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O l d T e s t a m e n t G u i d e
JOB
By ANTONIO FUENTES
THE book of Job is included among the wisdom writings precisely
because it teaches man that pain and suffering are a mystery of divine wisdom.
According to the sacred writer, the truly wise man should realize that "the
fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil, that is
understanding" (28:28).
Job, a foreigner, not descended from Abraham, is the central character of the
book that bears his name. A wise and wealthy man, a native of the Idumean city
of Uz, located between Edom and northern Arabia, a region famed for its wise men
(cf. Jer 49:7), he believes in the true God, whom he adores and to whom he
offers sacrifice, even in the midst of severe suffering.
We do not know for certain who wrote the book of Job; the text suggests that it
is by an educated Jew, familiar with the prophets and the teachings of the wise
men of Israel. He probably lived in Palestine, although he did visit and even
lived for a while abroad, mainly in Egypt.
We can only conjecture as to when the book was written. Due perhaps to the
patriarchal tone of the prose narrative, it was thought for a long time to have
been written by Moses. But the book is later than Jeremiah and Ezekiel, as
evidenced by similarity of expression and thought; its elegant style and
language, laden with Aramaic terms, lead us to suppose that it was written
shortly after the exile (587-538 B.C.). This was a period when preoccupation
with Israel's future as a nation gave way to concern about the individual
destiny of the Israelite. We might place the book tentatively around the end of
the fifth century B.C.
It should be noted that of all the different versions of this book, the Vulgate
of Jerome (recently slightly changed in the New Vulgate edition, which is the
official text of the Church) is particularly clear and elegant and seems to have
the best g.asp of the original.
The book of Job is one of the most beautiful and accomplished poems in world
literature. It has been compared with Dante's Divine Comedy and Goethe's Faust.
As A. Vaccari says, it deals with an absorbing subject, a deeply human and
divinely sublime drama, with such color and warmth of feeling and such variety
of form that language and art have here reached their zenith.
The poem is divided into three parts: a prologue (chap. 1-2); a dialogue, taking
up the main body of the book (chap. 3-42:6), and an epilogue.
The prologue introduces us to the characters and summarizes the theme of the
book. Job, a pious and blameless man, is perfectly happy and contented. The
adversary (Satan) insinuates himself among the angels of God's court and argues
that Job's virtue is not genuine. So God permits Job to be tested. Blow after
blow falls on Job, depriving him of his possessions and of his children. But Job
remains faithful and then is attacked personally; he becomes gravely ill and
disfigured. He accepts with resignation the physical evil which God sends him,
just as he had previously accepted the contentment he enjoyed.
Such is Job's faith that Satan is defeated. But Job's suffering is so deep that
he utters a cry of lamentation--not of despair--when his three friends seek to
console him after his being plunged into silence for seven days.
Job starts the dialogue, provoked by his friends' failure to understand why he
is suffering like this. They consider suffering to be punishment for sin (this
was the general view at that time), yet Job keeps insisting that he is
blameless. They in turn invite him humbly to recognize his fault and beg God's
forgiveness.
At no stage does Job say that he is completely free from sin; what he does
maintain is that his suffering is far greater than his faults deserve. One might
think that this means he is accusing God of being unjust, but that is not so: He
simply cannot make out why God is sending him these sufferings. In fact, in this
life God does not reward everyone according to his merits: That happens in the
life to come. Therefore, if he sometimes causes suffering to someone who is
known to be blameless, his purpose in doing so is to train him in virtue, to
make his merits shine even more through the patience he shows.
Job's three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, keep interrupting him to try
to convince him that he is at fault, but Job knows otherwise and refuses to
plead guilty to a sin he did not commit.
After addressing himself to divine wisdom, confident that God will hear him
(chap. 28), Job appeals to the Supreme Judge, who is the only one who can give
him justice and declare his innocence. God hears him, and he uses Elihu, a young
man who up to this has not taken part in the dialogue, to come in on Job's side.
To everyone's surprise he says something entirely new: Job should not be saying
that God has condemned him, because the reason God sends evils and sufferings is
not only to punish people. Their primary purpose is to purify man of his faults
and prevent him from committing worse sins. By saying this Elihu consoles Job.
He argues that Job is blameless, and he also shows him why he has had to suffer
in this way. Finally, Yahweh himself enters into the discussion, on Job's side.
Job cannot find words; he feels so insignificant. As he says himself:
"I know that thou canst do all things, and that no purpose of thine can be
thwarted. `Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' Therefore I have
uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not
know. `Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.' I
had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see thee; therefore
I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:2-6).
In the epilogue, in which God takes Job's three friends to task, Job is declared
innocent. To reward his virtue God restores all his property to him, twice over:
"And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his
friends; and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then came to him
all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before and ate bread with
him in his house" (Job 42:10-11).
There is a happy ending, and the moral is quite clear, even if Job does not
g.asp it. But he does realize now that there is no reason why God should have to
account to anyone for what he does. Man cannot g.asp the mysterious ways of
divine providence. In permitting the innocent to suffer and even die and in not
punishing the evildoer during his lifetime, God has his reasons, even if man
cannot g.asp them.
The book does not answer the initial question posed; indeed no answer is
forthcoming until almost the era of the New Testament. According to Vaccari it
does advance to the position of realizing that God has wisely but mysteriously
disposed that sometimes even the just are made to suffer despite their
innocence. However, God will eventually reward their virtue. The problem posed
by Job is, basically, what is the origin and purpose of suffering?
Job's question remains unanswered. He does not discover the reason why innocent
people suffer. The furthest he gets is to realize that suffering is part of
God's plan, that it has to be accepted as long as it lasts, and that God does
not abandon the sufferer. In this connection it raises other basic points which
later revelation -- especially that of the New Testament--will be more specific
about: (a) suffering tests the genuineness of a person's virtue; (b) it protects
him from pride and makes him more humble; (c) when suffering comes a person's
way he should abandon himself completely into God's hands.
The entire book opens up a new perspective, that of the reward which awaits, in
heaven, those who do God's will on earth. Job's suffering, the suffering of a
just man who bears it patiently and continues to seek mercy and forgiveness,
acquires its fullest meaning in the New Testament. Thus, this text of St. Paul
provides an answer to Job's complaints: "I consider that the sufferings of
this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed
to us" (Rom 8:18).
In other words, no matter how much we may suffer on earth, it is nothing
compared with the vision of God which awaits us in heaven. Job did not realize
that the just man does not attain fulfillment through possession of material
things and never attains it completely in this life. He also knew nothing about
what happens to souls after they leave the body. Happiness and immortality are
totally connected to one another, but it took human reason centuries to discover
this.
Without Christ's passion, without his death on the cross, man never would have
managed to understand the apparent paradox which our Lord expressed in these
words: "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up
his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and
whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man,
if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?" (Matt. 16:24-26).
The lives of the early Christians were, from the very beginning, based on
identification with Christ in his passion. Paul, who understood all this very
well, put it in this way: "In my flesh I complete what is lacking in
Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church" (Col
1:24).
In this life, every Christian, as a member of the Church, is called to spread
the kingdom of God in the world. To do this he must supernaturalize all his
sufferings and difficulties and see them as something very precious which God
puts in his hands. By uniting himself to the sacrifice of Christ, he will turn
all these adverse things into a source of supernatural light and will find in
them the peace and the joy which no created thing can provide.