Job Session Three

Before we move on to Session Three, let's review what we've learned and thought about in the previous sessions. Take a moment to refresh your memory on the key points: Job's character, what God and the narrator said about him, the bet between God and Satan, Job's lament, and finally what Job's three friends said about him, his suffering, and what he should do to regain his good life.

How does suffering or injustice affect your prayer life?

Is it okay to feel angry at God? If so, what do you do with that anger?

If it's not okay to be angry at God, why not?

Take a few minutes to think these over on your own or discuss with others, and then write down your answers.

We are often uncomfortable with people who complain, cry, or grieve for what seems too long. We are also often uncomfortable with those who in public don't grieve the "right" way, whatever that is. And then on top of that judgemental idea of how one must voice despair, is the much-heard idea that when suffering happens and you respond with lamenting or grief, then your faith is not strong enough. You will get well if you believed more or believed absolutely, certain people say.

But.

If faith is a gift from God and if you don't have it, why would God be punishing you for not having something He hasn't given you?

And.

Job became very ill with boils in spite of the fact that he is considered God's most faithful servant.

Furthermore, we know that God does not need faith to work. He works his acts on earth through all sorts of people, from deeply faithful people to the totally faithless. No, God doesn't need faith to act, but he invites it, for he wants a relationship with us, all of us.

We are usually so focused on the first question, we pay little regard to the second. But Job's speeches are all about answering the second question. It is the heart of the bet between God and Satan. While we're consumed by traumas that throw us into despair, like Job is, God and Satan are wrestling over the nature of our faith. It's like we're the ants in their cosmic play as they tussle over who is right. Or so it seems.

When God brought Job to Satan's attention, he knew what would happen to Job, but he also knew that Satan would not be able to resist proving God wrong. Was he in fact acting more to tempt Satan - the great tempter himself - than to endanger Job's life and his loved ones? Did God tempt Satan into challenging him to prove to Satan and to the world that nothing can move faith when that faith forms the core of a person?

We know Job was humble. Humility and his total worshipping of God soak the first paragraphs describing Job. Satan believed that Job had put God at the centre of his life because God had blessed him generously. But God believed that the relationship itself, Job's love for his Creator, was why Job had put Him at the centre of his life.

Who is right? We find out as we read through Job's speeches.

When reading these chapters, pay particular attention to these verses:

16:7-17
16:19
17:1
19:11
19:21-29

The narrator won't let us go to the idea that Job's response, like that of many people who suffer deeply, is a pity party played with the smallest violin or reflects a person so full of themselves that they think God would actually target them. As you read Job's speeches, remember God approved at the end. He is interested in each one of us!

Job has spent much time despairing and rebuking his friends, but now he turns his eyes from the inward view up and out to God and how God is relating to him through his experience. He feels that God has become his adversary. God is pouring out his gall upon the ground, which brings to mind the wormwood and the gall in Lamentations 3:19. We are often like Job in feeling that God has come up against us, turning our spirit bitter and pouring it onto the ground so that even bitterness requires too much energy for the weary, oh so weary soul. Between the speeches of his friends and the silence of God, Job feels massed against and looks for a defender.

Why might someone think of God as an adversary?

If you did not know the back story, would you believe this to be an instance of God testing Job, just like many say to sufferers today that hard times reflect God testing us and that He won't give us more than we can endure?

But why would an all-knowing God need to test us? What could we show him through "testing" that He doesn't already know? We have in a sense distorted the meaning of "testing," for In the New Testament, "testing" means "refining" not proving. But did God say that Job needed refining?

Job believes he has a witness in heaven, and that witness will vouch for him. Though the troubles God has brought upon him has broken his spirit, he cannot see any more good coming his way, nothing but the endless pain of body and soul he is in, he still has enough integrity left to assert that he has a witness. It takes great self-awareness and great strength of mind to resist the kind of relentless peer pressure he is under to still know he is innocent and to know there is someone in heaven who will vouch for his innocence.

Job goes on to develop this idea of a witness for him in his next speech when he says that he knows his Redeemer lives and then in his flesh he shall see God, whom he knows is on his side. He is directly contradicting his friends by asserting that God is on his side; he is also contradicting the very nature of his situation.

How could God be on his side when he is covered in boils, friendless, family-less,
money-less?

This dual view of God is common when suffering. Job continues to express poetically and clearly what it is like to suffer and to be in conflict with God, yet seek hope from that same God.

According to one analysis of Chapter 19, the Hebrew word "goel" means advocate, redeemer, vindicator, or deliverer, essentially one who is under the moral and legal obligation to protect the rights of another and to restore that other's former status. This redeemer was at first considered to be a family member or kinsman who would redeem, but not necessarily. One famous example is Boaz who was kinsman-redeemer for Ruth (the Book of Ruth comes before the Book of Job in the Old Testament). Over time it came to be known that God was the ultimate redeemer. After all, it was God who redeemed his people out of bondage from Egypt.

A redeemer is more than just a mediator or a witness who vouches for a person. A redeemer is one who is under a moral and legal obligation to see justice done. No wonder Job goes on to muse about the wicked and the state of justice on this earth.

Christians can easily read that Job is talking about Christ when they see the word "Redeemer." We often say that Christ was there in the Creation, and Christ is part of the Holy Trinity. But this is an Old Testament allegory, written long before the time of Christ. However, they did have the idea of a Messiah who would redeem his people, that God would send that Messiah down to earth. Zoroastrians talk about a Saviour who will redeem the people from the bondage of evil on this earth. Zarathustra was sent as a salve for the hurting people until it was time for the Saviour to come. This yearning for a Redeemer, a Saviour is built into us, and Job here expresses this yearning in a tangible, personal way.

Job's Redeemer is his God, who is also his adversary.

There is no sense of time in this poem, other than Job speaks as if his redemption won't happen until he is dead and made alive again to see God. In other words, a Redeemer comes but not for a very long time, in fact not until the Day of Judgement - "at the last" (19:25) -- when everyone will be resurrected. Job is impatient, he aches for an answer from God, but he won't give up his integrity for his impatience. He is prepared to wait until that day for God to answer him, to tell him the reason for evil in the world. Since God "has put him in the wrong" (19:6), then God owes Job the right to know the reason for the evil that befell him, and not just him. Job is concerned with more than himself. He is concerned also about why the wicked thrive, why the innocent are prey to injustice.

Job is concerned about his friends as well. He warns them that the anger in their words against him will come back to them. He warns them to be afraid of God's wrath, of God's judgement at the end. How often do we warn our friends of the dangers of comfortable Christianity, of letting God off the hook, of looking for sin in others and twisting knowledge of that person around in order to see it? Of course, the friends feel that they are in the right, that "the root of the matter is found in" Job. (19:28) But Job is warning them not to let God off the hook, not to find fault in him so as to avoid challenging God on this question of evil, for when they prematurely acquit God of bringing troubles upon Job for no good reason, when they bring false accusations against a sufferer, they open themselves to judgement on that last day when all are resurrected. Zoroastrians too talk of the resurrection and what will befall those who allow themselves to be deceived, that the innocent will go through judgement like milk and honey, but the deceived will suffer. Christians talk of Jesus the Saviour already having redeemed them of their sins, but will God really say "no problem" to those who have acquitted him and seen to their own comfortable thinking through accusing the sufferer?

Job describes what he thinks are but the outskirts of God's Creation and finds the thunder of his power hard to understand.

Job moves from despair to seeing God as his adversary and then also his Redeemer to contemplating how God blesses the wicked, how he lets evil reign on earth, how God created his situation, and, here in chapter 26, he now moves to contemplating the nature of God's creation and His incomprehensible power.

How might an appreciation of Creation comfort a sufferer, an appreciation not enforced upon them by another I might add?

Job thinks back to how God has helped him in the past. He believes that God helps the most vulnerable. He goes on from there to describe the incomprehensibility of God's creation, its magnificence, and how it came to be as it was described in Genesis 1:1-2, which is prescient of him, as we find out in the last chapters.

Contrasting two competing translations of those early Genesis verses, the New International Version and the New Revised Standard Version, with Job, we find:

NIV: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

NRSV: In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

Job 26:7 in the NIV is: He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing. But in the NRSV, it is: He stretches out Zaphon over the void, and hangs the earth upon nothing.

We can see here some of the problems of translation. The meaning of a Hebrew word can hang on one character. I use the NRSV because I was informed it had the best translation of the Hebrew and apparently it's the only one accepted by Orthodox, Catholics, and Protestants alike. Even so, no translation can be seen as the final word, and it's useful to compare translations and use our reason within the context to figure out just what Job was saying. To me, from a writing perspective, "Zaphon" has much more connotation, is more useful to a poet, than "north" or "northern skies". The word "void" means more than just empty, it also creates a shape in the mind. That's another reason why I prefer the NRSV. But either way Job's words remind us of Genesis.

Is Job seeing a glimpse of God's answer in his soliloquy on God's Creation?

A righteous servant of God whose feet holds fast to God may be so in sync with his Creator that he intuits God's deeper, more mysterious ways.

Within the allegory of Job, Job speaks an allegory of God and His workers and His work.

Job talks lyrically of God's creation/work and workers: great heat and upheaval, a melting of hardness, lie behind his calm words. Some of the ideas we see:

Miners can be interpreted as God's prophets and disciples as "they put an end to darkness".

The words "out of the earth comes bread" can be seen as God providing daily bread through the miners/prophets' efforts.

The understanding of Wisdom and Understanding can come from those who suffer the hardships of digging deep into the heart of the mountain of God.

Job has been in the realm of dead and rotting flesh, he is even "clothed with worms" (7:5), creatures who eat dead flesh but leave live flesh alone and thus clean out wounds safely despite the gross factor. He is, in that sense, already in Abaddon. Abaddon is a place of destruction or the realm of the dead.

Evil is evident in Job's experience of suffering and injustice.

The entire visual that Job lays out builds up to the concept of wisdom and understanding. He speaks at length about how God works through his workers in an effort to understand where wisdom and understanding come from. His friends know where at least wisdom comes from.

Zophar says true wisdom has two sides (11:6), but doesn't seem to say what they are.

Eliphaz suggests that wisdom can be limited when he accuses Job of limiting it to himself. (15:8)

Bildad doesn't speak of wisdom.

Job repeats almost word for word what God says about Job (fears God and turns away from evil):

Wisdom is the fear of the Lord.

Understanding is turning away from evil.

In repeating God's words about himself, not knowing that that is what God had said, Job is not only showing us how closely he does follow God, but also that God considers Job to have wisdom and understanding. This will tie in with what God says of Job at the end. The narrator had also affirmed this in Chapter Two by saying that Job does not sin with his lips.

This section is controversial. I have seen wildly differing interpretations of Chapter 31, particularly the part where Job signs an oath of innocence to God and proclaims that he would be proud to carry the indictment from his accuser/adversary.

Job has been building up to this moment. He began in despair, wishing he were dead, talking to God. After being assaulted unfairly by his friends, he asserted his innocence to them and to God. He speaks about God's authority and how no one can thwart God's will. And that terrifies him, given what has happened to him. He waffles between seeing God as his adversary and his Redeemer. He complains that God has sent his friends as messengers against him, further heightening the image of God as his adversary, as one who opposes him but not in malice or hatred as an enemy does. He doesn't see God as his enemy, but he does see his friends as his enemies. He knows that there is a witness for him in heaven and he builds on that by saying that his Redeemer will stand with him on the last day. He challenges God on why the wicked prosper while the innocent suffer, and he challenges his friends' Pollyanna ideas that the wicked will get theirs. He says that God is the author of the wicked's prosperity while they wish to have nothing to do with him. He firmly disputes his friends' contention that he's wicked by noting that he follows God's footsteps closely, he affirms his persistent integrity, and then shows us how closely he follows God by repeating what He had said about him in his definition of wisdom and understanding.

And now he completes his case by swearing an Oath of Innocence, preceded by a list of negatives as proof. He lists all the things he could have done, words he could have said, thoughts he could have thunk, that would define him as wicked, saying that if he had done all those things, then let his land become thorny and weedy. But he has not done any of those things, despite what his friends had imagined. And so being innocent the curses he calls for will not rain down on his head.

The opposite of these statements define his righteousness, and based on that, he swears out an Oath and signs it to the Almighty. He has filed a lawsuit against God and by doing so, forces God to answer him. If God does not answer, then the Oath immediately vindicates Job and then Job could formally condemn God.

But Job has been sure for a long time that God will answer, probably on the last day; he just wants to speed up the process, not condemn God. After all Job loves God. God is the centre of his life. No, Job is impatient and fed up with his situation, one that he does not deserve, one that makes no sense, and one God prolongs through His silence while his friends' assail him He is so sure of his innocence that he would carry God's indictment against him on his shoulder, for the indictment would prove his innocence. And he could easily defend himself against that indictment if it held anything else in it, as he can give "an account of all my steps; like a prince I would approach him." (31:37)

And now Job rests. And he waits.

The cultural equivalent of Job's Oath of Innocence is a protest. Like Tamil-Canadians recently protested the Canadian government's inaction and silence on the war offensive in Sri Lanka, so too Job is protesting to God about his situation, about how God has sent his friends as messengers against him, about the way the wicked are blessed, about how he's maintained his integrity through all this, about his righteousness, yet also about how God remains silent. God does not answer him!

Around Chapter 19, Job changed direction and started to get angry and believe that God needed to answer him, which culminated in his oath in Chapter 31.

Have you ever been in a protest? What so angered you that you picked up a sign and walked up and down a public sidewalk to get someone to hear you?

Did you expect an answer?

Did your protest result in getting an answer or a solution?

What is Job's protest?

Do you believe God is compelled to answer Job? Why or why not?

If you're suffering right now, do you feel that God is punishing you? Do you feel your comforters are as miserable as Job's? Often what people say to their suffering friends are more about them relieving themselves of wrestling with difficult theological problems than about relieving the suffering. Are you wondering how long your suffering will go on for? Then protest!

Write a protest letter to God!!

Then think about sharing that protest with at least one other person. Just as Job spoke in the presence of his friends, including swearing out and signing an oath, try sharing your protest. But unlike Job, it would probably be a good idea to share it with a sympathetic person!