's difficult. Some say it's from the seventh century BCE, like way before the exile.
Some say, you know, 500 years later, second century, and some others, you know, say sometime in between. So this book is a head-scratcher. Though I do believe that the basic thrust of the book isn't really affected, but it's a book that is worthy of our adult attention and one that we really need to pay attention to if we're serious about studying it.
It's not an easy book to read. Okay. Anyway, these three cycles are now over and Job stubbornly maintains his innocence and a very long monologue that begins, you know, perhaps in chapter 27, you know, unless Bildad and Zophar’s speeches are buried in there, right? Like we said, and, and it goes through chapter 31.
Or, you know, so it seems. Not only is Chapter 27 a mess, but chapter 28, and again, this is one of these moments in the Book of Job, but this has confounded scholars for some time. It's a wonderful chapter on the mystery of wisdom. You know, namely that no one knows where wisdom comes from. And this is chapter 28, and that wisdom is out of human reach.
And, and this as, as the story is laid out in front of us, this seems to be placed on Job's lips, but it's just not the kind of thing Job would say. It's almost a confession of guilt. Like, I have no business questioning you, oh Lord. And that's not where Job is here. And for that reason, and, and this makes a lot of sense to me, scholars typically chalk this up to, again, an editor inserting something to make Job sound more, let's say Orthodox.
But then, you know, you go to 21 to 31 and this is Job's last speech, and he's back to defending his innocence, just tooth and nail. Now I'll tell you this idea that the book of Job is layered over time, you know, it makes a good bit of sense to me. And if that's true, this is a very important lesson for us that just sort of rises to the surface.
You see, the shape of the Book of Job as a whole, the book that we have in our Bibles, is itself a product of ancient Jewish debate over time. The Book of Job grew over time, and we see within its pages evidence of different points of view, which means we need to be very careful about what parts of Job we take to be, let's say, absolute truth.
Maybe for us, as for the ancient Jews who produced this book, the point is in the dialogue, the debate, and maybe not the final answer we can stuff in our back pocket.
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Anyway, okay, chapter 31 ends, and this is how it ends. It says, “the words of Job are finished.” Only they're not. He responds twice to Yahweh, which we're getting to, but first just, you know, a quick word or two of Elihu, I mentioned him before. He enters the fray from chapters 32 through 37, six chapters, and he's younger and supremely competent in knowing the ways of God.
Right, that, that first-year college student who has it all figured out and wants to put the professor in his place, not that that's ever happened to me, but it's sort of like that. Elihu gives Job a tongue-lashing for six chapters. His beef with Job is that Job quote, “justified himself rather than God.” In other words, he defended himself instead of accepting a transactional God, a transactional theology.
And his beef with the three friends, who he basically agrees with theologically, his beef with his three friends is that they don't have the chops to refute Job, so Elihu takes over and adopts a rather mocking, sarcastic, condescending tone toward all of them, and ends with a rather stirring speech about God's unsearchable mystery.
Which, ironically, he apparently seems to have a good handle on. Anyway, Elihu is often given a free pass as someone who utters the truths of God against Job's arrogance and faithlessness. But see here too, maybe, especially here, we need to remember that God fully vindicates Job at the end. Uh, you know, the book as a whole doesn't give us the option of simply accepting Elihu's chastisement of Job as the final word.
God gives the final word to Job. Well, that's a rather unsettling thought. And let's keep going here. Let's see where this goes. Okay, here. Now with the end of Elihu's long speech. We are now at a crucial point of the book where God finally speaks to Job and Job answers him. And this starts in chapter 38, verse one, and it goes into chapter 42.
The, the first six verses, 'cause the next part starting at 42:7, sorry, a lot of math here, but starting at 42:7, that's that narrative ending to the book, right? So the rest of this, the rest of the poetic stuff is Yahweh and Job. Now with this section, just fair warning, I'm going to interpret this section a little differently than you might be used to.
Again, if you've gone over this book of Job, this might sound a little bit odd to some. See, normally God's words here are seen as a clear, you know, slam dunk, rebuke, and correction of Job. In other words, and see and think about this, God seems to be taking the side of Job’s friends. Job, you know what you're talking about. Be quiet.
Right? Which again, that's very tough to square with 42:7 where God declares Job to be in the right and his Orthodox friends to be in the wrong, you know, reading God's words here, which basically amount to, how dare you question me. And reading that as the last word about Job just creates huge tensions with how the book itself concludes.
Yes, okay. God is finally speaking, but the debate isn't over. And that's how I read this section. Job does not acquiesce, Job does not submit as many interpreters have said, or at least it's very ambiguous. Okay. See, way back, setting this up a little bit, way back in chapter 13, Job is so confident in his innocence that he challenges God to have his day in court.
Right? This, Job says this in chapter 13, verse 18. He says, “I have indeed prepared my case. I know I will be vindicated.” He, he wants his day in court. And now he has it. And what is happening here in 38? God is coming to His own defense after being accused. And what we need to pay attention to here are two things.
What God says in defense and how Job answers Him. See, this whole thing is Job, he just, he wants to understand why all this is happening to him. What does God say about that? And does Job accept that response or does Job reject it? Right. Let's get into that. God's response begins in 38:1, speaking to Job out of a whirlwind, a, you know, a storm meant to unsettle him, to put him in his place.
Something frightening, fearful. Now, here is what many of us, including myself, would've liked to hear from God. God speaks outta the whirlwind and he says, “yes, Job. You know, you're a champ. You did great. Sorry about the boils. I tried to make a point to Ha-Satan that, well, it's complicated, but it just got outta hand.”
Of course, God doesn't say that. Instead, God spends the next seventy-two verses talking about how He is the creator, and who is Job to question it, because he didn't create the cosmos or make it snow and rain, or control the heavenly bodies or make the animals. God.
“See, he really isn't answering Job's question, which is, why am I suffering like this? My friends tell me it's because I sinned and you're doing this to me, but I didn't sin, so why?” God's answer reminds me, you know, if I can put it this way, of teenagers, you know, asking their dad, you know, what in the world did they do to get grounded? They have no idea. So they ask their dad and their dad answers, “do you go to work every day? Do you pay the bills? Do you keep the lights on? Were you there when I married your mother? When we bought our first house?”
See, it seems like, I hope this isn't, like, too weird a way of putting it, but it really seems like God is filibustering, avoiding the question, which you know, really does have a simple answer that perhaps God doesn't want to give. That stuff that happened in the first two chapters.
See in chapter 40. Moving along now, chapter 40 in verse 2, we see God's last words of His first speech to Job, and this is what He says, “shall a fault finder contend with the Almighty? Anyone who argues with God must respond.” In other words, again, how dare a puny human find fault with me. Job's response is very short.
It's only two verses before God continues with his second speech. It's only two verses that Job responds with And he says, now listen to the words here. These are, you know, this makes sense in the sort of the normal way of reading Job.
This is what Job says to God, saying, yeah, are you going to argue with me? You better respond, you better, you know, put your money where your mouth is. And Job says, “see I am of small account. What shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once and will not answer twice, but will proceed no further.” Now that sounds like Job is saying, you know, you're right. I am a puny human. I need to stop talking.
But the Hebrew here is somewhat ambiguous and I think intentionally so. See, rather than caving in, Job might actually be holding his ground. See, when he says, “I lay my hand on my mouth,” that could mean I need to shut up in the face of your great power. or, I am still waiting for you to answer my question.
See like the teenagers with their dad, they might've responded, “oh dad, we're so sorry to have opened our mouths and questioned you.” Or they might've said, “you know, we're just gonna stop talking now 'cause you're not even addressing the question.” And I think readers here are meant to ponder both options and see which one we identify with.
That's my hunch anyway. We see the same kind of ambiguity in God's second speech and Job's response. See in, in God's second speech, He basically, He doubles down on the “I'm the creator and you're not defense” for another fifty-two verses all the way to the end of chapter 41. Think about this. Why does God need to double down if Job already caved in?
See, maybe that other reading of the previous section that we just talked about, maybe that's telling us something. Maybe he didn't cave in. And God needs to double down here. Now, just as an aside, before we go further, I just feel like I need to mention this, bring this up. But you might be thinking that at this point, at least, that God is looking sort of foolish at this point, and I think that's right.
God looks not very godlike here, nor did God look godlike in the opening chapters when he made this bet. And accepting this, and again, this is one of these crucial things for me. Accepting how God is portrayed here in the Book of Job, rather than explaining it away, might be crucial for understanding this book.
Maybe the point of this book is not to give us an accurate portrait of God. Maybe the point of this book is to portray bad theology, a bad view of God. Maybe the point of this book is to argue against God as transactional or petty, or makes cosmic bets with your life in the balance. A God who's basically touchy and wants to silence your question. It's against this God that Job holds his ground and it is for holding his ground that Job is vindicated at the end.
See, if we look to Job for information about what God is like, and if we just touch down on verses here and there and you know, say the words of Job's friends, or even hear in God's speeches, and if we don't interrogate those passages in light of the whole, we may actually come away sounding like Job’s friends.
And that's not a good place to be. That's a problem. And yet that's how I often hear Job explained. “Yeah, you are a sinful worm. Do not question the mysteries of the sovereign God. Accept what happens as part of God's plan for your life.” The problem is the Book of Job, taken as a whole, contradicts that idea.
Okay, two more things I'd like to cover. One is Job's final response. This is five verses long, and this is in 42:2-6. This closes out this whole poetic section right before the last narrative section. And, and then the second thing I want to just talk about briefly is the conclusion of the book, that narrative portion that may actually turn the whole book upside down.
Fascinating ending as far as I'm concerned. Okay. First, Job's response to God here, sounds again, like he's caving in. And when I say here, I mean in 42:2-6 his last words, it sounds like he's caving in, like he's settling for God's like non-answer, His filibuster answer. But see here, just as in his last response, Job's words are delightfully, I really think, intentionally ambiguous.
You know, he begins, this is the first thing he says. He begins by saying, “I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” And readers who, uh, who were tracking with the Book of Job up to this point, you're left asking yourself a question.
Is this a declaration of submission to God or is it a little bit sarcastic? Right. Is he saying, “I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted?” Or is he saying, [with sarcastic exhaustion] “I know that you can do all things, that no purpose of yours can be thwarted? You know, I know you go to work every day and pay the bills. I get that. But now back to my question.”
Is he submissive or exasperated? Now, the next two verses, this is verses 3-4, are Job repeating back to God the words that God and Elihu had earlier used to chide him. Now, the New Revised Standard Version, and I, I'm sure other versions do this too, but they, they alert us that Job is quoting earlier parts of the book, and they do that by placing quotation marks around them.
In other words, Job, by quoting these previous words back to God is saying, “here's what I've been hearing from you.” Okay, well, why is he doing that? You know, why is he repeating back what God and Elihu said to him? And that brings us to the last two verses, verses 5-6. Okay? Verse 5. Here's what it says.
“I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear.” And that probably means “I've heard of you by what my friends and Elihu have said by their speeches, I've heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.” Right? This is God answering out of a whirlwind. He's in God's immediate presence and he knows it.
Right? “I've heard of you from others, but now I'm getting it straight from you.” And again, that sounds like, boy, this clarifies everything, but maybe not, right? Verse 6. “Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” And this, again, I keep saying this, but it's true. This is a tricky bit of Hebrew, wonderfully ambiguous.
And you see, here's an alternate reading of verse 6. Not, “therefore I despise myself,” but, “therefore I am disgusted.” In other words, “this is worse than I thought.” You know what a raw deal. And rather than “I repent in dust and ashes,” we could read that last part, “I take pity on wretched humanity.” Folks, hang with me here.
Okay, I, this is, you know, we're getting to the end here and there's a lot of heady stuff going on. Just know that I'm not making any of this up. I'm inspired here actually by the study notes in what is one of my favorite study Bibles, the Jewish Study Bible, where they're not afraid to engage this text in this way instead of giving the same old, same old.
See, the big question here at the end is whether Job is submitting to God's mysterious sovereignty, right? “Therefore, I despise myself and I repent in dust in ashes,” or whether he is holding his ground and is exasperated with God. “I've heard what you said. I've heard of you from my friends, and now I see you for myself. And you know what? I'm disgusted and I take pity on wretched humanity.”
See, that changes the book, doesn't it? Job is holding his ground. He's not acquiescing, and that is why he is right, as God says in chapter 42:7. Okay, let's finish this up here. The prose narrative. This is the second thing I wanted to talk about, the prose narrative ending.
It really raises all sorts of questions that I hear again and again from alert readers. And the big question has to do with how God restores Job. That's the word that's used, how God restores Job. And Job gets back, this is at least what is restored. Job gets back double his possessions and a fresh set of ten children.
Now, side issue here, I've never met a parent who has said, yeah, great ending. Everyone said, I really want the original ones back. I don't want, I don't want ten replacement kids 'cause that's, that's not really justice. But, but let me just suggest a way past all that. And not to get fixated and stuck on that, okay?
Remember, that Job is not a historical book. It's a story that a writer or editor uses to say something about God and the people of God, Israel, and we can even think of Job as a parable, something not intended ever to be taken literally. Now, here's where I’m going with this. Years ago, a friend of mine and a former colleague pointed out to me something just so interesting about verse 10 specifically.
Never noticed this on my own. That verse reads “the Lord,” Yahweh. “The Lord restored the fortunes of Job.” That Hebrew phrase literally means the Lord restored the fortunes of Job. The Lord, quote “turned the captivity of Job.” I'll let that sit there for a second. Right? That means nothing. The Lord turned the captivity of Job.
That means nothing until we see that the phrase is used elsewhere in the Bible. Only, here we go, of the restoration of the people coming back from Babylonian exile. That's, you can see this in Deuteronomy chapter 30, the first couple of verses and a few places in Jeremiah. Okay, so hold that thought. “The Lord turned the captivity of Job” is like return from exile language.
Now medieval Jewish interpreters also notice that the Book of Job describes Job using a lot of phrases that also appear in Isaiah 40 and following, which is that portion of Isaiah that is all about the, wait for it, return from exile. Hold that thought. Also, also, Job is afflicted with boils as we read from the sole of his foot to the top of his head in Deuteronomy chapter 28.
And this is a, uh, a long list of curses against Israel that clearly culminates in the exile. And if you wanna see that, you can see chapter 28:47-57 There we read, this is in verse 35. We read, “the Lord will strike you,” Israel, “on the knees and on the legs with grievous boils of which you cannot be healed from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.”
Hold that thought. Last one you gotta hold here. We're gonna get four balls juggling up in the air here at the same time. Last point. Job receives back double. That's what we read in this narrative portion. Job receives back double, which sounds similar to Isaiah Chapter 40, where the promise of return from exile is announced.
And if you know Handel's Messiah, you might be familiar with this, but the exiled Jews have now served their penalty. Their time of punishment is over, and we read there in Isaiah 40 that they have received from the Lord's hand double for their sins. The exile was like super punishment. They've gotten double what they deserve.
The exile was punishment. Twice what they deserved, and Job, I can't help but notice, gets back twice what he lost. Hmm. Well, where is all this heading? Well, on at least one level, the book of Job may be a parable of something that does not come to mind right away when we read the book of Job, but it could be a parable of Israel and exile.
Hmm. Job represents the people in exile. Again, sort of like a parable, right. Job represents the people in exile suffering, right, but who are restored at the end. Hmm. And the fact that Job is called God's servant in a few places in Job might tie into the servant in Isaiah, again, this is starting in chapter 40 and following, but the servant in Isaiah who likewise suffers the punishment of exile, and I'm thinking here particularly of the last time this servant figure is mentioned.
This is at the end of chapter 52, chapter 53. This suffering servant as he's called in Isaiah, is not, I'm pretty convinced, although there is discussion about this, just to be fair, but the servant in Isaiah who suffers, is not a person, but a way of talking about the people in exile. Job tells that tale in the form of a story, right?
That's- Job is about the problem of exile and the return from exile and the double blessing. Job tells that tale in the form of a story. And just as the Israelites questioned God's justice for exiling them to Babylon, like Psalm 89, if you wanna read that, you know, was that really necessary or fair to do that?
Just like Israel questioned God about the exile, Job questions God throughout, whether all this suffering was really justified. Now I, I find reading Job as a parable, very inviting. It makes a lot of sense. Now to be clear. I don't think that's the only way to read it. In fact, I think there's more than one legitimate way to read the book of Job.
It's just this rich, diverse text. But seeing it as a parable of Israel and exile, I think changes entirely the question that the book is addressing. Again, not personal suffering, but perhaps national suffering. I. I, you know, I say this a lot and I'll say it here again, you know, we're just scratching the surface here in the book of Job, but I, I hope this has been helpful, if anything, to get you thinking about Job maybe a bit differently.
And it's definitely a literary and theological masterpiece that leaves few of us completely comfortable.
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