Job does not escape without rebuke himself, however. There is one thing about Job’s reasoning which was wrong. Job was wrong to think that he really mattered that much, that he was very important, that God was too much concerned with mankind and paid more attention to their wrongs than he should. Instead, God shows us through several long speeches that mankind is of small worth and of little consequence in terms of everything that exists in the cosmos. A long list of things are presented which far outweigh a concern for humanity such as the founding and the laying of the earth and the basic operations of running the universe. Job’s fate is ultimately not a big deal to God and it shouldn’t be a big deal to Job either. Job repents and acknowledges he was wrong: See, I am of small account
(40:4).
This is one of the major problems I have with the book of Job. This message directly contradicts the message delivered by Yeshua when he said that just look at the birds of the air, how God looks after them and is concerned about each one of them, or the grass of the field which he sends rain upon to give them life or withholds it so they wither in the heat of the sun, are you not more important to God than all of those (Matthew 6:25-33)? Or again, Yeshua says that just as sparrows are not worth much, but God forgets none of them, so also every hair of your head is numbered by God and you are more valuable to him than they are (Luke 12:6-7). Indeed, this message in Job runs contrary to virtually the entire corpus of Hebrew scripture in which God shows great concern for humanity and works through all of history for humanity’s benefit. Indeed, humanity is even set apart and elevated from the rest of creation so that we bear his image. The fate of humanity or of a single human–YOU matter to God, quite contrary to the message of Job.
Some might try to say that this message serves to stop humans from becoming self-righteous—but this is not the case. Job WAS righteous. And God agreed that he was. And if someone were to say that this might help people not think the universe revolves around them, this misses the point also. Job wasn’t saying the universe revolves around himself. He was saying that the punishment by God against him was unjust and that that was important. And this leads to the second major problem I have with the book of Job.
What Job tells us, quite contrary to the rest of scripture, is that God does not award the righteous and punish the wicked. That God is unjust. Job was put on trial by God and by the satan, but it is God himself who is on trial in the book of Job. God is condemned for having a definition of justice that is meaningless to humanity because what is just to God cannot be measured or be known by our definition of justice. And God says this is correct and that Job has spoken the truth of the matter! Who has not spoken the truth? Who has lied for God (13:7)? Job’s three friends (and Elihu) who tell him God does not pervert justice, who tell him punishment from God can be traced to sin or to unrighteousness, who tell him humans cannot be righteous before God, who tell him God only does what is right, and that God destroys the wicked but not the blameless. The book of Job—God himself in the book of Job–tells us they are wrong. This leaves us with a God who cannot, himself, be vindicated of wrongdoing because he actually agrees that he does wrong without reason (2:3). God is capricious. God cannot be trusted. God’s justice cannot be known or depended on. His promises are therefore empty and he is thereby unfaithful. This message stands in outrageously strong contradiction to all of scripture.
Even if we were to suppose that there is an afterlife or a resurrection, it would mean nothing because the judgment that will be given cannot be known or depended on by anybody for any rational, consistent, or coherent reason. All one would know is that God could destroy you or hold you accountable just like he did Job—simply because of an arbitrary whim. He could flip a coin, let his own law of gravity operate without interference, and assign you to eternal glory or eternal damnation based on the result. Appealing to an afterlife solves nothing, it only worsens the theological mess one has to deal with.
We all know that the innocent can suffer injustice or that bad things can happen to good people. We also know that God sometimes brings evil on people and does things that we see as not being right or good. These messages occur throughout scripture. What makes these messages different in Job as opposed to the rest of scripture is that in Job there is no reason, no mercy, and no justice to account for it, whereas in the rest of scripture, there is. In the rest of scripture, there are rules that apply to the world because of the character of God. In Job, because of the character of God, there are no rules that can apply to the world. Even the pessimism and vanity
of Qohelth/Ecclesiastes can say it is good to follow God and that this can have good results. Qoheleth/Ecclesiastes might end by saying everyone goes to the same place or that everyone gets dealt the same card—death—but there is no obliteration of reason and justice until the end. In Qohelth/Ecclesiastes, one cannot count on justice always being served, but that is different than saying God is not just as the book of Job does. In a canonical context, Qoheleth can be augmented by the message of the rest of scripture, but Job can only destroy the scripture around it or be destroyed by it.
The only halfway decent message Job contains is that one’s service to God should be because he is God and not because one will reap any kind of reward or benefit for doing so. The satan thinks Job follows God because of his rewards and if God takes away those rewards, Job won’t follow him. The satan is shown wrong and Job is afterward blessed for continuing to follow him despite the suffering it brings him. This is a good message. But it is only so if good
can faithfully describe God. If God is not good, then it would not be good to follow him regardless of the consequences. The gods of Greece were not good or evil gods, they simply were gods. They did good and they did evil and sometimes humanity benefited and sometimes it didn’t. This kind of religion could never result in any kind of overarching message or principle that it was good to follow the gods even if they did evil or wrong, because that was obviously not the case. Since the gods were capricious like human beings, humans and gods could only manipulate each other to further their own good. Since the god of Job is not good, there is no reason to follow him regardless of the consequences just as God can give no reason for the lack of justice that Job experiences. God could have equally chosen for no reason to not bless Job at the end and to leave him in his misery. That God goes one way or another is non-rational just as it is non-rational to say that Job did well to follow God. Only someone who’s faith is completely severed from their reason can accept this.
For these reasons, I have torn Job from my canon. It cannot be an inspired work which teaches us of God. I suggest you do the same.
Vernon Wooden Says:
I was linked to your site when I Googled Umberto Cassuto at the recommendation of a friend. I have deeply appreciated your insights from what I’ve read so far, especially your critique of Dispensationalism (in which I was raised, but which I have since left). I’m going to tell the friend who told me about Cassuto about your site, as I’m sure he will enjoy it immensely.
In response to your rejection of Job, let me suggest that, although the recorded speeches of God at the end of the book seem to affirm His right to do whatever He pleases (capriciousness), His interaction with the enemy at the beginning of the narrative demonstrates that Job does matter to Him and that He does covenantally care for him. This harmonizes with Jesus’ teaching in Luke xvii.7-10, where the Master’s prerogative is delineated, and in Luke xii.35-37, where His actual practice is described. God owes us nothing even in our obedience, but He gives us all things in Christ because of His graciousness.
I believe you have the same problem with the book of Job that I have had with God’s command for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. How can God be righteously indignant with the "sin of the Amorites" (which was not yet "full" at the time of Abraham) in their offering of their children to Molech, when He tells Abraham to sacrifice his son? Certainly, God did not permit Abraham to actually kill Isaac, and this was a covenantal sign of what God Himself would do with His own Son, but does the end justify the means? No wonder Kierkegaard called the dilemma "the teleological suspension of the ethical"!
I agree with your assessment that the end of the book of Job is not a "happy ending," and that it does nothing to mitigate the real loss and pain that Job experienced. By the same token, does the eschatological outcome of redemption in any way mitigate the real suffering of the Savior? Isaiah liii.10, 11 tells us that, despite the horrible agony He endured, Jesus will be satisfied.
As I often tell my children when they respond to one of my decisions with the outcry of "unfair!" we humans sometimes have a warped sense of justice. What may seem arbitrary and/or capricious to us may indeed be God acting within the just purview of His authority. That’s not a very intellectually satisfying argument, I know, and I’m sure you’ve heard it before (and maybe rejected it as a platitude), but I would bring it to your attention just as a caution.
slaveofone Says:
I think, perhaps, Kierkegaard’s problem with the story of Isaac is a bit different than your own comment to me about that situation… The problem for Kierkegaard was not that Abraham was asked to do something that seems to conflict with God’s ethical or moral imperatives elsewhere (such as asking Abraham to sacrifice his son when God condemned others for that practice). Kierkegaard’s problem had to do with a misunderstanding of the kind of faith on which Abraham carried out his obedience. Kierkegaard thought that the faith that Abraham displayed and which God approved of had no basis in reason or evidential demonstration—that Abraham was asked to blindly follow based on nothing that if he obeyed God by sacrificing Isaac, that God would pull through in the end with his promises. That was the ethical dilemma—how can one respond to God, especially if one is asked to do something seemingly abominable, if one has absolutely no reason to think that God will perform as he said he would in the end?
However, Kierkegaard was mistaken. Throughout Genesis up to this point, God had evidentially shown that Abraham had reason to trust in God and in his promises. God said Abraham would have a child in his old age and this occurred. He told him it would happen within about a year’s time and it did. He said he would wipe part of the country off the face of the earth and Abraham saw it with his own eyes. He said he would be with Abraham to protect him wherever he went and this was proven true when Abraham made it out and away from other peoples not only safely but with prosperity and abundance when his life was endangered among them—and it was made clear that this was by the deity’s doing. Etc. Therefore, when Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son, he had reason substantiated through evidence across a span of many years that because YHWH said he would multiply his offspring through Isaac, his obedience in sacrificing Isaac would by no means conflict with that. And we can see this in the text itself. While one might apply a Christological meaning to Abraham’s reply that God would provide the lamb, in narrative context, this shows us that Abraham did not really believe that his obedience would result in the cutting off of his offspring—because he had reason to not believe this! So the faith Abraham displayed and which was rewarded by God, quite contrary to Kierkegaard, was not a blind leap of faith. Rather, it was an informed, rational, and substantiated faith based on evidence. And, therefore, the ethical dilemma of Kierkegaard’s is resolved.
“Does the eschatological outcome of redemption in any way mitigate the real suffering of the Savior?”
What I am really looking for in Job is is justice. Yeshua was resurrected and restored. Job’s family and the many slaves serving under him were not, they were simply replaced. Also, Yeshua submitted to torture and death willingly—the suffering, pain, and death brought on Job not willingly done by Job. Also, the wrongs done to Yeshua were done by men, whereas the wrongs done to Job were done by God. The real problem is one of justice. Yeshua’s sacrifice was not unjust—God’s sacrifice of Job’s life is.
“We humans sometimes have a warped sense of justice. What may seem arbitrary and/or capricious to us may indeed be God acting within the just purview of His authority.”
Definitely. However, this is not what I am speaking of in the case of of Job. Job says outright that what God did against him was unjust and God agrees with him! Job was righteous! He did not deserve what was done to him. And yet God did it anyway for “no reason” in his own words. God is unjust by his own definition in Job. It is not a matter of us not understanding God’s justice—-this not the issue in Job–it is a question of God not being just. And that I cannot abide with.