Job: The Man God Tested

There is a man in the land of Uz named Job — blameless, upright, fearing God, turning from evil. He has seven sons, three daughters, enormous flocks and herds. He is the greatest man in all the east, and he is genuinely good.

In the heavenly court, the adversary — the satan, not yet a proper name but a role, the accuser — appears among the sons of God. God draws attention to Job: there is none like him on earth. The accuser asks the devastating question that animates the whole book: Does Job fear God for nothing? Of course he's faithful — you've blessed him with everything. Take it away, and see what happens.

God permits the test. In a single day, messengers arrive one after another: the oxen and donkeys are taken by raiders; fire falls from heaven and burns the sheep; the camels are seized; and then the last messenger, the worst: all ten children are dead, killed when a wind struck the house where they were feasting. Job tears his robe and shaves his head. He falls to the ground and worships: Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

A second test removes his health. He sits among ashes, covered in sores from head to foot, scraping himself with a shard of pottery. His wife says: Do you still hold your integrity? Curse God and die. Job says she speaks like a foolish woman.

His three friends come and sit with him in silence for seven days — the most appropriate response. But when they speak, their theology is tidy and wrong: suffering must be punishment for sin; Job must have sinned. Job refuses the explanation. He insists on his innocence and demands God answer him.

God does answer — from a whirlwind — but not with explanations. God speaks in questions: Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Have you entered the storehouses of snow? Have you bound the Pleiades or loosened the belt of Orion? The questions go on for four chapters. They do not answer Job's suffering; they relocate it within a universe so vast that Job's accounting of justice is exposed as partial. And yet — God says to the three friends: You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. The righteous sufferer who demanded an answer was closer to truth than the theologians who explained it away.