Job: Chapters 1 to 7

Last time, Maccabees II ended.  Now for the first of the Wisdom Books.

CHAPTER 1

This starts off like a fable, which makes sense because that’s essentially what it is.  It’s a fable about morality.  It tries to answer the big question – if God is good and all-powerful, then how come he lets bad things happen to good people?

We start off with Job, a good guy.  He’s rich with lots of sheep of animals and cattle.  He has seven sons and three daughters and they all get along well, taking turns hosting feats for the family.  He has a wife – note: only one wife.  Big shots all Bible long have had multiple wives, but not Job.  Oh, and he is a God fearing, pious man.

Job is so pious that God brags about how pious Job is.  God brags about Job to “the sons of God” –  a rather jarring phrase all things considered.  The footnotes tell me it just means an assembly of angels.  Anyhow, one person in the assembly takes exception to God’s claim: Satan. 

Yeah, Satan is in God’s assembly.  This is the original view of Satan.  He isn’t yet the prince of darkness and devil of all.  He is just a retainer in God’s way.  From what I know, the original vision of Satan was as a guy who would be a bit of an adversary to God.  Not adversary in the sense of Hitler being an adversary to Jews; more a loyal opposition.  He’d test things, question God’s doings – basically keep God on his toes.  But even if he’s a loyal opposition, he’s still the opposition and will still do some horrible things (stayed tuned for later on in this chapter). 

That led to a shift in how Satan was perceived.  I assume it began in folk belief rather than the priests, but Satan became, well, Satan – the modern Satan.  And out of this folk belief sprang Jesus Christ and Christianity.  And now he’s the ultimate bad guy.  There are still some lingering traces of the original Satan – he’s a fallen angel now.  But in Job you get Satan as he began, part of God’s assemblage.  But Job also shows how/why’s Satan’s image change.  To whit – let’s get on with the story.

Job tells God, sure Job is pious.  But why shouldn’t he be?  You’ve blessed him in all ways it possible to be blessed.  Why shouldn’t he love you?  What if he wasn’t so blessed?  I bet he’ll curse your name then.

God ponders it and realizes that Satan has a point.  To show how pious Job is, it’s necessary to put him to the test.  I suppose that this book is a large part of the reason why now have the sense that God is testing us when things go wrong.  God makes just one condition: don’t touch Job himself.  Preserve his personal health.

So Satan sets off on the first test.  And oh my God is it something.  In six verses you get some of the most harrowing moments of the Bible.  Four messengers come running up to Job, each with a horrifying tale – and they come BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM.  At one point we’re told one hasn’t even finished speaking when the other has come up.

First, some raiders have taken all of Job’s donkeys, and killed all his servants tending them.  Only the messenger survived.  (Get used to that last bit).  A second guy notes that, “God’s fire has fallen from heaven” (!!!!) and killed his sheep and servants – leaving only him to tale the tale.  The third says the camels have been taken – and all servants perished except for himself.  The last one is the worst of all.  Job’s kids – yup, his kids – were feasting together when a wind destroyed the house, killing them all and all servants (except for the one talker).

HOLY CRAP!

This is breathtakingly bad news.  (Can you see now how Satan became the prince of darkness?)  This is horrifying, but Job – just as God said – takes it in stride.  In fact, he responds with some of the greatest lines of the Bible: “Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I go back there.  The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!” 

That Job: he’s a better man than I. 

Also, can we pause at how bad God and Satan come off here?  They come off like Mortimer and Randolph Duke in “Trading Places.”  They ruin a man’s life just to settle a bet they have. And worst of all – it isn’t just Job.  In fact, it isn’t even mostly Job.  He had 10 kids and an unknown number of servants killed in this.  They are just collateral damage in this battle to see if Job really is that moral after all.  Yikes.

And that yikes is key. Because Job will turn the question of his morality around – and use the test upon him to make it a debate on God’s morality. 

CHAPTER 2

Satan has lost the original bet – but presses God to go further.  He’s OK when he loses everything around him, but what when problems hit himself personally?  God relents on his one stipulation. OK, if you want to, inflict pain on Job.  And Satan does just that, putting severe boils on Job from head to foot. 

Job is so poor off that even his wife – yup, just a wife, not one of many – tells him to curse the Lord.  But Job refuses, and calls her a foolish woman.

But then Job’s toughest test of all happens: his three “friends” arrive.  These guys really deserve to have the word friends put in quotation marks, because they suck donkey dick.  We’re told that they’ve traveled to Job to offer him sympathy and comfort.  Wow do they ever suck at sympathy and comfort.  They never offer anything like that.  In fact, what Satan couldn’t do by destroying all had, these “friends” achieve by hanging around Job for a while.  They break his spirit.

First, they see Job and immediately begin to weep aloud.  Guys, it’s not all about you.  You’re here to cheer him up, not be a bunch of mega-downers.  Those assholes. 

Then they get over their crying and sit with Job.  No one says a word, for seven days, for they see how he’s suffering.  OK, I can understand a little bit of stoic silence; sometimes just having someone nearby can help.  But seven days?  Can you at least bring up football or something? Tell some jokes?  Also, based on what they say when they talk, I don’t think they’re really good at this whole comfort-by-their-presence thing.

Oh, I should note the names of the assholes: Eliphaz, Teman, and Bildad. 

CHAPTER 3

Finally, after a week with the trio of turds, Job breaks.  And it’s a doozy.  “Perish the day I was born” it begins and it keep going from there.  I’m tempted to quote all of it, but that would just feel lame.  And there isn’t much commentary to give, because that opening line sums it up.

It’s a great speech though.  Job has finally been broken and it all comes pouring out, in rather poetic language.  He wishes he was never born, that if he had to be born he’d be a stillborn.  How much he feels the dead are better off.  He has no rest, and trouble has overwhelmed him. 

Oh, side note – we get a reference to the Leviathan; a mythical sea monster that Thomas Hobbes will later title a book based upon.  I wonder if that was an idea in the area floating around or if it’s popularity comes from Job? 

CHAPTER 4

Now those “friends” prove themselves to be complete assholes.  Well, for now it’s just one friend: Eliphaz. 

He starts gently, I’ll give him that: “If someone attempts a word with you, would you mind?”  Then he – a person who came to help provide “sympathy and comfort” for his supposed friend, shows an amazing lack of either. 

He calls Job impatient and tells him, in so many words, “Man up, Nancy Boy!”  Hey, others have had it bad, but once it’s your turn, you freak out.  Everyone has their bad problems, but get on with it.

Man, if you hadn’t read the first three chapters, you’d think Job had an ingrown toenail or something.  His life has been ruined five different ways in rapid succession!  Look, I can go for a bit of a “buck up, little camper” speech.  But you can’t approach it like this.  This is incredible. 

Oh, one line in particular is horrible. Eliphaz is trying to explain how it’s all for the best because God is just and moral.  He says, “Reflect now, what innocent person perished?  Where are the upright destroyed?”  Oh, I dunno – how about all of Job’s 10 kids?  Weren’t they upright?   Weren’t they innocent?  They’ve surely all been destroyed.  How about Job’s servants, you know – the ones also slaughtered.  Who says such a thing?

In fact, let’s forget that Job’s family was all but wiped out, save his wife.  Who believes stuff like this anyway?  “What innocent person perished?”  Man, really?  Your argument is really that no innocent person perishes ever?  Give me a break.

Near the end of the chapter the jerk says – about guys who lose faith in God – that they are, “crushed more easily than a mouth.”  All his animals are gone.  His servants slaughtered. His 10 kids dead.  His body wracked with pain.  And this jerk compares Job’s mental anguish to a moth.  This guy can’t be smacked hard enough with a smacking stick.

CHAPTER 5

And he goes on for another chapter.  He tells Job to appeal to God.  OK, that’s reasonable advice.  Maybe Job would be more willing to take you up on it, if you hadn’t been such a sympathy-free motherfucking piece of shit here. 

Eliphaz goes on, basically telling Job to put his trust with God.  His philosophy is just so cold.  There is no human tenderness helping him understand Job’s incredible pain.  Also, it’s just so passive.  If Eliphaz were a preacher, no one would should up to his congregation. 

Eliphaz says that Job should be happy that God has reproven him. Yeah, I don’t see how that helps.  Eliphaz assures him that God will make it all right in the end, giving him all that he once lost.  And while this is how the book ends (spoiler!) it’s a really lousy philosophy.  Good people end up badly hurt by life.  This philosophy is at odds with lived experience. 

Oh, and he says, “You shall know that your descendents are many.”  Again: His.  Kids. Are. Dead. 

CHAPTER 6

After two chapters of terrible advice, Job gets his response.  And yeah, I’m still completely on Team Job.

He starts off with some general talk about how miserable he is.  (Admittedly, that can get old, but to date it’s only his second such outburst since his life was ruined).  He wonders why God would do this to him, after he’d kept the commandments so well.  Right there, for the first time, Job flips around the question. Instead of the test being about Job proving his morality to God, now Job says God must prove his morality to Job. 

But Job doesn’t stay on that theme long.  Instead, he asks a pretty damn good question: “What is my limit that I should be patient?  Have I the strength of stones, or is my flesh made of bronze?”  Damn right.  He had the fortitude to survive more than just about anyone else, but every man has his breaking point. 

Best of all, Job digs into his worthless friends.  You guys should show me kindness.  Instead you suck.  Oh, and your arguments suck, too!  Damn right, Job!  Give ‘em hell, Job!

CHAPTER 7

Job’s response has a second and last chapter.  Most of his A-list material he used up in the first chapter.  Now he complains that life is drudgery.  Also, he notes, “My flesh is clothed with worms and scabs.”  Yikes!  Yeah, I can see how that would drive a man to his breaking point. 

He assures them that he will give voice to his despair and wants to know “How long before you look away from me, and let me alone till I swallow my spit?”  He all but tells them to fuck off.  They have it coming.

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