Truly Amazing (Job 38-42)

Our American 21^st century culture is individualistic to such a damaging extent that we lose sight of community. We forget that we are part of something bigger than ourselves and we think the country exists to serve us and not vice versa. We want a church that meets our needs instead of searching for a church that gives an opportunity for the individual to sacrificially serve God and serve people. We’re very comfortable with the notion of a personal relationship with Jesus. We like it personal and private. We expect God to be interested in us. Twenty-first century Americans expect everyone to be interested in them. Why should God be any different?

It really is an awesome thing that God would take interest in people or in an individual person. That’s exactly what happens in Job chapters 38-42. God speaks to Job. What statement does God make?

God asks, “Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, so that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it” (38:13)? Obviously, the answer Job has to give is “um, no; no I have not commanded the morning since my days began.” God has.

God asks Job, “Who has cut a channel for the torrents of rain, and a way for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a land where no one lives, on the desert, which is empty of human life, to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground put forth grass” (38:25-27)? Job must answer, if he is truthful, “You have done that, God.”

Throughout the conversation, it repeatedly established that God is God, and Job is not. God is talking about awesome features of the creation, places inaccessible to man (e.g. “the storehouses of snow” – 38:22). Even the example of rain in the desert (v.25-27) shows God involved with the earth completely independent of man. God has interest in this planet God made. God does not need man’s advice or help. In all that is said in Job 38-42, God never mentions human beings as God discusses the creation.

Leo Perdue of Brite Divinity School points out the fact that God ignores humanity in these chapters. Perdue writes, “In a striking repudiation of an anthropology in which humans are kings in God’s creation (see Psalm 8), Yahweh speaks of sustaining a world hostile to human life. The anthropological tradition grounded in the metaphor of humanity as king is shattered” (p.174, Wisdom and Creation: The Theology of Wisdom Literature). Nowhere in this address to Job does God repeat what is said in Genesis 1, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion” (1:26). Perdue feels that God’s speech in Job makes humanity look small and insignificant.

J. Gerald Janzen of Christian Theological Seminary looks at the same evidence. In Job 38-41, God speaks of creation, but never mentions mankind. However, Janzen’s conclusion (in the book Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching: Job) based on what is happening in the book of Job is different than Perdue’s. Janzen thinks the speech raises the importance of humans in God’s view because while humanity is not accounted for, the conversation is with a person. God doesn’t talk about men and women, but he talks to a man!

So which scholar gives a more helpful reading of Job 38-41? I think both contribute to our understanding of what God is saying. Perdue shows what we all know implicitly but sometimes need to be reminded of. God is God and we are not. God doesn’t exist to meet our needs. God is creator of a world that overwhelms us and it is an act of God’s grace that God would ever deign to speak to a person. Janzen points out that God does in fact extend that grace in the speech to Job! Job has longed for an audience with the divine and he gets it. He is not told why he suffers, but he hears from God, he lives, and in the end (Job 42), his blessings are restored.

Of the many conclusions I draw from the book of Job, one is this. We in 21^st century America may feel entitled to be self centered, however, we are small. In the grand scheme of the universe, we don’t matter. God does not have to speak to us. But, God wants to. Furthermore, in Jesus Christ, God became one of us in order to redeem us. That’s the extent of God’s love for us. Love isn’t an obvious motivating force in the book of Job, but when we read it in light of the cross, we realize that the God who doesn’t need us loves us and because of that we have significance. Humans count and humans matter because humans are invited to be in relationship with God. Job lived in that relationship and we are invited to as well. I find that truly amazing.

Rob Tennant

The Death of Conventional Wisdom

Ideas that are generally accepted as true – conventional wisdom; anything outside the boundary of conventional wisdom draws a second look, the occasional judgmental sneer, and uncomfortable head-scratching. The conventional wisdom I have found most often in the minds of well-intentioned church going Christians is as follows: God is always right and never to be questioned. Everyday folks who depend on their faith in God for their sanity reach blindly for that uncritical line of thinking.

A beloved friend dies. Standing around his casket, those he left behind put forth somber, unreasoned philosophy. “It was his time to go.” “At least he’s in a better place.” “God took him home.” Why do they think such thoughts? It’s conventional wisdom and it would be disquieting to go against it.

No one has the courage to say, “Why the heck didn’t God help them find a transplant for him? Other people get transplants and live a long time. He was only 58. He had many good years left. What was God doing, sleeping on the job?” No, we don’t say that. It never occurs to one that he or she might question God. Conventional wisdom doesn’t question the Almighty.

In the book of Job, we encounter conventional wisdom first in Satan, and then in the words of Job’s wife. Then the seemingly endless cycle of dialogues provide tiresome repetitions of conventional wisdom from the mouths of Job’s three friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. Finally, a sixth character comes along – Elihu, the angry young man.

The narrator tells us Elihu is angry because Job’s three friends cannot correct Job’s mistaken assessment of his situation. Elihu agrees with their theological position, but it enrages him that they could not answer Job in his relentless commitment to his own innocence. Furthermore, Elihu is outraged that Job would make such claims. Elihu has quietly waited, and now it is his turn and he spews forth conventional wisdom so forcefully, it is almost convincing.

I am appreciative of Gerald Janzen’s commentary on Job (Interpretaion series, John Knox Press). He details 8 ways in which Elihu is off base. This was helpful because by the time I finished reading Elihu’s words (Job, chs 32-37), I wasn’t sure if he was a wise man or another foolish blowhard. The ambiguity is intentional. The book of Job raises questions more than it gives answers. The book of Job provokes discomfort more than it provides spiritual security.

Is something true if someone yells it loudly, with conviction, over and over? Elihu comes off as convincing, and like the three friends, much of what he says is something I would agree with. I would say it if I could be as poetic. But, Job reminds us that it is OK to question God. It is ok to stomp on that conventional wisdom that God is never wrong and is never to be questioned. Just because Elihu gets mad and upsets everyone around him with his anger outburst doesn’t mean we acquiesce and not speak truth.

I don’t think God is ever “wrong.” But if the circumstances of my life suggest that justice has been perverted, I should yell at God, appeal to God, seek God, and demand an audience with God. God is never wrong, but – conventional wisdom aside – God is to be questioned. Abraham - Moses – Job – Paul; those in the Bible who have enough wherewithal to question God are of the most use to God and in the closest of relationships with God.

Elihu is still among us telling us when times get tough, God must have willed it. We can’t question. We just accept it, praise God, and keep quiet (ironically – he has the longest uninterrupted speech in the entire book). We don’t dare question! The problem is if we never develop a dynamic, conversational relationship with God in which we can bring our hard, even unanswerable questions, our faith never grows. In fact, it decays to nothing more than empty ritual and creeds and confession spoken with no conviction. When we confess faith but don’t believe what we are saying our faith is dead.

It’s scary to question God. God is unpredictable.

Still, I believe the best (not the easiest) course for you and for me is to shuck off the confines of conventional wisdom, and dive headfirst into the swirling waters of living faith. Deal with God in a relationship that is unique in that God is interested in you and your interplay with God will be unlike anyone else’s. Be unconventional. Ask questions, upsetting questions, questions that embarrass conventional wisdom. (I hope our church can be a place people feel free to ask those questions.) Be completely real with God – even when you’re mad at God. In the end, like Job you’re drawn closer to God.

The people who stay with conventional wisdom have no idea who God is.

Satan

Satan

In Job 1:6-12, God and ‘the satan’ have the following exchange.


One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”

Satan answered the Lord, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.”

The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil.”

Then Satan answered the Lord, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.”

The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, all that he has is in your power; only do not stretch out your hand against him!” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.


I refer to Satan as ‘the satan’ (lower case ‘s’) because ‘ha-satan’ in Hebrew is a title, not a name. It means ‘the adversary,’ or ‘the accuser.’ Several of the writers who approach Job via critical Biblical studies do not see in this ‘satan’ the same being of evil Jesus refers to as ‘the enemy’ (Matthew 13:39) or Beelzebub (Mark 3:22-23). The feeling is the one in Job is not evil at all.

Leo Perdue (Brite Divinity School, Professor of Hebrew Bible) describes ‘satan’ as a “member of the divine council [who] has the responsibility to search out and discover evil on the face of the earth and to make a report to the divine judge.” Furthermore, based on his reading of Job he writes that God is “a suspicious ruler of the divine council [who] falls prey to the temptation of ‘the satan’ and turns over to him the hero [Job]” (Perdue, Wisdom & Creation, p.129).

Now listen to Gerald Janzen (Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, Professor of Old Testament). He identifies ‘satan’ as a “proper member of the divine council.” He feels God’s question to ‘the satan’ amounts to a check. God is asking ‘satan,’ “Have you been doing your job?” Janzen recognizes that this book is not about ‘satan.’ He is a minor (but important) character. Janzen’s reading suggests that the appropriate behavior for ‘satan’ is to go about the earth, notice, and report to God what he sees.

Edwin M. Good (retired from Stanford University): “‘the satan’ … a divine district attorney, poking his nose here and there through the world in order to bring wicked people to divine justice. Far from being God’s adversary he is the divine law and order officer. He is not the principle of evil, however much he became so in later Jewish and Christian mythologies, but on the contrary in Job is a principle of good, of justice (Good, essay – “The problem of evil in the book of Job” in the book The Voice from the Whirlwind, p.52).

Upon reading Job and listening to the comments of leading authorities like Perdue, Janzen, and Good, I am not sure what to make of ‘satan’ in the book of Job. First, I would reiterate that the book of Job is not about ‘satan.’ He functions as a catalyst in the action, and then, he’s off the stage never to return. I am tempted to entertain the idea that this being we meet in Job 1 & 2 is not the same being that Jesus refers to as the devil, Beelzebub, Satan, and the enemy. I am tempted to hypothesize that that being is totally different, but I don’t have any particular good cause for such a conclusion other than my own reasoning.

I don’t agree with Edwin Good’s conclusion that ‘satan’ is a “principle of justice.” Good is taking it too far. It does seem that God is quick to show off Job, and then it backfires on God. The exchange of God & Satan in the divine council is unsettling. Clearly God is in charge and all movement is dependent upon God’s will. But God seems out of control regarding Job’s actions once Job is released to the destructive designs of the ‘satan.’ For ‘satan’s’ scheming to harm Job, even if it is in order to prove God wrong, I see ‘satan’ as malevolent.

It was not God’s intent that Job suffer. However, God allowed it just so God could prove a point. God allowed the death of 10 young adults (Job’s children; this number does not account for spouses and servants who also died). God allowed Job to go from prosperity and health to poverty and disease. God did it all to win an argument.

The whole notion of “divine council” (see also Psalm 82:1; 1 Kings 22:19-23; Zechariah 3:1-2; and Ephesians 6) is quite troubling if this is how divine councils function. People are just tools in the hands of gods – is this true? If so, from a human perspective, God’s hands are no cleaner than ‘satan’s’. However, it may be that one of the things the book of Job tells us is the human perspective is of limited importance to God. Other passages of scripture would contradict this theology (Matthew 6:35-43), but that’s one of the realities that makes Job so intriguing.

The ‘satan’ we meet in Job is something – something otherworldly. What he is exactly, I don’t know. He doesn’t appear as God’s enemy. He is most definitely God’s subordinate. And I am sure he does NOT have humanity’s good in mind. But, what he is, I am not sure.