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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
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This Rock
Volume 4, Number 10
 October 1993 
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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 grasp 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 grasp 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
grasp 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 grasp
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.
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