THE BOOK OF JOB
AND ITS DOCTRINE OF GOD
R. LAIRD HARRIS
Professor
of Old Testament
Covenant
Theological Seminary
A few years ago, there was a man of
the East--the eastern
rather
famous play called J. O. B., taking his theme from that ancient
man
from a distant eastern country, Job. The play was in no sense a
commentary
on Job, and it gave a radically different treatment of the
problems
of the relation of God, man and evil. But at least we may say
that
MacLeish's choice of his title underlines the perennial fascination
of
the book of Job, even to those who may not agree with its teaching
land
conclusions. It is in every respect a great book. It deals with
some
of the deepest problems of man and directs us to the existence of
a
sovereign God for their solution. It treats these problems not in a
doctrinaire
fashion, but wrestles with them and gives us answers to pro-
claim
to a troubled age, to a generation that recognizes the antinomies
of
life, but cannot find a meaningful solution for them. We hope in these
studies
to see how the ancient godly philosopher and prophet explores
deeply
the basic questions of life and offers to the man of faith answers
far
wiser than much which passes for wisdom today. But first to turn
to
some technical questions.
The Date of Job
Probably the most common view of the
date of Job in conservative
circles
has been that the book is very old. For example, the Scofield
Reference
Bible points to the patriarchal period. The Jewish tradition
enshrined
in the Talmud (Baba Bathra 14b) says Moses was its
author.
This
Jewish tradition is quite late. The Talmud was not codified until
The
material in this article was originally presented at Grace Theological
Seminary
as comprising the Louis S. Bauman Memorial Lectures, February
8-11,
1972.
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the
5th century A. D., and our manuscripts of it come from a still later
period.
The tradition may have some value however. It may not be
that
the data on authorship was correctly remembered by the Jews
but
that they came to the conclusion of early authorship from various
factors
that we too can observe.
That there was an ancient worthy by the
name of Job is sure a
from
Ezekiel
The
reference is similar to that in Jeremiah 15:1, which uses Moses and
Samuel
as ancient types of righteousness. It used to be remarked that
the
verses in Ezekiel mean little because Daniel is one of the trio, and
the
book of Daniel is now regularly placed in the second century B. C.
We
are, of course, not willing to concede the late date of Daniel. A
newly
discovered Targum, a Targum
of Job, interestingly, argues that
the
Aramaic of Daniel does not reflect the language of the second cen-
tury B. C. in
that
this Targum of Job was translated about 100 B. C. and
shows a later
stage
of Aramaic than Ezra or Daniel. In any case, this passage in
Ezekiel
is no longer held to be against the early date of Job, for the
reference
to Daniel is now differently understood. It is now said that
the
Daniel of Ezekiel refers not to the canonical Daniel, but to the Daniel
mentioned
in the Ugaritic Texts as an ancient wise man, the
father of
the
hero, Aqhat. Here again, we may enter a disclaimer.
The Daniel
of
tually Ezekiel does
not appeal to these men because they were ancient,
but
because they were righteous. But in any case, the verses do assure
us
that Ezekiel, about 600 B. C., did know the story of Job.
The
only other external evidence for the antiquity of the book
would
come from cross references and allusions in other Biblical books.
Proverb
Job
Proverbs
says, "My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord." The
wording
of the two passages is identical in Hebrew, except that Job has
the
divine name, Shaddai, which it very frequently uses,
and Proverbs
uses
the more common name, the Tetragram. It also adds a charac-
teristic proverbial
touch, "my son." The force of such a parallel is
debatable,
because it is hard to know which book quoted the other,
granted
that there was some verbal dependence. The whole chapter is
an
encomium of wisdom in terms of a search for wisdom in places which
only
God knows. The conclusion is that "the fear of the Lord that is
wisdom;
and to depart from evil is understanding." This conclusion is
quite
like Proverbs 1:7;
is,
did Job build a beautiful poem on the subject of wisdom as defined in
Proverbs
and use it in his context? Or did Proverbs and the Psalms take
a
theme already developed in Job and allude to it In various verses? We
JOB AND ITS DOCTRINE OF GOD 5
cannot
be sure, but it does seem a little more probable that Proverbs
and
Psalms did the borrowing. The matter is somewhat complicated by
the
problem of the position of Job 28 itself. Critical commentators feel
that
the whole chapter is intrusive. It is indeed distinctive, but there
is
no need to object to such a poem being included in Job's asseveration
of
his righteousness. Actually the chapter is an important part of Job's
argument.
It builds up to a great climax in which Job establishes his
ethical-
and moral standard.
Another parallel is between. Job"
71:17 and Psalm 8:5. Job says,
“What
is man that you magnify him? The Psalm says, "What is man
that
you remember him?" The word "man" in each case is the less
used
word for man, ‘enosh making literary interdependence more likely.
Another
parallel is Job 2:13 and Proverbs 10:28. Job says, "The hope I
of
a profane man shall perish." Proverbs puts it. "The hope of a
wicked
man shall perish." The two statements differ only in the words
for
a wicked man. The word "profane" is found several times in Job.
It
would be more natural for the somewhat unusual word to be found
in
the original passage. Another parallel is Isaiah 19:5 with Job 14:11.
The
last half of each verse "the waters shall fail from the sea" is iden-
tical. The verses are
in different contexts, however, and it would be it
hard
to prove which is copied from the other. Another passage showing
a
literary parallel is the section in which Job curses his day (Job 3:1-11).
Jeremiah
does likewise (Jer.
sage,
quotes Dillmann as arguing that Job is earlier
because more power-
ful and vivid. Driver questions this
conclusion because, he says, Job
was
written by a greater poet in any case (Introduction
to the Literature
of the O.T.,
now
support Dillman's argument by reference to allusions
in this pas-
sage
to Ugaritic motifs (Vs. 8 refers to Leviathan) of
which we shall
speak
again later. Also, there is a parallel between Job 18 :5, 6 and
Proverbs
13:9. Driver believes that Bildad borrowed from
Proverbs.
But
Bildad has a four line poem against the "lamp of
the wicked.” Pro-
verbs
uses only this one phrase as a contrast to the bright shining of
the
lamp of the righteous. It is just as likely, perhaps more so, that
Proverbs
did the borrowing.
There are also interesting verbal
parallels of Job 27:1 and 29:1
With
Numbers 23:7, 18; 24:3, 15. Four times the book of Numbers says
Balaam
"took up his parable and said." It is probable that the verbal
parallel
is only due to a common linguistic usage. But it is interesting
to
date that the parallel is with Balaam, another man of the eastern area,
and
one living in Moses' day. To sum up, there are a few interesting
verbal
parallels with Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, and the Balaam oracles.
These
are not conclusive, but incline somewhat toward a pre-monarchy
date
for the writing.
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There is also considerable internal
evidence for a pre-monarchy
date,
or even for Mosaic times. This evidence is of two kinds--com-
parison of the book
with Biblical data and comparison with the general
archaeological
picture of early times. On the first point, it has been
widely
noticed that the picture of Job's sacrificial ritual is like that of
the
patriarchs and bears no relation to the tabernacle ritual of Moses'
day
and later. Job served as a priest in his own house, as Abraham
did,
and as Melchizedek seems to have done. Of course, this may have
been
due to Job's locale as a righteous man off in the East believing
in
the
scene is patriarchal. At the same time, the book mentions names
of
the patriarchal circle. The
Abraham's
nephew (Gen. 22:21) and Elihu the Buzite
belonged to the clan
headed
by the brother of Oz. Bildad the Shuhite
was a descendant of
Abraham
himself, by Keturah (Gen. 25:2). Presumably, the
reason this
record
got into the circle of
were
distant cousins of the Israelites. We may even get a glimpse here
of
those other godly men of Abraham's day who like Melchizedek, Wor-
shipped
the true God though they were not in Abraham's immediate family.
When
God called Abraham to found the theocracy, there were others
around
who shared Abraham's faith.
There is another ancient touch, hard to
evaluate. It is the use
of
the divine name Shaddai. This and Eloah
are the characteristic names
for
God in Job and are used sparingly elsewhere. Shaddai
occurs some
thirty
times in Job, six times in the Pentateuch and seldom elsewhere.
The
matter is complicated first because we are not sure of its origin,
and
secondly, critics have argued that the P document teaches in Exodus
6:3
that all instances of "Jehovah" before Moses are anachronistic and
are
therefore useful for separating out Pentateuchal
documents.
Personally, I am of the opinion that the
word is borrowed from
the
Akkadian or Amorite and was indeed used early in
feel
the derivation from the word for "breast" is fanciful and does not
explain
what seems to be an archaic Lemedh-He ending. The
hard "d"
need
not be a doubling, but a preservation of the old Akkadian
pronun-
ciation which had no
soft "d." And the Akkadian shalu means
mountain,
which
would be a very suitable expression of the eternality of God. The
Psalmist
often applies the Hebrew word, mountain, zur to God. If this
be
the etymology of the word, its use would be an archaic touch.
We
need not agree with critical source division of Genesis to be-
lieve that
"Jehovah" was more widely used in late Hebrew than in early
times.
It may have been a Hebrew word and if so, would have been
less
used by the patriarchs who learned Canaanite as their second
language.
It is notable that none of the patriarchal families use the
JOB AND ITS DOCTRINE OF GOD 7
element
Jehovah in their names. Shaddai--names also are rare,
though
the
two we know are Pentateuchal, Zurlshaddal
and Shedeur.
There is little else internally to date
the book. The mention of
domesticated
camels in 1:3 would indicate to the Albright: school that the
book
was later than the 13th century. But the date of domestication of
camels
is in dispute. It may be that in the settled areas camels were
not
common, but that nomads of the desert used them earlier. At least
Abraham
also had his camels. The mention of iron (
40:18;
41 :27) also might indicate a date after 1200 B. C. when the iron
age
began. But the occasional mention of iron at an earlier day is not
surprising
for iron was used in small amounts long before the discovery
of
better methods of iron working which made its use common in about
1200
B. C. Two talents of iron--about 150 pounds--are mentioned in a
Ugaritic tablet from
Moses' day. Marvin Pope, in his Anchor Bible
Commentary
on Job, points out that the unit of money (or item of jew-
elry) mentioned Job
33:19
and its parallel, Josh. 24:32. Job's
longevity also--140 years after
his
trial--is of the patriarchal vintage.
Secondly, as to the historical
background of Job, it seems to fit
well
with ideas and literature of the second millennium B. C. Pope re-
marks
that "the ideas championed by Job's friends were normative in
Mesopotamian
theology from the early second millennium B. C." (p.
XXXV)
and he compares several works on suffering: From Egypt, the
Dispute over Suicide and the Tale of the Eloquent Peasant, and from
Akkadian work I will Praise the Lord of Wisdom, also
called The Baby-
lonian Job, describes a sufferer who recovers, and
the Dialogue About
Human Misery sometimes
called the Babylonian Ecclesiastes is on a
similar
topic. Pope offers extracts from these works. They can be
read
conveniently in ANET. It should be noted that these works con-
sider the problem of
suffering, as does the book of Job, but their answer
is
quite different. Pope -is accurate in stating that they agree by and
large
with the viewpoint of the three comforters. That is, they teach
that
wickedness brings suffering and righteousness blessing. But the real
answer
of Job was distinctive and far above his comforters and different
from
these early treatments. However, it is of importance to notice that .
the
Subje.ct received extensive treatment in early times
and thus Job fits
well
agamst the background of that day.
Many, however, including Pope, have given
a later date. Pfeiffer
(Introduction to the O. T. ) gives a date
of about 600 B. C. Driver dated
think
"most probably to the period of the Babylonian captivity" (Intro-
duction to the Literature of the O. T.,
1892,
p. 405). A. Bentzen
is uncertain. He places the date of the book
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after
the discussion of retribution in Ezekiel 18 and before the refer- c
ences to "the
prophet Job who maintained all the ways of righteousness" ft ,
in
Ecclesiasticus 49:9. (Introduction to the O.T. 4th
ed.
G.E.C.
Gad, 1958 Vol. II, p. 179). Eissfeldt is not
positive, but says
"we
should probably think of the post-exilic period, and perhaps most
probably
of the later period rather than the earlier, i. e.,
about the
fourth
century. The language of the book fits in with this, for it often
reveals
an Aramaic coloring," (The O.T., an
Introduction tr. by Peter
R.
and
his arguments seem now to be invalidated by the Dead Sea Scrolls
and
better knowledge of the Aramaic language. Fragments of Job are
found
among the Dead Sea Scrolls actually dating from about 200 B. C.
They
are written in the paleo- Hebrew Script implying that
there was a
considerable
history of copying behind them. And now to the further
surprise
of many, the Targum referred to above, an Aramaic
trans la-
tion of Job, has
been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The copy is
from
about A. D. 50, but the translation itself is dated by the editors at
about
100 B. C. Evidently Job was already a loved and famous book in
the
second century B.C.
More scholars have now veered toward a
pre-exilic date. Al-
bright
dated it in "the sixth or fifth century B. C." (Supplement to Vetus
Testamentum 3, -1960, p.
14). Pope hesitatingly suggests the seventh
century
B. C. before the movements that brought the destruction of
(p.
xxxvii) as the date of the dialogue but does not commit himself on the
unity
of the book. As we hope to show later, there are cross references
from
the main body of the book to every other part. There is therefore
no
need to question its unity and to say that it existed for centuries in
partial
form. Some have declared that the references to Satan betray
Persian
influence. Strange then that there are no Persian words in the
book!
Satan is a name of Hebrew derivation,
not Persian. Actually,
the
theology of the book should not be used as a datum for dating be-
cause
opinions will differ as to whether advanced theology indicates late
borrowing
or early revelation.
It wouid be
nice if the language of Job could be used to indicate
the
date, but we do not have contemporary Hebrew--or eastern--dialects
to
use as a standard. The language of Job is difficult and must be dis-
cussed
shortly, but it has been variously evaluated and can give us little
help
on the problem of dating.
In the absence of definite evidences for
late dating and in view
of
numerous indications of a patriarchal milieu, it seems possible to
hold
to a Mosaic or slightly pre-Mosaic date in accord with much old
Jewish
and Christian sentiment. However, the New Testament does not
speak
on either Job's authorship or date, and the date is not of theological
JOB AND ITS DOCTRINE OF GOD 9
concern.
We may therefore hold our conclusion provisionally expecting
further
light, especially from linguistic studies.
Job and the
Canon
In our Hebrew Bibles, Job is the second
or the third book in the
third
division called the writings. Practically all the works on O. T.
introduction,
both conservative and critical, trace this three-fold divi-
sion back as far as
the prologue to Ecclesiasticus about 130 B. C. Crit-
ical scholars
suppose that the third division in the canon was placed last
in
the collection because it was latest in time. The canon is said to
have
developed in three stages with the law being canonized first at about
400
B.C., the prophets second at 200 B.C., and the writings last at
about
A. D. 90. This final canonization was the work of the council of
Jamnia. The idea is
that the books of the third division were not gen-
erally enough accepted
to be included in the second division at 200 B. C .,
On
this view, Job was finished at least at a relatively late date and at-
tained canonical
status only after 200 B. C. Some more recent scholars
who
would place Job in pre-exilic times do not face the question as to
why
it was not included in the earlier canonical divisions.
Conservative scholars like E. J. Young
and R. K. Harrison sug-
gest that the
tri-partite division was due to different types of authorship,
rather
than to different stages of canonization. (E. J. Young, An Intro-
duction to the O.T.,
Harrison,
Introduction to the O.T.,
p.
284.) The claim is that the second division was written by prophets
and
the third division by men who had the prophetic gift, but not the
prophetic
office. This characterization would apparently apply to the
author
of Job. I have elsewhere argued against this view (R. L. Harris,
Inspiration and
Canonicity of the Bible,
pp-129ff,
170ff). There is no biblical support for the distinction made
between
a prophet by office and a prophet by gift. Of course, in the
case
of Job, the matter is the more uncertain because, if Job were not
the
author, we have no valid information as to who was. Ecclesiasticus
speaks
of "the prophet Job" but his witness is too late to help, except
that
it reveals the attitude of Judaism of the second century B. C.
authenticating
character of the Biblical books. These books and no others
Won
their way first into Hebrew hearts, and therefore into the Jewish
canon.
Job is surely a book that would have commanded wide acceptance
by
the people of God.
A further point, however, is important
and is usually neglected
by
O. T. students. It is by no means certain that the division of books
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found
in Our Hebrew Bibles is the division common among the ancient
Jews.
Indeed, there is positive evidence that it was not. The present
three-fold
division with five books in the law, eight in the prophets, and
eleven
in the writings, cannot be traced back of the Talmud which was
codified
in the fifth century. There is a three-fold division mentioned
in
Ecclesiasticus, as stated above, but there is no
proof that it was our
three-fold
division. On the contrary, Josephus, earlier than the Talmud,
evidences
a differing three-fold division with five books in the law, thir-
teen
in the prophets, and only four in the writings. From his termin-
ology, it is clear
that Josephus regarded such a book as Job-also Chron-
icles, Daniel and
others--as among the prophets. This evidence fits
much
better the reference in Ecclesiasticus to Job as a
prophet and in
Matthew
24:15 to Daniel as a prophet. Far too long, the Talmud has
been
used as the point of reference in canonical studies. Earlier Wit-
ness
leads to quite different results.
Actually the three-fold division of the
canon was not the only one.
The
N. T., the LXX and the
was
also an ancient two-fold division of the canon into the Law and the
prophets.
This too I have argued elsewhere and need not pursue. But,
according
to this division, Job would Pave been from early times accorded
the
place of a prophetic book. As a consequence, we cannot use the
position
of Job in the Hebrew Bible to argue either for a late or early
date
of its composition. Job was accepted, as far as our scanty evi-
dence goes, from the
time of its writing. If its prophetic authorship
were
acknowledged then, as it was believed later, this would doubtless
have
settled the matter of the acceptance of the book. In any case, the
majesty
of the style of Job and its .other marks of divine inspiration
would
have commended itself to the ancient Hebrews. We need not doubt
that
it was accepted as canonical from the time of its writing, although
the
details are lost in the mists of antiquity.
The Language of
Job
It is agreed on all sides that Job is a
great book, as well as a
beautiful
one. It is also agreed by students beginning work in Hebrew
poetry
that Job is a difficult book to translate. Those who specialize in
statistics
say that there are more hapax legomena used
in Job than in
any
other O. T. book. And the problems of translation are not entirely
lexical
either. There are unusual forms and some strange usages which,
unless
recognized, will lead the translator astray. An extreme example:
of
the difficulty of translation is exhibited in the strange verse of the
A
V in 36:33. "The noise of it showeth concerning
it; the cattle also
concerning
the vapor"--a verse which as it stands is quite meaningless!
The
language is so unusual that some (F. H. Foster referred to in M.
Pope,
Job- The Anchor Bible, Garden City:
Doubleday, 1965, p. XLIV
JOB AND ITS OOCTRINE OF GOD 11
hereafter
called: Pope, Job) have supposed that
the book was written in
Arabic
and what we have is a translation into Hebrew. If this be true,
I
would suggest that the translator did a poor job of rendering the work
into
Hebrew! On the face of it, such a view is unnatural. The first
written
Abrabic we have is from the 5th century A. D., and
the first lit-
erature of any extent
comes after the Hejira. It would be odd if our
only
monument of ancient written Arabic were in Hebrew!
It is true, however, that there are some
words in Job that are
neatly
explained by reference to Arabic. For instance in 23:9, the words
"work"
and "hide" in the AV may be derived from words meaning
"turn"
in
the Arabic. Also the word "drops" in the AV of 38:28, "the drops
of
dew" is found elsewhere only in Arabic. Again in 30:7, 17, the word
for
"flee" or "rest" in the AV and found only here has an
Arabic cognate
"gnaw."
(Though the sense hardly fits--to gnaw the wilderness! Com-
mentators must supply
something!) Actually, the Syriac has the same
word,
so an Arabic origin is not proved. Indeed, this example shows
the
difficulty of proving an Arabic original for a word. A root may be
known
at present only in Arabic and in Job, but our known vocabulary of
ancient Aramaic is woefully small and the word
in question may have been
used
in Aramaic also. Only occasionally can the phonetic differences
between
Aramaic, Arabic and other languages be used to identify the
original
language of the word concerned.
An example may be given from Job 35:10.
The word "songs"
of
A V is translated by Pope as "protection" deriving it from the Arabic
root
d m r "who gives protection in
the night." But the root also is
now
recognized in this sense in Ugaritic as a name of
Baal (though not
so
recognized in Cyrus Gordon's Ugaritic Textbook,
Glossary) (Pope,
Job in loc.).
A word on the place of Aramaic. There
have been others who
thought
Job was written in Aramaic and translated into Hebrew. On the
face
of it, this view would be more natural, for Aramaic was used to
the
east and north of
esis 31:47, Laban spoke Aramaic and it would be quite possible to hold
that
Job did too. There are several Aramaic touches in the book. In
16:19,
the same pair of words for witness is found, as is used by Jacob
and
by Laban in Genesis 31:47, Galeed
and Jegar-Sahadutha, and the
word
sahed is
used nowhere else in the Bible. Students of beginning
Hebrew
will be relieved to find that the verb qatal does occur in Biblical
Hebrew--twice
in Job and once in Psalm 139, which has several Aramaic
touches.
By contrast, it occurs seven times in the short Aramaic sec-
tions of Daniel and
Ezra. Again, milla
meaning word occurs several
times
in Job. This in itself is not surprising. It also occurs a number
of
times in other Hebrew poetry as a synonym of dabar. But in Job,
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the
plural of milla
thirteen times has the typical ending of the Aramaic
noun--iyn. Job also
uses the Hebrew masc. pl. form in--iym ten times.
The
force of this example is slightly blunted by the fact that Phoenician
and
Moabite also use this ending. It was not peculiar to Aramaic.
Other words cited as rare in Hebrew, but
appearing in Aramaic
are
hap "clean" (33:9); naka
"smite" (30:8) and zacak "'extinguish" (Job
17:1).
The last example is curious for it presents an argument in re-
verse.
This word is the same as another word dacak "extinguish" which
is
used five times in Job, three in Proverbs, and once in Isaiah and in
Psalms.
The two words are cognate roots. But according to ordinary
Semitic
phonetic law, the root with "d" should be Aramaic and the one
with
"z" should be Hebrew. So it is Job that shows a variety of usage
and
the other books which use only the Aramaic form.
There is another Aramaic form of some
interest for it shows
mixture.
In 37:4, the AV "stay them" (yecaqqebem)
comes from an
Aramaic
root cqb meaning to "hold back."
But it now seems that the
final
"m" is not the pronoun "them" but the enclitic
"m" common in
Ugaritic. It would
therefore seem that the form is not an Aramaism
but
an archaic form sharing some features of Ugaritic and
some of later
Aramaic.
It should be pointed out that several grammatical features
formerly
thought to be Aramaic are now seen to be native to old Can-
aanite, as evidenced
in Ugaritic--so much so that Albrecht Goetze even
classified
Ugaritic as Aramaic. Most now hold that these
features were
simply
early Canaanite, some of which survived in or were borrowed
into
Aramaic. In short, many features formerly called Aramaisms
(and
words
called "late and poetic" in Brown, Driver and Briggs Hebrew Lex-
icon)
are now seen to be archaic.
It should be recognized that Job's peculiarities
are not limited to
Arabic
and Aramaic evidences. The word for "vapor" in Job 36:27 (A V)
is
used elsewhere only in Genesis 2 :6. The old translation "mist" or
"vapor"
was a guess. The word can now be identified as borrowed
through
the Akkadian from the Sumerian. It means
"river" and refers
to
the
Journal of the
Evangelical Theological Society, Vol. II, (1968) p. 177).
Another
Sumerian word may be concealed in the word for the constella-
tion Mazzaroth (39:32 and "north" in 37:9 A V). It is
possible that the
reflects
the "1" of the Sumerian word for stars which still appears
in
the Jewish greeting "Mazal tov"--good
luck!
There are also Akkadian
influences in Job. In 33:6, man is said
to
be a creature "nipped from clay" i. e.,
created from, or of, the earth.
The
same expression occurs in the Gilgamesh Epic. Interestingly, it
also
occurs in the hymns of the Dead Sea Community, doubtless in
JOB AND ITS DOCTRINE OF GOD 13
dependence
on Job. (Pope, lob in loco and T. H. Gaster, The
Scriptures, rev. ed.
Garden City: Doubleday, 1964, p. 133).
In
29:4, the word "secret" in A V is difficult but is cognate to the
Akkadian sadadu meaning
"to protect." "The protection of God was over
my
home."
In other cases, however, words in Job
which are cognate to Akka-
dian are also found
in Ugaritic. An example given by Pope (Job in loc.)
is
the root cmq which usually means
"valley" and is so translated by AV
in
39:21. But a better sense is gotten from the meaning "strength" at-
tested
in Akkadian and Ugaritic
both.
One could well wonder if the peculiarities
of Job were due more
to
similarities to the old Ugaritic material than to
either Arabic, Ara-
maic or Akkadian. The borrowed Akkadian
words concerned are few,
although
we have an extensive Akkadian vocabulary for
comparison. Our
vocabulary
of old North Arabic is nil, and of Aramaic is limited. Even
our
Ugaritic comprises only a fraction of that dialect.
So it is well to
be
cautious. But Ugaritic influences are of various
kinds, both in vo-
cabulary, grammar, and
concept. It would seem more likely that Job
was
more indebted to the northern and western Ugaritic
neighbors.
Only a few of the Ugaritic
parallels need be given --more are
pointed
out by Pope who has made an important contribution to the study
of
Ugaritic in his book El in the Ugaritic Texts etc. The word
"ac-
quaint"
of AV in
shaphel conjugation in Ugaritic. The word "one" of A V in
perhaps
be the Ugaritic )hd cognate to Hebrew )hz_and the phrase
would
mean
"He, when he takes hold of a person. . .
Pope prefers a slight
emendation
looking in a different direction. In 36:28, the word "abun-
dantly" of AV is
better taken as the Ugaritic rb "showers." In 39:14,
the
word "leaveth" of A V is better taken as
the Ugaritic cdb cognate to
Hebrew
czb meaning "set," "part"
(Gordon, Ugaritic Studies in Glossary)
and
refers-according to Pope (Job, in loc.) following M. Dahood
to the
ostrich
laying her eggs in the sand. In 39:25, the word "among" of the
AV
is read bd
by Pope and
trumpet
"blast"--"at the blast of the trumpet he saith
Aha!"
A more significant borrowing from the Ugaritic is found in 36:30,
33
where the preposition "upon" or "concerning" of AV is taken
to be a
shorter
form of Elyon, the Most High as is witnessed to in Ugaritic.
This
rendition of the preposition cal is used repeatedly by Dahood in his
studies
on the Psalms, also in the Anchor Bible Series. The difficult
vs.
33 would read: "The Most High speaks in thunder; his anger burns
against
evil."
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There are other similarities of Job to
the Ugaritic literature.
The
use of an enclitic "m" on the end of verbs Occurs in Ugaritic as it
does
in Akkadian. The occasional use of this feature in
Biblical poetry
is
now widely recognized and several instances where "m" formerly was
thought
to be a 3 masc. pl. objective pronoun are now classed as the
enclitic
"m." One instance has been noted above, job 37:4. Other prob-
able
cases are
Ugaritic Studies--Grammar,
that
"waw" always stands first in a coordinating
situation, but may be
delayed
if it is in a subordinate clause. The Masoretes
punctuated 36:7
so
that the second "waw" began a new clause.
Pope gets better sense
by
translating "with kings on the throne he seats them." Also the later
"waw" in this verse may be so treated: "and they
are exalted forever."
There are some cases of Ugaritic phrases used in Job. In the
difficult
poem on wisdom, 28:11 the AV says "He binds the floods from
overflowing."
The context apparently speaks of mining operations where
precious
stones are found but not wisdom. The phrase in 28:11 mibbekiy
neharot has been taken
as the preposition min, plus the root "to weep."
But
there is another root nebek
meaning "spring" used only in Job 38:16.
This
root was suggested already in Brown. Driver, Briggs for 28:11 and now
the
phrase is found in Ugaritic as the word for the
"sources of the two
Ivers" where the
dwelling of the Ugaritic deity El stood. The idea is
that
the
miners reach the deep springs of water in their search for treasures.
Another such instance is 36:13, .where
the phrase "hypocrites in
heart"
AV is the same phrase "impious-minded" (Pope, Job in loc.),
applied
to the evil actions of the goddess Anath.
From this brief survery
of lexical and grammatical features, we
come
to the astonishing conclusion that the book of Job is difficult He-
brew'!
But it may be said with some confidence that it is not difficult
because
it is late and aramaic,
or late and Arabic in flavor. It shares
some
of these peculiarities regardless of their date or origin. But it ,
also
evidences touches of Mesopotamian language and clearly shows sim-
ilarities to the old
Canaanite dialect of
that
the author lived in
was
a crossroads of caravans from
and
from
gentleman
of the sons of the East, he would have had an international
outlook
and connections such as the book of job shows. We do not know
enough
about ancient dialects to date Job by its language. But there are
indications
that it would fit an early date, better than the later.
The Literature of Job
The structure of the book is well known.
There is a prose in-
troduction and conclusion.
In between, there is an extensive poetic di-
alogue. Job, in great
affliction raises the problem of innocent suffering.
JOB AND ITS DOCTRINE OF GOD 15
There
are two rounds of speeches of Job and his three friends, Eliphaz,
Bildad and Zophar. On the third circuit, Eliphaz
speaks, then Job, then
Bildad speaks very
briefly. Job gives a long speech ending with an oath
of
innocency.
The place of a third speech by Zophar is taken by a young upstart,
Elihu, who is amazed
that older heads have not put Job in his place.
When
Elihu is finished, or perhaps interrupting Elihu, Jehovah speaks to
Job
out of the storm. He speaks twice with Job and Job briefly responds
each
time in faith and humility. This leads to the final prose section
chronicling
Job's restoration to God's favor, to health, and to prosperity.
There is no Biblical parallel to the structure
of Job, and no close
parallel
in ancient literature to the format, although, as mentioned ear-
lier, there are
other treatments of the problems raised. The problems
of
the suffering of the innocent and the prosperity of the wicked have
perplexed
many and are treated by the Psalmists. Asaph asked
"Will
the
Lord cast off forever?" but confessed "this is my infirmity, but I
will
remember the years of the right hand of the Most High" (Ps. 77:
7-10).
He trusted that his affliction would be removed in God's time.
Psalm
88 is full of complaint, but does not see through the problem to
an
answer. Psalm 37:35 complains that the wicked prosper "like a
green
bay tree." But the answer is that the wicked man is soon gone.
Psalm
73 comes closest to the thought of Job. The double problem of
the
suffering of the righteous and the prosperity of the wicked is solved
in
the sanctuary of God and, like Job, the Psalmist's thought is directed
to
God alone in heaven. But Job draws out the argument in extensu and
reaches
a grander expression of his conclusion.
Efforts, of course, have been made to
fragment the book of Job,
as
has been done with almost every other O. T. book. The prose parts
at
the beginning and end have been cut off. The speeches of Elihu
and
of
Jehovah at the end have been called additions. Chapter 28 on wisdom
has
been questioned as an intrusion.
Some conclusions are not only unnecessary,
they go against the
positive
indications in the book of a unity. And there are other ancient
compositions
(e. g., the Protests of the Eloquent Peasant, ANET, pp.,
405ff)
which have a poetic body sandwiched between a prose introduction
and
conclusion.
It is true that the Tetragram
YHWH is used in the introduction
and
conclusion, but not in the poetry. But 38:1 uses it to introduce
Jehovah's
highly poetic reply to Job from the storm. Also it seems that
Bildad in Job 8:4
refers to the catastrophe that killed Job's sons as re-
lated in the
introduction. There are many places where one speaker in
the
dialogue refers to what another has said. The reference to man born
16 GRACE
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of
woman being born to trouble is given by Eliphaz in
5:7, by job in
14:1
and by Eliphaz again in
speech
in 38 :34 quotes a line of Eliphaz,
peats
a previous phrase of
remark
of
dom chapter 28:26 is paralleled in
the speech by Jehovah in 38:25.
It
is of some interest that the newly discovered Aramaic trans- .
lation of Job (J. P.
M. Van .der Ploeg and A. S.
Van der Woude Le Targum
de Job,
of
course fragmentary. There are only two or three such instances of
dislocation
covered by the preserved text of the Targum (e. g.,
Pope's
insertion
of 26:1-4 between 27:1 and 2 and the dislocation of 31:38-40
in
N.E.B. ) But to the several dislocations alleged by the New English,
Bible,
by Pope and other commentators, the Targum gives no
support.
On
the other hand, the Targum has one verse dislocated
in job's second
response
to the Lord (40:5 replaces 42:3). The witness of the Targum,
of
course, cannot be pressed. It only goes back to about 100 B. C., but
such
as it is, it is in the direction of the integrity of the text of Job.
The LXX text of Job presents problems of
its own. Origen and
Jerome
say that it was considerably shorter than the Hebrew, but our
major
manuscripts do not show these lacunae. They presumably have
been
filled out from Theodotion or some other Source. The
Old Latin
witnesses
to the shorter text, but this witness is fragmentary and it is
hard
to evaluate Origen's witness without more information. The Wit-
ness
of the new Targum is the more welcome, as it reaches
back almost
to
the days of the original LXX translation.
As to the poetry and style of the book
of Job, it may be helpful
to
apply to it remarks I have made elsewhere on the Psalms ("The
Psalms"
in The Biblical Expositor, ed. C. F. H. Henry, Phila:
Holman,
1960,
Vol. II). It is well known that Hebrew poetry is characterized
by
parallelism and the use of synonymous expressions to gain repetition.
But
the secret of great Hebrew poetry is not its rhyme and meter. Mere
rhyme
and meter may be found in English doggerel like the Mother Goose
rhymes
for children. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. But we can
hardly
say that he fell in great verse! So it is with Hebrew poetry.
The
poetry of Job is great because it deals in magnificent ways with
great
subjects. The thought and conception is great. For this reason,
it
is great poetry, even in a fairly literal translation, such as that of
the
A V. I once had a friend, in the family, not a Bible student or
scholar,
who characterized the lines in Job 38:7 as the most beautiful
in
the English language. : ."Who laid its cornerstone, when the morn-
ing stars sang together and all the
sons of God shouted for joy?" The
intensity
of Job's trial is shown in the introduction with the successive
reports
of calamity punctuating his peace like pistol shots in the night.
JOB AND ITS DOCTRINE OF GOD 17
The
depth of his trial is revealed in his facing in its stark reality the
awfulness
of the problem of a good God who grants no justice. Note that
Job
spends very little time on his physical ailments. Not once does he
tell
us where it hurts! Because Job's hurt is the hurt of the heart of
lost
humanity. And by the same token, the book rises out of the depths
of
despair to confident heights of faith and revelation of God. Some
commentators
profess to find contradictions in Job's speeches and even
assign
part of his last speech to Zophar. They fail to
realize that Job
is
grappling with what some today call the antinomies of existence. He
sees
the problem deeply. But he never lets go completely of his faith
that
these problems of earth have an answer in God. And he rises al-
most
to the beatific vision in his assurance that he himself with his own
eyes
will behold God and then all will be well. But as in the case of
Martha,
whose hope was for her brother's future resurrection, God
graciously
gave a larger promise. Jesus said to Martha, "I am the
resurrection
and the life." And to Job, God said I am the Almighty
God.
In my protection you are secure. Pope is correct that the "book
presents
profundities surpassing those that may be found in any of its
parts.
..the values men cherish, the little gods they worship--family,
home,
nation, race, sex, wealth, fame--all fade away. . . confidence
in
this One is the only value not subject to time." (Pope, Job, p.
lxxvii). Job is great
literature. And it has answers from God.
Mythology? or
Revelation?
In addition to all the problems raised
by the unusual dialect of
the
book of Job and the problems of the theology yet to be considered,
there
are problems that we turn to now concerning the alleged mythical .
background
of the rook.
A prominent feature of the book of Job
is the reference to Behe-
moth
and Leviathan in Chapters 40 and 41. What are these creatures?
They
are famous enough that an ocean liner was named after one and
the
other has become a s~onym for something of jumbo
size. It is
Possible
that these are ancient names for actual animals and the hippo-
patamus and crocodile
have most often been nominated. However, ad-
vancing study of
ancient times and, especially the discovery of the myth-
ology of
reference
to the mythology of the cultures surrounding
question
before us is, must we recognize in Job such mythology and if
so,
does it present theological problems?
The
problem concerns not only Job, but Psalms, Isaiah and pas-
sages
in a few other books as well. Leviathan is mentioned by name
in
Psalm 74:14; 104:26 and Isaiah 27:1, as well as in Job 3:8 and 41:1.
The
reference in Isaiah calls Leviathian the fleeing
serpent, the crooked
18
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serpent.
The former expression is found also in Job 26:13 in a con-
text
that also may be mythological. Pope <IDE. in loc.) says that the re-
ference in Job 26:13 is
to the dragon that causes eclipses! The line in is
Isaiah
is very much like a Ugaritic text: "Because thou
didst smite
Lotan, the writhing
serpent/didst destroy the crooked serpent/the ac -
cursed
one of seven heads" (C. H. Gordon Ugaritic Literature, a
Com-
prehensive Translation,
p.
138). The words "writhing" and "crooked" are: those used in
the Isaiah
passage.
Furthermore Leviathan in Psalm 74:14 is pictured as multi-
headed.
It looks very much as if Leviathan sometimes in the Bible is
a
name for a mythological monster. This seven-headed monster is pic-
tured on a seal and
on a piece of shell as a somewhat dinosaur-like
creature
with seven heads placed one below another on the long neck.
A
hero with a spear is seen on the seal having pierced the lower four
heads
of the dragon. Apparently the seal depicts the conquest of Levi-
athan, or Lotan as the Ugaritic
pronunciation has it. It is pictured in
ANEP
The question is, how does such a
description of Leviathan fit in
with
Biblical revelation'", The answer is not too difficult. The Bible uses
the
mythology of antiquity without approving of it. The symbolism of
Daniel
is instructive. In Daniel 7. the first kingdom, the Babylonian, is
symbolized
by a lion with eagle's wings. This symbol is well-known
from
Mesopotamian architecture. In Daniel's vision, God used this sym-
bol to identify
symbol.
Actually the dreadful fourth beast of Daniel 7 with ten horns;
is
pictured again in Revelation 13 as a dragon with seven heads and ten
horns.
The devil in Revelation 12 is also pictured as a dragon with
seven
heads. Presumably these instances tell us that the old mytholog-
ical symbol of an
evil dragon is used as a symbol of the devil and his
minions.
We may conclude that mythological symbols are used in the
Bible
for purposes of illustration and communication of truth without in
the
least adopting the mythology or approving of its ideas.
Albright argues that this process was
widespread in ancient
and
calls it "demythologizing,” though rejecting the Bultmannian
overtones
of
that word. (Albright, Yahweh and the Gods
of
Doubleday,
1968, pp. 183-207). He gives examples of pagan deities or
practices
which were part of
their
pagan meaning before they were made a part of
His
example is the word "cereal" which we use daily without in the
slightest
taking part in the worship of the goddess Ceres or believing
that
she spent half of her time in the underworld.
Albright makes the flat statement,
"It may confidently be stated
that
there is no true mythology anywhere in the Hebrew Bible. What we
JOB AND ITS DOCTRINE OF GOD 19
have
consists of vestiges--what may be called the 'debris' of a past re-
ligious culture" (op. cit. p. 185). Actually Albright goes
farther than
is
necessary in finding examples in the Bible. He assumes that the word
tehom in Gen. 1:2 comes
from the ancient myths of Marduk's fight with
Tiamat when he created
the world from her carcass. Albright believes
the
old story was demythologized. Actually, we should remember that
many
of the ancient deities were named after natural objects and forces.
Deus
means sky, Chronos means time, Tiamat
and tehom
mean fresh
water,
Yamm means sea. All of these items were deified
probably be-
cause
of animistic ideas. It is not clear that tehom first meant the
deity
of the water, then became demythologized into water. Rather it
was
the reverse. There was a god Yamm in Ugaritic who was god of
the
sea, but the meaning "sea" in all probability came first, not vice-
versa.
And usually when the word yamm is used in the Hebrew Bible,
it
is used without any reference to a deity of the sea at all.
Nevertheless, it is true that in Job
there are several instances
where
mythological items are referred to and we should recognize these
t
without conclu~ing. that the bo.ok
had. pagan overtones in its make-up.
These
are studied in a perceptive article by Elmer B. Smick,
Mytho-
logy
and the Book of Job," Journal of the
Evangelical Theological Society
Vol XIII part 2, 1970, pp. 101-8.
Job cursed his day at the beginning of
his dialogue. In the pro-
cess, he calls for a
curse from those who curse the day (yom)” or
"those
who curse yamm
(God of the Sea), those skilled to rouse Levia-
than.
"This mythological reference is only an allusion and means no
more
than our use of Norse deities for the names of the days of the
week.
But it is probable that there is here an allusion to evil deities.
Other references to the sea as a deity
may be found in
"Am
I the Sea God (Yamm) or the Sea Serpent (Tannin) that
you set a
guard
over me?" asks Job, and in 9:8, Job acknowledges God as creator
of
the stars "who treads on the high places of the sea." The idea of
"high
places of the sea" is peculiar. The corresponding word in Ugari-
tic
means the "back" of an animal or man or god (C. H. Gordon Ugari-
tic Studies--Glossary). Therefore,
the suggestion is that God the cre-
ator is pictured as
trampling on the back of the god, Yamm, in confining
the
sea to its borders. A word of caution may be expressed. These
may
be references to mythology, but again, the words yamm and tannin
have
literal meanings which are not impossible in these two contexts.
We
may find here the mythological motifs, but also we may have some
reservations.
In
"helpers
of Rahab" who bow under him. Rahab
is mentioned again in
20
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26:12:
by his strength he put the sea (or the Sea God Yamm)
to rest;
by
his wisdom he smote Rahab." The following verses
speak of his
conquering
the fleeing serpent as already mentioned. It is true that
Rahab can mean
"proud ones," and to quell the sea is a natural figure,
but
it is perhaps more likely in these contexts that Job celebrates the
power
of God in conquering the evil and proud mythological deities of
the
heathen.
Another pair of deities is found by some
in Job 38 :36. "Who
hath
put wisdom in the inward parts (tuhot) or who hath given under-
standing
to the heart (sekwiy)?"
Here Pope (Job, in loc.) and others
find
mention of the Egyptian god of wisdom Thoth and Mercury (Coptic:
Souchi). Albright
accepts the translation Thoth, but declares the alleged
Coptic
name of Mercury arose by a modern mistake (op. cit. p. 245ff).
The
traditional translation of the words seems quite enough this pas-
sage.
Another alleged reference to a pagan god
is in 5:7, "Man is born
to
trouble as sparks (sons of Resheph) fly upward."
Resheph was indeed
the
god of burning and pestilence but resheph also
referred to literal fire
and
pestilence. The sons of Resheph are not
understandable in this con-
text
if it refers to a deity. The traditional rendering is satisfactory.
There are a few other alleged
mythological renderings, but they
are
probably not necessarily so. The references to Behemoth and Levi-
athan in 40 and 41
remain to be considered.
The word Behemoth is merely the plural
of the word "cattle."
The
plural of majesty or excellence could thus designate a big cow-like!
beast
and the hippopotamus has been suggested. Pope (Job. in loc.)
adopts
the mythological interpretation and speaks of the human-headed
bull
of heaven pictured like the water buffalo of the swamps above
What
was said above is applicable here. There was a bull of heaven in
mythology
and the Behemoth could have been that. This reference in Job
if
could be, on the other hand, a literal water buffalo. Or it could have
been
a hippopotamus with which Palestinians were familiar, even though
these
animals did not live in the
that
they did. Mention of the strong tail, however, fits neither the buf-
falo nor
hippopotamus. I would suggest that most fearsome of beasts,
the
elephant. The elephant even more than the hippopotamus drinks up
the
river at a gulp and the African elephant is not tamed. It is true
that
the elephant's tail also is minimal, but the astonishing feature of
an
elephant is the appendage at the other end. Is it not possible that
the
Hebrew znb
could refer to trunk equally as well as tail?
Leviathan is here pictured not as an evil
deity, but as an animal.
Again,
we remember that the deity was usually invented by investing a
JOB AND ITS
DOCTRINE OF GOD 21
normal
object or animal with divine powers. There was probably at some
time
a literal animal called Leviathan. If this reference in Job is the
deity
Leviathan, it is odd that his main feature, his seven heads, is not
mentioned.
Rather his natural parts and physical strength and ferocity
are
dwelt upon. The sparks and smoke from his nostrils surely are
but
hyperbole. Whether it refers to the crocodile or to a whale, we
perhaps
cannot be sure. 'Obviously, it is a creature of the sea which
was
so greatly feared that in mythology it became worshipped.
This is, I believe the extent of the
mythology of Job. We turn
now
to its theology.
The Theology of
Job: The Character of God
We come in this last section to the
climax of the book of Job
which
is, as all realize, the revelation of God who speaks to Job out of
the
whirlwind. Job in his agony had sought for God and asked to set out
his
case before God. He had pleaded his innocence before God. Now at
last
God speaks and Job, though the confrontation is not what he had asked
for,
nonetheless has the answer to his deepest desire and he is satisfied.
There is somewhat of a problem in
studying the subject of the
character
of God in the book of Job, for much of the book is fallacious
in
its revelation. We can say this reverently, of course. All of the
book
is inspired and actually all the characters except Satan express
some
elements of truth, but at least the speeches of the three comfort-
ers are not normative for theology.
Job himself, as .we have seen, grew
in
his faith and understanding. Surely Job's idea of life after death
progressed
greatly during the course of his trial. Some things Job
said
about God are true. Some things are not. So, much of the di-
alogue is not divine
teaching and for fully authoritative teaching about
God,
we are restricted to the speeches of Jehovah at the end and to the
prose
framework at the start and finish of the book. We may remark
that
the case is somewhat like that in Ecclesiastes. There also, there
is
much in the book that is preliminary to the conclusion. The author
there
tries various philosophies of life and finds them false. He is shut
up
to the final conclusion that the chief end of man is to fear God and
keep
His commandments. So also in Job, it is the final answer that we
want.
It was the ultimate vision of God that satisfied the patriarch's j
heart.
God reveals himself first to Job as
creator. It is of interest to
compare
God's first revelation in Genesis. The sacred scriptures begin
with
the creative activity of God. Here God is superlatively shown to be
God
without competitor or equal. The corollary is that God is the only
eternal
one and all else sprang into existence at God's command. The
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first
chapter of Genesis outlines a procedure in God's creation. Job
gives
none of these details. The teaching is contained in highly figura-
tive rehetorical questions that remind us how puny man is in
comparison
to
the power of God, the Creator of all. One need not explore the use
of
time as a fourth dimension to realize that time for us is very short.
We
are creatures of a day. The Psalmist says that we are like grass
which
grows up in the morning and is cast down in the evening (Ps. 90:6).
But
God is eternal. A thousand years to him is but a watch in the night.
Where
wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth
(Job 38:4)? How
we
would wish to know at least some of the secrets of God's creation!
How
old is the universe? Is the big bang theory of the origin of matter
correct?
And if so, did the original fireball spring into being when God
first
enunciated the laws that govern time, space, energy and matter?
What
is matter and what is energy after all, now that we have found to
our
horror that they are interconvertible? We have begun
to see in re-
cent
years something of the ferocity of elemental force, as well as some-
thing
of the immensity of the reaches of space. We might remember that
we
are not the first ones to know a little something of these things.
Lightning
probably awed the ancients as much as it frightens us. And
among
the Greeks at least, there was at least an idea of the distances
of
space. Two hundred fifty years before Christ, Eratosthenes in
had
measured the circumference of the earth to within ten percent of the
correct
figure (see the article "Eratosthenes" in the Encyclopedia Brit-
tanica). And Ptolemy,
the astronomer, shortly after Christ, assures us
that
the distance to the stars is so great that the earth in comparison
is
a point without magnitude. His estimate" was around a billion miles.
We
know now that his estimate was far too small. But man is about as
puny
beside a billion miles as beside ten-billion light years.
It is hardly necessary to add that God
does not tell Job that the
world
is set on foundations with supporting pillars and a cornerstone.
The
morning stars do not really sing and the bounds of the sea are set
not
by doors and. bars. Its bounds are set
by gravitation--if only we
knew
what gravitation is! Elsewhere (26 :7)
Job had confessed that God
hangs
the earth on nothing. But how God hangs the earth and how he
formed
the earth and the world are still mysteries which we attempt to
probe,
but how little we understand of the power of God the creator.
I am convinced that one great problem of
modern thought is the
result
of a determined denial of God's creatorship. Evolution is now in
the
popular mind today an explanation of how God created (a false ex-
planation, I believe.)
But it has become an alternative idea to God's
creation.
Evolution, however, cannot explain the beginning of things.
It
is accompanied by purely philosophical concepts of origin by chance,
the
eternality of matter, etc., and a flat denial of God. One result is
that
human personality is unexplainably alone in a sea of chaos. Thought
JOB AND ITS DOCTRINE OF GOD 23
has
no basis for validity. Art has no reason or coherence. Life has
no
meaning and death no hope. Against this torrent of despair comes
the
clear revelation of God. "Before the mountains were brought forth
or
ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world even
from everlasting
to
everlasting, thou art God" (Ps. 90:2). It is significant that when
John
hears the angels in heaven praising the Father, their song is "thou
art
worthy...for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they
are
and were created." If God be really the Creator, we are assured
that
he is the ultimate reality. There is none behind or over him. Job
no
longer seeks an umpire. There is none beside Him.
But God is not only transcendent Being.
He reveals himself to
Job
in his providence. The Westminister Shorter Catechism
defines God's
works
of providence as his "most holy, wise and powerful, preserving
I
and governing all His creatures and all their actions." God is immanent
in
the sense that He is active in His creation. He is not a part of the
world
process. But He directs the world process in wisdom that we are
only
beginning to appreciate. Because there are second causes, some
men
now stop wIth second causes and leave God out. The
result is a
material
universe that can never explain itself or satisfy man who, if
he
has any significance at all, has a non-material aspect we call the
soul.
Does Job know the weather? Can he direct the thunder? I under-
stand
that the force of a hurricane is equal to several atomic explosions
each
minute. The mere force required to make the wind blow at sixty
a
hundre miles per hour over a diameter of. some hundreds
of miles
is
staggering. It is no contradiction in the Bible when Isaiah 5:6 says
that
clouds bring rain and Job 38:28 asks "Hath the rain a father? Or
who
hath begotten the drops of dew?" Again the poetry of Job is striking
in
its figures of speech. And the thrust of it is that puny man can ob-
serve
the stars, but it is the Almighty God who guides the stars in their
courses.
There is matter of great comfort here. We are not alone in
the
fell clutch of circumstance and we do not suffer under the bludg-
eonings of chance. We
live under the protecting shadow of a Sovereign
God.
The providence of God extends to the
remarkable and peculiar
phenomena
of the animal world. Do you understand the gestation of the
wild
goats? Obviously, as an ancient cattleman, Job knew something of
the
mating and birth of his animals. We know much more. We know
that
sperm and ova are produced and that they unite in the miracle of
life.
The chromosomes and genes intermingle, then the cells multiply.
Some
become liver tissue, some nerve cells, some bones and some
blood.
And how is it and why is it that it all happens just this way? :
What
man would have dreamed up the ostrich, that peculiar bird. The
only
bird, I understand, with eyelashes! Why, I have no idea. The only
bird,
I understand, equipped with a bladder! Again, why? There surely
is
a reason, but how strange are some of God's creatures! Some have
24
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questioned
if the ostrich is as dumb as the verses seem to say. I sup-
pose
that depends on what you compare it with! Most would not think
of
turkeys as dumb, but I have seen young turkeys hang themselves get-
ting
out of the tree where they roosted! The ostrich is dumb on some
counts.
Yet as the passage says, when she lifts herself up, or as Pope
(Job in loc.) explains it, when she
spreads her tail feathers and runs,
she
can outdistance any horse with ease. The wild ass, the ox, the
ostrich,
the horse, the hawk, the vulture--these are but samples of
the
varied, specialized and peculiar creation which God controls. And
if
God controls these creatures of the wild, he can care for me. Bryant
said
of the waterfowl,
"He who from zone to zone guides
through the distant
air thy certain flight .
In the long path that I must tread alone
can guide my
steps aright."
The
example of Behemoth and Leviathan have been dealt with already.
The
teaching is that he who made Behemoth the chief of the ways of God
can
make his sword to approach unto him, (40:19). Is it not a powerful
thought
that God is. in control? And remember that this control depends
not
just on power, but on infinite wisdom as well.
The essential affirmation of the book of
Job, however, is not the
more
power and wisdom of God, marvelous as these are, but the, affirm-
ation of the righteousness,
the rectitude of God. This was Job’s prob-
lem. He was ready to acknowledge the
power of God. Indeed, that
God's
power was far beyond Job's was part of his problem. But is God
good?
Abraham confessed that the judge of all the earth will do the
right
(Gen. 18:25). Job had questioned. It is not right for God to des-
troy
the perfect and the wicked (
charge.
Job humbles himself in his first answer. But God demands a
further
answer. "Wilt thou annul my judgment? Wilt thou condemn me
that
thou mayest be justified?" (40:8). Job could see
but the tiny fringe
of
God's purposes. God reveals himself as one who above all is holy,
righteous
and just. Job's sin was not final. His faith burned low at
times
but was never out. He trusted God even when he doubted God's
ways
and God led him through the sea, even if not on dry land.
But there comes a day when others must
meet God. I quoted
above
from
conquerable
soul." I am told that later,
daughter
and was broken up by the tragedy. Our souls are not uncon-
querable. Some day all
will stand before the judgment seat of God in
an
experience not like job's, and not like the alleged person to person
encounter
of existentialism, but in the dark. And in that dread day,
JOB AND ITS DOCTRINE OF GOD 25
all
men will lay their hand upon their mouth for the judgments of God
are
true and righteous altogether and they are final. No man then will
annul
God's judgment and Satan will then be put away, and death and
hell
consigned to the lake of fire, and God's power, wisdom, glory, and
righteousness
will be fully revealed.
There
is one more point. The conclusion of Job, like the pro-
logue is part of the
book and has a lesson. God is merciful. You have
heard
of the patience (or endurance) of Job and have seen the end of the
Lord
that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy. Job was re-
stored
even in this life. He had come to trust in a future life. But
even
this life is blessed for the child of God. So Satan was overcome
as
he will be vanquished at last in God's good time. He will overcome
him
by the blood of the Lamb of God, for the accuser of our brethren
shall
be cast down who accused them before the throne of God day and
night.
Therefore rejoice ye heavens (Rev. 12:10-12).
The Theology of
Job: Rewards
Pope is correct, "The issues raised
are crucial for men and the
answers
attempted are as good as have ever been offered" (Job, p.
LXXVII).
Pope himself misses, I believe, one grand answer in Job- -
the
doctrine of the future life. The name "theodicy" was applied, I
believe,
by Leibnitz to the question of the justification of the ways of
God
with regard to evil in the universe. It is a problem for theism.
Beudelaire, seeing the
injustice in the world and hearing that God was
in
control, remarked that "your God is my devil.” .He was not so far
wrong!
The Bible says that m a sense the devil is in control of much
that
goes on in this world. The indispensable prologue to Job makes it
clear
that Satan has much power here and now--with the necessary caveat.
under
God. This is not the best of all possible worlds. That was the
deists'
perversion, not the Christian teaching. "In the world, ye shall
have
tribulation'" is a further statement of Job's complaint: "Man is born
to
trouble as the sparks fly upward." We ask in our groaning, why does
not
God do something in
We
ask, worse yet, why did God do what he did years ago in tile
earthquake,
or today in the
na the destroyer actually a part of
the deity? These were the awful
thoughts
that crowded in on Job when he was called upon existentially to
face
the question posed in Ecclesiastes 4:1, "the oppressions that are
done
under the sun."
Job did not know and the comforters did
not know that Job was
suffering
for the honor of God himself and to the shame of Satan, the
author
of sin. A groaning world today has not read the prologue of Job.
It
does not believe in Satan as really evil, or in God as really good.
26
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As
a result, a European leader like Hermann Hesse turns
to Eastern
philosophy
denying, as he does in his Siddharta, all distinctions of right
and
wrong, of pain and pleasure, of man and God and eternity. All be-
comes
merged in a river of indistinction. There is no
meaning. As
Matthew
Arnold had said in
We are here as on a darkling plain swept
by confused
alarms of struggle and of flight where
ignorant armies :
clash by night.
Job cursed his day. Pope remarks (Job.
p. xiii) that James 5:11
gives
an unbalanced view in referring to the patience of Job. That, how-
ever,
was when the book began. Job gave absolute submission to the
will
of God. Because God was God, Job was at first content. And it "'
should
be noted from
titude before God. But
theory is one thing and life is another. God
would
give the world an example in extremis. He does that sometimes.
Paul
called himself an example of God's deepest grace. Ananias and
Sapphira were made an
example to the early church. D. L. Moody
heard
a preacher say, the world has yet to see what God can do with
a
fully yielded Christian. Moody said, I will be that man. And God
made
him a great example to bless the hearts of multitudes. God made
Job
an example and a comfort to thousands since his time. God may
have
even laughed as he used Satan to direct Job's longing, and ours
also,
to higher things than children, and sheep, and camels and oxen.
God
had a plan for Job's life--and for yours.
But Job now descended into the valley of
the shadow. And in his
misery,
he longed for death as the final answer. In lines of great beauty
he
sought the grave "where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary
are
at rest." Hamlet pondered suicide. There are only two cases of
suicide
in the Bible--Ahithophel and Judas. Suicide is not
the way out
for
one who believes that there is a God and that our life is sacred be-
cause
we are made in God's image. And these great verities Job could
not
forget. But Job's first three speeches each end with the longing for
the
oblivion of the grave.
Eliphaz confronts Job
with a different view. He even claims a
revelation
(
that
foolish men, i. e., sinners, are the ones who suffer
and that there-
fore
God must be chastening Job. If Job repents, God will wonderfully
restore.
Eliphaz here, as far as I can see, speaks for the
other friends
including
Elihu. I can see little progress in the argument of
the "mi-
serable comforters as
Job called them. They declare that Job must
have
sinned and therefore he suffers. If he will rectify his conduct,
God
will restore him. Actually this is the view expressed in those several
JOB AND ITS DOCTRINE OF GOD 27
related
treatises on suffering from
ferred to in the first
lecture. This is really the view of the world today.
If
there be a just God, he must punish sin now and reward righteousness
now.
If this is not done, we cannot believe that God is real. This atti-
tude was dramatized
by the skeptic, Robert Ingersoll. On the platform,
he
would dare God to strike him dead in one minute. The audience
waited
in silence and at the end of a minute, he pocketed his watch de-
claring that he had
proved that there was no God. On one occasion, a
newspaper
editorial the following day asked if the little man had thought
that
he could exhaust the patience of the Almighty in sixty seconds! But
twentieth
century man is not noted for his patience. We expect judgment
now
or else not at all. Really the view of the three comforters amounts
to
the idea that you get all your hell and all your heaven in this life!
There
has been some question about Job's doctrine of resurrection. But
note
that not one verse in the speeches of the three friends or Elihu
direct
Job's
eyes to the hereafter for bliss or blame. Their's is
the little quid
pro
qu~ of the disciples, "Master, who did sin this
man or his parents
that
he was born blind?" Christ's answer applies also to Job, "Neither
but
that the works of God should be made manifest in him. " And God's
works
in Job at the last were manifest to devils, angels, and men.
In Job's first round of speeches, he
doesn't get much further
than
an anguished cry to God for relief and a plea for death. He de-
clares that he is not
wicked (10:7) and complains that God destroys the
perfect
and wicked alike (
sible umpire between
him and God (
away
his hand before he goes to the land of no return (
The picture of the grave that Job draws
thus far is close to ob-
livion. Indeed this is
his only hope (
of
sleep, death (maweth)
and the tomb (qeber)
are in parallelism. In
his
second speech, Job pictures the grave as the end and therefore he
will
give rein to his complaint (
and
not come up (7:9). He will "sleep in the dust" and he will not be.
The
same thoughts recur in his third speech. He wished he had been
"carried
from the womb to the grave (qeber)’” (
land
of darkness, disorder and gloom:-It-; may be. noted that job's con-
cept of that land
differs notably from that of the Babylonian underworld,
(cf.
the description in ANET, p. 109). Here are no monsters, gods
or
goddesses. It is not a peopled place of consciousness. It is as near
soul
sleep as we can get. But from another angle, it does n?t
describe
soul
sleep. It does not describe the soul at all. It describes rather"
the
tomb to which the body goes. This was, just then, the extent of his
concern.
Death, the tomb (qeber),
Sheol, and the land of darkness are
the
terms used. The Palestinian tomb was cut in the rock. It was, of
course,
dark; it was down. It held the bones and dust of many genera-
tions. One decayed
body was pushed back in the crypt when another was
28
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laid
in. The body of course slept. The soul was not then in Job's view.
Neither
was any Babylonian place of departed spirits. .
In
Job's second round of speeches, he continues his bitter com-
plaint,
but something new has been added. Job now does not long for
Ideath. He holds on to
his innocence and is sure of justification (
He
is confident that God will be his salvation (
problem
in the key verse, "though he slay me, yet will I trust in him" .
(
"If
he would slay me I should not hesitate." The problem concerns the
word
lo’ (not) which may also be read lo’ (for it). The Hebrew conson-
antal text gives the
first reading, the vocalic text the second. Most of
the
versions read it the second way. Unfortunately, the new Targum
does
not cover this section. In view of the uncertainty, it is not wise
to
be dogmatic, yet it may be pointed out that the verb "hope" or
"wait
for"
usually is used with a prepositional complement "I" (for). If this
be
the case, the A V reading "though he slay me yet will I trust in him"
is
the true reading. It would fit the context very well.
In this same speech, Job rises to further
heights which are often
not
noticed because translations do not always bring out the structure of
the
passage (14:7-15). Job is still in great distress. But now, like
Hamlet,
he looks beyond the moment of death and asks what dreams
may
come when we have shuffled off this mortal soil. Here for the
first
time in the book, someone raises the question of a future life.
That
alone is highly significant. Here is a new phase of the argument.
"If
a man die shall he live again?" The question of God's justice and
acceptance
of a man is here raised off the mundane plane into the sphere
of
the future. Job trembles on the threshold of a new hope. Is it per-
haps
that although this is not the best of all possible worlds, that there
is
another one to come? Job sees, as it were, a light in the keyhole
of
the door in heaven which John the apostle saw opened full wide.
Job's argument begins where it should
begin. Job is God's child.
He
considers a tree, an insensate thing, yet it has persistent life. If
it
is cut down, though it seems to die, it will by water at the roots,
put
forth a second growth. The verb is halap. It will bud and grow.
This
is for a mere tree. But man! Of greater worth, a child of God,
the
word of God's hands. Man dies and never rises till the heavens
grow
old. He does not awake (qys)
nor rise (cwr).
Then Job wishes
to
be hidden in Sheol, until God's wrath passes over and
God might re-
member
him. Surely Sheol here means the grave. But will God remem-
ber him? Job answers his great
question by a declaration that he would
"wait"
(same word as "trust" in
growth
(helipah)
would come. Job seizes the thought that man is of far
greater
worth to God than a mere tree. "Thou shalt call
and I will
JOB AND ITS DOCTRINE OF GOD 29
answer
thee; thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine
hands." Here
Job
in a pinnacle of faith looks beyond the tomb to the resurrection call
of
God. It is a pinnacle. Job does not maintain this hope undimmed.
But
he has cried out in faith and he has begun to see that the answers
to
the great questions after all lie in God who made us for himself, and
we
may reverently reverse Augustine's famous remark. God made us
to
fellowship with himself and he is not satisfied until he brings us to
rest
in him.
Tur-Sinai (The Book of Job, in loc.) is very
unsatisfactory here.
Tur-Sinai does not associate the two
words for second growth. He re-
arranges
some lines and emends others. On verse 13, he makes the
surprising
comment, "Job interrupts the presentation of facts (i.
e. , of
man's
eternal death) with rhetorical unrealistic wishes; would that the
fate
of man, and my own fate, were like that of a tree by the water,
so
that, after a period of waiting in Sheol, I might
return to life." This
quotation
is simply an admission that some modem commentators find
Job's
affirmation of resurrection hopelessly unrealistic. But then per-
haps
the commentators have not had to think as deeply as Job did.
The next speech of Job, the fifth, does
not advance. He casti-
gates
his miserable comforters and complains that God has turned him
over
to wicked men. But he declares that he is innocent and calls heaven
to
witness as he cries unto God for relief. Then he returns to the
thought
of death. This time he does not seem to long for death as he
did
earlier, but regards it as the end of his hope (
"wait"
(AV) of
of
the verbs in the last verse of the chapter can be read differently in
agreement
with Pope Job, in loc.) and NEB. But
Pope's question marks
need
not be adopted. I offer this translation:
If I have hope, sheol
(the grave) is my house.
I will spread my couch in the darkness.
I have called corruption my father and
the worm my
mother and sister,
Where then is my hope? and who will see
my hope.
When my hope goes down to sheol (the grave) and we
descend together to the dust.
Job here plays with the word hope, which
he had used in 14:7.
There
is hope for a tree that it will have a second growth. Is Job’s
only
hope extinction in the grave? No longer does Job seek for death
and
extinction. Now he reaches for every glimmer of hope beyond the
darkness
of the tomb.
Job's sixth speech is shorter than
usual, but this one is a climax.
Again
he chides his "friends" with being his worst enemies. They should
30
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pity
him when the hand of God is heavy upon him (
looks
beyond the present. His friends have turned against him, but he
would
have his words engraved upon enduring rock. For his vindicator
will
arise at last.
These verses,
ficult. They are taken
in Handel's Messiah as a great
prediction of
Christ.
In the
(Job.
in loc.) and many modern commentators find no hope of resurrec-
tion here, feeling
that to do so would contradict
above,
tion and answers it
with the affirmation of faith.
Verse 25 begins, "Por I know that my vindicator lives." The
word
is ~ and refers to the next of kin who avenges a murder or ,
relieves
the oppression of the destitute. Job
obviously is not referring
to
a mere man. God was
6:6)
from exile (Isa. 43:1) and from death (Hos.
it
seems proper to take the redeemer to be God himself--but probably
not
the messianic redeemer. Pope on the other hand declares that the
redeemer
whom Job hopes for is the umpire of
to
come to terms. He compares Mesopotamian subdeities
who thus in-
terceded for men. But of
all this, the verse says nothing. That job
actually
hoped for help outside of God is against the whole tenor of this
passage,
regardless of his earlier outburst.
"And that he will stand at last
upon the dust." "Upon the dust"
may
mean the earth, or it may mean the dust of job's tomb (cf.
"Stand"
or "rise" may be a legal term. The vindicator will appear on
job's
behalf. But it is not to save Job from death--the "at last" argues
otherwise.
The vindicator will redeem Job in some future day of his
expectation.
"And though after my skin Worms
destroy this body," note the
italicized
words of the A V. It is a difficult line. The preposition "after"
refers
to time or place, and neither in Hebrew or English is the word
"after"
appropriate for the noun "skin"! The context wants the infinitive
construct
of a verb. Pope takes the preposition with the verb "destroy"
and
translates it "after my skin is flayed.' But then with the final pro-
noun
"this" would be out of place and the verb following the pronoun
should
agree with it, but it does not. The
footnote
that the Hebrew is unintelligible. It is possible, however, to
read
the word "my skin" (root cwr) as a verb in the infinitive construct.
The
same verb was used to mean "awake" in a resurrection context in
JOB AND THE DOCTRINE OF GOD 31
verb
"destroy" is difficult. It is only used three times, though it is
used
in a second meaning "to encircle." It may be translated, "After
my
awakening when this (sickness or body) is destroyed."
"Yet
in my flesh I shall see God." Pope, and others, translate
"without
my flesh, I shall see God." This translation is interesting,
for
it would make the passage refer not to resurrection, but to spiritual
life
in heaven--an equally happy thought for Job. The preposition min
can
indeed mean "apart from" as well as "from the standpoint
of," and
many
examples of the latter use are given in the lexicon. E. g., the
Lord
roars min
hard
to adopt Pope's idea. The whole thrust is that Job will see God
in
his resurrected body. Tur-Sinai (The Book of Job, in
loc.) takes it
i to mean from the standpoint of
his body--but before death.
Whom I shall see for myself
and my eyes shall see and not a
stranger.
(
declaration
of faith. Job at long last, after his body is consumed will
see
God m a resurrection day. The following words are probably cor-
rectly placed with the
later verses as the
not
now concerned.
How does this doctrine of the resurrection
bear on the date of
Job?
Does this imply a late date because it would involve a borrowing
of
Persian ideas? Here much depends on one's background and view-
point.
lf one is convinced that the doctrine of resurrection is late, then
Job
will be given a post-exilic date, along with Psalm 49, 73, 16, Isaiah
26,
Hosea 13:14 and other passages. It would seem better to face the
claims
of revelation given in the Bible, rather than thus. to restructure
the
O.T. on subjective grounds. Surely the argument m Job does not
look
like an item borrowed from an alien creed. The teaching of the
resurrection
in Job is hammered out by facing in a unique way the prob-
lems of life against
the background of the revealed character of both God
and
man. Job seems rather to have the marks of an early and original
treatment
af this wonderful doctrine. It is easier to think
that the Psalm-
ists and prophets
stood on the shoulders of Job in their resurrection
doctrine.
And after all, what do we know of the
Persian religion in the early
days?
We have some monuments of Persian grandeur and some reports
of
their kingdom and wars. But we have no early copies of the religious
books
of the Persians. We know not when or by whom these books were
written.
They were copied and recopied in lands where Christian influ-
ence was very strong
in the first centuries of our era. 'What interpolations
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may
have occurred and what influences may have been absorbed, who
knows?
Eventually these books were taken to
the
modern world. But it is quite uncertain that Job could have been
actually
influenced in this, its basic doctrine, by such alleged teaching.
There is, further, a dark side to Job's
insights on the future
life.
For Job had two problems to face. First, why do the righteous
suffer,
but secondly, why do the wicked prosper. For the wicked do
prosper.
Honesty is not always the policy that succeeds, and sometimes
crime
does pay. Job now attacks his comforters with the declaration
that
they are wrong also on the second count. "The wicked live, become
old.
_yea are mighty in power" (21:7-16). The translation of the rest of
the
passage is in debate. The A V seems to make Job say that although
the
wicked seem to die happy, yet later (vss. 17-22) they shall drink of
God's
wrath. Then again (vss. 23-34) he says wicked and righteous,
die
alike. The
and
question marks make Job consistently say that the wicked do not get
the
judgment the three comforters assign to them. The question is one
of
detail, but I rather favor the AV at this point. It is true that the
wicked
go to Sheol in peace (
worms
cover them (
It
has two "I" prepositions, which can mean "to" or as we now
know"
from
Ugaritic "from." The A V takes the meaning
"to" and says the
wicked
is spared from disaster. This is also the meaning of the NASB,
though
the "l" is translated "to." But the conclusion of the
chapter in the
AV
seems to say that despite appearances, God will judge the wicked--
and
this thought is later developed.
Then Eliphaz
viciously attacks Job again and accuses him of many
sins.
Job responds to this that God knows he is innocent and when God
has
tested him, "I shall come forth as gold" (
however,
is the case with the wicked. He out lines the extreme wicked--
ness
of some men and now he veers to the thought that indeed they will
receive
their judgment. (Sheol and the worm will consume them
(24:19-20).
Their
exaltation is short (25:24). Tur-Sinai (The Book of Job, in loc.)
escapes
this conclusion by saying Job is quoting from the three friends.
Pope
(Job, in loc.) also cannot follow the
argument here. He believes
that
Job has contradicted his previous statement and that this speech
should
be attributed to Zophar. Pope is correct in
recognizing a shift
in
the argument, but it seems quite possible to hold that Job himself is
looking
further. Especially so because after Bildad's short
and final
speech,
Job returns to this argument" in 27:13-23. Here he is a bit more
explicit.
The wicked man will not merely die, perhaps easily, He will
be
given a reward from the Almighty. His children shall suffer, his
widows
shall not mourn him, he suffers the terrors of God. Tur-Sinai
op
cit.) escapes this conclusion by saying Job "used to say" this.
JOB AND ITS DOCTRINE OF GOD 33
Pope,
of course, ascribes this also to Zophar, but it seems
that Job
himself
may here be expressing in incipient form the even harder doc-
trine
that the wicked, who seem to get by, will actually receive in the
end
the judgment of God. It cannot be said that Job expresses with any
clarity
the doctrine of future punishment for the wicked. But it is in -
volved in his view and
some of his statements look in that direction.
As for Job himself, he brings his argument
to a grand conclusion.
He
summarizes his moral principles in words already referred to as
taken
up by Solomon. Wisdom may be found, but not by worldly search.
Surely
Job wanted wisdom. His friends claimed understanding. But Job
declares
that real wisdom is to worship God in reverence and holiness
of
life. The claim is distinct that Job did this and in his final speech,
Job
lifts his hand in a solemn oath of abjuration that before God he has
lived
in innocence of the great sins of which he has been so bitterly
and
unjustly accused. If he be guilty, he says at last, let thistles grow,
instead
of wheat and weeds instead of barley! The words of Job are
ended.
Elihu returns to the
argument, but in a sense, he seems to par-
rot
the argument of the rest and thus to be an anti-climax. Job has
nothing
more to say. But Job has stood his trial. He has trusted God.
He
has continued in his principles of righteousness and he has seen be-
yond
the grave to the final justice of God. It remains for God himself
to
answer Elihu and the three friends and to both humble
and bless his
servant
with a vision of God in His greatness.
:
Grace
Theological Seminary
www.grace.edu
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