Book Review - The Book of Job

I thought I would make the Book of Job my first book review as it is probably my favourite book of the bible. It questions why God allows unfairness and suffering – an issue that interested Epicurus greatly – see quote of the day.

The story takes place in the land of Uz, not in Israel which makes a nice change, and Job does not appear to be Jewish. However, Job is an upright and blameless man who “feared God and set his face against wrongdoing.” He was very comfortably off and had lots of children. God is one day talking to Satan and boasting of the God-fearing Job, when Satan needles him and says of course he is God-fearing as he has been rewarded by God, but that it would be a different story if God took away his protection. So God lets Satan kill Job’s children, destroy his flocks and cover Job with disgusting sores as long as he doesn’t actually kill him. Horrible things happen to Job who laments his life and wishes he was never born to “wander blindly hedged in by God on every side.”

He then has this dialogue with three of his friends who try to get him to blame God for his troubles. The reader knows that in fact they are right to do so, but although Job comes close to accusing God of injustice he refuses to curse him. My favourite line is “Am I the monster of the deep, am I the sea-serpent, that thou settest a watch over me?” In other words he just wants to be left alone to scratch his sores and not have endless theological discussions. But they give him no peace and he goes on to say that God “destroys blameless and wicked alike.” And then in another passage Job asks “why do the wicked enjoy long life, hale in old age” when they do not care about God and yet they prosper. Why indeed? The friends in the end change their tune and tell him not to judge God as we can not possibly comprehend his mysterious ways and that anyway Job must have sinned. Job starts to get justifiably resentful and says that he has not sinned and that all this suffering is pretty unfair. He still fears God but he wants some answers.

Strangely enough God does answer – the last time he does speak directly to a human being in the original Jewish version of the Bible. He says “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations?” He says that unless you were there while he created the universe, you have no right to criticize him or ask him questions. I suppose it’s a fair point. He talks of his power and his wrath and then says my other favourite line, “Consider the chief of the beasts, the crocodile,” and goes on to give a superb if rather irrelevant description of the animal and its power. Perhaps it is a metaphor?

For some reason Job is convinced by all this but I suspect that, wonderful though the crocodile speech is, it is only now that he has actually seen God with his own eyes that he shuts up. God rebukes the friends for telling the truth, and restores Job’s fortunes, presumably heals his sores and he has new children. I wonder if that is any consolation for the loss of the original ones? It is a quite an astounding book with some of the best lines in the Bible, but in the end Job’s questions are evaded by God and one is left with the uncomfortable impression that God plays with human lives all for the sake of a wager.

[Quote of the Day was: "Is God willing to prevent evil but not able? Then he is not omnipotent; Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent; Is he both willing and able? Then whence cometh evil?; Is he neither willing nor able then why call him God?" Attributed to Epicurus]