Job 19

Exciting developments in Job today!

Job actually answers his friends' arguments. Up to this point since Job has been smited by the Enemy (with the Lord's permission) the book has been a back and forth of Job lamenting his situation and his frenemies blaming him for his situation. Neither side would listen or respond to the other but would restate their original position with greater passion. It was sort of life an abortion debate.

But then in this chapter for what seems to be for no reason Job answers his Bildad. His answer is not super righteous but it ends even more surprisingly. His answer is something like "Well MAYBE God is punishing me for some sin" which had been Bildad and Eliphaz's argument " BUT He is the one who put me in this situation to begin with." Job then goes on to list all that God has done to him and then degrades back into lamenting how horrible his situation is and how horrible his friends are to criticize him.

I am in some ways critical of Job's reasoning here, but am forgiving because he is in the middle of a terrible, terrible tragedy. All of his kids have been killed, his livelihood destroyed and his body is falling apart... it would be weird if his arguments were sound and logical. Suffering does not work this way and those cool, logical commentators on their own tragedy seem more damaged than those pulling out their hair, tearing their clothes and pouring ashes on their head.

But the end of the chapter is even more illogical. If I wrote it myself people would (perhaps correctly) that the change in character was too abrupt and did not make sense. But suddenly Job says despite the fact that he is wrongly accused, and unjustly punished and better off dead that some day, even after his flesh is destroyed, he will see God with his own eyes and his Redeemer lives.

It is the most quoted part of Job in the Evangelical circles (Amy Grant I think does a song which samples from Job and the chorus is the line "And I know my Redeemer lives") but what hit me this reading is how out of character it is for Job and for the stage in religious development at the time.

Job one of the least Jewish/Israeli books of the Old Testament. From the text itself it is pretty hard to tell exactly when it was set, really anywhere in between Judges and the Exile would make sense but I haven't seen anything in the text to say it could not have been set in the days of Abraham or Maccabees.

But that Job would suddenly say "I know I will see God with my own flesh... even if my flesh has been destroyed" seems totally unlike so much of the Old Testament. I would wonder where the idea would even come from.

Secular scholars would have their own nice, little answers but their method presupposes that the universe operates according to secular rules. Though they rarely state it at the beginning of their answers; everything they say interpreting religious texts could begin "Since God does not act in the universe we suppose...." That is fine for secular thinkers but however well developed their answers it is all based on a philosophical position which I do not accept.

So for me, believing the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has, does and will act in this universe see the question of how Job comes up with this surprising resurrection idea is a little different. Of course the secular answer: "Job probably heard it from some Egyptian or Babylonian religion" is not impossible but I would tend disregard it because after Moses foreign religious ideas would make one the worst form of blasphemer. If Job was influenced by Egyptian or Babylonian religions then the original audience of Job would see him as a sinner and all of Eliphaz's and Bildad's criticism of him would be valid. The lesson of the story would be "Believe in Ba'al leads to destruction" but so from a purely literary standpoint it would be essential that Job does not go to other gods for comfort, though he rail against the Lord God.

This is too long so I am going to stop.