Submit a Question

Question and Answer Dialog with God (Job 40-42)

As he hears God’s voice describing the vastness of creation, Job’s first response is to give in to Bildad’s God-is-so-big-and-you’re-just-a-little-maggot theory. He tells God, “I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I shall not answer; twice, but will proceed no further” (Job 40:4-5).

Many people (mistakenly) think this is where Job ends up; once he has actually seen God (42:5), he can only confess: “I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (42:6). Is the bottom line then that Job was after all a self-righteous sinner in need of repentance? No. At the end God tells Eliphaz and the others that they were wrong and Job was right (42:7-8); and so far from considering Job a worm that can only squirm before the Almighty, God insists that Job must stand up straight to speak face to face with God: “Gird up your loins like a man; I will question you, and you declare to me” (40:7).

God sets before Job a difficult problem: if Job had God’s power, could he do better than God at dealing with the human race? Would he pour out his overflowing anger, abase the proud and bring them low, tread down the wicked into the dust (40:11-13)? Or would he discover that omnipotence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, because there are some problems that cannot be solved just by applying more and more power? Sure, if you apply enough power, you can destroy all the sinners; but how much destroying do you want to do if your goal is to redeem them?

And in the end, Job gets that: but your translation might not help you see that. Consider again Job’s last line: in the NRSV, “I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (42:6). The NRSV, following the RSV, the KJV, and indeed the Septuagint (the early Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible), inserts the ‘myself’ in that line; but that pronoun ‘myself’ does not occur in the Hebrew text. The line is difficult, but literally translated it would read, “I retract, I take back ‘dust and ashes.’ ” We might recall that Job had earlier bemoaned that he was only dust and ashes and therefore could not stand before God (30:19). But now something different has happened: Job has encountered God face to face (42:5) and heard God declare that part of the essence of being human is to do question and answer with the Almighty (40:6). Job is small within the splendor of God’s creation (38:4-11), yet he is not merely dust and ashes to be blown away on the wind. Instead, Job has been granted the privilege of standing before his creator, conversing and interacting (42:4). As he recognizes this, Job retracts and takes back his earlier “I am only dust and ashes” theory.

[I offer a further comment, on my supposition that the story of Job comes from the time when the people of Israel were suffering as slaves in Egypt: the ‘resolution’ of the Job narrative does not solve their problem. Job’s fortunes are restored, he has more children, and his family lives happily ever after: but as the children of Israel hear this story, they are still slaves.

[The story of Job offers them no magic word that will make all the suffering vanish. We live in a world where things go wrong. (That’s lucky for me, because I am one of the things that goes wrong. In a world where nothing ever went wrong, I would not exist.) But in this world where things can and do go wrong, the story of Job affirms that in the end, all that is lost will be restored.

[Specifically, the story of Job provides us with a way of understanding that we are not slaves in Egypt because God is punishing us for being far more sinful than anyone ever knew. (We are slaves because, in this world where things can go wrong, sometimes one group of people makes things go wrong by enslaving another group of people.) In the dispute between God and the Satan, God believes Job will remain faithful, despite all the wrong that befalls him: loss of property, family, and health, and then, adding insult to injury, terribly judgy friends. Job is full of questions and desperation in the midst of his suffering, but in the end he has seen God’s glory, he has learned that he can stand in the presence of God, and he has changed his mind about thinking he is just dust and ashes. So God’s conviction was right: Job would indeed stand fast in his faith.[So in creating the book of Job, the unnamed author hoped that the story would provide the suffering people of Israel a perspective on their enslavement. Although some people were surely saying that our suffering must be God’s punishment on our secret sins, they were wrong about that. Instead, God believes we’ll persevere in our faith, despite all the things that go wrong – including ourselves.]

* * * * *
God himself will be with them and be their God; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more (Revelation 21:3-4).
* * * * *
You are great, O Lord, and we are indeed very small; yet you have shown us that we are neither despised maggots nor inconsequential dust and ashes: we are human, part of your magnificent creation, beloved by you, and invited to interact with you in real question-and-answer dialog.

If you find these studies helpful, please Like, Subscribe, Comment, and Share. Thanks!

James Ayers
,

2 responses to “Question and Answer Dialog with God (Job 40-42)”

  1. merritt4 Avatar
    merritt4

    You were right – today’s reading is challenging, yet hopeful. I appreciate the alternate translation of the “I despise myself” as it makes so much more sense than what has been the traditional translation. Also, one of my pet peeves is the phrase, “Everything happens for a reason.” So many people take that to mean God plans everything, even horrible things. I usually respond, “Yes, and that reason may be sin – our own or someone else’s, which God did not desire or create.” I make clear that I am not suggesting every bad thing comes from God as punishment or as part of God’s overall plan for any individual. Rather, I mean the consequences of sin are often horrible, and God works through ourselves and others to bring healing rather than pain. Your interpretation of God inviting, even encouraging, Job (and by extension us) to stand up, to acknowledge our human right to question even God, fits well with the closing comments to the “encouragers” – that they are wrong and Job is right.

    One thing which has long given me difficulty is the “happy ending” which seems to ignore the pain and suffering of Job’s first wife and family. As a metaphor or parable, the ending seems hope-providing but I remember reading at some time that it may have been added later. The final discussion between God and Job (and the others) might have given enough hope to the Israelites as slaves in Egypt (God is still present, hearing their cries), though I can imagine someone deciding a better ending would be restoration. Still, I struggle with how this sounds to someone who has lost family. I remember a young woman coming before the presbytery (Southern Kansas) for installation as a minister of Word and Sacrament. Her testimony was compelling, but also a little disturbing. Her first husband and two children were killed in a vehicle accident. She then went to seminary (which she had felt called to do previously, but couldn’t see how she could do that as a wife and mother). At seminary she met and married her second husband and they had since had two children. She implied (and maybe said outright) that she now understood the deaths of her first family were part of God’s plan, because she would never have been able to follow God’s call without it, and God had then provided a new family for her. I never spoke with her about this as I felt this was her way of dealing with grief which was not my prerogative to challenge. I don’t remember if she specifically mentioned Job, but can imagine that Job played some part in this interpretation of events.

    I particularly like how you interpret God’s description of God’s creative powers – not as the “I’m beyond questioning” nor as an invitation to dominate where we can, but as an invitation to remember we are all made in the image of God, to recall God’s mercy and grace as the divine way to use what power we have. Job declared God to be just and righteous, merciful and grace-giving in contrast to the harsh judgment offered by the friends. I don’t recall any commentaries emphasizing this point. Thanks!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    1. James Ayers Avatar
      James Ayers

      Thanks Merritt!

      It seems I was out of the Presbytery when this candidate came to Southern Kansas. So, unencumbered by any actual knowledge of the situation, I would propose that there is a difference between (1) believing that God causes all events, including disastrous ones, and (2) believing that God works redemptively in all events, including disastrous ones. Joseph tells his brothers, “You meant it for evil, but God used it for good” (Genesis 50:20). Paul tells the Philippians about people who are preaching about Jesus in order to get Paul into even deeper trouble, and he shrugs off their bad motivation, saying, “Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true, and in that I rejoice” (Philippians 1:18).

      So, I would hesitate to say, “God’s plan was to kill off that husband and those kids, so the widow could go to seminary and become a preacher, complete with a new husband and new kids.” That would be a pretty monstrous theology. But I wouldn’t be surprised to hear someone say, “In the midst of my mourning I sensed the Holy Spirit’s prompting not to hold on to heartbreak forever, but to move forward toward the call I had already felt but could not figure out how to follow.”

      Many of the commentaries feel that “Job” is the dramatic poem which is made of the speeches of Job, the friends, and God: so the prologue and epilogue are later additions that don’t count. I think that viewpoint doesn’t take into account the likelihood that the story lived for a long time — several centuries, most likely — as oral tradition. The children of Israel held this material as a beloved song that was performed around the village fire in the evening, known by most everyone in the community. When did the beginning and ending narrative get “added”? Maybe they were the original narrative that provided the context out of which the series of songs developed. Maybe someone added them a century or two later. At any rate, there wasn’t a “Book of Job” until much later, when someone finally wrote it down in a book.

      The epilogue can be read glibly to suggest that if you get as many children in Round 2 as you had in Round 1, then it’s all okay. But of course it’s not okay. The death of someone’s children is always a tragedy. I think the function of the ending isn’t to say, “It’s fine, Job got replacement children.” Instead, it lets us ask if we may find happiness on the other side of pain.

      Like

      Reply

Leave a comment

Discover more from

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading