Book of Job

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The Book of Job (Hebrew: ‫ )אִּיֹוב‬is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. It relates the story of Job,
his trials at the hands of Satan, his theological discussions with friends on the origins and nature of his
suffering, his challenge to God, and finally a response from God. The Book itself comprises a didactic
poem set in a prose framing device and has been called "the most profound and literary work of the
entire Old Testament".[1] The Book itself, along with its numerous exegeses, are attempts to address
the problem of evil, i.e. the problem of reconciling the existence of evil or suffering in the world with
the existence of God.
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There was an extremely pious man named Job. He was very prosperous, and had seven sons and three
daughters. Constantly fearing that his sons may have sinned and "cursed God in their hearts", he
habitually offered burnt offerings as a pardon for their sins.[2]
The "sons of God" (a phrase commonly interpreted as referring to the angels) and Satan (literally, the
Hebrew word means "the accuser" or "the adversary") present themselves to God. God asks Satan his
opinion on Job, apparently a truly pious man. Satan answers that Job is pious only because he is
prosperous. In response to Satan's assertion, God gives Satan permission to destroy Job's possessions
and family.[3]
All of Job's possessions are destroyed and a 'ruach' (wind/spirit) causes the house of the firstborn to
collapse killing all of Job's offspring who were gathered for a feast[note 1]. Job does not curse God
after this but instead shaves his head, tears his clothes and says, "Naked I came out of my mother's
womb, and naked shall I return : Lord has given, and Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of
Lord" (Simplified).[4]
As Job endures these calamities without reproaching Divine Providence, Satan solicits permission to
afflict his person as well, and God says, "Behold, he is in your hand, but don't touch his life." Satan,
therefore, smites him with dreadful boils, and Job, seated in ashes, scrapes his skin with broken pottery.
His wife prompts him to "curse God, and die" but Job answers, "You speak as one of the foolish
speaks. Moreover, shall we receive good from God and shall not receive evil?"
Three friends of Job, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, come to
console him. And the three of Job's friends heard all this evil that came on him, and they came every
man from his place — Eliphaz the Temanite (Heb: Aliphaz the Thimanite), Bildad the Shuhite (Heb:
Bildad the Shuchite), and Zophar Naamathite (Heb: Zuphar the Nomathite). A fourth, Elihu the Buzite
(Heb: Alieua ben Barakal the Buzite), first begins talking in chapter 32 and plays a significant role in
the dialogue; however, his arrival is not described. The friends spend 7 days sitting on the ground with
Job, without saying anything to him because they see that he is suffering and in much pain. Job at last
breaks his silence and "curses the day he was born".

[edit] Speeches of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar

Job's friends do not waver from their belief that Job must have sinned to incite God's punishment. As
the speeches progress, Job's friends increasingly berate him for refusing to confess his sins, although
they themselves are at a loss as to which sin he has committed. They also assume, in their view of
theology, that God always rewards good and punishes evil, with no apparent exceptions allowed. There
seems to be no room in their understanding of God for divine discretion and mystery in allowing and
arranging suffering for purposes other than retribution. Job's friends never use the name YHVH in the
story; they refer to God as El Shaddai, Eloahh, and Elohiym.

[edit] Speeches of Job

Job, confident of his own innocence, maintains that his suffering is unjustified as he has not sinned, and
that there is no reason for God to punish him thus. However, he does not curse God's name or accuse
God of injustice but rather seeks an explanation or an account of his wrong doing. Job does question
God.

[edit] Speech of Elihu

Elihu, whose name means 'My God is He' or 'My God is YHVH', takes a mediator's path — he
attempts to maintain the sovereignty and righteousness and gracious mercy of God. Elihu strongly
condemns the approach taken by the three friends, and argues that Job is misrepresenting God's
righteousness and discrediting his loving character. Elihu says he spoke last because he is much
younger than the other three friends, but says that age makes no difference when it comes to insights
and wisdom. In his speech, Elihu argues for God's power, redemptive salvation, and absolute rightness
in all his conduct. God is mighty, yet just, and quick to warn and to forgive. Elihu takes a distinct view
of the kind of repentance required by Job. Job's three friends claim that repentance requires Job to
identify and renounce the sins that gave rise to his suffering. By contrast, Elihu stresses that real
repentance entails renouncing moral authority, which is God's alone. Elihu therefore underscores the
inherent arrogance in Job's desire to 'make his case' before God, which presupposes that Job possesses
a superior moral standard that can be prevailed upon God. Apparently, Elihu acts in a prophetic role
preparatory to the appearance of God. His speech maintains that Job, while righteous, is not perfect.
Job does not disagree with this and God does not rebuke him as he does Bildad, Zophar, and Eliphaz.
After Elihu's speech ends with the last verse of Chapter 37, God appears and in the second verse of
Chapter 38. God says, probably speaking of Job, “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without
knowledge?"

"Why me?" (Book of Job) by Einar Hákonarson

[edit] God's response

After several rounds of debate between Job and his friends, in a divine voice, described as coming from
a "cloud" or "whirlwind"[note 2], God describes, in evocative and lyrical language, what the experience
of being the creator of the world is like, and asks if Job has ever had the experiences or the authority
that God has had.
God's answer underscores that Job shares the world with numerous powerful and remarkable creatures.
(Also compare Job 41:18-21 with Job 15:12-13 which was possibly in response to Job 7:11-16).
God's speech also emphasizes his sovereignty in creating and maintaining the world. The thrust is not
merely that God has experiences that Job does not, but also that God is King over the world and is not
necessarily subject to questions from His creatures, including men. The point of these speeches, and
ultimately the entire book of Job, is to defend the absolute freedom of God over His creation. God is
not in need of the approval of His creation. He is free.
In the epilogue, God condemns Job's friends for their ignorance and lack of understanding while
commending Job for his righteous words, commands them to prepare burnt offerings and reassures
them that Job will pray for their forgiveness. Job is restored to health, gaining double the riches he
possessed before and having 7 sons and 3 daughters (his wife did not die in this ordeal). His new
daughters (Jemima (Bible), Keziah and Keren-Happuch[5]) were the most beautiful in the land, and
were given inheritance along with their brothers. Job is blessed once again and lives on another 140
years after the ordeal, living to see his children to the fourth generation and dying peacefully of old age.
 [edit] Satan in the Book of Job
The term "Satan" appears in the prose prologue of the Book of Job, with his usual connotation of "the
adversary", as a distinct being. He is shown as one of the celestial beings before the Deity, replying to
the inquiry of God as to whence he had come, with the words: "from going to and fro in the earth, and
from walking up and down in it" (Job 1:7), perhaps implying total ownership, Which brings God to
mention Job.
The dialogue that ensues characterizes Satan as a member of the divine council who observes human
activity, but with the purpose of searching out men's sins and appearing as their accuser. He is, as it
were, a celestial "prosecutor"; he persists in his opinion of Job even after the man of Uz has passed
through his first trial by surrendering to the will of God, whereupon the Satan demands another test
through physical suffering (Job 2:3–5). Satan challenges Job's righteousness by saying that his belief is
built only upon the material goods he has been given, and that his faith will disappear as soon as they
are taken from him.
The introduction of "the adversary" occurs in the (very short) framing story alone: he is never clearly
alluded to in the (very long) central poem at all, although Sheol is mentioned in the central poem, as
well as Job's need for an adversary (although it is doubtful that he is referring to the original adversary
of the story).

[edit] Job's wife

Georges de La Tour,
Job Mocked by his Wife.
Job's wife is introduced in Job 2:9 when she suggests that Job curse God and die. She is not directly
mentioned at any other place in the book. Throughout the ordeal, she survives and lives on with Job to
bear him ten more children. There is uncertainty about her intentions when she tells Job to curse God
(i.e. is it out of bitterness? or empathy for his suffering?), but it is clear that Job honors her by the way
he talks about her in chapter 31.
In this regard, it is notable that the Hebrew word in the Masoretic text most often translated as "curse"
is "‫ברך‬," which primarily means to "kneel" or to "bless" and only euphemistically denotes "curse." If
Job's wife meant "bless God and die," her statement would correspond more both to the character of a
righteous woman and to the literal practice which survives to this day of blessing the Creator with one's
last words where possible. Job's critical response to her may then be interpreted as challenging the
notion that, when undergoing severe suffering, one should necessarily be resigned to one's imminent
demise.

[edit] Identities of Job's friends

This section uses one or more religious texts as primary sources without referring to
secondary sources that critically analyze them. Please help improve this article by adding
references to reliable secondary sources.
The first speaker to address Job, Eliphaz, is a called a Temanite, whose ancestor Teman is identified in
the Book of Genesis in a genealogy: 'And the sons of Eliphaz were Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam and
Kenaz' (Genesis 36:11). This would probably identify the Eliphaz the Temanite in the Book of Job as a
descendant of this Teman and possibly named for the original Eliphaz, since this Teman was thus an
Edomite (a descendant of Esau), and since the "land of Uz" in which Job lived (Job 1:1) is described as
being in Edom (Lamentations 4:21).

[edit] Origin
The Talmudic Tractate Bava Basra 15a-b maintains that Job was written by Moses, although nowhere
does it name its author; other opinions in the Talmud ascribe it to the period of before the First Temple,
the time of the patriarch Jacob, or King Ahaserus. Most modern scholars date the present (or final)
form of the book to the 4th century BCE, prior to Ecclesiates in the development of Wisdom literature.
[6] While "there is an intentional editorial unity with a cohesive purpose and message in the canonical
form of the book," Job contains many separate elements, some of which may have had an independent
existence prior to being incorporated into the present text.[7] Scholars agree that the introductory and
concluding sections of the book, the framing devices, were composed to set the central poem into a
prose "folk-book", as the compilers of the Jewish Encyclopedia expressed it. The central poem is from
another source. The medieval exegete Abraham ibn Ezra believed that Job was translated from another
language and it is therefore unclear "like all translated books" (Ibn Ezra Job 2:11). It is set in the land
of Edom, which has been retained as the background, and in the prologue and epilogue, the name of
God is the Tetragrammaton, a name that even the Edomites used.
Among the Dead Sea Scrolls is the Targum of Job 11Q10. (Another example of text from the last
chapter or epilogue of Job can be found in the book The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation, showing
examples of how fragments of The Book of Job found among the scrolls differ from the text as now
known). If the prologue and epilogue were added to the central poem, then this would have happened
before 100 BCE or the time attributed to the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Job is prominent in haggadic legends. The later Greek Testament of Job figures among the apocrypha.

[edit] Possible Sumerian source

The Assyriologist and Sumerologist Samuel Noah Kramer in his 1959 book History Begins at Sumer:
Thirty-Nine "Firsts" in Recorded History (1956), provided a translation of a Sumerian text which
Professor Kramer argued evinces a parallel with the Biblical story of Job. Professor Kramer drew an
inference that the Hebrew version is in some way derived from a Sumerian predecessor.
See Ludlul bēl nēmeqi
 [edit] Later interpolations and additions
This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged
and removed. (October 2009)
Various interpolations have been claimed to have been made in the text of the central poem. The most
common such claims are of two kinds: the "parallel texts", which are parallel developments of the
corresponding passages in the base text, and the speeches of Elihu (Chapters 32-37), which consist of a
polemic against the ideas expressed elsewhere in the poem, and so are claimed to be interpretive
interpolations. The speeches of Elihu (who is not mentioned in the prologue) are claimed to contradict
the fundamental opinions expressed by the "friendly accusers" in the central body of the poem,
according to which it is impossible that the righteous should suffer, all pain being a punishment for
some sin. Elihu, however, reveals that suffering may be decreed for the righteous as a protection
against greater sin, for moral betterment and warning, and to elicit greater trust and dependence on a
merciful, compassionate God in the midst of adversity.
The status of Elihu's interrupting didactic sermon is brought further into question by his extremely
sudden appearance and disappearance from the text; he is not mentioned in Job 2:11, in which Job's
friends are introduced, nor is he mentioned at all in the epilogue, 42:7-10, in which God expresses
anger at Job's friends. It is suggested that had Elihu appeared in the original source, his spirited and
virtuous defence of the divine right to punish would have been rewarded by God in the conclusion, or
at the very least mentioned. Additionally, Elihu's first spoken words are a confession of his youthful
status, being much younger than the three canonical friends, including a claim to be speaking because
he cannot bear to remain silent; it has been suggested that this interesting statement may have been
symbolic of a "younger" (that is to say, later and interpolating) writer, who has written Elihu's sermon
to respond to what he views as morally and theologically scandalous statements being made within the
book of Job, and creating the literary device of Elihu to provide what seemed to be a much-needed
faith-based response to further refute heresy and provide a satisfying counter-argument, a need partially
provided by God's ambiguous and unspecific response to Job at the end of the book.
Subjects of further contention among scholars are the identity of claimed corrections and revisions of
Job's speeches, which are claimed to have been made for the purpose of harmonizing them with the
orthodox doctrine of retribution. A prime example of such a claim is the translation of the last line Job
speaks (42:6), which is extremely problematic in the Hebrew. Traditional translations have him say,
"Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes." This is consonant with the central body of
the poem and Job's speeches, other mortal encounters with the divine in the Bible (Isaiah in Chapter 6,
for example), and the fact that there would have been no restoration without Job's humble repentant
acknowledgment of mortality faced with divinity in all its majesty and glory. However, other scholarly
interpretations of this verse also exist (for example)

[edit] Exegesis
This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged
and removed. (October 2009)
Exegesis of Job largely concerns the question, "Is misfortune always a divine punishment for
something?" Job's three friends argued in the affirmative, stating that Job's misfortunes were proof that
he had committed some sins for which he was being punished. His friends also advanced the converse
position that good fortune is always a divine reward, and that if Job would renounce his supposed sins,
he would immediately experience the return of good fortune.
In response, Job asserted that he was a righteous man, and that his misfortune was therefore not a
punishment for anything. This raised the possibility that God acts in capricious ways, and Job's wife
urged him to curse God, and die. Instead, Job responded with equanimity: "The Lord gave, and the
Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." (Job 1:21) He went even further, in verse 22,
by not charging any wrong to God. The climax of the book occurs when God responds to Job, not with
an explanation for Job's suffering but rather with a question: Where was Job when God created the
world?
God's response itself may be read in a variety of ways. Some see it as an attempt to humble Job. Yet
Job is comforted by God's appearance, and the fact that he 'saw God and lived', suggesting that the
author of the book was more concerned with whether or not God is present in people's lives than
whether or not God is just. Job chapter 28 rejects these efforts to fathom divine wisdom.
The framing story complicates the book further: in the introductory section God, during a conversation
with Satan, allows Satan to inflict misery on Job and kill his children. The appended conclusion has
God restoring Job to wealth, granting him new children, and possibly restoring his health, although this
is more implied than explicitly stated. This may suggest that the faith of the perfect believer is
rewarded. However, God speaks directly to this question, condemns Job's friends, and says that Job is
the only man who has faithfully represented the true nature of God - that all his friends were wrong to
say that faith and righteousness are rewarded. Only after Job's friends make a sacrifice to God and are
prayed for by afflicted Job does God restore all Job's good fortune.

[edit] The Testament of Job

Main article: Testament of Job
There are many parallel accounts about Job; one such account, found in the Pseudepigrapha, is the
Testament of Job. There are legendary details such as the fate of Job's wife, the inheritance of Job's
daughters, and the ancestry of Job.
In folktale manner in the style of Jewish Midrash [2], it elaborates upon the Book of Job making Job a
king in Egypt. Like many other Testament of ... works in the Old Testament apocrypha, it gives the
narrative a framing-tale of Job's last illness, in which he calls together his sons and daughters to give
them his final instructions and exhortations. The Testament of Job contains all the characters familiar in
the Book of Job, with a more prominent role for Job's wife, given the name Sitidos, and many parallels
to Christian beliefs that Christian readers find, such as intercession with God and forgiveness.
Unlike the Biblical Book of Job, Satan's vindictiveness towards Job is described in the Testament as
being due to Job destroying a non-Jewish temple, indeed Satan is described in a far more villainous
light, than simply being a prosecuting counsel. Job is equally portrayed differently; Satan is shown to
directly attack Job, but fails each time due to Job's willingness to be patient, unlike the Biblical
narrative where Job falls victim but retains faith.
The latter section of the work, dedicated like the Biblical text to Job's comforters, deviates even further
from the Biblical narrative. Rather than complaining or challenging God, Job consistently asserts his
faith despite the laments of his comforters. While one of the comforters gives up, and the others try to
get him medical treatment, Job insists his faith is true, and eventually the voice of God tells the
comforters to stop their behavior. When most of the comforters choose to listen to God's voice, they
decide to taunt the one remaining individual who still laments Job's fate.

[edit] In Judaism
 [show]
v • d • e
Books of the Kethuvim
Three Poetic Books
1. Psalms
2. Proverbs
3. Job
Five Megillot
4. Song of Songs
5. Ruth
6. Lamentations
7. Ecclesiastes
8. Esther
Other Books
9. Daniel
10. Ezra-Nehemiah
11. Chronicles
The Talmud occasionally discusses Job. Most traditional Torah scholarship has not doubted Job's
existence. He was seen as a real and powerful figure. One Talmudic opinion has it that Job was in fact
one of three advisors that Pharaoh consulted, prior to taking action against the increasingly multiplying
"Children of Israel" mentioned in the Book of Exodus during the time of Moses' birth. The episode is
mentioned in the Talmud (Tractate Sotah): Balaam gives evil advice urging Pharaoh to kill the Hebrew
male new-born babies, Jethro opposes Pharaoh and tells him not to harm the Hebrews at all, and Job
keeps silent and does not reveal his mind even though he was personally opposed to Pharaoh's
destructive plans. It is for his silence that God subsequently punishes him with his bitter afflictions.[3].
There is a minority view among the rabbis of the Talmud, that of Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish, that Job
never existed (Midrash Genesis Rabbah LXVII, Talmud Bavli, Bava Batra 15a). In this view, Job was a
literary creation by a prophet who used this form of writing to convey a divine message or parable. On
the other hand, the Talmud (in Tractate Baba Batra 15a-16b) goes to great lengths trying to ascertain
when Job actually lived, citing many opinions and interpretations by the leading sages. Job is further
mentioned in the Talmud as follows [4]:
• Job's resignation to his fate (in Tractate Pesachim 2b)
• Anyone who associated with Job when he was prosperous, including to buy from him or sell to
him, was blessed (in Tractate Pesachim 112a)
• Job's reward for being generous (in Tractate Megillah 28a)
• King David, Job, and Ezekiel described the Torah's length without putting a number to it (in
Tractate Eruvin 21a)
Two further Talmudic traditions hold that Job either lived in the time of Abraham or of Jacob. Levi ben
Laḥma held that Job lived in the time of Moses, by whom the Book of Job was written. Others argue
that it was written by Job himself (see Job  19:23-24), or by Elihu, or Isaiah.

[edit] Source for Jewish Law

Some of the laws and customs of mourning in Judaism are derived from the Book of Job's depiction of
Job's mourning and the behavior of his companions. For example, according to[specify], the behavior
of Job's comforters, who kept silence until he spoke to them, is the source for a norm applicable to
contemporary traditional Jewish practice, that visitors to a house of mourning should not speak to the
mourner until they are spoken to.[8]

[edit] Liturgical use

In most traditions of Jewish liturgy, the Book of Job is not read publicly in the manner of the
Pentateuch, Prophets, or megillot. However, there are some Jews, particularly the Spanish-Portuguese,
who do hold public readings of the Book of Job on the Tisha B'Av fast (a day of mourning over the
destruction of the First and Second Temples and other tragedies).
The cantillation signs for the large poetic section in the middle of the Book of Job differ from those of
most of the biblical books, using a system shared with it only by Psalms and Proverbs. A sample of
how the cantillations are chanted is found below.
Many quotes from the Book of Job are used throughout Jewish liturgy, especially at funerals and times
of mourning.

[edit] Philosophical approach

Maimonides, a twelfth century rabbi, discusses Job in his work The Guide for the Perplexed. According
to Maimonides (III 22–23), each of Job's friends represents famous, distinct schools of thought
concerning God and divine providence.
According to Maimonides, the correct view of providence lies with Elihu, who teaches Job that one
must examine his/her religion (Job 33). This view corresponds with the notion that "the only worthy
religion in the world is an examined religion." A habit religion, such as that originally practiced by Job,
is never enough. One has to look deep into the meaning of religion in order to fully appreciate it and
make it a genuine part of one's life. Elihu believed in the concepts of divine providence, rewards to
individuals, as well as punishments. He believed, according to Maimonides, that one has to practice
religion in a rational way. The more one investigates religion, the more he/she will be rewarded or find
it rewarding. In the beginning, Job was an unexamining, pious man, not a philosopher, and he didn't
have providence. He was unwise, simply grateful for what he had. God, according to Elihu, did not
single out Job for punishment, but rather abandoned him and let him be dealt with by natural,
unfriendly forces.
Conversely, in more recent times, Russian existentialist philosopher Lev Shestov viewed Job as the
embodiment of the battle between reason (which offers general and seemingly comforting explanations
for complex events) and faith in a personal god, and one man's desperate cry for him. In fact, Shestov
used the story of Job as a central signifier for his core philosophy (the vast critique of the history of
Western philosophy, which he saw broadly as a monumental battle between Reason and Faith, Athens
and Jerusalem, secular and religious outlook):
"The whole book is one uninterrupted contest between the 'cries' of the much-afflicted Job and the
'reflections' of his rational friends. The friends, as true thinkers, look not at Job but at the 'general.' Job,
however, does not wish to hear about the 'general'; he knows that the general is deaf and dumb - and
that it is impossible to speak with it. 'But I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue my case
with God' (13:3). The friends are horrified at Job's words: they are convinced that it is not possible to
speak with God and that the Almighty is concerned about the firmness of his power and the
unchangeability of his laws but not about the fate of the people created by him. Perhaps they are
convinced that in general God does not know any concerns but that he only rules. That is why they
answer, 'You who tear yourself in your anger, shall the earth be forsaken for you or the rock be
removed from its place?' (18:4). And, indeed, shall rocks really be removed from their place for the
sake of Job? And shall necessity renounce its sacred rights? This would truly be the summit of human
audacity, this would truly be a 'mutiny,' a 'revolt' of the single human personality against the eternal
laws of the all-unity of being!" (Speculation and Apocalypse).

[edit] Mystical approach

According to the mystical approach, Job is being punished because he is a heretic. One reason why Job
can be seen as a heretic is because in Chapter 3, he automatically assumed and was convinced that he
did not sin and God therefore has no right to punish him.
According to Nachmanides, Job's children did not die in the beginning of the story, but rather were
taken captive and then return from captivity by the end of the story.