Job
Wisdom & Poetry · Old Testament · Book 18 of 66- Author
- Unknown
- Written
- Unknown; the events belong to the patriarchal age
- Time covered
- c. 2000 BC, in the days of the patriarchs
- Where
- The land of Uz, east of Canaan
- Written to
- Anyone who has watched a good person suffer
- Genre
- Wisdom, mostly in poetry
- Chapters
- 42
“For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:”Job 19:25 KJV
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Overview
Job is the oldest question in the world asked at length: why do the righteous suffer? The reader is let in on a conversation in heaven that Job never hears, which is the whole design — we know why, and he does not, and he has to live it anyway.
Three friends come to comfort him and stay to argue. Their theology is tidy: suffering means sin, so confess. Job will not confess what he has not done, and demands a hearing with God. When God finally speaks, He answers no question Job asked and Job is satisfied.
Background
The setting is patriarchal: wealth counted in livestock, sacrifices offered by the head of the family, no mention of Israel, the law or the temple. That makes it one of the oldest stories in Scripture whenever it was written down.
Most of the book is Hebrew poetry in three cycles of speeches, which is why it reads slowly. The prose frame at the beginning and end holds the poem in place.
Key themes
- Suffering is not always punishment, and comforters who assume it is do harm.
- God is not obliged to explain Himself, and is worth trusting unexplained.
- Faith can argue, complain and hold on at the same time.
- The scale of creation is an answer of a kind: who is this that darkeneth counsel?
- God restores — not as payment, but as grace.
Outline
- The wager and the lossesChapters 1–2
A blameless man, two conversations in heaven, and everything gone in a day.
- The first cycleChapters 3–14
Job curses the day of his birth; Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar answer in turn.
- The second cycleChapters 15–21
The friends harden, and Job says he knows that his redeemer lives.
- The third cycleChapters 22–31
Accusations become specific, and Job makes his final defense of his life.
- ElihuChapters 32–37
A younger man, angry at all four, who speaks of God teaching through affliction.
- God answersChapters 38–42
Out of the whirlwind: where wast thou? — and Job repents, and is restored.
Key passages
- Job 1:21 The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.
- Job 2:9-10 Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?
- Job 13:15 Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.
- Job 19:25-26 I know that my redeemer liveth.
- Job 23:10 When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.
- Job 38:4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?
- Job 42:5 I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.
Christ in Job
Job asks for a daysman — an umpire who could lay his hand on both God and man — and says there is none. The New Testament answers with one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And the redeemer Job was sure of, who would stand at the last upon the earth, is the one Job was waiting for without knowing His name.
Reading it
- Read chapters 1–2 and 38–42 first if you want the shape; then go back for the middle.
- Remember the friends say many true things and apply them wrongly.
- Notice that God never tells Job why — and that Job stops needing to know.