Job: faith in suffering
Job is the story of a righteous man struck by suffering he cannot explain, who cries out to God, argues with his friends, and at last meets God in the whirlwind. It does not explain every sorrow, but shows a faith that holds on to God in the dark.
About the book
The book is named for its hero: "There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job" (Job 1:1). Uz was probably near Edom (Lamentations 4:21), and Job probably not an Israelite.
The book does not name its author. Jewish tradition in the Talmud says Moses wrote it Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra, and Christians have proposed other authors since. Its story has the look of the patriarchs' age: as head of his family Job offers sacrifices for his children (Job 1:5), counts his wealth in flocks and herds, and lives a hundred and forty years more (Job 42:16). So the map under the Jesus tab sets Job, by its events, beside Genesis in the age of beginnings and the patriarchs (about 2000–1800 BC).
Its date of writing is debated. Evangelical scholars, who stress the authority of Scripture and the telling of the gospel, range from Moses' time to Solomon's or later. Many other scholars, noting Aramaic touches in its Hebrew and how its question, why the righteous suffer, echoes Israel's after it lost its land, place it around the exile or after. Ezekiel names Job with Noah and Daniel as a righteous man (Ezekiel 14:14), James speaks of his perseverance, and the church has long received Job as a real man.
How it unfolds
A story in prose (chapters 1–2 and 42) frames a long poem (3–41).
| Chapters | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1–2 | Prologue: the council in heaven, disaster on earth, Job's first words |
| 3–31 | Job and his three friends: they read his suffering as punishment; he protests |
| 32–37 | The young Elihu speaks |
| 38–41 | The LORD speaks from the whirlwind |
| 42 | Job's answer and his restoration |
In heaven Satan asks, "Does Job fear God for nothing?" (Job 1:9). Will anyone love God for himself, not for his gifts? That question drives the book, though Job never learns of it. Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar come to comfort him (Job 2:11), but in three rounds of speeches they insist that God punishes the wicked, so Job must have sinned. Job denies it and demands an answer from God himself. Readers differ over Elihu, hearing in him either a voice preparing for God's or one more friend; God's rebuke in chapter 42 does not name him.
That rebuke is the key to reading the book. The friends' speeches are in Scripture, but God says to them, "you have not spoken about Me accurately, as My servant Job has" (Job 42:7). Some of what they say is true, and Paul quotes Eliphaz: "He catches the wise in their craftiness" (1 Corinthians 3:19). Their error lay in turning such truths against a suffering man. Matthew Henry writes: "Job's friends had wronged God, by making prosperity a mark of the true church, and affliction a certain proof of God's wrath" Matthew Henry.
Key passages
On the day he lost his wealth and his children, Job fell to the ground and worshipped:
The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.
Job 1:21
But Job does not bear it calmly throughout: from chapter 3 he curses the day he was born and cries out to God, asking why. Even so he clings to hope:
But I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the end He will stand upon the earth.
Job 19:25
At last the LORD answers from the whirlwind, giving no reason for Job's suffering. He asks, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" (Job 38:4), and shows Job the Maker who rules the sea, the stars and the wild animals. Job gets no explanation; he meets God: "My ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You" (Job 42:5). The book teaches that those who suffer may cry out honestly to God, and that God can be trusted when we do not know why. Why does a good God allow evil? and Does suffering have meaning? take up its questions; Through temptation and trouble, in the New Believers course, helps in living through them.
The book and Christ
James holds Job up as a model of endurance: "You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen the outcome from the Lord. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy" (James 5:11).
Job longed for someone between God and himself: "Nor is there a mediator between us, to lay his hand upon us both" (Job 9:33). Paul writes, "there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5). The New Testament quotes neither Job 9:33 nor 19:25, but the church has long seen in Christ the mediator and the living Redeemer Job hoped for. The Hebrew word is , the nearest kinsman, who takes up a wronged relative's cause and buys him back; John Wesley writes that the word "properly agrees to Jesus Christ" Wesley.
Job is not sinless; at the end he repents "in dust and ashes" (Job 42:6). But in this righteous man suffering without cause the church has seen a foreshadowing of the one who truly "committed no sin" (1 Peter 2:22). And as Job prayed for the friends who had condemned him (Job 42:10), Christ prayed for those who crucified him: "Father, forgive them" (Luke 23:34).
Reading it
Three chapters a day takes two weeks; begin with Job 1. Chapters 1–2 and 42 are story; between them is poetry, whose lines answer one another in meaning: read it slowly, aloud if you can.
Read the friends' speeches more quickly, but never lift a verse from them as God's verdict on someone's suffering. Slow down for Job's hope in chapter 19, the poem on wisdom in chapter 28, and from chapter 38 to the end. Then go on to Psalms.
Practice
- Practice 1 of 6
How is the book of Job built?
- Practice 2 of 6
What does God say at the end about the words of Job's three friends?
- Practice 3 of 6
Who said, "I know that my Redeemer lives"?
- Practice 4 of 6
Why does the map under the Jesus tab set Job among the beginnings and the patriarchs?
- Practice 5 of 6
Job lamented, "Nor is there a mediator between us" (Job 9:33). Whom does 1 Timothy 2:5 call the one mediator between God and men?
- Practice 6 of 6
What does Job show about suffering?
Reading to the end marks it read; tap to switch it.
Related topics
Source
- The Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 14b–15a — Completed c. 6th century. The Jewish tradition of who wrote (or compiled) each book of the Hebrew Bible: Moses his own book, the portion of Balaam and Job; Joshua his and the Torah's last eight verses (his death recorded by Eleazar and Phinehas); Samuel his, Judges and Ruth (finished by Gad and Nathan); David the Psalms with the elders; Jeremiah his, Kings and Lamentations; Hezekiah and his company Isaiah, Proverbs, the Song and Ecclesiastes; the Men of the Great Assembly Ezekiel, the Twelve, Daniel and Esther; Ezra his and the genealogies of Chronicles.
Lessons from the Bible, the church's creeds and classic commentary. Each book's author and date are given as the church has received them, and scholars who see them otherwise are presented fairly. Scripture quotations: BSB.