Inveterate Foe / Hated One

Introduction to the book of Job, from The HarperCollins Study Bible, Revised Edition, 2006

JOB

The central theme of the book of Job is the possibility of disinterested righteousness.  The author asks whether virtue depends on a universe that operates by the principle of reward and punishment.  At stake is the survival of religion, service to God without thought of the carrot or the stick.  Then innocent suffering cannot quench the fires of spiritual devotion.  Job’s response to adversity in the prologue affirms such faith.  A secondary theme is innocent suffering, for which several explanations are put forth: the retributive, disciplinary, probative, eschatological, redemptive, revelatory, ineffable, and incidental.

Structure

The book’s structure can be viewed from the standpoint of its diction, drama, or individual components in outline form.  A frame narrative, in prose, encloses a poetic debate.  This combination is found also in some other ancient wisdom texts, such as the Aramaic tale of “Ahikar” and the Egyptian Instruction of Ankhsheshonky.  Alternatively, three dramatic episodes take place, each introduced by brief comments in 1.1-5; 2.11-13; 32.1-5.  Thus the hero is afflicted (1.1-2.10), complains and is rebuked by three friends (2.11-31.40), and after a young enthusiast takes up the task of demonstrating Job’s folly, God rebukes Job but restores him (32.1-42.17).  A more natural division consists of Job’s affliction (chs. 1-2), a dispute between him and three friends (chs. 3-31), a monologue by a previously unmentioned person (chs. 32-37), two divine speeches and two submissions on Job’s part (38.1-42.6) and a prose “happy ending” (42.7-17)

            Tensions exist between prose and poetry and even within each literary form: the story’s patient hero and the defiant Job of the dialogue; a divinely commended hero in the prose and a rebuked one in the poetry; the divine name Yahweh in the folktale and El, Eloah, and Shaddai in the poetry (with one exception); a “happy ending” despite the arguments of the hero that God does not deal with humans on the basis of merit; vanishing characters—the Satan and Elihu; a hymn (ch. 28) that anticipates the answer provided by the theophany; and two divine speeches with two responses.  Although skilled authors can use dissonance effectively, the book is at odds with itself and irony abounds.

Setting

            The events of the book are set in patriarchal (or prepatriarchal) times when heroes such as Noah, Daniel, and Job (cf. Ezek 14.14, 20) are thought to have lived.  Job’s possessions are appropriate to that age: cattle and servants.  The monetary unit in the epilogue (42.11) is mentioned elsewhere only in Gen 33.19 (and Josh 24.32, alluding to this incident).  Job’s three friends and the enemy marauders, Sabeans and Chaldeans, belong to clans from the patriarchal world.  His sacrifice of animals accords with practice prior to the time of official priests.  The life span of the restored hero is at home in patriarchal times.  The name Job, which could be translated “enemy,” corresponds to Akkadian names with such translations as “Where is the divine father?” and “Inveterate Foe/Hated One.”

Date

            The date of composition cannot be determined, but several things point to the late sixth or fifth century BCE: the linguistic evidence, the possible allusion to the Behistun Rock, the mention of caravans from Tema and Sheba, the “Persian” nomenclature of officials, and the development of the figure of Satan corresponding to the stage represented by Zechariah but less developed than that presented in Chronicles.  The theological ideas in the book may also support this relatively late date when compared with similar literary complexes, Jeremiah’s laments, the lyrical hymns in Second Isaiah (Isa 40-55, sixth century BCE) hymnic fragments in the book of Amos and Pss 37; 49; 73.  The book’s monotheism and monogamy are consistent with a late date.  The choice of an Edomite for the hero after 587/5 BCE, but the patriarchal setting ruled out an Israelite, and the Edomites were celebrated for wisdom.  The book’s silence about the events of the exile is surprising, for Job’s personal misery is in some ways like that of exiles.  The Targum of Job and the Testament of Job, works from the Second Temple period, prove that the Biblical text of Job was in circulation by the end of the second century BCE.  The Testament of Job exaggerates Job’s charity, depicts his wife favorably, emphasizes his fight against idolatry, speculates about Satan, and alludes to cosmological dualism, magic, and mysticism.  The Letter of James recalls the folktale about the endurance of Job (5.11).

Related Texts

            The closest analogy to the book of Job is “The Babylonian Thoedicy.”  Several other ancient texts resemble the Biblical book to some degree.  From the twelfth dynasty in Egypt (1990-1785 BCE) come “The Admonitions of Ipuwer,” “A Dispute Between a Man and His Ba (Soul),” and “The Eloquent Peasant.”  Second-millennium Mesopotamia furnished closer parallels: the Sumerian “A Man and His God,” “I Will Praise the Lord of Wisdom,” and “A Dialogue Between a Master and His Slave.” Parallels to the Canaanite Keret legend are more remote.  [JAMES L. CRENSHAW]