The Story of Job
Job is a wealthy man living in a land called Uz with his large family and extensive
flocks. He is “blameless” and “upright,” always careful to avoid doing evil (1:1). One
day, Satan (“the Adversary”) appears before God in heaven. God boasts to Satan
about Job’s goodness, but Satan argues that Job is only good because God has
blessed him abundantly. Satan challenges God that, if given permission to punish the
man, Job will turn and curse God. God allows Satan to torment Job to test this bold
claim, but he forbids Satan to take Job’s life in the process.
In the course of one day, Job receives four messages, each bearing separate news
that his livestock, servants, and ten children have all died due to marauding invaders
or natural catastrophes. Job tears his clothes and shaves his head in mourning, but
he still blesses God in his prayers. Satan appears in heaven again, and God grants
him another chance to test Job. This time, Job is afflicted with horrible skin sores. His
wife encourages him to curse God and to give up and die, but Job refuses, struggling
to accept his circumstances.
Three of Job’s friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, come to visit him, sitting with Job
in silence for seven days out of respect for his mourning. On the seventh day, Job
speaks, beginning a conversation in which each of the four men shares his thoughts
on Job’s afflictions in long, poetic statements.
Job curses the day he was born, comparing life and death to light and darkness. He
wishes that his birth had been shrouded in darkness and longs to have never been
born, feeling that light, or life, only intensifies his misery. Eliphaz responds that Job,
who has comforted other people, now shows that he never really understood their
pain. Eliphaz believes that Job’s agony must be due to some sin Job has committed,
and he urges Job to seek God’s favor. Bildad and Zophar agree that Job must have
committed evil to offend God’s justice and argue that he should strive to exhibit more
blameless behavior. Bildad surmises that Job’s children brought their deaths upon
themselves. Even worse, Zophar implies that whatever wrong Job has done probably
deserves greater punishment than what he has received.
Job responds to each of these remarks, growing so irritated that he calls his friends
“worthless physicians” who “whitewash [their advice] with lies” (13:4). After making
pains to assert his blameless character, Job ponders man’s relationship to God. He
wonders why God judges people by their actions if God can just as easily alter or
forgive their behavior. It is also unclear to Job how a human can appease or court
God’s justice. God is unseen, and his ways are inscrutable and beyond human
understanding. Moreover, humans cannot possibly persuade God with their words.
God cannot be deceived, and Job admits that he does not even understand himself
well enough to effectively plead his case to God. Job wishes for someone who can
mediate between himself and God, or for God to send him to Sheol, the deep place of
the dead.
