Thiru Murugan

No one knows who wrote the Book of Job. It has been attributed to Moses, to Solomon, and to other characters from the Old Testament. It is almost certainly based upon ancient Babalyonian stories and legends, and may have been much longer in its original form. It reached its present form around 400 BCE.

The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha, Revised Standard Version, Expanded Edition

Published: ~400 B.C.E.

Many scholars consider the Book of Job the most accomplished work in the Old Testament, from a purely literary point of view. Jewish legend has it that Job was a real person, and that the events portrayed took place over the course of his entire life. The tradition goes on to say that Moses and Solomon both edited it so it would hold together as a story, and they changed it so it seems like all of Job's tribulations take place in a very short period of time.

The plot is simple: Satan wants to prove to God that any man can be corrupted. Elaine Pagels in her insightful book The Origin of Satan explains the significance of the fact that, in Job, Satan is a powerless angel who must ask God's permission before he can do anything. This is, in fact, one of the few appearances of Satan in the Old Testament, and the way he is presented suggests a deeply refined understanding of the nature of evil.

God agrees to let Satan try to prove his point. He offers him Job, one of his most faithful servants, and lets Satan torment him by taking all his weatlh, killing all his children, and covering his body with horrible sores. Job's friends come to console him, and are so aghast at the sight of him they sit in dumfounded silence for seven days before they begin to speak to him.

All of his friends insist that since God is just, Job must somehow be at fault for his misfortunes. The universe is ordered; God is in control; God rewards the good, and punishes the evil. Since Job is clearly being punished, he must perforce be evil.

The reason this book has been so dear to people for so long is that Job is not evil. In fact, he is utterly blameless. Not only has he done nothing wrong, he has done everything right. Job knows in his heart that what is happening to him is not his own fault. His wife encourages him to curse God; his friends encourage him to abandon his evil ways.

Through it all, Job remains steadfast in his faith, and he is ready to plead his case before God at any moment.

Eric Lafforgue

Introduction:

Here Job reaches the pinnacle of his discourse on the nature of reality, answering directly the question of how we should cope with evil and with injustice and misfortune. Unfortunately, his friends still don't get it:

Passage:

Then Job resumed his discourse:

I swear by God, who has denied me justice,
and by the Almighty, who has filled me with bitterness:
so long as there is any life left in me and God's breath is in my nostrils,
no untrue word shall pass my lips and my tongue shall utter no falsehood.

God forbid that I should allow you to be right;
till death, I will not abandon my claim to innocence.
I will maintain the rightness of my cause,
I will never give up;
so long as I live,
I will not change.

May my enemy meet the fate of the wicked,
and my antagonist the doom of the wrongdoer!
What hope has a godless man, when he is cut off,
when God takes away his life?

Will God listen to his cry when trouble overtakes him?
Will he trust himself to the Almighty and call upon God at all times?

I will teach you what is in God's power,
I will not conceal the purpose of the Almighty.

If all of you have seen these things, why then do you talk such empty nonsense?

...There are mines for silver and places where men refine gold;
where iron is won from the earth and copper smelted from the ore;
the end of the seam lies in darkness, and it is followed to its farthest limit,
Strangers cut the galleries
they are forgotten as they drive forward far from men.
While corn is springing from the earth above,
what lies beneath is raked over like a fire,
and out of its rocks comes lapis lazuli, dusted with flecks of gold.
No bird of prey knows the way there, and the falcon's keen eye cannot descry it;
proud beasts do not set foot on it, and no serpent comes that way.
Man sets his hand to the granite rock and lays bare the roots of the mountains;
he cuts galleries in the rocks,
and gems of every kind meet his eye;
he dams up the sources of the streams
and brings the hidden riches of the earth to light.

But where can wisdom be found?
And where is the source of understanding?
No man knows the way to it;
it is not found in the land of living men.

The depths of ocean say, 'It is not in us',
and the sea says, 'It is not with me.'
Red gold cannot buy it,
nor can its price be weighed out in silver;
it cannot be set in the scales against gold of Ophir,

...Where then does wisdom come from,
and where is the source of
understanding?
No creature on earth can see it,
and it is hidden from the birds of the air.
Destruction and death say,
'We know of it only by report.'

But God understands the way to it, he alone knows its source;
for he can see to the ends of the earth
and he surveys everything under heaven.
When he made a counterpoise for the wind
and measured out the waters in proportion,
when he laid down a limit for the rain and a path for the thunderstorm,
even then he saw wisdom and took stock of it,
he considered it and fathomed its very depths.

And he said to man:
'The fear of the Lord is wisdom, and to turn from evil is understanding.'

Then Job resumed his discourse:

If I could only go back to the old days,
to the time when God was watching over me,
when his lamp shone above my head and by its light I walked through the darkness!
If I could be as in the days of my prime,
when God protected my home, while the Almighty was still there at my side,
and my servants stood round me,
while my path flowed with milk,
and the rocks streamed oil!

...Have I rejoiced at the ruin of the man that hated me
or been filled with malice when
trouble overtook him,
even though I did not allow my tongue to sin
by demanding his life with a curse?
Have the men of my household never said,
'Let none of us speak ill of him!
No stranger has spent the night in the street'?

For I have kept open house for the traveller.
Have I ever concealed my misdeeds as men do,
keeping my guilt to myself,
because I feared the gossip of the town
or dreaded the scorn of my fellow-citizens?

Let me but call a witness in my defence!
Let the Almighty state his case against me!
If my accuser had written out his indictment,
I would not keep silence and remain indoors

No! I would flaunt it on my shoulder and wear it like a crown on my head;
I would plead the whole record of my life
and present that in court as my defence.

So [his friends] gave up answering Job; for he continued to think himself righteous.

End Note:

kinginexile

'The fear of the Lord is wisdom, and to turn from evil is understanding.'

That is Job's ultimate answer to the problem of evil in the world, and to the insolvable situation in which he found himself. He kept his faith, he refused to change the way he understood the world, and he continued to have confidence in himself and his own innate goodness. Timeless wisdom; finding that level of mental clarity, they say, is only possible when we are at peace with ourselves, and at peace with the universe as it is.