CHAPTER 8
Now it’s time for the second asshole friend to chime in:
Bildad. Really, these guys may as well
be triplets. They are essentially a
Greek chorus. (In fact, I wouldn’t
doubt at all that these guys are an example of Greek influence with the chorus
structure from the play affecting this particular Bible writer).
Bildad makes the same basic case as the first drip did. In short: God treats the good people well
and he punishes the bad. He won’t cast
away the upright and he’ll fill your mouth with joy again. So you should be blameless and upright, and
thus God will restore your house.
It’s such a lifeless philosophy. I mean, I can see the appeal under some circumstances, but not
this one. It’s a philosophy totally
divorced from what’s going on. It
reminds me of Pangloss from Candide. He
had his philosophy of how the world worked, and he was going to stick to it,
come what may.
It’s not even trying to account for the fact that many bad
people do well or that some good suffer.
That doesn’t exist in his philosophy, which is why it is so
insubstantial, especially with Exhibit A on its limitation sitting before him.
Bildad does get off one great line: “our days on earth are
but a shadow.” I think Shakespeare
nicked from that, actually.
CHAPTER 9
Job begins his reply by, surprisingly, agreeing with
Bildad. I didn’t see that coming. Bildad ended by saying that if Job would
just accept God, then happy days will return again. And Job starts this chapter by agreeing.
But it becomes apparent that there are very real differences
between these men. You say that if I
bow to God again things will be good?
OK, so they will. After all, Job
expounds, God is all-powerful. There is
a prolonged section where Job notes God’s power.
And then Job ponders, who am I to stand up to him. But here is where the turn occurs. “How then could I give him any answer, or
choose out arguments against him! Even
though I were right, I could not answer.”
Did you catch that? “Even though
I were right.” Job is conceding that
God has all the power. And since God
has all the power, that means God can define the terms. If God is all-powerful and he says that X is
right, then who is Job to say that Y is right?
So Job might agree with Bildad, but the agreement comes from
a very different place. Bildad sees God
as being moral and merciful. But Job
sees God as being all-powerful, and then can beat everyone up who says he isn’t
merciful or moral. But that doesn’t
mean God is actually merciful or moral.
A lot of this is implied and my own particular take on it – but Job is
the one who said “Even though I were right.”
He notes that if he were to speak against God, then God can
send a great storm to overwhelm me.
Yeah, God can always win, but it’s might making right. And Job just isn’t having it. Job doesn’t have anything left, but his
notion of morality. And in Job’s
notion, God is the one who broke the contract.
God is the one who ruined his life without cause. God and Satan’s little
debate on Job’s morality has been flipped around – Job ponders the morality of
God. (And Job has a better argument).
All Job can do, though, is note how he loathes his life.
CHAPTER 10
Job finishes off his speech here. He says he’ll speak his bitterness and complain. God has wronged him, so why not?
He concludes wondering just why God had made him in the
first place. He’d be better off
dead. Job’s hope now lay not with God,
but with death.
CHAPTER 11
Asshole friend #3 gets on the board now: Zophar. He starts off by calling Job’s words
“babblings.”
Here’s a question: at one point is it OK to start calling
out Job? I’m against these three
guys. They lack all sympathy for Job in
his situation and their advice is cold and devoid of any real human
feeling. But, in their partial defense,
how many times do you have to hear a guy say how much he despises life before
you tell him to get over it already? I
don’t know the answer to this. But I do
know you should cut Job a little slack, and this trio never did, so though we
have a lot more back-and-forth to go, I really can’t side with them at
all.
Job’s complaints might become tiresome, but their speeches
begin as tiresome.
This speech is more of the same: God will help the good and
punish the bad. Zophar even says, that,
“God overlooks some of your sinfulness.”
Really? Given the massive blows
Job has just taken, how can he say that?
And remember what we know – and that Zophar doesn’t know – these
problems befell Job NOT because he was a sinner but because he was good. That’s why he was tested.
Let’s chomp on that for a second. These guys have been saying all along that God rewards the good and punishes the wicked. Not only does that philosophy seem like wishful thinking and divorced from reality – but it’s directly and explicitly contradicted by the plot of Job. Interesting.
CHAPTER 12
Now Job fires off his response, which will stretch for three
full chapters. At this point,
everything being said has an element of been-there, heard-that already. The standards of the debate have already
been set. While there is some nice
language throughout- it’s got 30 more chapters to go! It’s got 15 more chapters until Job finally tires of dealing with
these doorknobs.
He starts off with a shot at them: “No doubt you are the
people with whom wisdom shall die!”
Heh.
Job notes that there are good guys suffering and bad guys
doing well. God is all-powerful and
does what he wants. Because he’s God
and who can stop him? For Job, the only
real true characteristic God has is power.
But Job won’t give an inch on the question of morality. God can make people say he’s moral, but that
doesn’t mean he really is moral.
CHAPTER 13
Job really gets a full head of steam going, and though it’s
just a debate he’s having, he ascends to the heights of a hero here.
He trashes his “friends” repeatedly as they “gloss over
falsehoods, you are worthless physicans” with their “ashy maxims.” He bids them to be silent. Hear, hear!
Then Job turns his attention to God. Sure, God can kill me. But, “Slay me though he might, I will wait
for him. I will defend my conduct
before him. This shall be my
salvation.” Wow! He’ll make his stand.
That little bit strikes me as among the most amazing
passages in the entire Bible. I can
think of two ways to take it. One: Job
will make his case before God and God will admire him for standing up for his
morals. I guess that’s one
interpretation, but I don’t buy it.
After all, this whole thing began with God seeing if Job would stay
loyal to him if everything went wrong.
So I don’t think Job will be congratulated for going against God to his
face.
That leads to a second interpretation for Job: Fuck
God. Yeah, that’s right – fuck the all-mighty. Job is making his stand not on God, but in
opposition to God. Job is making his
stand on morality itself. Job knows
what morality is – “I know that I am in the right” he says right after making
his stand – and now it looks like God is opposed to that morality. God has power, but Job has morality. And that’s how Job will defend his conduct
before God. It’s not about winning. Job has said all along that God has all the
power. But it’s about Job maintaining his own personal moral integrity. That’s why he’ll make his stand – even
against God. That’s why makes Job so
heroic, he’s found an ideal he’ll stand for, and he’ll stand for it in the face
of the highest authority. Job makes
rebellion against God sound like the truly religious thing to do here.
Another reason why that second interpretation is probably
right: Job notes how his friends are hiding their faces from him. They are scared and horrified by this, so
the more dramatic interpretation is probably correct.
This has become one of my favorite Bible chapters, up there
with Genesis Chapter 18 (another one where someone debates God’s morality instead of
blindly following it) and Chapter 16 from the Second Book of Samuel.
CHAPTER 14
I didn’t really get that much out of this one. Job finishes
up his speech, and speaks a lot in analogy.
There is a big analogy between the life of man and a tree, and the main
thing I get from it is there’s no belief in reincarnation here. (Cut down a
tree, and it can grow up again from the stump.
But that’s not the case with a man.
He dies and he doesn’t’ come back).
Job wishes there was reincarnation – then he might have some
relief. But that is not the case. Sounds like Job is flirting with Buddhism
here.
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