If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher
of humanity? Why have you made me your target?
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Summary
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.
Job’s friends are offended that he scorns their
wisdom. They think his questions are crafty and lack an appropriate
fear of God, and they use many analogies and metaphors to stress
their ongoing point that nothing good comes of wickedness. Job sustains
his confidence in spite of these criticisms, responding that even
if he has done evil, it is his own personal problem. Furthermore,
he believes that there is a “witness” or a “Redeemer” in heaven
who will vouch for his innocence (16:19, 19:25).
After a while, the upbraiding proves too much for Job, and he grows
sarcastic, impatient, and afraid. He laments the injustice that God
lets wicked people prosper while he and countless other innocent people
suffer. Job wants to confront God and complain, but he cannot physically
find God to do it. He feels that wisdom is hidden from human minds,
but he resolves to persist in pursuing wisdom by fearing God and
avoiding evil.
