by
Wes Morriston
Let the day perish in which I was born... [Job 3:3a] 1
...he crushes me with a tempest, and multiplies my wounds without cause;
he will not let me get my breath, but fills me with bitterness.... though
I am blameless, he would prove me perverse. [9:17-18,20b]
...therefore I say, he destroys both the blameless and the wicked.
When disaster brings sudden death, he mocks at the calamity of the innocent.
[9:22]
I call aloud, but there is no justice. [19:7b]
Here is my signature! Let the Almighty answer me! [31:35a]
Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind. Who is this that darkens
counsel without knowledge? ... Where were you when I laid the foundations
of the earth? ... when the morning stars sang together and all the sons
of God shouted for joy? [38:1-2,4a,7]
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes. [42:5-6]
In the long poem at the center of the book of Job, we encounter a decidedly impatient Job - one who curses the day he was born, accuses God of treating him unfairly, and demands an accounting from his maker. At the dramatic climax of the book, God answers Job out of a 'whirlwind', displaying the wonders of creation and putting Job firmly back in his place. Apparently satisfied by God's answer, Job 'repents in dust and ashes.' [42:6]
Here, in the answer from the whirlwind, and in Job's humbled response, the poet's own deepest thinking about the problem of unfair suffering finds expression. But it is notoriously difficult to see how the two whirlwind speeches provide an answer to Job's complaint, and interpretations vary wildly, depending on the propensities and emphases of the reader. In this paper, I am especially concerned with the following questions. What underlying problem is the poet is wrestling with? How is God's answer to Job supposed to be relevant to this problem? And why is Job satisfied by it? I critically consider what seem to me to be two of the most important interpretations. Neither of them turns out to be completely satisfying. I then conclude by suggesting that the book of Job itself oscillates back and forth between two quite different conceptions of God's relation to the world.
The central problem posed by the book of Job emerges in the lengthy
and repetitious debate between Job and the three friends who have come
to comfort him. The friends are appalled by Job's attitude. They suggest,
ever so tactfully at first, then more and more insistently, that Job should
search his conscience to see what he has done to bring God's wrath down
upon him. But Job will have none of it; he maintains his innocence, insisting
that he does not deserve what has happened to him, and even accusing God
of injustice.
It will help to clarify and focus our thinking if we formulate the
issue in this debate with somewhat greater precision. As I see it, both
sides of the debate share two presuppositions.
The first is that God is making Job suffer. God doesn't just permit
Job's suffering. God is the ultimate cause of all Job's misfortunes. The
precise mechanisms that God uses to get his way on earth are unimportant.
The Chaldeans and the Sabeans, and even the great wind that comes roaring
out of the desert to level the house where Job's children are dining all
play their parts. But Job and his friends never doubt that the script was
written in heaven. (They, of course, know nothing of God's conversation
with the Accuser.2)
The second presupposition is that in a just world people get what they
deserve. The righteous are rewarded, and the wicked are appropriately punished
- at least that's how God is supposed to be running the world.
Given these two assumptions, Job and his friends believe that they
have to choose between blaming God and blaming Job - between giving up
their belief that God is just, and concluding that Job is not 'blameless
and upright.' It never occurs to them that a just God would destroy a righteous
person.
Four mutually inconsistent propositions thus constitute the problem
of Job.
1. God is making Job suffer.
2. A just God would not cause an innocent person suffer as Job has
suffered.
3. God is just.
4. Job is innocent of any wrong-doing serious enough to justify the
punishment he has received.
Propositions 1 and 2 are not questioned in the course of the debate.
The dispute is about the other two. The friends conclude that proposition
4 is false. They believe that, contrary to appearances, Job is being punished
for some sin.3 Job, on the other hand, proclaims his innocence, and (at
least some of the time) draws the daring and blasphemous conclusion that
proposition 3 is false. Since God has treated him unfairly, God is not
just.
Job also knows that he is not the only innocent victim, and he issues
a general indictment of the way God is running the world.
It is all one; therefore I say,
he destroys both the blameless and the wicked.
When disaster brings sudden death,
he mocks at the calamity of the innocent.
The earth is given into the hands of the wicked;
he covers the eyes of its judges -
if it is not he, who then is it? [9:22-24]
In his final summation, Job returns to his own case, swears an oath of innocence, and demands that God explain himself. 'Here is my signature!' he cries, 'Let the Almighty answer me!'4
'Then the LORD answered Job from out of the whirlwind.' Job, silenced
at last, hears the mysterious Voice of the Creator of the universe.
Note first what the Voice doesn't say. It says nothing about any conversations
with the Accuser. Nothing about 'testing' Job, or 'disciplining' him, or
'punishing' him. In fact, the Voice says nothing at all about what has
happened to Job! It expresses no sympathy, and gives no explanation; it
doesn't even hint at a reason for Job's suffering.
Actually, God speaks twice. The first of the speeches consists mostly
in a series of gruff, ironic questions: What does Job know? What can he
do? The content of each question is a vivid word picture, usually of some
non-human aspect of nature. Taken together, God's questions display the
vast panoply of creation in all its power and beauty: The earth, the sea,
the stars. The dawn. Light and darkness. Lightning and clouds and rain.
Various members of the animal kingdom are described: hungry lion cubs waiting
to be fed, the raven searching for prey, the goat crouching to give birth,
the wild ox refusing to be harnessed or to work for humans, the ostrich
leaving her eggs in the sand, the war horse exulting at the sound of battle,
the hawk spreading its wings and soaring away, the eagle making its nest
on a rocky crag.
Job is rendered almost speechless, but the Voice goes right on, as if
he were still defiant. 'Will you even put me in the wrong?' it asks Job.
'Will you condemn me that you may be justified? Have you an arm like God,
and can you thunder with a voice like his? ... Then I will acknowledge
to you that your own right hand can give you the victory.' [40:8-9,14]
(The reader may well wonder when Job had ever imagined that his power rivaled
God's!5)
Most of the LORD's second speech is devoted to a description of the
primeval monsters, Behemoth and Leviathan. Behemoth appears to be a sort
of supernatural bull, or perhaps hippopotamus. Leviathan is a fire-breathing
sea serpent; its strength and terrifying appearance are described in considerable
detail. Once again, God's question seems to be: What can Job do?
Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook,
or press down its tongue with a cord?
Can you put a rope in its nose,
or pierce its jaw with a hook? [41:1-2]
At the conclusion of the description of Leviathan, the Voice falls silent.
Job's brief response shows that the experience has brought about a complete
change in his attitude. He drops all his former complaints, and repents.
I suggest that the Theophany makes three distinct points.
(1) First, it declares that God is supremely powerful and fully in
control of everything.6 That, I think is the main point of the descriptions
of Behemoth and Leviathan, which dominate the second speech. These monsters
seem to function as symbols of the chaos that the sky god of Near Eastern
mythology was supposed to subdue at the end of time. In the present context,
the point is that even these monsters are no threat to God. They are only
his creatures, his playthings.
(2) In the second place, the Theophany repeatedly contrasts God's wisdom
and knowledge with Job's ignorance. 'Who is this that darkens counsel by
words without knowledge?' God asks, and forcibly reminds Job of how little
he knows about the way the world is put together. 'Where were you when
I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding.'
[38:2,4] The point is that Job doesn't know, doesn't have understanding.
(3) In the third place, the Theophany is a celebration of the Wisdom
that created the world, and of the order it imposes on nature. It offers
a breathtaking vision of the majesty and beauty of the Creator's design.
When the foundations of the earth were laid,
... the morning stars sang together,
and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy. [38:7]
As well they should. The sea (here, as elsewhere in the Bible, a symbol
of chaos) is held within bounds. [38:8-11] Leviathan is kept on a leash.
[41:1-3] Everything - rain and lightning, hail and frost, lion and goat,
eagle and ox - is in its proper place, playing its assigned part in the
total scheme of things.
To some readers, it will seem that God has merely changed the subject,
asserting what Job has known all along - that he is the supremely wise
and powerful author of a magnificent cosmos. How is this supposed to take
care of Job's complaint?
The first answer I want to consider is the one most often assumed by
the current generation of religiously committed writers.7 I shall refer
to it as the Standard Interpretation. Actually, it is a family of interpretations.
According to all of them, the main point made by the Theophany is that
Job doesn't know enough to call God to account. They take this to mean
two things: (i) God has perfectly good reasons for the way he has treated
Job, and (ii) Job shouldn't expect to know what they are.
A particularly clear and concise statement of the Standard Interpretation
is given by Alvin Plantinga in a recent essay on the problem of evil:
Job complains that God has no good reason for permitting the evil that
befalls him. He believes that God doesn't have a good reason because he,
Job, can't imagine what that reason might be. In reply, God does not tell
him what the reason is; instead, he attacks Job's unthinking assumption
that if he can't imagine what reason God might have, then probably God
doesn't have a reason at all. And God attacks this assumption by pointing
out that Job's knowledge is limited along these lines. No doubt he can't
think what God's reason might be; but nothing of interest follows from
this: in particular it doesn't follow that probably God doesn't have a
reason. 'All right, Job, if you're so smart, if you know so much, tell
me about it! Tell me how the universe was created; tell me about the sons
of God who shouted with joy upon its creation! No doubt you were there!'
And Job sees the point: '...I have spoken of great things which I have
not understood, things too wonderful for me to know' (Ch. 42 vs. 3).
...The point here is that the reason for Job's suffering is something entirely beyond his ken, so that the fact that he can't see what sort of reason God might have for permitting his suffering doesn't at all tend to show that God has no reason.... 8
Plantinga is right in interpreting God's Answer in the context of Job's
complaint. Job's complaint, God's Answer, and Job's humbled response are
parts of a single package. None of the items in it can be understood without
reference to the others. Nevertheless, I think that Plantinga's defense
of the Standard Interpretation involves a subtle misunderstanding of the
case Job had made.9
Job never says, 'I can't imagine any reason for this; so there isn't
one.' His complaint is based on what he takes to be a genuine piece of
knowledge: If God is justified in treating him like this, it can only be
because he somehow deserves it. That is why he thinks he has a right to
demand that God either restore him to favor, or give a convincing explanation
of what he has done wrong.
Of course, Job also doubts that any convincing explanation will be
forthcoming. He thinks he has a pretty good grip on what his moral and
religious obligations are, and he feels sure that he has fulfilled them.
In his final summation, he runs through a long litany of sins that he has
not committed. He says he is not guilty of lust, deceit, covetousness,
idolatry, or adultery. He has not failed to care for the poor, has not
taken advantage of the weak. He has not trusted in his wealth or rejoiced
in the ruin of his enemies. Has never failed to extend hospitality to strangers.
Has never concealed a sin, or misused his land. [31:1ff]
Here, perhaps, we can see Job as moving from the premise that he 'can't
imagine' how something could be so to the conclusion that it isn't so.
'I can't see what I have done wrong,' he cries, 'my conscience is clear'
- and then concludes, 'I am innocent.' But this is no help to Plantinga,
since this part of Job's complaint is not mistaken. There is not a hint
in either of the divine speeches that Job deserves the things that have
happened to him - and in any case, the rest of the book makes it abundantly
clear that Job is innocent. Indeed, there would be no Problem of Job (
no book of Job ( if people always got what they deserved. So if there is
a reason for Job's suffering ( one that lies beyond his ken ( it will not
be a sin that he is unaware of.
This is not fatal to the Standard Interpretation, of course. For we
can take God's Answer to be saying, not merely that Job and his friends
were ignorant of God's reasons, but also that they were deeply mistaken
in what they thought they knew about the requirements of justice - at least
as they apply to God. Since Job is innocent, and since God nevertheless
has a good reason for making him suffer, it follows that God sometimes
has good reasons for making the innocent suffer.
On this reading, the second of our four incompatible propositions is
the one that has to be abandoned. It is not true that:
It is because of this misconception that Job is accused of 'darkening
counsel by words without knowledge.' (38:2)
So far, so good. But if the reason for Job's suffering is not some
hidden sin, what else could it be? Plantinga apparently thinks that the
Prologue to Job does give the 'reason' for Job's suffering.
As a matter of fact, according to the story, God does have a good reason, but the reason involves a transaction among beings some of whom Job has no awareness [of] at all.10
It is true that Job never learns about the conversations between God and the Accuser, and in this sense, they are 'beyond his ken.' But this had better not be the 'good reason' referred to in the Standard Interpretation. If God's only 'reason' for tormenting Job is to demonstrate his loyalty to a skeptical member of the heavenly court, then it is hardly surprising that he didn't tell Job about it - not because it would be too hard for Job to understand, but because he would understand only too well the utter inadequacy of God's reason. If no more than this is going on behind the scenes, then the great Answer from the Whirlwind is mere bluster on the part of a God who doesn't want Job to know the truth.11 12
Some proponents of the Standard Interpretation simply refuse to speculate
about the nature of God's reasons, arguing that we are no better placed
than Job to say what they might be. According to these interpreters, the
message of the Theophany is a perfectly general one about human cognitive
limitations. It says that no mere human being should expect to understand
God's reasons for making the righteous suffer.13
Two different claims must be distinguished here, a positive claim and
a negative one. The positive claim is that God does have good reasons;
the negative claim is that human beings aren't smart enough (or something)
to know what God's reasons are (if he has any). It's easy enough to see
how the negative claim gets made in the divine speeches. God asks Job,
over and over, 'What do you know about anything?' But how, exactly, does
the positive claim get made? Where in either of the speeches does God say,
'I have a good reason for making you suffer?'
The speeches don't say anything of the kind directly. But as we noted
earlier, they do celebrate the majesty and beauty of creation, and it has
sometimes been suggested that this is an indirect way of saying that there
is - also - a Moral Order at work in the world. This view of the matter
is defended by Robert Gordis.
...God...makes His point by implication, but nonetheless effectively on that account. The vivid and joyous description of nature is not an end in itself: it underscores the insight that nature is not merely a mystery, but is also a miracle, a cosmos, a thing of beauty. From this flows the basic conclusion at which the poet has arrived: just as there is order and harmony in the natural world, though imperfectly grasped by man, so there is order and meaning in the moral sphere, though often incomprehensible to man.14
I think there are two problems with Gordis's suggestion. In the first
place, the analogy seems much too weak to support the argument. If we are
worried about someone's moral character, it is no help to be shown a wonderful
picture that he has painted, or an intricate machine that he has designed.
By itself, that would only tell us that the person is talented, creative,
and so on. The same thing holds true here. The celebration of the natural
order shows us something about what God can do - it shows something of
the beauty of what he has chosen to create - but it is hard to see how
this provides a basis for a conclusion about his moral character or about
the justice of his rule.
In the second place, it isn't at all clear what Gordis has in mind
when he speaks of 'meaning in the moral sphere,' or how this kind of order
is supposed to be different from 'order and harmony in the natural world.'
Gordis gives us little help, saying only that moral meaning is 'often incomprehensible
to man.' One is left with the impression that divine justice is completely
inscrutable - that there is nothing at all to be said about how a just
God would treat a man like Job.
If this is all the Theophany says, then it is hard to see why Job is
satisfied by it. Even if God's treatment of him is 'justified,' Job has
been given no reason to trust God. For all he knows, God has entirely sacrified
his welfare to some inscrutable good from which he will never benefit in
any way. Not surprisingly, therefore, many readers try to find a more reassuring
message in the Theophany. For example, Eleanore Stump writes:
People are accustomed to say that Job got no answer to his anguished demand to know why God had afflicted him. But they forget that in the end Job says to God, 'now I see you.' ...
In seeing the face of a loving God, Job has an answer to his question about why God has afflicted him... It lets Job see that God allows his suffering for his own spiritual or psychological good, out of love for him; but it doesn't tell him precisely what the nature of that spiritual good is or how it is connected to Job's suffering.15
Yahweh ... portrays himself as Lord of the wild animals. He makes sure that all of them, from the mighty lion to the little raven, find food, both for their young and for themselves.... The way that he cares for these creatures testifies to his wise goodness.18
Although there is no mention of mankind in this speech, no doubt intentionally, Job can easily discern Yahweh's implication that he cares for human beings even more wisely and compassionately than for the other creatures.19 Yahweh's message to Job is that he cares for him even more than for these wild animals.20
Let us test this interpretation by looking at a few of the passages that Hartley is referring to.
Can you hunt the prey for the lion,
or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,
when they crouch in their dens,
or lie in wait in their covert?
Who provides the raven its prey?
when its young ones cry to God,
and wander about for lack of food? [38:39-41]
Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up
and makes its nest on high.
It lives on the rock and makes its home
in the fastness of the rocky crag.
From there it spies the prey;
its eyes see it from far away.
Its young ones suck up the blood;
and where the slain are, there it is. [39:27-30]
What do we learn from these passages about God's care for animals? Not
that they never go hungry, or that their needs are always met. Not even
that God sometimes steps in to provide food they couldn't find for themselves.
The lioness and the raven and the eagle do their own hunting. At most it
is implied that God has created them with natures that fit them for the
task of finding food. But this is not a special providence whereby God
looks after the interests of individual creatures. God's care ( if care
it is ( is care for the for the various species of animals.
In the case of the foolish ostrich, God doesn't even seem to care much
for the species. 21
... it leaves its eggs to the earth,
and lets them be warmed on the ground,
forgetting that a foot may crush them,
and that a wild animal may trample them.
It deals cruelly with its young, as if they were not its own;
though its labor should be in vain, yet it has no fear;
because God has made it forget wisdom,
and given it no share in understanding. [39:13-17]
Passages like this one led Rudolph Otto to find explicit 'dysteology'
or 'negation of purpose' in God's answer to Job.22 Be that as it may, we
certainly do not find in it the slightest intimation of the sort of providential
care that would justify Job in expecting God to do anything for him.
One other thing must be borne in mind as we try to decide what inference,
if any, to draw from these descriptions. Many of the animals described
in the Theophany are predators. What is good for them is bad for their
prey. In view of the terrible things that have happened to Job, it is at
least as plausible to see him as a victim of the system ( as one of the
prey ( rather than as one of predators. (Question: Was God showing his
care for Job, or for bandits, when the Chaldeans and Sabeans take his livestock
and kill his servants?)
As far as I can see, the animal passages give no support to the claim
that the Theophany tells Job that everything that has happened to him is
for his own 'spiritual or psychological good.' On the contrary, if we take
the analogy with the animals seriously, we ought to conclude that there
is no special reason why Job had to suffer. After all, there is no special
reason why this particular antelope is eaten by this particular lion. Given
the nature of these animals, that sort of thing will happen from time to
time. That is all there is to say.
If this is what the Theophany is saying, then Job's deepst mistake
lay in his unthinking assumption that God had singled him out for special
treatment. This is not to deny that there is a sense in which God makes
Job suffer - something that is assumed throughout the book of Job.23 But
it comes to no more than this. God is the Creator and Sustainer of a world
order in which very bad things sometimes happen to human beings, and this
time they happen to Job. The Chaldeans and Sabeans took Job's property,
lightning destroyed his sheep, a great wind killed his children, disease
took possession of his body. God may have good reasons for creating a world
in which such things happen; but there is no further, special, reason why
they had to happen to Job. 24 25
I conclude, then, that when God answers Job, he should not be understood
as saying, 'Trust me, Job, I have a good reason for afflicting you; if
you just hold onto your faith, everything will come right for you in the
end.' The God who answers Job out of the whirlwind does not offer that
kind of reassurance. This God promises nothing - either in this world or
in the next.
It is true, of course, that Job is rewarded handsomely in the Epilogue,
receiving double his original wealth, twice the normal life span, and an
equal number of replacement children. But does not help us with the interpretation
of God's answer and Job's response. Job was already fully satisfied by
the Theophany, which contained not a hint of the coming restoration of
his fortunes. (And in any case, Job's restoration looks more like compensation
for pointless suffering than like a good that God wanted to achieve through
Job's misfortune.)
It is also important to remember that Job had not asked only about
his own case - he had spoken on behalf of all those who suffer unfairly,
and as our poet must know, there is no 'happy epilogue' for most of them.
If God is going to take care of them, it must therefore be in the next
world.
Could this be the message of the Theophany? No. Apart from a couple
of passing references to Sheol, the shadowy realm beneath the earth where
the dead sleep, the divine speeches are silent on the subject of life after
death, and there is not a hint of the possibility that Job (or anyone else)
will ever be released from Sheol.
The only references to the possibility of resurrection are in the speeches
of Job himself, and his view is decidedly pessimistic.
As waters fail from a lake,
and a river wastes away and dries up,
so mortals lie down and do not rise again;
until the heavens are no more, they will not awake
or be roused out of their sleep. [14:10-12]
Job briefly entertains that fantasy that God might "hide" him in Sheol until his anger is spent, and then take him out again. But he knows this is nonsense.
As the mountain falls and crumbles away,
and the rock is removed from its place;
the waters wear away the stones;
the torrents wash away the soil of the earth;
so you destroy the hope of mortals. [14:18-19]
As far as I can see, this pessimistic view is not contradicted anywhere in the book of Job. The only possible exception is the much disputed verse in which Job says: "after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God." [19:26] Unfortunately, the Hebrew text is so corrupt at this point that no one can be certain of its meaning. And in any case, the context makes two things clear: (i) it is post mortem vindication (against God!) that Job briefly looks forward to in this passage; and (ii) the means by which Job's "Redeemer" (his "Vindicator") is to be apprised of the facts of his case does not require Job's physical presence. 'O that my words were written down!' he cries.
O that they were inscribed in a book!
O that with an iron pen and with lead
they were engraved on a rock forever! [19:23-24]
There would be no need for the iron pen and the lead if Job were going to be resurrected from the dead!
I think it is fair to conclude that our poet shares the early Hebrew view that everyone - the righteous along with the wicked - are permanently confined to Sheol. But this is a side issue. Whatever Job may have had in mind in chapter nineteen, the fact remains that the God who speaks out of the whirlwind in chapter thirty-eight to forty-one does not promise to raise Job from the dead, and does not offer him any assurances about the future. Instead, God changes the subject, forcing Job to step outside himself, and to see the world from a perspective that wholly transcends the normal human way of looking at things. What Job sees when he listens to God is a world of elemental forces, inhabited by creatures who eat one another. It is a world of terrifying beauty. It is not, or at least not obviously, a Moral Order.
We have seen that, while the Theophany does stress Job's ignorance,
it does not say (or imply) that what Job is ignorant of is some 'good reason'
for his misfortunes. The next type of interpretation I want to discuss
goes even farther, suggesting that the Theophany should be read as a wholesale
rejection of the demand for that kind of Moral Order.
As a representative of this view of the matter, I would like to take
a look at the introduction to Stephen Mitchell's recent poetic translation
of Job. 'Job's vision,' Mitchell says, 'ought to give a healthy shock to
those who believe in a moral God.'26 As Mitchell understands it, Job's
experience of God thrusts him outside the realm of human values, giving
him 'a God's-eye view of creation' that is 'before man' and 'beyond good
and evil.'27
The Voice ... doesn't moralize. It has the clarity, the pitilessness, of nature and of all great art... Projecting our civilized feelings onto the antelope torn apart by lions, we see mere horror: nature red in tooth and claw. But animals aren't victims, and don't feel sorry for themselves. The lioness springs without malice; the torn antelope suffers and lets go; each plays its role in the sacred game. When we watch from the periphery, as in a television film, we can sense the dignity this relationship confers on both hunter and hunted, even in the midst of great pain.28
But how, we may well ask, is this supposed to help Job? Doesn't it just mean that his worst fears have been realized? Unlike the antelope torn by lions, Job had hoped for better treatment. Even if he withdraws his criticism of God, how can he be comforted by the knowledge that the world is not and was never intended to be a Moral Order? Mitchell explains:
What the Voice means is that paradise isn't situated in the past or future, and doesn't require a world tamed or edited by the moral sense. It is our world, when we perceive it clearly, without eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It is an experience of the Sabbath vision: looking at reality, the world of starving children and nuclear menace, and recognizing that it is very good.29
This is Job's comfort. When he stops projecting his own values onto
the world, and accepts reality as it is, he is able to see and to participate
in the deep joy that lies at the heart of all things. He too experiences
'the Sabbath vision.' He looks at a reality that is not 'tamed or edited
by the moral sense,' and sees that it is 'very good.' Bitterness and resentment
and rebellion are gone - replaced, not by cringing in the dust, or even
by godly sorrow, but by a serene acceptance of God's will and God's world
and of his own finitude. As Mitchell puts it, "He has let go of everything,
and surrendered into the light."30
Does this make psychological sense? I think it does. We all know moments
of release, in which we step back from our everyday commitments and view
our lives in a wider context. If we step far enough back, if the context
in which we see ourselves is wide enough, our worldly gains and losses
can seem small and insignificant. If, at the same time, we make contact
with something of supreme and unquestionable value, we may experience a
kind of liberation, in which fear and anxiety and resentment and regret
are replaced by inexpressible joy and peace. If this is what Job is experiencing,
then we can understand why he drops his former complaint against God. It
is only when he listens to God that Job is finally able to let go of all
that he has lost. Compared to what he has seen, his former wealth and social
position, and even his health and his children, sink into comparative insignificance.
As Maimonides put it, Job now sees that they were never more than 'dust
and ashes.'31 That is his comfort.
There is no new information here. What is new is a paradigm-shattering
experience of the world and of its Creator. The most important lines in
the book may be, 'I had heard of you by the[WM5] hearing of the ear, but
now my eyes have seen you.' Before the Theophany, Job had known God only
by report ('by the hearing of the ear'). He had thought of God only in
terms of the conventional ideas that, along with his friends, he had inherited
from tradition. Now that he has 'seen' God with his 'own eyes' - now that
he has encountered the God who is really God - all those conventional ideas
drop away, and with them Job's complaint against God.
Other, more familiar, interpretations of Job's spiritual transformation
make much less sense to me. There is, for example, nothing in the content
of the speeches to motivate the sort of personal faith and trust that proponents
of the Standard Interpretation so often find in Job's final words. Job
is satisfied by what the Theophany has permitted him to see, and not by
any newfound conviction that God will make it up to him in some heavenly
Epilogue.
Nor, it should be added, is there anything in the Theophany to motivate
the sense of sin and guilt that some Christian interpreters find in Job's
final words. Job 'repents,' all right - i.e., he undergoes a profound change
of heart and mind and is reconciled to God and to God's world. But this
can hardly be due to a newly discovered sense of sin. Job is mocked and
rebuked in the divine speeches; but they do not accuse him of sin. (And
in any case the Hebrew word translated here as 'repent' is often used in
the Bible to refer to changes of mind on God's part.32)
It seems, then, that Mitchell's interpretation has some clear advantages over the Standard Interpretation. It is able to make sense the actual content of the Theophany without taking it as an elaborate analogy for something else, and it makes psychological sense of Job's response to its message. Nevertheless, all is not 'smooth sailing' for Mitchell's interpretation. Trouble surfaces when we turn back to the Problem of Job, and ask which of our four incompatible propositions is supposed to come out false.
One would expect Mitchell to say something along the following lines.
'Proposition 3 is false - God is not just. To that extent, Job the rebel
was right. But he was also wrong. He thought God had failed to satisfy
moral requirements that really applied to him. What Job hadn't yet realized
is that God is beyond good and evil.'
I think Mitchell would not be altogether happy with this characterization
of his position, however. He would rather read the Theophany as saying
that God is just - but only in a larger sense that cannot be captured by
any merely human conception. For example, commenting on a passage in which
God asks Job whether he can trample on the wicked [40:8-14], Mitchell takes
him to be asking:
Do you really want this moral sense of yours projected onto the universe? ... Do you want a god who is only a larger version of a righteous judge, rewarding those who don't realize that virtue is its own reward and throwing the wicked into a physical hell? If that's the kind of justice you're looking for, you'll have to create it yourself. Because that's not my justice.33
Let us try to spell out the implications of this remarkable statement for the problem of Job. I think Mitchell is saying that it is only when we fail to distinguish between divine justice and human justice that we are forced to conclude that God is not just. When we stop projecting our moral sense onto the universe, we see that God's rule is, in some deep sense, just.34 It is difficult to interpret this, and Mitchell gives us little help, but perhaps the idea is that God is the impartial source and preserver of a certain order and balance among all the competing forces of nature, of which human life is only one.35
For just a moment, let us set aside the question whether this is what the book of Job says, in order to ask whether it is an adequate solution to the problem of Job. For me, the answer has to be No.
For one thing, I am not sure what is left of the concept of justice
when we step outside the moral point of view. Mitchell seems to have preserved
the word 'justice' while retaining little of its original meaning. But
as Mill showed in his famous reply to Mansel, it is misleading or worse
to use our moral vocabulary to describe a God who completely transcends
our moral categories.36
In the second place, and at a more emotional level, I'm not at all
sure that I don't want a larger version of the righteous judge to deal
with the likes of Hitler. When I contemplate the sufferings of innocents
at Auschwitz, I know that it won't do simply to say, 'virtue is its own
reward.' My heart cries out for palpable, humanly understandable justice,
and not something else with the same name.
As I see it, Mitchell's way of looking at things simply doesn't take
evil seriously enough. It is true that if we become sufficiently detached,
if we step far enough outside the moral point of view, human life can seem
small and insignificant, and the suffering of a Job may no longer destroy
our peace of mind. We may even be able to appreciate the beauty of a world
that includes Hitler and Auschwitz, starving children and nuclear menace.
But I see no reason to think that moral detachment offers a better or truer
judgment of the world than moral involvement. The horror and outrage we
experience in the face of unfair and pointless suffering cannot - or at
least should not - be so easily set aside. If this is what the book of
Job is doing, then, I say, so much the worse for the book of Job.
But is this what the book of Job is saying? Two considerations may
give us pause. In the first place, an interpretation like Mitchell's would
put the book of Job outside the mainstream of the religious tradition that
placed it in the canon. The God of the great Hebrew prophets is not an
amoral force - however awe-inspiring. He is a God who demands, and practices,
equity and justice.
As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts. [Isaiah 55:9]
When the second Isaiah wrote these famous lines, he didn't mean to say
that the highest moral categories don't apply to God, or that God is just
in some other, mysterious way. He meant that, unlike his unfaithful people,
God always fulfills the deepest requirements of morality, keeps all his
promises, and rules with absolute justice.37 Could the author of the divine
speeches be turning his back on this tradition? Could he be intentionally
undermining one of the main tenets of ethical monotheism? To many, it will
seem quite unlikely.
In the second place, the idea of a God beyond good and evil may seem
to make little sense in the context of the kind of theism we find in the
book of Job itself. Although God's message is very hard to understand,
the fact remains that he speaks to Job. Job is dealing with a personal
agent - and not merely with an impersonal Ground of Being. But a personal
God, a God who acts in history and enters into dialogue with human beings,
lays himself open to the possibility of criticism.38 If he does not act
in accordance with the highest moral standards, if he is less than what
he requires us to be, then he is not above, but beneath, morality - an
inhuman tyrant whom it is impossible to love or to worship.
This leaves the interpreter of Job with a dilemma. Either the Whirlwind Answer says that there are morally sufficient reasons for the sufferings of the innocent, or it doesn't say this. Neither alternative is particularly satisfactory. It seems contrived to say that the great celebration of the natural order is an indirect way of saying that there is - also - a Moral Order at work in the world. But from the standpoint of ethical monotheism, it seems impossible not to have it say this.
One can't quite escape the impression that the poet wanted to have it
both ways - to have the God of the Whirlwind be the Answer to the question
of justice, to have the celebration of the natural order be a kind of insight
into the nature of divine justice. But it is extraordinarily difficult,
if not impossible, to see how this could be so.
This may reflect a certain tension in the Hebrew idea of God. On the
one hand, this God is wholly transcendent, wholly other, the ground and
source of all being. On the other hand, he is said to be intensely interested
in the doings of his creatures, and deeply concerned about their welfare.
He enters into covenant with them, demanding certain things of them, and
accepting certain obligations to them.
The book of Job moves back and forth between these two poles.39 Between
the idea of a God who cares about the doings of particular men like Job,
and the idea of a God who is almost too big, too mysterious, too wholly
other, for anything like that to make sense. In the experience of the Whirlwind,
Job is confronted with sheer transcendence; he is reminded of the chasm
that lies between Creator and creature, and forced to take into account
the infinite difference between God's point of view and ours. Job's experience
is a breath-taking vision of the inexorable Source and End of all things.
Without apparent reason, it gives, it takes away, it gives again. How,
asks one writer, can we put our faith in such a One?40
But the book also says that God takes an interest in little Job. Enough
of an interest to subject his loyalty to an horrendous test, says the Prologue.
Enough to restore his fortunes, says the Epilogue. Enough to speak with
him, says the poet who put the Theophany into words. Can we really have
it both ways?
The Hasidic teacher, Rabbi Bunam, said that 'A man should carry two
stones in his pocket. On one should be inscribed, "I am but dust and
ashes." On the other, "For my sake was the world created."
And he should use each stone as he needs it.'41 The experience of the Whirlwind
has taught Job to use the first stone. But what we need, and what the book
of Job tries, with only partial success, to teach us, is how to use them
both together.
1 Unless otherwise noted, all biblical quotations are taken from the
New Revised Standard Version.
2 The satan. In the Hebrew text, the word 'satan' is not a proper name,
and is always preceded by the definite article. It probably functions as
a title - as the name of an office, perhaps something along the lines of
'Chief Spy and Prosecutor.' This means that when the satan accuses Job,
he is only doing his job. In any case, the text makes it quite clear that
when the satan brings misfortune on Job, he does so with his Master's express
approval. (See 1:12 and 2:6.) It is also worth noting that by the time
we reach the Epilogue, the satan's role in the affair has been completely
forgotten. (See 42:11.)
3 It should be noted that the friends represent themselves as the inheritors
of traditional wisdom. [8:8-10,15:10]. Large parts of their speeches are
virtually indistinguishable in both style and substance from some of the
Psalms. (See esp. Psalms 1, 37, 49, and 73.) They are also reminiscent
of passages in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. (See Isaiah 58:6-14; Jeremiah
17:5-8; Ezekiel 18.) Since the friends get the worst of the argument (God
himself declares that they have not spoken the truth [42:8]), I think it
is fair to conclude that the poet means to reject the prevailing Hebrew
view of the meaning of suffering.
4 Many scholars believe that the Elihu speeches, which appear at this
point in the text (chapters 32-37), are an interpolation by a later poet.
However that may be, they certainly interrupt the dramatic flow of the
poem, and add amazingly little to what Job's soon to be discredited friends
have already said. I will not discuss them.
5 Job had always recognized that God is supremely powerful. That is
precisely what sometimes makes his case seem so hopeless to him. See esp.
9:4-15.
6 Some readers see this as the primary emphasis of the Theophany. According
to them, the main point of God's Answer to Job is to assert that God is
automatically in the right just because he is supremely powerful. For an
entertaining example of this approach, see chapter thirty one of Hobbes's
Leviathan.
7 I am thinking especially of those Christian philosophers who write
on the problem of evil.
8 'Epistemic Probability and Evil' (forthcoming in The Evidential Argument
from Evil, ed. by Daniel Howard-Snyder, Indiana University Press). I am
using Plantinga's statement as a touchstone for my discussion of the Standard
Interpretation partly because it offers such a succinct and clear defense
of that way of reading the text, and partly because it is so typical of
the use that Christian philosophers have made of Job in their treatments
of the problem of evil.
9 Job is not Plantinga's principal target in this essay. He is primarily
concerned to defend theism against an 'evidential' argument from evil of
the sort that is championed by William Rowe. However, Plantinga does (mistakenly,
in my opinion) see Job as having argued in a way that is parallel to Rowe.
10 Plantinga, op. cit.
11 In Robert Frost's satirical postscript to the book of Job, God says:
I'm going to tell Job why I tortured him
And trust it won't be adding to the torture.
I was just showing off to the Devil, Job,
As is set forth in chapters One and Two.
And Job replies:
'Twas human of You. I expected more
Than I could understand and what I get
Is almost less than I can understand.
Masque of Reason (Henry Holt: New York, 1945), 16-17.
12 Many Job scholars are convinced that the divine speeches and the
Prologue were written by different people. However that may be, the God
who answers Job is a very different, and much more God-like, God than the
one who holds court in the Prologue. It is a mistake to explain the meaning
of the former in terms of the intentions of the latter.
13 This is consistent with most of what Plantinga says in the essay
quoted above (though not with the unfortunate reference to the Prologue).
14 The Book of God and Man, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1965), 133. My emphasis.
15 Eleanore Stump, 'The Mirror of Evil,' in Thomas V. Morris, ed.,
God and the Philosophers (New York: Oxford, 1994), 242 and 246 (fn 10).
See also Eleanore Stump, 'Aquinas on the Sufferings of Job,' in Eleanore
Stump, ed., Reasoned Faith (Ithaca and London: Cornell, 1993), 353.
16 Ibid., 242.
17 In fairness to Stump, it should be said that Job is not the main
focus of the essay from which the above quotations are taken. However,
the more extended treatment she offers in 'Aquinas on the Sufferings of
Job' suffers from the same deficiency.
18 The Book of Job (New International Commentary on the Old Testament)
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 1988), 516.
19 Ibid. , 489-490. My emphasis.
20 Ibid., 516.
21 Apparently the poet didn't know that the ostrich runs away in order
to draw predators away from its young.
22 And yet, Otto says, 'this very negation of purpose becomes a thing
of baffling significance.' The Idea of the Holy, tr. John W. Harvey, second
ed. (New York: Oxford, 1950), chapter VIII .
23 See esp. 42:11, where Jobs relatives and friends comfort him "for
all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him."
24 This means that the first of our four incompatible propositions
is not true in precisely the way that Job and his friends had thought.
They believed that God had singled Job out for special treatment. But on
the view suggested by the animal passages in the Theophany, that is not
true.
25 On this reading, the Theophany rejects the whole idea of special
providence, and not merely a particular view about the way it operates.
(Once again, it is important to distinguish between the point of view of
the poem and that of the Prologue.)
26 Stephen Mitchell, The Book of Job (San Francisco: North Point Press,
1987), xxiv.
See also John T. Wilcox, The Bitterness of Job (Ann Arbor: The University
of Michigan Press, 1989). Wilcox also offers an interpretation that places
God 'beyond good and evil.'
27 Ibid., xx.
28 Ibid., xxi.
29 Ibid., xxi.
30 Ibid., xxviii.
31 Guide to the Perplexed, Part III, chapter XXIII. Maimonides reads
42:6 as saying that Job repents of 'dust and ashes.'
32 Two other small textual points are worth making in this connection.
(i) The Hebrew verb, translated in the New Revised Standard Version as
'despise,' is transitive but lacks an object. This must be supplied by
the translator. Most authorities now agree that when Job says 'I despise...',
what he despises is not himself, but his former words. (ii) 'Dust and ashes'
is a symbol of finitude, of the gap between the Creator and a creature
made out of 'dust.' It does not refer to place where Job is sitting, nor
is it a sign of penitence. (Compare Genesis 18:27 where Abraham, pleading
for Sodom and Gomorrah, addresses Yahweh in similar terms - 'I who am but
dust and ashes.')
33 Mitchell, op.cit., xxiii. My emphasis.
34 With this distinction in mind, we can be a bit more precise about
the implications of Mitchell's interpretation for the four incompatible
propositions that make up the Problem of Job. If we are thinking in terms
of human justice, God is not just, and proposition 3 is false. If we are
thinking in terms of divine justice, then it is not true that a just God
always makes sure that people get what they deserve, and proposition 2
is false.
35 For a full development of this idea of justice, see Lenn Evan Goodman,
On Justice: An Essay in Jewish Philosophy (Yale University Press: New Haven
and London, 1991). Goodman, whose interpretation of Job in some respects
parallels Mitchell's, speaks of the 'claims' and 'deserts' of natural elements
and forces (the 'whirlwind and the worm') as something that God rightly
takes into consideration. See especially pp. 124-125 and pp. 150-151.
36 'I will call no being good,' he wrote, 'who is not [at least] what
I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures.' See John Stuart
Mill, An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's philosophy, chapter 7, 'The
Philosophy of the Conditioned as Applied by Mr. Mansel to the Limits of
Religious Thought' (London: Longmans, Green & Company, Ltd., 1865).
37 I do not mean to suggest that the prophet thinks that God is 'subject'
to some 'external' moral law - a notion that is quite alien to the Hebrew
tradition, in which God is the supreme Law Giver. I do mean to suggest
that, at least for this prophet, the deepest moral requirements are a reflection
of God's nature.
38 See Karen Armstrong, The History of God (Alfred A. Knopf: New York,
1993), 169.
39 If, as many Job scholars believe, the hands of several generations
of authors are at work in the book of Job, then it may be a mistake to
look for a single coherent message. Instead, we should look for 'point
and counterpoint' - for signs of one author trying to undo the work of
another! For an excellent exposition and defense of this view of the matter,
see Bruce Zuckerman, Job the Silent (New York: Oxford, 1991).
40 See Marvin Pope, Job: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary
(Doubleday: New York, 1973), lxxxii.
41 Cited in Robert Gordis, op. cit., 131.