Author and Date of Writing - Unknown; a sage in Israel like Asaph or Solomon. perhaps someone who lived about the time of David or Solomon, which was the "Age of Wisdom Literature" in Israel.
Date of Events - Much earlier, during the time of the patriarchs like Abraham, around 2000-1800 BC.
Job is not a fairy tale. It is not a fable. It is not a morality play set against an ancient backdrop. Although it is told with poetry, we take it, along with the rest of Scripture, to be the truth, given to us by God through the pen of an inspired writer. These things actually happened as we have them recorded for us. The men and the woman who speak in this book did not speak in poetry, but the words we have, though stylized somewhat by the author, are nevertheless the true message about what happened.
We don’t know when Job was written. Some ancient believers thought that Moses had written the book and they even placed Job after Deuteronomy in their Bible. Many scholars in our own time think that it was written later, perhaps by Solomon or a writer in Solomon’s time, but there is nothing in the book to insist upon this later date. One possible clue, although not definitive, is the relationship between the psalms of Asaph and the book of Job.
Psalm 50:3 - God speaks from a storm (Job 38:1)Asaph, a contemporary of David, was at the very least well acquainted with the language and themes of Job, but as to whether he was the author, we can't say for certain.
Psalm 50:6 - God is the Judge of all (Job 19:6)
Psalm 50:10-11 - God knows and rules every animal (Job 38:39-39:30)
Psalm 50:18 - The close relationship of the thief, the adulterer, and deception (Job 24:14; 31:5)
Psalm 50:22 - The terrible destiny of those who forget God (Job 8:13)
Psalm 50:22 - Use of Eloah rather than Elohim as the term for God (Job 3:4 and a total of 41 times in Job out of 59 altogether throughout the Bible)
Psalm 73:1 - Emphasis on "unmixed" purity (Hebr. tahár) before God (Job 4:17; 14:4; 28:19)
Psalm 73:3 - Why do the wicked prosper? (Job 8:22; 9:24; 10:3; 21:7, etc.)
Psalm 73:13 - Emphasis on moral purity (Hebr. zacháh), (Job 8:6 and 7 other times in Job)
Psalm 74:2 - To redeem is an act of God (Job 33:28)
Psalm 74:7, 10 - Special emphasis on "the Name" of the Lord (Job 1:21; although throughout the Asaph psalms: 75:1; 76:1; 79:6; 79:9; 80:18; 83:16).
Psalm 74:14 - Leviathan (Job 41:1-34)
Psalm 75:3 - the pillars of heaven and earth that quake or stand at God's command (Job 9:6; 26:11)
Psalm 75:6 - Using "east" and "west" to describe people from all over (Job 18:20)
Psalm 75:7 - God is the one who judges and raises his hand against the wicked. (Job 21:22)
Psalm 76:8-9 - The God who judges is to be feared. (Job 12:16-17)
Psalm 77:3 - The groans of the dying and condemned rising to the Lord (Job 3:24; 23:2; 24:12)
Psalm 77:7 - Will the Lord reject forever? Has is mercy vanished to the end? (Job 9:15; 30:15)
Psalm 77:15 - see "redeem," Ps. 74:2 above.
Psalm 78:1 - The command to "listen to" or "hear" teaching (uncommon; cf. Job 33:33).
Psalm 78:17 - How often God's people have rebelled! (Job 24:13; 34:37)
Psalm 78:26 - The south wind commanded by God (Job 37:17)
Psalm 78:35 - God is the Redeemer (Job 19:25) - this title only occurs 2 other places outside Isaiah, but see 74:2 above.
Psalm 78:42 - see "redeem," Ps. 74:2 above.
Psalm 79:11 -Groans rising to the Lord (see 77:3 above)
Psalm 80 - Hear, O Shepherd of Israel! O God, restore us! (Job 8:6)
Psalm 81:14 - If only... (Hebrew lu, Job 6:2; 9:33; 10:19; 13:5; 14:13; 17:13;23:3)
Psalm 82:1 - In the midst of the "gods," God judges. (Job 1:6; 2:1)
Psalm 83 - Surrounded by enemies. (Job 16:13; 17:2)
Although we can’t date the time when Job was written, we may be able to place the time when the events took place. Based on place names and other factors, Job seems to have lived during the time of the patriarchs, perhaps the 1800’s BC or a little earlier. Job's great age at the end of the book reminds us the days of the patriarchs. Job was the priest in his family, something that was in place until the time of the exodus. Also, there is no reference whatsoever to Israel, which would seem to indicate that the events happened before there was a nation of Israel living in Canaan.
There are other factors that point to the age of the Patriarchs for the events in Job. The attacks by Sabaeans (Job 1:15) and Chaldeans (Job 1:17) are reminiscent of the nations and methods of the "War of the Coalition" in Genesis 14. Also, during that war, the Amalekites and Amorites were defeated by a relatively small force (cp. Genesis 14:7 and 14:14-16). Since the Amalekites were descended from Esau's son Eliphaz, they would have been a small group at this time. Also, the name Eliphaz occurs in Job, although probably a family name and not the same man. We will discuss the relationship of Job's friend Bildad and Abraham at another time.
FROM MARTIN LUTHER'S PREFACE TO JOB (1545):
The book of Job deals with the question, whether misfortune comes from God even to the righteous. Job stands firm and contends that God torments even the righteous without cause other than that this be to God’s praise, as Christ also testifies in John 9:3 of the man who was born blind.II. THEMES IN JOB
Job’s friends take the other side. They make a big and lengthy palaver trying to maintain God’s justice, saying that he does not punish a righteous man, and if he does punish, then the man who is punished must have sinned. They have a worldly and human idea of God and his righteousness, as though he were just like men and his justice like the justice of the world. (LW 35)
1. Suffering. Job suffers tremendously in this book, and perhaps that is one of the places where most of us connect with the book the most. When we suffer, we think of Job and read about Job and realize that here was a man who probably suffered more than we do. Job suffered the loss of his fortune, the loss of his ten children, the loss of his health, and these things also led to trouble in his marriage (2:9; 19:17). When we suffer in any part of our lives, there is sure to be some point of contact with Job, and the comfort Job looked for is the comfort we are looking for, too.
2. Patience. I have heard Job described as an incredibly patient man, and I have heard Job described as an incredibly impatient man. One thing is certain: Job did not give up on the Lord, although his faith scraped the bottom a few times. Job gave up trying to understand and finally listened to God, and it was then that Job's confession of his sinfulness became evident to everyone.
3. Defending our faith. Job is accused time after time of being sinful, which is equated with unbelief by his friends. But when Job defends his faith, he throws himself at God's feet, and that's a great example for any of us.
4. The storm. Throughout the book of Job, there is a storm on the way. In the first chapters, we get the impression from the words of Job and his friends that their land is dry and that a wind is blowing (6:17, etc.). Then in Job 13:25, one of Job's friends compares Job's words to Job troubling a dry leaf blowing past, and from that moment references to an oncoming storm front increase. Distant rain and a murmuring thunder (28:26) eventually give way to "the roar of (God's) voice" thundering all around the men (37:2-5). Lightning that was merely close (36:30) becomes a first-hand show in God's personal questions (38:24, 35). There is no reason not to take this storm from which God speaks as anything other than the Glory of the Lord itself. I will point out references to the coming storm in the comments with the symbol:
5. The creatures: Yam, Tannin, Rahab, Behemoth, Leviathan.
יָם Yam (7:12) is "the monster of the deep," perhaps a personification of the power of the ocean. The Hebrew word means "sea" and usually just stands for the ocean.
תַנִּים Tannin (30:29) is "jackal" in the NIV, but many translations see a reference to Tannin, a dragonlike sea monster. Like Rahab (see below), Tannin or "the great monster" was sometimes also a nickname for Egypt (Ezekiel 29:3). Note that even a map of Egypt shows the Nile resembling a long, uncoiled serpent slithering near Canaan.
רָהַב Rahab (9:13), an ancient mythological sea monster. Job's mention of a mythological creature is not evidence of belief in the creature any more that if I were mention Scylla and Charybdis or their modern equivalent, a rock and a hard place. Rahab was a monster associated with the Red Sea in particular, and perhaps for that reason it also became a nickname for Egypt and for wicked nations in general (cp. Isaiah 51:9-10).
בְהֵמוֹת Behemoth (40:15-24). Although there is sometimes a suggestion that this creature could be the hippopotamus (an obscure Egyptian word for the hippo, p-ih-mw, even sounds a little like behemoth), the hippo's tail doesn't come even close to that of the behemoth's in 40:17, nor does the description of his "sinewy muscles" in the same verse. Another creature is probably meant. Chapter 40 provides a detailed look at this creature.
לִוְיָתָן Leviathan (3:8; 41:1-34), has a description that goes so far beyond that of the crocodile as to make any association with a known animal impossible. However, in some references outside Job, such as Psalm 104:26, the leviathan could simply be a whale. It is likely that although a specific creature is meant here in Job, leviathan (Hebrew, "winding / wound thing") simply means any kind of large sea creature.
FROM LUTHER'S PREFACE TO JOB (1545):
To be sure, when Job is in danger of death, out of human weakness he talks too much against God, and in his suffering sins. Nevertheless Job insists that he has not deserved this suffering more than others have, which is, of course, true. Finally, however, God decides that Job, by speaking against God in his suffering, has spoken wrongly, but that in contending against his friends about his innocence before the suffering came Job has spoken the truth. So the book carries this story ultimately to this conclusion: God alone is righteous, and yet one man is more righteous than another, even in the sight of God. (LW 35)III. LITERARY AND POETIC FORMS IN JOB, AND AN OUTLINE OF JOB
1. The Job Sandwich. At its simplest, Job is constructed like a sandwich. A large section of poetry (chapters 3-41) is surrounded by a two slices of prose (non-poetic) bread, with a prologue (chapters 1-2) and an epilogue (chapter 42).
2. The Three Cycles. Within the poetic middle of the sandwich are three well-ordered cycles of speeches followed by three groups of speeches by Job, another friend and God himself. Job's three friends Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar (I sometimes think of them as "Ell, Bill, and Mr. Z") each speak to Job, and Job replies to each one of them in turn. In general, Eliphaz tends to focus on the wisdom of nature and of common sense ("Do you limit wisdom to yourself?" Job 15:8). In the same way, we might generalize Bildad (a descendant of Abraham? -- More on this later) as focusing on the wisdom of the past and, to quote Fiddler on the Roof, Tradition! ("ask the former generation and find out what their fathers learned..." Job 8:8). The third man, Zophar, doesn't add much to their arguments. His words are the most caustic and indignant ("Oh, how I wish God would speak!" Job 11:5) but he presents a general feeling of "Yeah--what they said!" ("Are all these words to go unanswered?" Job 11:2).
This pattern: Eliphaz, Job, Bildad, Job, Zophar, Job, occurs three times. The last time, Bildad has only a very short speech and Zophar doesn't speak at all, which seems to be an indication that Job's friends are running out of gas in their accusations against him. In the exact center of this cycle, when Job replies to the second friend in the second round, we find the literary climax of the book: Job declares his faith in the coming Savior, saying I know that my Redeemer lives! (Job 19:25).
3. The "Useless Chatterer." There was another friend, a younger man named Elihu, who doesn't speak until all the others have finished, but who goes on with four speeches of his own (chapters 32-37). At first his words seem very captivating, but Luther characterized him as a "chatterer." He doesn't add anything of use, although some of his words have good doctrinal applications.
4. Hebrew Parallelism. Parallelism is a way stating a thing, and then stating it again so that the meaning is understood. Languages like Hebrew use parallelism to increase the emotional effect of poetry, and sometimes to tighten the definition of what is being said. Hebrew poetry has three main types of parallelism and several other, minor types. In parallelism, the first of two (or more) lines is reflected in some way by the second. The main types are:
I. Synonymous parallelism, in which the second line (the B line) restates the same thought as the first (the A line).
לָמָּה יִתֵּן לְעָמֵל אוֹר
וְחַיִּים לְמָרֵי נָפֶשׁ
A. Why is light given to those in miseryB. and life to the bitter of soul? (Job 3:20)
II. Antithetic parallelism, in which the second line restates the first line in negative terms (or vice-versa).
לֹא־יִתְּנֵנִי הָשֵׁב רוּחִי
כִּי יַשְׂבִּעַנִי מַמְּרֹרִים
A. He would not let me regain my breathB. but would overwhelm me with misery (Job 9:18)
III. Synthetic parallelism, in which the second line completes or expands the thought of the first. Sometimes this is done with question and answer, or with an illustration or contrast.
אִם־שָׁכַבְתִּי וְאָמַרְתִּי מָתַי אָקוּם
וּמִדַּד־עָרֶב וְשָׂבַעְתִּי נְדֻדִים עֲדֵי־נָשֶׁף
A. When I lie down I think: How long before I get up?
B. The night drags on, and I toss till dawn. (Job 7:4)
אֱלוֹהַּ לֹא־יָשִׁיב אַפּוֹ
תַּחְתָּו שָׁחֲחוּ עֹזְרֵי רָהַב
A. God does not restrain his anger,
B. even the cohorts of Rahab cower at his feet (Job 9:13)
5. Poetic Structure of Job. In the Bible, different styles of poetry take on different forms. Proverbs (in or out the book by that name) tend to be written in two lines (regardless of the book in which they appear), are often stated in positive-negative terms, and often have a definite rhythm:
אָבוֹת יֹאכְלוּ בֹסֶר
וְשִׁנֵּי הַבָּנִים תִקְהֶינָה
Avoth yoc'lu boser (3 stresses)
WeShineh habanim tiqhena (3 stresses)
The fathers eat sour grapes,
and the children's teeth are set on edge. (Ezekiel 18:2)
Laments (including the entire book of Lamentations) are sad songs that describe grief or distress over a sad or disastrous event. They often employ a particular rhythm called a qinah alternating with more regular patterns. Liturgical poems in the Psalms present songs with refrains that could be sung by choirs. There are several other styles of poetry: the hymn (praises to God), the thanksgiving psalm, the royal (or Messianic) psalm, love poetry (like Song of Solomon), didactic or teaching poems, prophetic poetry, and more.
In Job, the poetry tends to remain within the "proverb" or "wisdom" category. Most of the thoughts are in short, two- or -three line groups, and larger groups are often called stanzas or strophes (I pronounce this word in two syllables, rhyming it with the name Sophie, but many people make it sound like stroaf). Generally, three strophes (or six in some cases) make a chapter.
6. Strophe, Antistrophe, Epode. I am not an expert in Hebrew poetics. I will help us recognize different styles of parallelism, I will call attention to various forms of wordplay, and I will usually present devotions based on individual strophes in the poetic section.
But I am going to advocate a certain pattern I feel is present within the speeches, and you must feel free do disagree with me on this point. In many of the speeches in Job, there seems to be a definite pattern in which a speech has three main parts. In the first part, a point is made, in the second part, a kind of counterpoint or negative application is made, and in the third part, another direction is taken which might be the result of the first two or simply a new idea introduced to the conversation. I would call this thesis, antithesis and synthesis, except that those terms have definite meanings in poetry, and those meanings are not what I see in Job. The structure is not that tightly nailed down.
The pattern in Job reminds me of a classical poetic style known as the ode, although Job is not an ode. In an ode, there is a main point chanted by a chorus (which travels across the stage from one side to the other, called a strophe), then a counterpoint chanted while the chorus (or another chorus) travels the other way, called an antistrophe, and finally the chorus stops in the middle (or both of them meet) to chant in the middle of the stage a third poem called an epode (pronounced EP-o-dee). Job is not an ode, and was written hundreds of years before Pindar wrote any odes, but this three-part style seems to fit the pattern of the book. I think it is possible and perhaps even likely that Pindar or some other Greek poet developed the idea of the Ode from a knowledge of Job.
For example, in chapter 3, Job complains:
I. May the day of my birth perish! (verses 1-10, the strophe)
II. Why didn't I perish on that day? (verses 11-19, the antistrophe)
III. Why are light and life given to the miserable? (verses 20-25, the epode)
Final couplet: I have no peace (this placement of short two-line couplet is common throughout the book).
In some places, this pattern is turned around by Job's friends, who often state an antistrophe and then a strophe with another antistrophe rather than a comfortably resolving epode. If this is the intention of the author, it forms the literary equivalent to disharmony to the arguments of the friends: they are not helping Job in his suffering. In God's speeches in the last five chapters, perfect harmonious poetry overtakes us like elegant music silencing the chaos.
AN OUTLINE OF JOB
Job 1-2....... Prologue (Job's fortune and family lost)
Job 3........... Job's complaint
Job 4-14..... The first round:
A. Eliphaz, and Job's answer (4-7)
B. Bildad, and Job's answer (8-10)
C. Zophar, and Job's answer (11-14)
Job 15-21... The second round:
A. Eliphaz, and Job's answer (15-17)
B. Bildad, and Job's answer (18-19)
The center of the friends' section: "I know that my Redeemer lives," 19:25.
C. Zophar, and Job's answer (20-21)
Job 22-26... The third round:
A. Eliphaz, and Job's answer (22-24)
B. Bildad, and Job's answer (25-26)
Job 27-31... Job: Four speeches (or two long speeches)
Job 32-37... Elihu: Four speeches.
1. God is good. 2. God is just. 3. God is just. 4. God is good.
Job 38-41... God: Four speeches.
Job 42......... Epilogue (Job's fortune and family restored)
FROM LUTHER'S PREFACE TO JOB (1545):
But this is written for our comfort, that God allows even his great saints to falter, especially in adversity. For before Job comes into fear of death, he praises God at the theft of his goods and the death of his children. But when death is in prospect and God withdraws himself, Job’s words show what kind of thoughts a man—however holy he may be—holds toward God: he thinks that God is not God, but only a judge and wrathful tyrant, who storms ahead and cares nothing about the goodness of a person’s life. This is the finest part of this book. It is understood only by those who also experience and feel what it is to suffer the wrath and judgment of God, and to have his grace hidden. (LW 35)
IV. GRACE AND THE PROMISE OF SALVATION IN JOB
"I know that my Redeemer lives," declared Job (Job 19:25). He longed for salvation, and he knew that there was such a thing. Job's confession in that place also shows that he looked for a physical resurrection from the dead: "After my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God" (19:26).
There is a valid question that runs throughout the book: How can a mortal be righteous before God? (9:2, 25:4; etc.). Although the five men who speak never quite come to a satisfactory answer, we are still left remembering Job's confession of faith and his eyes which looked so longingly to God for help. We don't need to understand everything about God's plan of salvation to treasure it. We revere the Almighty; we respect his holiness and his righteousness, and we remember that without those qualities, our rescue and indeed our creation would never have been possible. So when our lives careen over bumps and pitfalls, we look to God for help and we don't assign him blame. We ask him for forgiveness, not for explanations. And we lift up our eyes to him, adore him, and give him thanks.
If this is too brief an explanation, then let's summarize a few points about this great book:
1. The Lord permitted incredible suffering and agony to fall on Job, a man God himself had described as "righteous" and also said that "there is none like him."
2. Job's suffering included every aspect of his life: Enemies stole his property, killed his servants, a storm brought about the death of his children, he was afflicted with a terrible disease, and his wife and his friends turned on him. There was no corner where Job could hide, and no one was in Job's corner.
3. Job had been a leader, well known and renowned throughout his part of the world, but he became an object of ridicule and scorn.
4. All of these things brought on inward suffering, too, as Job was forced to contemplate his place in God's kingdom and whether God was punishing him for some sin or for some other reason altogether.
5. Despite Job's insistence that he was righteous before God (something God himself had earlier confirmed), Job is confronted with the fact that despite his righteousness (and, although he never quite says it, because of his righteousness), he is made to suffer horribly.
6. How does wisdom play its part in all of this? God finally reveals that his ways (his wisdom) are unknown to us. His wisdom was there is every part of the creation. To paraphrase Prof. Mark Paustian, God doesn't explain everything about his ways to us for the same reason a live person doesn't explain his entire world to a cartoon character. There are parts of the three-dimensional world that a two-dimensional creature could never fully understand. And so it is with us and God. Job's suffering permitted and even forced Job to contemplate these things, and despite the degree of his suffering, Job never let go of his faith in God. He never cursed God.
Luther was commenting on the Psalms when he said:
"In this he [anyone who suffers] is regarded as low and as cursed by God according to the ʻunwisdomʼ of carnal men, who do not know that salvation is of the Spirit under judgments of this kind and under the sufferings of Christ. Therefore they do not deign to see him, but despise him. They are fearful where there is no fear, they abhor the poverty, trouble, and contempt of the faithful people in the world, as did the friends of Job. But they who fear God alone and neither love nor fear anything that is of the world, whether bad or good, rejoice and congratulate him, because they see his spiritual good things which he has in hope. LW 11,467.
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